Glass by Stephen Palmer Page A

whatever it was you wanted to discuss?’ she said. ‘Then perhaps you can leave us to our work.’
    Tanglanah nodded. ‘It was a question of status.’
    Abruptly, Laspetosyne stood and shuffled a pace towards Rhannan, who sat at her side. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘is that an attachment you are wearing?’ And with one swipe she pulled off a wig.
    Rhannan exploded. ‘What do you think you are doing? ’ She snatched the wig and tried to put it back, but in her anger she dropped it. Subadwan, who had before now idly speculated on Rhannan’s scalp, sat in astonishment, mouth open. Aswaque was his usual unemotional self.
    Rhannan stood and pushed Laspetosyne back to her box. ‘That is enough! No more of this nonsense. I forbid you and any of your pathetic cronies ever again to contact my Archive. All the systems will be set to bar you.’
    They looked at her as if uncaring.
    ‘Did you hear? Nothing more!’
    With clicking fingers she gestured for Aswaque and Subadwan to join her departure. They made for the door. But as Rhannan reached out for the handle Subadwan felt her body tip forward. The metal floor was breaking into fragments. Suddenly she felt cold air at her face and it was dark – too dark for an ordinary street.
    Subadwan hung hundreds of feet in the air. The metal building must have risen as they talked.
    Falling. Falling fast!
    She was plummeting to the Earth.
    Rhannan and Aswaque fell at her side. Screeching voices reached her through the tearing wind.
    Smells of burning, soot and dust.
    The city lay in darkness below her, only its streets visible, like the irradiated veins of a supine creature. Subadwan could see great areas stark black, where no streets led.
    Clawing, cycling at the air, she fell, trying to paddle in a motion that must have been wired into her brain, trying to push the air away from her.
    If only she could fly!
    She groaned as an invisible mass pressed against her chest. It knocked the air from her lungs.
    The rushing at her ears lessened. She understood without thought – just from the feel of pressure upon her torso – that she was not free-falling any more. She was flying.
    Like suddenly weighted scraps of cloth, Rhannan and Aswaque dropped into sooty clouds below her, and vanished. Subadwan had no time to consider upon what part of Cray they would meet their deaths.
    Unable to determine why she was not falling with them, Subadwan instinctively stretched out her arms and legs, and after a few seconds of flinging her limbs into contorted positions she found a face-down posture that allowed her to descend as gently as a piece of tissue paper.
    There was too much fear inside her to think. Below, her superiors already lay smashed.
    After a minute she saw that the city was near. Before she knew it she was trying to avoid the flat roof of an alley building.
    Too late. Curling into a ball she hit the roof.
    She passed through it.
    Her feet felt heavy as lead. Blood rushed from her head; or seemed to. She staggered, held out a hand, and found a wall to lean against. She was standing at the door of the warehouse, Rhannan and Aswaque – white-faced – at her side.
    Subadwan turned and ducked, expecting attack, but the building was empty. A noise above her made her look to the ceiling. Something arachnid and pyuter-metallic scrabbled through a hole in the roof, then, like an aerician, spread polythene wings and flew. She knew it must somehow have created the illusion they had just experienced, or at least been the channel along which the illusion passed.
    Rhannan walked out into the street, Subadwan and Aswaque following. Rhannan looked up at the flying device. ‘Some pyuter spy,’ she said. ‘Bat spawn most likely. Well, that is the last time any of us will have contact with the Archive of Safekeeping. They are a cult of lunatics. Aswaque, you will return to our Archive and instruct all systems to repel any network tainted with the Archive of Safekeeping. Subadwan, return home and