memories, to ease her recovery. She had flashing images, framed in fear and burning dreams.
The attack had come in a savage, fire-bright moment.
It began with strange droplets coasting on the air, shimmering, murmuring. Floodlights ringed a gray, chipped slab where she worked with Kurani. Recently opened passages far into the Library labyrinth had yielded complicated new puzzles in data slabs. They were reading out a curious string of phrases in a long-dead language, from a society that had reached the peak of mathematical wisdom—or so the historians said.
The floating, humming motes distracted her. Unlike the familiar microtech that pervaded the Library, performing tasks, these shifted and scintillated in the hard spotlight glare.
Kurani ignored them. His powers of concentration were vast and pointed. He had just discovered that these ancient people had used numbers not as nouns or adjectives, but to modify verbs, words of action. Instead of “see those three trees,” they would say something like, “the living things manifesting treeness here act visibly as a collection divided to the extent of three.”
She remembered Kurani’s furrowed brow, his quizzical interrogation of distant resource libraries as he struggled with this conceptual gulf. These Ancients had used number systems that recognized three bases—10, 12, and 5—and were rooted in the body, with its five toes and six fingers. Being so grounded in the flesh, what insights did the Ancients reach in far more rarefied pursuits? Scholars had already found a deep fathoming of the extra dimensions known to exist in the universe. The slab before Cley and Kurani spoke of experiments in dimensional transport, all rendered in a strangely canted manner.
Cley kept her focus as tightly wrapped around this problem as she could. She found such abstractions engulfing.
But the motes…and suddenly she looked up at a new source of light. The motes were tumbling in a field of amber glitter. Sharp blue shards of brilliance lanced into her eyes. The motes were not microtech but windows into another place, where hard radiance rumbled and fought.
She turned to Kurani to warn him—
And the world was sliced. Cut into thin parallel sheets, each showing a different part of Kurani, sectioned neatly by a mad geometer.
But this was not illusion, not a mere refraction in the air. He was divided, slashed crosswise. She could see into his red interior, organs working, pulsing. She stepped toward him…
Then came the fire, hot pain, and screaming. She remembered running. The motes swept after her, and she was trying to get away from the terrible screams. Only when she gasped for breath did she realize that the screams had come from her.
She made herself stop. Turned, for a moment that would haunt her forever. Looked back down a long, stony corridor that tapered to infinity—and Kurani was at the other end, not running. Impaled on blades of light. Sliced. Writhing.
And then, to her shame, she turned and ran away. Without another backward glance. Terrified.
The memory came sharply into her. The bare fossil outlines of later events swelled up, filling her throat, the past pressing to get out.
Finding a dozen members of a neighboring Meta cowering in a passageway. Fidgeting with fear. They had to shout themselves hoarse in the thundering violence.
Then the booming eased away. Crackling energies came instead.
The other Naturals said the attacks raged through all the valleys of the Library. They were being pursued by a rage beyond comprehension. Let the Supras fight it if they could.
They would be hunted like rats here. She agreed—they had to get out, into the forest.
The seething air in the passageway became prickly. A sound like fat frying grew near. No one could stand and wait for it.
She went down a side tunnel. The other Originals fled toward the main passage. Better to run and hide alone than in a straggling rabble. But the tunnel ceiling got lower as she trotted,
The attack had come in a savage, fire-bright moment.
It began with strange droplets coasting on the air, shimmering, murmuring. Floodlights ringed a gray, chipped slab where she worked with Kurani. Recently opened passages far into the Library labyrinth had yielded complicated new puzzles in data slabs. They were reading out a curious string of phrases in a long-dead language, from a society that had reached the peak of mathematical wisdom—or so the historians said.
The floating, humming motes distracted her. Unlike the familiar microtech that pervaded the Library, performing tasks, these shifted and scintillated in the hard spotlight glare.
Kurani ignored them. His powers of concentration were vast and pointed. He had just discovered that these ancient people had used numbers not as nouns or adjectives, but to modify verbs, words of action. Instead of “see those three trees,” they would say something like, “the living things manifesting treeness here act visibly as a collection divided to the extent of three.”
She remembered Kurani’s furrowed brow, his quizzical interrogation of distant resource libraries as he struggled with this conceptual gulf. These Ancients had used number systems that recognized three bases—10, 12, and 5—and were rooted in the body, with its five toes and six fingers. Being so grounded in the flesh, what insights did the Ancients reach in far more rarefied pursuits? Scholars had already found a deep fathoming of the extra dimensions known to exist in the universe. The slab before Cley and Kurani spoke of experiments in dimensional transport, all rendered in a strangely canted manner.
Cley kept her focus as tightly wrapped around this problem as she could. She found such abstractions engulfing.
But the motes…and suddenly she looked up at a new source of light. The motes were tumbling in a field of amber glitter. Sharp blue shards of brilliance lanced into her eyes. The motes were not microtech but windows into another place, where hard radiance rumbled and fought.
She turned to Kurani to warn him—
And the world was sliced. Cut into thin parallel sheets, each showing a different part of Kurani, sectioned neatly by a mad geometer.
But this was not illusion, not a mere refraction in the air. He was divided, slashed crosswise. She could see into his red interior, organs working, pulsing. She stepped toward him…
Then came the fire, hot pain, and screaming. She remembered running. The motes swept after her, and she was trying to get away from the terrible screams. Only when she gasped for breath did she realize that the screams had come from her.
She made herself stop. Turned, for a moment that would haunt her forever. Looked back down a long, stony corridor that tapered to infinity—and Kurani was at the other end, not running. Impaled on blades of light. Sliced. Writhing.
And then, to her shame, she turned and ran away. Without another backward glance. Terrified.
The memory came sharply into her. The bare fossil outlines of later events swelled up, filling her throat, the past pressing to get out.
Finding a dozen members of a neighboring Meta cowering in a passageway. Fidgeting with fear. They had to shout themselves hoarse in the thundering violence.
Then the booming eased away. Crackling energies came instead.
The other Naturals said the attacks raged through all the valleys of the Library. They were being pursued by a rage beyond comprehension. Let the Supras fight it if they could.
They would be hunted like rats here. She agreed—they had to get out, into the forest.
The seething air in the passageway became prickly. A sound like fat frying grew near. No one could stand and wait for it.
She went down a side tunnel. The other Originals fled toward the main passage. Better to run and hide alone than in a straggling rabble. But the tunnel ceiling got lower as she trotted,
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