no longer with the deadly balloon. But the ground was still some hundred meters away.
Pertinax jumped.
Behind him the balloon exploded.
Pertinax spread out his arms, transforming the big loose flaps of skin anchored from armpits to ankles into wings, wings derived from one of his ancestral strains, the sciuroptera.
After spiraling downward with some control, despite the gusts, Pertinax landed lightly, on an open patch of ground near a wooden sign that announced the “City Limits” of “Chicago.”
He had arrived just in time for the twister.
Illuminated intermittently by the slackening lightning, the stygian funnel shape tracked onto land from across the lake and stepped into the human settlement, moving in an intelligent and programmatic fashion among the buildings.
Even at this distance, the wind threatened to pull Pertinax off his feet. He scrambled for a nearby tree and held onto its trunk for dear life.
At last, though, the destruction wrought by the tropospheric mind ended, with the twister evaporating in a coordinated manner from bottom to top.
Pertinax ran back toward the town green.
The many fires caused by the lightning had been effectively doused by the wet cyclone, but still buildings smoldered. Not one stone seemed atop another, nor plank joined to plank. The few Overclocker survivors were too dazed or busy to interfere with Pertinax.
Seared streaks marked the town green, and huge divots had been wrenched up by the twister. Windblown litter made running difficult.
But a circle of lawn around the cage holding the wardens was immaculate, having been excluded from electrical blasts and then cradled in a deliberate eye of the winds.
“Is everyone all right?”
“Perty! You did it! Yes, we’re all fine. Even Cimabue is finally coming around.”
Within a short time all were freed. Pertinax clutched Chellapilla to him. Sylvanus surveyed the devastation, clucking his tongue ruefully.
“Such a tragedy. Well, I expect that once we relocate the remnant population, we can wean them off our help and back up to some kind of agrarian self-sufficiency in just a few generations.”
Pertinax felt now an even greater urgency to engender a heir or two with Chellapilla. The demands on the stewards of this beloved planet required new blood to sustain their mission down the years.
“Chell, have you decided about our child?”
“Absolutely, Perty. I’m ready. I’ve even thought of a name.”
“Oh?”
“Boy or girl, it will have to be Storm!”
WAVES AND
SMART MAGMA
Salt air stung Storm’s super-sensitive nose, although he was still several scores of kilometers distant from the coast. The temperate August sunlight, moderated by a myriad, myriad high-orbit pico-satellites, one of the many thoughtful legacies of the Upflowered, descended as a soothing balm on Storm’s unclothed pelt. Several churning registers of flocculent clouds, stuffed full of the computational particles known as virgula and sublimula, betokened the watchful custodial omnipresence of the tropospherical mind. Peaceful and congenial was the landscape around him: a vast plain of black-leaved cinnabon trees, bisected by a wide, meandering river, the whole of which had once constituted the human city of Sacramento.
Storm reined to a halt his furred and feathered steed—the Kodiak Kangemu named Bergamot was a burly, scary-looking but utterly obedient bipedal chimera some three meters tall at its muscled shoulders, equipped with a high saddle and panniers—and paused for a moment of reflection.
The world was so big, and rich, and odd! And Storm was all alone in it!
That thought both frightened and elated him.
He felt he hardly knew himself or his goals, what depths or heights he was capable of. Whether he would live his long life totally independent of wardenly strictures, a rebel, or become an obedient part of the guardian corps of the planet. Hence this journey.
A sudden lance of light breaking through a bank of clouds brightened
Pertinax jumped.
Behind him the balloon exploded.
Pertinax spread out his arms, transforming the big loose flaps of skin anchored from armpits to ankles into wings, wings derived from one of his ancestral strains, the sciuroptera.
After spiraling downward with some control, despite the gusts, Pertinax landed lightly, on an open patch of ground near a wooden sign that announced the “City Limits” of “Chicago.”
He had arrived just in time for the twister.
Illuminated intermittently by the slackening lightning, the stygian funnel shape tracked onto land from across the lake and stepped into the human settlement, moving in an intelligent and programmatic fashion among the buildings.
Even at this distance, the wind threatened to pull Pertinax off his feet. He scrambled for a nearby tree and held onto its trunk for dear life.
At last, though, the destruction wrought by the tropospheric mind ended, with the twister evaporating in a coordinated manner from bottom to top.
Pertinax ran back toward the town green.
The many fires caused by the lightning had been effectively doused by the wet cyclone, but still buildings smoldered. Not one stone seemed atop another, nor plank joined to plank. The few Overclocker survivors were too dazed or busy to interfere with Pertinax.
Seared streaks marked the town green, and huge divots had been wrenched up by the twister. Windblown litter made running difficult.
But a circle of lawn around the cage holding the wardens was immaculate, having been excluded from electrical blasts and then cradled in a deliberate eye of the winds.
“Is everyone all right?”
“Perty! You did it! Yes, we’re all fine. Even Cimabue is finally coming around.”
Within a short time all were freed. Pertinax clutched Chellapilla to him. Sylvanus surveyed the devastation, clucking his tongue ruefully.
“Such a tragedy. Well, I expect that once we relocate the remnant population, we can wean them off our help and back up to some kind of agrarian self-sufficiency in just a few generations.”
Pertinax felt now an even greater urgency to engender a heir or two with Chellapilla. The demands on the stewards of this beloved planet required new blood to sustain their mission down the years.
“Chell, have you decided about our child?”
“Absolutely, Perty. I’m ready. I’ve even thought of a name.”
“Oh?”
“Boy or girl, it will have to be Storm!”
WAVES AND
SMART MAGMA
Salt air stung Storm’s super-sensitive nose, although he was still several scores of kilometers distant from the coast. The temperate August sunlight, moderated by a myriad, myriad high-orbit pico-satellites, one of the many thoughtful legacies of the Upflowered, descended as a soothing balm on Storm’s unclothed pelt. Several churning registers of flocculent clouds, stuffed full of the computational particles known as virgula and sublimula, betokened the watchful custodial omnipresence of the tropospherical mind. Peaceful and congenial was the landscape around him: a vast plain of black-leaved cinnabon trees, bisected by a wide, meandering river, the whole of which had once constituted the human city of Sacramento.
Storm reined to a halt his furred and feathered steed—the Kodiak Kangemu named Bergamot was a burly, scary-looking but utterly obedient bipedal chimera some three meters tall at its muscled shoulders, equipped with a high saddle and panniers—and paused for a moment of reflection.
The world was so big, and rich, and odd! And Storm was all alone in it!
That thought both frightened and elated him.
He felt he hardly knew himself or his goals, what depths or heights he was capable of. Whether he would live his long life totally independent of wardenly strictures, a rebel, or become an obedient part of the guardian corps of the planet. Hence this journey.
A sudden lance of light breaking through a bank of clouds brightened
Similar Books
