friends, and that even on children’s streams you could never be sure that someone was telling the truth about who they were and that you must never ever say who you really were, nor where you were. Her secret friends might live across the street or on the other side of the planet, for all she knew. She didn’t know their real names and except for Dorah, they didn’t know hers.
But @dorok235 and a couple of the others were always there for her when she was angry or upset, and it always made her feel better when they told her how special she was, and how much they hoped to meet and become real friends one day. They got excited whenever she let slip the tiniest thing: that she was adopted, that she was blond, that she was eight, that her parents never let her out of their sight. Her stream-friends asked lots of questions about that, agreeing that it was bitterly unfair, and Eve’s sense of injustice swelled.
She didn’t think it was at all surprising that they found her so interesting: they told her all the time how clever and important she was.
8
The festivities were well under way by the time Aryel Morningstar swept in, folded her wings and touched down on the quayside in front of Thames Tidal Power, landing between the stage and the airlock through which visitors were being escorted for tours of the power plant’s control room. The dignitaries had not long concluded their speeches, and the press corps, only just beginning to disperse, all swarmed back to cover her arrival, angling vidcams to catch her falling gracefully out of the sky, then rushing forward, microphones ready to capture whatever pithy comment she might have for them today.
Agwé, recording the proceedings from a vantage point near the Child’s Play tent, shook her head in admiration. “Sink me, she’s good—late enough not to interrupt, early enough to get lots of attention, casual enough for them all to feel it was pure luck they were still around when she got here.” She glanced down at Gabriel from her perch on the stepladder that enabled her to see over the heads of the crowd. “She plans it all down to the last detail, doesn’t she?”
“No—I mean, it’s not quite that contrived, Ag.” He floundered, caught off guard by Agwé’s penetrating observation. “Not usually,anyway. She has great timing, but it’s more like an instinct than a plan.” Realizing that he was in danger of batting away the question, he stopped himself. Agwé’s own instincts had recognized a deeper truth about Aryel, and he needed to try and explain his aunt’s actions in a way that would neither puncture nor propagate her mystique. “She’s trying to not be the center of attention so much anymore, especially now that there are others like Pilan and Mikal who can represent us. She never wanted to be such a big deal in the first place. She didn’t have a choice back then. But she can’t just disappear, either. She’s too famous.”
“So what you’re saying is, she’s pulling away slowly—”
“I guess so—”
“—letting herself become a footnote to the main story while the spotlight settles on other people. Passing the torch, so to speak.”
“That’s about right, I think. I mean, I’ve never heard her say that in so many words, but yes.”
Agwé indulged in one of her voluminous eye-rolls, and Gabriel conceded an embarrassed wince. They both knew that what he heard people actually say wasn’t likely to be the full sum of his knowledge.
“So, to repeat my earlier point,” she said firmly, “Aryel knows exactly what she’s doing. And damn, is she good!”
He grinned up at her. “I’m not going to argue with any of that.”
“You better not. I hope Pilan, Mikal, and everybody else she’s stepping back for are taking notes.” She clambered down the ladder. “Nothing else to see from up there. I should go and be a proper journo, join the crowd.”
“Uncle Mik is pretty good at that stuff,” Gabriel observed, holding the
But @dorok235 and a couple of the others were always there for her when she was angry or upset, and it always made her feel better when they told her how special she was, and how much they hoped to meet and become real friends one day. They got excited whenever she let slip the tiniest thing: that she was adopted, that she was blond, that she was eight, that her parents never let her out of their sight. Her stream-friends asked lots of questions about that, agreeing that it was bitterly unfair, and Eve’s sense of injustice swelled.
She didn’t think it was at all surprising that they found her so interesting: they told her all the time how clever and important she was.
8
The festivities were well under way by the time Aryel Morningstar swept in, folded her wings and touched down on the quayside in front of Thames Tidal Power, landing between the stage and the airlock through which visitors were being escorted for tours of the power plant’s control room. The dignitaries had not long concluded their speeches, and the press corps, only just beginning to disperse, all swarmed back to cover her arrival, angling vidcams to catch her falling gracefully out of the sky, then rushing forward, microphones ready to capture whatever pithy comment she might have for them today.
Agwé, recording the proceedings from a vantage point near the Child’s Play tent, shook her head in admiration. “Sink me, she’s good—late enough not to interrupt, early enough to get lots of attention, casual enough for them all to feel it was pure luck they were still around when she got here.” She glanced down at Gabriel from her perch on the stepladder that enabled her to see over the heads of the crowd. “She plans it all down to the last detail, doesn’t she?”
“No—I mean, it’s not quite that contrived, Ag.” He floundered, caught off guard by Agwé’s penetrating observation. “Not usually,anyway. She has great timing, but it’s more like an instinct than a plan.” Realizing that he was in danger of batting away the question, he stopped himself. Agwé’s own instincts had recognized a deeper truth about Aryel, and he needed to try and explain his aunt’s actions in a way that would neither puncture nor propagate her mystique. “She’s trying to not be the center of attention so much anymore, especially now that there are others like Pilan and Mikal who can represent us. She never wanted to be such a big deal in the first place. She didn’t have a choice back then. But she can’t just disappear, either. She’s too famous.”
“So what you’re saying is, she’s pulling away slowly—”
“I guess so—”
“—letting herself become a footnote to the main story while the spotlight settles on other people. Passing the torch, so to speak.”
“That’s about right, I think. I mean, I’ve never heard her say that in so many words, but yes.”
Agwé indulged in one of her voluminous eye-rolls, and Gabriel conceded an embarrassed wince. They both knew that what he heard people actually say wasn’t likely to be the full sum of his knowledge.
“So, to repeat my earlier point,” she said firmly, “Aryel knows exactly what she’s doing. And damn, is she good!”
He grinned up at her. “I’m not going to argue with any of that.”
“You better not. I hope Pilan, Mikal, and everybody else she’s stepping back for are taking notes.” She clambered down the ladder. “Nothing else to see from up there. I should go and be a proper journo, join the crowd.”
“Uncle Mik is pretty good at that stuff,” Gabriel observed, holding the
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