passed over a small scrap of paper, a leaf ripped from a spiral notebook. Eight words were written on it in pencil.
Nile
Orinoco
Po
Quinto
Rhine
Saskatchewan
Tiber
Usk
Oh God! Satori!
There it was!
For a moment Alya was incapable of speech. She feared she might vomit. She clutched her hands to her lap to hide their trembling.
“Rivers,” she mumbled, unconsciously switching to English to match the spellings. “I don’t know Quinto, and I’m not sure of Usk, but the others are all rivers.”
The little turd had trapped her. Never had she felt so clear a satori , never had the buddhi shouted so loud—and Jathro was much too acute to have missed her reaction. His eyes burned like black lasers. “Yes, they’re all rivers, Highness, but in fact they’re code names. File names, if you prefer. These are rivers, but the name of cities get used, also. Or mountains, or poets. Fish, men, women, battles…eventually they start all over again. Any world of any interest is given a file name.”
“Etna,” she said, with sudden memories of Omar soaring in her mind like chords of funeral music. And Tal—Tal had drawn “Raven.”
“Exactly,” Jathro murmured. “I just wondered if any of the names on this list seemed…significant?”
She forced a swallow down a dry throat. “No,” she murmured.
“Ah.” He sounded disappointed. He looked unconvinced.
Alya returned the paper without a word. It quivered.
“None at all?” he persisted.
“No. They’re just words.”
“Ah. Just words?”
Seven names of rivers written in pencil, and one in letters of fire…How could he not see that one of the eight blazed as though scribed by the finger of God?
But she would not say. She must be sure. She must be absolutely certain, with no grain of doubt anywhere. Thousands of lives! Why her?
The captain completed his turn, shedding his sonic boom over the ocean. The super came wailing down the sky at subsonic speed, dropping rapidly, hunting for land like a storm-pressed gull. The screen showed a momentary image of stark city towers standing in the sea, waves running around their feet, and scavengers’ barges floating in the debris-laden streets. Then it was gone and yellowish-green countryside drifted past below in a damp dawn light.
5
Nauc, April 7
EVEN AS BAGSHAW’S armored gauntlet slammed the door, shutting out horrors of melted metal and burning carpet, all the percies sprang into motion. Cedric’s leaped back so suddenly that he thought his eyeballs would fall out. Then it spun around and hurled itself across the room rear first, heading for the shower. He felt it flip up onto the pad; he saw the wall in his mirror, and then— impact!
The shock rang all the way to his teeth. Had he not been pinned like a pit in a plum, he would have been pulped. The wall shuddered and fractured. At once his percy hurtled forward toward the bed, passing one of the others, which had just attacked the wall on the far side of the room. The third had lifted the fourth in its claws and was pounding it into the ceiling. Tiles and dust and debris sprayed everywhere.
Cedric’s percy twisted around so that it was again going backward as it slammed into the weakened wall by the bed. That reversed assault was probably designed to make things a little easier on him, he thought groggily, because he saw the second unit smash into the wall by the shower and it was still going face first. Nice of Bagshaw to be so considerate.
“Glee Club, this is Knuckles.” Bagshaw’s voice sounded close by Cedric’s ear. He was speaking very quietly. Cedric could not see where the man himself had gone, which was hardly surprising in the fog of dust and flying rubble. Again Cedric’s robot and its opposing partner surged forward and flashed by each other. Again that lurch over the shower pad—and this time his percy burst right through the wall in an explosion of debris and broken pipes and jets of water. It tripped, tipping almost
Nile
Orinoco
Po
Quinto
Rhine
Saskatchewan
Tiber
Usk
Oh God! Satori!
There it was!
For a moment Alya was incapable of speech. She feared she might vomit. She clutched her hands to her lap to hide their trembling.
“Rivers,” she mumbled, unconsciously switching to English to match the spellings. “I don’t know Quinto, and I’m not sure of Usk, but the others are all rivers.”
The little turd had trapped her. Never had she felt so clear a satori , never had the buddhi shouted so loud—and Jathro was much too acute to have missed her reaction. His eyes burned like black lasers. “Yes, they’re all rivers, Highness, but in fact they’re code names. File names, if you prefer. These are rivers, but the name of cities get used, also. Or mountains, or poets. Fish, men, women, battles…eventually they start all over again. Any world of any interest is given a file name.”
“Etna,” she said, with sudden memories of Omar soaring in her mind like chords of funeral music. And Tal—Tal had drawn “Raven.”
“Exactly,” Jathro murmured. “I just wondered if any of the names on this list seemed…significant?”
She forced a swallow down a dry throat. “No,” she murmured.
“Ah.” He sounded disappointed. He looked unconvinced.
Alya returned the paper without a word. It quivered.
“None at all?” he persisted.
“No. They’re just words.”
“Ah. Just words?”
Seven names of rivers written in pencil, and one in letters of fire…How could he not see that one of the eight blazed as though scribed by the finger of God?
But she would not say. She must be sure. She must be absolutely certain, with no grain of doubt anywhere. Thousands of lives! Why her?
The captain completed his turn, shedding his sonic boom over the ocean. The super came wailing down the sky at subsonic speed, dropping rapidly, hunting for land like a storm-pressed gull. The screen showed a momentary image of stark city towers standing in the sea, waves running around their feet, and scavengers’ barges floating in the debris-laden streets. Then it was gone and yellowish-green countryside drifted past below in a damp dawn light.
5
Nauc, April 7
EVEN AS BAGSHAW’S armored gauntlet slammed the door, shutting out horrors of melted metal and burning carpet, all the percies sprang into motion. Cedric’s leaped back so suddenly that he thought his eyeballs would fall out. Then it spun around and hurled itself across the room rear first, heading for the shower. He felt it flip up onto the pad; he saw the wall in his mirror, and then— impact!
The shock rang all the way to his teeth. Had he not been pinned like a pit in a plum, he would have been pulped. The wall shuddered and fractured. At once his percy hurtled forward toward the bed, passing one of the others, which had just attacked the wall on the far side of the room. The third had lifted the fourth in its claws and was pounding it into the ceiling. Tiles and dust and debris sprayed everywhere.
Cedric’s percy twisted around so that it was again going backward as it slammed into the weakened wall by the bed. That reversed assault was probably designed to make things a little easier on him, he thought groggily, because he saw the second unit smash into the wall by the shower and it was still going face first. Nice of Bagshaw to be so considerate.
“Glee Club, this is Knuckles.” Bagshaw’s voice sounded close by Cedric’s ear. He was speaking very quietly. Cedric could not see where the man himself had gone, which was hardly surprising in the fog of dust and flying rubble. Again Cedric’s robot and its opposing partner surged forward and flashed by each other. Again that lurch over the shower pad—and this time his percy burst right through the wall in an explosion of debris and broken pipes and jets of water. It tripped, tipping almost
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