Elle blinked again and tittered girlishly. “You kinda cute for a big ‘un.”
Grant managed to control a shiver of horror, muttering, “So I’ve been told. Can’t say the same for you.”
He threw the book straight at Elle’s forehead. He threw it to land spine first, and Elle staggered the width of the tunnel, uttering a piping squeak of confused pain, like a mouse with its tail caught in a trap. The wall kept her from falling, though she struck it hard.
Grant made a dive through the open hatch, both hands outstretched for the harp. He grabbed the elbow and wrist of her right arm and the muscles beneath his fingers felt as solid as steel. Elle squawked, struggling, wrenching her entire body back and forth. Grant twisted her arm as though he were wringing out a wet towel.,
Elle’s hand opened, and the harp fell to the floor and bounced, twanging discordantly. Grant flung the little transadapt away from him and lunged for the instrument. Shockingly, his lunge turned into a low-altitude soar. He dived weightlessly along the tunnel, a couple of feet above the floor.
Despite his astonishment, he secured a grip on the harp as he flew over it. He knew, on an instinctive, gut level, that the gravity hadn’t vanished due to an accident. Or if it had, the accident’s name was Kane.
Squealing in rage, Elle kicked herself off one wall, jhen the other, powerful leg muscles propelling her toward him in froglike leaps. Despite her drunken state, she still knew how to ambulate in nulI-G conditions.
Managing to twist over onto his back, Grant pointed the bottleneck of the harp in her direction and plucked frantically at the double-banked strings. The sound exploding out of the instrument bore no resemblance to a melody, but Elle sprang right into its directed, vibra-tional path.
As if she had slammed headlong into an invisible barrier, the transadapt woman performed a complete somersault, her malformed feet reversing positions with her head. She spun end over end down the passageway, making no outcry or an attempt to check her spinning motion.
Grant stared, nonplussed, wondering if the harp sound had rendered Elle unconscious. When she made another midair turn, he caught a glimpse of her face and winced.
Elle’s mouth gaped open, and from between slack lips drifted a scattering of dark ivory crumbs mixed with little scarlet globules. Her teeth and very likely all the bones in her face had been pulverized by his single desperate strumming of the strings.
Grant didn’t go after her to find out if she was alive or dead. He extended his arms at a level with his shoulders and paddled the air with his hands, as if he were swimming through the air. He tried to maintain a short, safe distance from the floor in case the gravity returned with the same abruptness with which it had vanished.
Brigid started to spin and she spread her arms and legs wide to achieve equilibrium. Sindri’s expression of befuddlement hadn’t changed even as he rose from the floor, his penis bobbing out in front of him.
Loose objects drifted up from the floor. The shattered remains of the glass filtration network and the puddle of chemicals began to float. The liquid formed little mercurylike blobs. Sindri’s walking stick arose, twirling end over end.
Angrily Sindri rasped, “The gravity generator has gone outno, I still hear it. Goddammit, it’s been tampered with!”
Brigid kicked her feet, trying to put as much distance between her and Sindri as the size of the room allowed. She struggled to slip her arms back into the sleeves of her suit. The effort sent her bumping into the ceiling.
Sindri regarded her with a hard, humorless grin. “Don’t bother, Miss Brigid. I’ve always wanted to try zero-G copulation. Another item the humans here denied me.”
He looked ludicrous floating in midair with his organ drifting out before him, but Brigid didn’t feel inclined to laugh. She swam sideways a score of feet, using her arms as rudders. Watching her, Sindri barked out a derisive laugh.
“There’s an art to managing weightlessness, Miss
Brigid. One you’ll not have the opportunity to master. The generator’s reset controls will kick in shortly.”