10 #2
“But ...” Denton’s face held the peculiar expression of a man who knew that something was too good to be true, but maybe if he argued, he could keep it for just a little longer. “We can’t ...”
“Open. Your. Eyes.”
Oscar held very still for a moment, and then his eyelids lifted. If I had not been watching so closely, I would not have thought he had opened them at all.
The eyes beneath had neither whites nor iris. They were the same color as his skin, the exact same shade of tan. For an instant I was reminded of Grecian statues, of white marble faces with blank white marble eyes.
Ingold swore in a language I didn’t know.
Color bloomed suddenly across Oscar’s face. White first, a splash across each eye socket, bleeding onto the lower lids and cheeks. Then a smaller blob of darkness in each one, the size of a thumbprint, darkening half the eye and the side of the nose.
White blobs with dark centers. A child’s drawing of eyes, splashed across the face in a last desperate attempt to look human. My breath hissed through my teeth.
“Chromatophores,” said Ingold quietly. “It can’t make them quite small enough.”
The thing that wasn’t Oscar nodded at Ingold.
SHAPE EASY, the creature wrote on the slate. COLOR HARD.
“What are you?” hissed Denton.
The creature wiped the slate clean with his sleeve and wrote WE MEAN NO HARM.
“Do I shoot him?” asked Angus.
Not-Oscar stood completely still, holding the slate with his message. He must have understood what Angus said, but he made no effort to plead for his life.
I wondered if bullets could actually hurt him, and then immediately regretted wondering.
“Where is the real Oscar? Where is my cousin? What have you done with him? ”
Ingold grabbed Denton before anyone could find out how his abortive lunge would end. The creature began shaking his head and hastily wrote WE DID NOTHING. He displayed the slate to Denton, still shaking his head, then wiped it clean and added, HE RAN AWAY.
“Can’t blame him,” muttered Angus.
“Ran away where?” asked Ingold, not letting go of his grip on Denton.
INTO TUNNELS. WE COULD NOT FIND HIM.
“Why were you looking for him?” Denton asked, his voice high and sharp.
The creature’s expression did not change, but it hesitated before writing, as if confused by the question. TUNNELS ARE DANGEROUS.
“You expect me to believe that he ran off and you chased him out of the goodness of your heart?”
Not-Oscar began shaking his head again. WE MEAN NO HARM. ONLY TALK.
I figured that it was my turn to speak up. “So why pretend to be Oscar?”
Those strange, wrong-colored eyes turned toward me. The dark blobs and pale rings were slowly fading, as if it took effort to maintain. YOU WOULD LISTEN TO OSCAR.
Well, he had me there.
Not-Oscar held up his free hand and, with exaggerated care, reached into his coat. Angus tensed, but the creature only extracted a carefully folded sheet of paper.
WE WROTE A LETTER.
He held it out to Denton. The doctor stared at it. Ingold slid past him and reached out and took it, careful to avoid touching the creature’s fingers. He unfolded it, then shook his head. “Too hard to read in this light,” he said.
“I got one more question for you, whatever you are,” said Angus.
The creature turned its head and waited, slate at the ready.
“What exactly do you eat ?”
Trust Angus to cut right to the heart of the matter. (It was going to be blood. I was almost sure it was going to be blood.)
Chalk squeaked. WE DO NOT HAVE THE WORD.
“Try,” said Angus, in a voice that did not leave a lot of room for linguistic discussion.
I think we all held our breath as Not-Oscar wrote, but I did not expect the answer.
MANY VERY SMALL ANIMALS IN WATER?
That was somehow more bizarre than blood.
I had a vague image of the creature crouched over a barrel of sardines.
For no good reason, I felt offended. Blood-drinking monsters were something I could understand.
I didn’t like it, but I had context for it.
An underground monster that ate small fish didn’t make any sense and just piled confusion on top of horror.
Angus lowered his gun. “Like fish?” he asked, sounding as confused as I did.
IF THEY ARE VERY SMALL? Not-Oscar started to write something, stopped, then finally held up, WHAT WORD IS SMALLER THAN FISH?
“Christ’s blood.” I rubbed my forehead. This was the second time that something inhuman and terrible had wanted to have a language lesson, and I can’t say that I had particularly good memories of the first time.
Ingold let out a sudden laugh, which echoed shockingly in the tunnel. “Krill,” he said. “I’ll bet you it means krill or something like that. You took the cans of broth, didn’t you?”
Not-Oscar nodded vigorously. Ingold turned to the rest of us. “If it’s a filter feeder, then it probably can’t eat us. We’re too big.”
“That’s a comfort,” said Angus dryly. He gestured upward with his gun barrel. “Now what say you that we and our ... err ... friend here ... go back up top?”
“Not yet.” Denton took a deep breath. “You ... whatever you are ... you can look like other people?”
YES
“Then stop looking like Oscar!”
His voice cracked on his cousin’s name. I stepped forward, almost involuntarily, and put my hand on his shoulder. He turned away from Not-Oscar, and I thumped his back hard.
Not-Oscar put his slate away and pressed on his face with his gloved hands, pushing it around like clay.
Angus made a small noise of disgust. Ingold watched, his mouth open in fascination, as Not-Oscar pushed his chin up and his cheekbones in, then took his hands away.
His nose lengthened, like candlewax running, and he reached up, cupped both ears, and pressed them back against his head.
And that was all. He was a different person. Still not Oscar.
“ Incredible ...” breathed Ingold, his face alight.
Denton looked up at me and I nodded. He stepped away and pulled his goggles down over his eyes so that we could all pretend he wasn’t crying.
“Right,” said Angus gruffly. “Now let’s get some air and figure out what the hell is going on.”