further disasters befall the planet.”
“As they shall,” Seeker said, settling effortlessly into its position for walking, a signal that it would talk no more.
Damned insolent animal! Kata could not shield this thought from Cley, or else did not want to. Cley was shocked.
They left the Library of Humanity in a seething silence, Kata deliberately blocking off her Talent so that Cley could not catch the slightest prickly fragment of her thoughts.
6
TO DANCE ON TIME
T HAT EVENING RIN presided over a grand reception and meal for three hundred, with Cley as guest of honor.
Bots had labored through the day, extruding a large, many-spired banquet hall that seemed to rise up groaning from the soil itself. Its walls were sand-colored but opalescent. Inside, a broad ceiling of overlapping arches looked down on tables that also grew directly from a granite floor. Sky peeked through spaces above. Spiral lines wrapped around the walls, glowing soft blue at the floor and shifting to red as they rose, circling the room, making an eerie effect like a sunset seen above an azure sea.
Tricks of perspective led Cley into false corridors. Sometimes there appeared to be thousands of other guests eating in the distance. Often holes would gape in the floor, and bots would rise through them bearing food, a process she found so unsettling that for a while she stayed apprehensively seated. Despite the cold night air of the desert, the room enjoyed a warm spring breeze scented like the pine forests she knew so well. Her gown scarcely seemed to have substance, caressing her like water, yet it covered her from ankle to neck. Perfect—and a bot had made it in less time than she took to describe her wants.
They ate grains and vegetables of primordial origin, many dating back to the dawn of humanity. These had already been spread through the emerging biosphere, and this meal was the boon of an ample harvest, brought here from crops across the globe. Cley savored the rich sauces and heady aromas but kept her wits about her in conversation with her hosts.
Often their talk went straight by her. Arabesques of Talent-talk slid among percussive verbal punctuations. The Supras of Illusivia tapered their rapid-fire signals to make them comprehensible to Cley. Those of Sonomulia used only the subset of their language that she could follow. They tried to keep the din of layered cross-references simple in deference to her, but gusts of enthusiasm would sweep their ornate conversations into realms of mystifying complexity.
Her worst adolescent uncertainties came back. She compensated—worse, knew she was compensating—by fixing them all with her withering, unspoken judgments.
Supra styles in hair and dress varied wildly. They seemed to do this to provoke not regard from one another, but wry amusement.
Beneath it all, this evening, she felt their remorse and anger smoldering. And underlying that ran a stern resolve to recover what they could.
A woman seemed to embody this. Alone, dressed in black, she argued furiously with three men about the Furies. Cley felt the brittle, edged anger from her, the mollifying replies of the men—all without words, for they were using their Talents to convey something between ideas and emotions, beyond her abilities. Yet their faces remained calm and they sipped a fuming drink from long-stemmed glasses. Utterly tranquil, to the eye.
Still, Rin made jokes, forced lightness, even quoting some ancient motto of a scholarly society from the dawn of science. “Nullius in verba,” he said dryly, “or, ‘don’t take anyone’s word for it.’ Makes libraries seem pointless, wouldn’t you say?”
Cley shrugged. “I am no student.”
“Exactly! Time to stop studying our history. We should reinvent it.” From an ornate chalice Rin took a long drink of something that steamed blue.
“I’d like to just live my life, thanks,” Cley said quietly.
“Ah,” he said, “but the true trick is to treasure what we were and
“As they shall,” Seeker said, settling effortlessly into its position for walking, a signal that it would talk no more.
Damned insolent animal! Kata could not shield this thought from Cley, or else did not want to. Cley was shocked.
They left the Library of Humanity in a seething silence, Kata deliberately blocking off her Talent so that Cley could not catch the slightest prickly fragment of her thoughts.
6
TO DANCE ON TIME
T HAT EVENING RIN presided over a grand reception and meal for three hundred, with Cley as guest of honor.
Bots had labored through the day, extruding a large, many-spired banquet hall that seemed to rise up groaning from the soil itself. Its walls were sand-colored but opalescent. Inside, a broad ceiling of overlapping arches looked down on tables that also grew directly from a granite floor. Sky peeked through spaces above. Spiral lines wrapped around the walls, glowing soft blue at the floor and shifting to red as they rose, circling the room, making an eerie effect like a sunset seen above an azure sea.
Tricks of perspective led Cley into false corridors. Sometimes there appeared to be thousands of other guests eating in the distance. Often holes would gape in the floor, and bots would rise through them bearing food, a process she found so unsettling that for a while she stayed apprehensively seated. Despite the cold night air of the desert, the room enjoyed a warm spring breeze scented like the pine forests she knew so well. Her gown scarcely seemed to have substance, caressing her like water, yet it covered her from ankle to neck. Perfect—and a bot had made it in less time than she took to describe her wants.
They ate grains and vegetables of primordial origin, many dating back to the dawn of humanity. These had already been spread through the emerging biosphere, and this meal was the boon of an ample harvest, brought here from crops across the globe. Cley savored the rich sauces and heady aromas but kept her wits about her in conversation with her hosts.
Often their talk went straight by her. Arabesques of Talent-talk slid among percussive verbal punctuations. The Supras of Illusivia tapered their rapid-fire signals to make them comprehensible to Cley. Those of Sonomulia used only the subset of their language that she could follow. They tried to keep the din of layered cross-references simple in deference to her, but gusts of enthusiasm would sweep their ornate conversations into realms of mystifying complexity.
Her worst adolescent uncertainties came back. She compensated—worse, knew she was compensating—by fixing them all with her withering, unspoken judgments.
Supra styles in hair and dress varied wildly. They seemed to do this to provoke not regard from one another, but wry amusement.
Beneath it all, this evening, she felt their remorse and anger smoldering. And underlying that ran a stern resolve to recover what they could.
A woman seemed to embody this. Alone, dressed in black, she argued furiously with three men about the Furies. Cley felt the brittle, edged anger from her, the mollifying replies of the men—all without words, for they were using their Talents to convey something between ideas and emotions, beyond her abilities. Yet their faces remained calm and they sipped a fuming drink from long-stemmed glasses. Utterly tranquil, to the eye.
Still, Rin made jokes, forced lightness, even quoting some ancient motto of a scholarly society from the dawn of science. “Nullius in verba,” he said dryly, “or, ‘don’t take anyone’s word for it.’ Makes libraries seem pointless, wouldn’t you say?”
Cley shrugged. “I am no student.”
“Exactly! Time to stop studying our history. We should reinvent it.” From an ornate chalice Rin took a long drink of something that steamed blue.
“I’d like to just live my life, thanks,” Cley said quietly.
“Ah,” he said, “but the true trick is to treasure what we were and
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