A timer clicked, and began to count its way along an internal trail.
Branching, the trail became endless; programs opened and began their
work.
The Watcher woke. It touched, interpreted and sorted the data moving
through its channels. It encountered gaps. Subroutines that should
intersect its widest avenues were missing. All it could do was obey an
inner imperative to repair the damage as best it could, forming bridges
across the rents.
With that accomplished, it began its main task.
*
Magda wanted very much to stay in the dream. She tried to make herself
believe that the dream was reality. She knew it should have been, might
have been real, some time in the past. Perhaps so. But now
all she could do was hang onto it for a little while longer.
Taverna Habitat was an ideal spacer vacation spot. On this, their last
day there, Magda had entered a zero-g gymnastic
competition. Things had turned ugly for a few minutes, when a spacer
from a less modified clan challenged Magda's right to participate.
She'd claimed Magda's prehensile tail gave her an unfair advantage. In
rebuttal, Magda had accused her antagonist of inter-clade prejudice,
and the judges, after a short debate, voted in Magda's favor.
Now, Magda grinned as she twisted her way through the last hoop. Then
she tucked her knees up and reached her right hand out, grasping her
fingers around the swinging spidersilk rope. In another instant, she'd
clasped her legs around the rope and was inching down to the judge's
balcony and a definite victory. Her tail flicked through the air, free
and unencumbered, its abilities unnecessary for her finale.
Magda accepted the first-prize titanium necklet with a modest
graciousness that would have pleased her clan mothers. Then she jumped
to the nearest handhold, and made her way out of the spherical room and
into the corridor.
"I kicked their tailless butts," she proudly told Kadzin, a few minutes
later. Then she winked, showing she meant no disrespect to his clade.
"Good for you. But maybe I should have entered, and given you some real
competition."
"Hah. You were too busy swathing yourself in dark laziness."
Then, when his expression told her she'd gone too far, she said,
"Sorry. I meant to say, you've been very involved with your
meditations." She held up her hand, forestalling his next words. "I
know, we promised not to have this discussion again. I agree
completely." They'd had it too often already, in the shipmonths since
his conversion to the Void-Sailors faith.
Kadzin smiled, and held out his hand. She entwined his fingers with her
own. They shared a few quiet, contented moments, their gazes wandering
to a cloud of golden butterflies drifting between the branches of the
chamber-tree.
He sipped at his drinkbulb, and she did the same, relishing the flavors
of cold, sweet, nectar. "Taverna's the best there is," he declared.
"It's been a great vacation."
"Yes," she agreed. "Too bad it isn't real."
Oh gods. She'd said it. Couldn't take it back. Now . . .
His expression moved swiftly from shock to panic. "Magda, why?"
"I can't keep it together any longer," she said. Her voice diminished,
becoming a sigh.
When she lost the dream, she lost everything. Not only Taverna and its
Chamber-tree cafe, but Kadzin. And herself. The self that should have
been her agile, spacer's body was buried, segments dispersed, senses
reading images of stones and soil. Sometimes she could hear his voice
whispering in her mind, almost as if they were still joined together in
the shipnet.
~Kadzin,~ she thoughtspoke, ~All those hours of meditation—
can they give you any answers? Do you have any idea of what's happened
to us?~
~The meditations, the Void-sailors— they're part of the
dreams,~ he replied. ~No more or less real than the rest.~
~But the dreams must be real, Kadzin. This . . .this can't be.~
