Axiom's End by HotDog Girl
Chapter 12: Dances with Fools
DHI Book Club Discussion by pibbs
protected by Fair Use, bitch
I now see that every chapter is going to start with a winner of a sentence.
Cora flinched away from the sunlight as she woke.
We're in-
Nevada... a Paiute reservation called Pyramid Lake
No van. No alien. Cora is dusty though. Lindsay likes her women dirty. But she's not alone as she discovers the alien, perched on a rock like a vulture, who then orders her to
consume.
ET brought snacks!
Cora slowly lowered herself into a crouch next to the bag and reached out to examine its contents. In it she saw a sixteen-ounce bottle of canola oil, a box of brownie mix, a jar of black olives, a jar of Cheez Whiz, a jar of pimentos, and a can of corn.
But he's a retard.
And so is this author.
“Consume.”
She looked back at the creature, incredulous. It must have grabbed the bag from someone’s car or house after she’d blacked out. Reached in through someone’s kitchen window and snatched it as though any bag of groceries was interchangeable with any other bag of groceries. Grabbed a bag of groceries, determined that the number of calories inside the bag of groceries was commensurate with what a grown human would consume within its predetermined time period, and decided, “Good enough.” Then tossed it at her as if it were dumping seeds in a hamster cage.
Ugh. This narrative.
She tried not to flinch away from its gaze
Flinch - word of the day kids.
She looks into its eyes and as Lindsay puts it, instead of one retina it has millions. SO ET opens a can of corn for her, after she whines she can't consume said can.
She tilted the can awkwardly, braced herself, and downed what little of the hideous corn water she could get into her mouth. When she’d managed as much of that as she could, she started the process of shoveling corn out of the aluminum can and into her face.
Basically, what we have here is the "Dances with Wolves meets the Injuns", or "Avatar becomes woke for the blue cat people" scene. An exchange of ideas, and culture are taught and learned, but done in a retarded manner.
Lindsay hates black olives.
Black olives. The answer to the eternal quandary of what if one were to combine snails and old tires into a foodstuff. The only way the creature could have punished her more brutally was if it had forced celery on her.
But she shovels that in too.
She asks where they are and we get some description of the ET.
Once it settled, its posture reminded her more of a deer than a dragon, its arms folded neatly under its midsection, its head raised high and its long, slender neck curved into a slight S. “Nevada.”
At this point, can any of you envision what this damn thing is supposed to look like?
The creature asks what we've all been asking.
“Where were you taking me?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t have a plan. I was just trying to get as far away from there as possible. You were in the van. I needed the van to get away.”
And that is Lindsay's writing process right there. Then Cora starts yammering at the thing exactly like the prose we've endured inside her head, AND RECOUNTS WHAT HAS HAPPENED A FEW CHAPTERS BACK. If this thing is smart it just learned women never shut up, and perhaps he should go find a dude that will actually get something done.
It reveals that he didn't do the EMP but
similars. This is tiresome. It doesn't know about brownie mix, but knows what Nevada is. It speaks like a old west Indian sometimes, and other times has a more sophisticated vocabulary. I guess whatever is needed at the time, right, author?
Cora asks for clarification on similars,.
“High-ranking military caste. Similars. One higher-ranking Similar, and their subordinates, code-named by your Central Intelligence Agency as entity or entities known as Obelus. Military caste. Homoioi.”
See what I mean? Fuck you, Lindsay.
The retardation continues. They decide to name him Ampersand.
....
She wondered if she should bring up the gender question, but given the way the reflection in the creature’s eyes was shifting, it seemed to be having a difficult enough time with nomenclature
...
I'm going to need a small break after this chapter.
He explains the EMP, if any of you were curious.
“An energy pulse,” he said. “What occurred was a specialized frequency, targeted for amygdaline bodies, cast for a large area, where the precise location of the target is not known. A side effect is disabling some human-made devices with active electric currents.”
I know the question everyone is asking (sarcasm) but please don't ask.
...
Ok. Why is it here?
