eyes. She looks away from his gaze at the craters of his scars, strangely beautiful against his otherwise perfect skin. She can feel the warmth emanating from his body. His breath smells faintly of something that reminds her of machinery, engines or guns. The young man in orange said that the Sobornost cannot make more-than-human bodies in Sirr without being eaten by wildcode, but Tawaddud wonders if that’s entirely true.
The corner of Sumanguru’s mouth twitches.
‘Guide me to the enemies of Sobornost and I will destroy them,’ he says slowly, a rumble in his chest. ‘Flesh or otherwise.’
‘In that case, you had better come with me.’
Tawaddud starts walking away from the platform. For a moment she has no idea where she is going, but then the road of light appears beneath her feet, and carries them away. She feels the wind in her wet hair and resists the urge to look back. Behind her, the lightning of the scanning beam comes down again, taking the frightened boy with it.
9
THE THIEF AND THE TIGER
A discontinuity. A new world slaps me in the face, and I fall to my knees in the sudden gravity. Chilly air fills my lungs. It smells of wet earth and smoke.
I am standing in the middle of a clearing in a white forest. There are straight trees with pale, birchlike bark and impossibly symmetric foliage shaped like crowns or hands in prayer. Dark, ragged creatures with fluttering wings dart amongst the branches. The sky is grey. The ground is covered in white particles too grainy to be snow, a few centimetres deep. The Realmgate is behind me, a silver arch – a perfect flimsy semicircle. Good. At least I still have a way out .
I get up and wince at the sudden pain at the soles of my bare feet. The white stuff feels like powdered glass. I grunt and scrape some of the particles away. They look like cogwheels with sharp teeth, spilled innards of tiny clocks.
The sting reminds me that I have changed, too. Zoku Realms do not just transfer, they translate , turn you into a software construct that best approximates you in whatever constraints the virtual world imposes. Here, it seems to mean my shipboard attire of a jacket and slacks, barefoot – and no trace whatsoever of my Sobornost body’s more superhuman capabilities. At least my lost hand is back, even if it quickly goes blue and numb in the cold.
My stolen Realmspace sword has also translated – as it should have. Made by the Martian zoku whose specialty is raiding lost Realms, it adapts to whatever environment you transfer it into. I blow at my hands, rub them together, and pull it out from its scabbard.
Here, its blade is white bone, curved like a claw. The hilt is an intricate spiky design made from cold iron, heavy and uncomfortable in my hand. When I raise it, it whispers to me in a voice that is like chalk screeching on a blackboard. Small Realm. Archetypal objects and avatars. Generative content. Damaged. Dying . It makes sense. My clumsy attempts to open the Box have left the environment here broken. I wonder what it was originally: some sort of fairy-tale forest, perhaps.
Then I realise that Perhonen’s butterfly avatar is missing: it should have come through the gate with me. Damn . I look around. Something moves among the trees, through the black-and-white patterns of the shadows. Instinctively, I raise the sword, but the shape is already gone.
‘ Perhonen ?’ I shout. There is no answer. But near the trees, there are bare footprints in the cog-snow, leading into the woods.
With slow, painful steps, I follow them.
‘And what are you supposed to be?’ the butterflies whisper to Mieli. ‘You don’t look like his creature. Too simple. Too plain. Who do you work for?’
‘Myself,’ she says and flips into the spimescape. The ship’s systems are a chaotic tangle. A web of commands stretches through all of Perhonen ’s Sobornost systems, originating from a new vir running in its Oortian smartcoral brain. And there is a dense datalink
The corner of Sumanguru’s mouth twitches.
‘Guide me to the enemies of Sobornost and I will destroy them,’ he says slowly, a rumble in his chest. ‘Flesh or otherwise.’
‘In that case, you had better come with me.’
Tawaddud starts walking away from the platform. For a moment she has no idea where she is going, but then the road of light appears beneath her feet, and carries them away. She feels the wind in her wet hair and resists the urge to look back. Behind her, the lightning of the scanning beam comes down again, taking the frightened boy with it.
9
THE THIEF AND THE TIGER
A discontinuity. A new world slaps me in the face, and I fall to my knees in the sudden gravity. Chilly air fills my lungs. It smells of wet earth and smoke.
I am standing in the middle of a clearing in a white forest. There are straight trees with pale, birchlike bark and impossibly symmetric foliage shaped like crowns or hands in prayer. Dark, ragged creatures with fluttering wings dart amongst the branches. The sky is grey. The ground is covered in white particles too grainy to be snow, a few centimetres deep. The Realmgate is behind me, a silver arch – a perfect flimsy semicircle. Good. At least I still have a way out .
I get up and wince at the sudden pain at the soles of my bare feet. The white stuff feels like powdered glass. I grunt and scrape some of the particles away. They look like cogwheels with sharp teeth, spilled innards of tiny clocks.
The sting reminds me that I have changed, too. Zoku Realms do not just transfer, they translate , turn you into a software construct that best approximates you in whatever constraints the virtual world imposes. Here, it seems to mean my shipboard attire of a jacket and slacks, barefoot – and no trace whatsoever of my Sobornost body’s more superhuman capabilities. At least my lost hand is back, even if it quickly goes blue and numb in the cold.
My stolen Realmspace sword has also translated – as it should have. Made by the Martian zoku whose specialty is raiding lost Realms, it adapts to whatever environment you transfer it into. I blow at my hands, rub them together, and pull it out from its scabbard.
Here, its blade is white bone, curved like a claw. The hilt is an intricate spiky design made from cold iron, heavy and uncomfortable in my hand. When I raise it, it whispers to me in a voice that is like chalk screeching on a blackboard. Small Realm. Archetypal objects and avatars. Generative content. Damaged. Dying . It makes sense. My clumsy attempts to open the Box have left the environment here broken. I wonder what it was originally: some sort of fairy-tale forest, perhaps.
Then I realise that Perhonen’s butterfly avatar is missing: it should have come through the gate with me. Damn . I look around. Something moves among the trees, through the black-and-white patterns of the shadows. Instinctively, I raise the sword, but the shape is already gone.
‘ Perhonen ?’ I shout. There is no answer. But near the trees, there are bare footprints in the cog-snow, leading into the woods.
With slow, painful steps, I follow them.
‘And what are you supposed to be?’ the butterflies whisper to Mieli. ‘You don’t look like his creature. Too simple. Too plain. Who do you work for?’
‘Myself,’ she says and flips into the spimescape. The ship’s systems are a chaotic tangle. A web of commands stretches through all of Perhonen ’s Sobornost systems, originating from a new vir running in its Oortian smartcoral brain. And there is a dense datalink
Similar Books