The creature’s stillness broke, and he cocked his head ever so slightly to the side like a dog. “An individual amygdaline, a former technocrat Oligarch of the Superorganism your Central Intelligence Agency has code-named ‘Pequod.’ I was summoned by one person of the Fremda group in custody at ROSA, code-named ‘Čefo.’”
To make long stupid matters short, he's here to try to rescue his buddies that her Aunty (COINCIDENCE) had held and were trying to communicate with. And before the others, sorry the SIMILARS, fuck me, extradite them. Extradite? Extradite!
“Extradite?”
He paused as though rethinking his translation. “Extradite.”
While she knew it probably wasn’t a one-to-one translation, “extradite” was such a specific term in English and generally only referred to criminality. “What have you done?” she whispered, fear creeping back into her voice.
Okay, guys. This thing is trying to explain the different caste system races. Do I need to copy paste all that shit? Ambersand, who from now on I'm denoting as &, is a step above the low caste idiots (the "crude ones") that are captured in a room in a guv'ment building somewhere. & is a Fremda "Crude ones" are Pequod. Then there's the other things from above. I think. Fuck it, I don't really care.
“You … call yourself an ‘amygdaline’?”
“This is the term utilized by ROSA for individuals of species ‘Pequod.’” His speech software awkwardly spelled it R-O-S-A rather than pronouncing it like a word as Luciana always had.
“Okay,” she breathed. “What is ‘Fremda,’ then?”
“Čefo’s group sought asylum on this planet and was bred into a subrace of our species. The term Luciana Ortega uses for our refugee group is Fremda. This ‘Fremdan’ subrace of civilization ‘Pequod’ was the target of extermination due to the possession of undesirable traits.”
Got that? Or and there's some shit about being a survivor of genocide, because in a Lindsay Ellis novel of course it is.
And not even Cora can keep up with this horseshit.
“Why here?” she asked. “Why Earth?”
“I do not know,” said Ampersand. “I surmise that Earth was chosen because it was known to the Superorganism, and therefore to Čefo’s group, as having an oxygen-rich, stable climate—”
She blinked. “Superorganism?”
“—and had likely not been colonized or consumed by transients.”
If there was any blood left in her face, it was now gone. “‘Transients’?”
“How many exoterran species are there?”
“Trillions.”
World building, folks!
So, how many of these fucking things are there?
“Three distinct known spacefaring civilizations,” said Ampersand. “Two post-natural, one post-biological.”
So, apparently the last time the, *sigh, superorganism, spot checked Earth, it was 655 years ago. They are befuddled about the population explosion and the rapid technological- look does this shit even matter?
So, & caught Cora eating a burger and wants his people to reconsider moving to Erf.
She couldn’t help but laugh, and she shook her head. “You’re afraid of us.”
“Would you consider a fear of billions of flesh-eating aliens illogical?”
Immigration commentary?
“I am alone on an alien planet. I have neither resources nor means to communicate with those who summoned me here. I am being hunted by militarists from the Superorganism, and I have no allies. And the dominant species on the planet is billions of aggressive, violent flesh-eaters.”
Then fuck off back behind the wall, asshole.
It was around this point she registered that what was happening was an actual conversation. An exchange of information, if not between peers, then at least under that pretense.
Then Chief Duck in Pants smokem peace pipe.
Now he was answering her questions, as if he saw a possibility that she might have something valuable to contribute.
As if he saw her as a potential ally instead of a tool
So they team up.
This made me laugh, but not for the intent Lindsay had.
“Well,” she said, “as a young white female of the species, I’m less likely to be looked at with suspicion by others, especially men. I’m, um, more nonthreatening for what I am, for my place in the social hierarchy. For instance, I’m of the demographic that is most likely to shoplift but least likely to get caught for it. Does that make sense?”
Dumb sentence.
More silence. Tense silence. His focus was growing and contracting slowly like a fist slowly contracting and expanding.
What?
& accepts their alliance.
End Chapter
To Lindsay and her mob, book discussion is in the NCunt: Black Cocks Only thread, where you may REEEEE without censorship. A freedom of differing opinion that we grant and that you wouldn't.