structure spread like the bleak surface of a carbonaceous asteroid. The slight rises and hollows had been built in to afford a more realistic appearance to the natural setting that was to come.
'You're wearing your circlet,' said Demogorgon. 'Good. Just sit down and I'll show you the template. I'd like to get your opinion.'
Ariane linked into his program. There was a moment of nothingness, and then the world opened up before her like a great multicolored flower. It was mainly deep green and azure—the image of a Scottish moor stretched out in all directions to a horizon of smooth, bare hills under a clear morning sky. A pleasant, darkly sweet odor was carried to her nostrils by a cool breeze. 'This is Yvelddur, which I modeled on Northumbria. It's one of my favorite places.'
'Is Vana here?'
'No, she's halfway across the world, in Arhos .' He chuckled to himself. 'I mean, she would be if we were inhabiting the same software. This is a cutout....'
'I had no idea it would be like this.'
'That's what everyone who has experienced it so far has said. Comnet uses old technology and has stalled any attempts to use the refinements that have been developed.'
'Well, if you're going to use this as the model for the dome, I don't think I can suggest anything further.'
'No? Go ahead, tap into the design function and make a few swipes. It's easy.' Ariane called up the Bright Illimit design supermenu and paged through the commands. The words were dark letters and verbal explanations, flowing through her, superimposed over a three-coordinate system, itself superimposed over the world. She tried a simple command, molded a hill into a slightly more humpbacked shape, and added a few summer cumulus clouds at random. The program backtracked and rationalized all of her changes until they were fully integrated. Emboldened, she added a stream to the many that here and there fed a scattering of bright silver-blue pools, then admired the effect. 'Demo, I think that's enough. I don't want to get carried away and spoil your landscape.'
Demogorgon laughed. 'OK—it's time to cut the ribbon. Shall we precede the image into the world or just go with it?'
'Let's watch it appear.'
Slowly, the scene faded, and they were once more perched atop the tower, looking down on the drab domescape. 'Shall we let it fade in or snap it on like a light?'
'Snap it on.'
The dome went green. In an instant the scene from Demogorgon's imagination was there before them. Across the invisible plastic, heather and gorse were in flower; the babble of little brooks coursing into crystalline lakes filled the air. The down-curving dome had broken into the bright blue sky, and at their feet clouds the size of throw rugs gathered. They were the clouds Ariane had designed. It was perfect in every respect and its designers were pleased. Demogorgon gazed outward, feeling Ariane's arm on him, and thought, I
'Come on,' said Ariane, slipping from the edge of the tower into a slow-motion fall. 'Let's inspect our handiwork.'
Demogorgon pushed off and began to accelerate toward the ground. The fall took only a few moments, and he landed in a graceful leonine crouch beside the rim of the real pool, now encased in marble imagery, with the look of an ancient monument. He watched as Ariane ran lightly through the dethorned gorse and plunged through a stream that could not wet her. It acted like water in 1 g, disconcertingly natural in this unnatural environment.
Polarissailed on. Iris slowly shrank in a real-perspective view, and Aello disappeared behind it. When talking failed and speculation gave way to inane guessing games, silence opened up their minds to internal monologues. After a time Sealock succeeded in willfully eliminating the giddy thinking that kept welling up, but what took its place was no more comforting. He knew it was time to fall back on the device of the memory presentations that had diverted them on the way out, but he didn't want to go on to the next logical step in the progression of his story. Remembering the Game, of playing sun-bronzed in the desert heat, was wonderful. What came afterward was not.
They'd tried to teach him. The communal tutor had worked with him more than with any of the others, finally trying desperate measures, but he'd resisted. The time spent learning what he was supposed to learn was hateful, precious time taken from the valued play and, more importantly, from the rapidly growing world inside his head. At the end of that long summer he'd been declared hopeless by the tutor and was sent once a week to the special school Uncompaghre maintained for 'difficult' students, mostly functionally illiterate children who were unable to master even the rudiments of binary, but with a sprinkling of gangly boys and pudgy girls whose puberty had come too early for local convention to accept. Brendan could be part of neither group, so he spent free time alone. The teachers assumed an air of condescension that was awful. His rebellion had grown stronger until that dreamlike day when he'd burst into a terrible white-hot rage. It had been in the gymnasium, and he'd hit the physical culture instructor across the face with a baseball bat, the nearest weapon handy. He remembered his amazement at the bright, spurting blood and the woman's high, gargling screams. After that things had gone swiftly. The last day was etched even more vividly into his memory: the school psychologist had spoken before a council of Manti-La Sal adults, and they'd let him be present, as if his feelings didn't matter anymore. The man had said, 'There's nothing further we can do for him. In cases of this kind, the only solution is the Exile School in Phoenix.' It was as simple as that. They had taken a vote and agreed to send him away, and only his mother, Kathleen, voted no. It was majority rule. Brendan had cried, begging them to let him stay, had promised them that he'd be good, would behave as they wished, but it was all to no avail. He was banished, and it turned out to be forever. He cut off this train of thought
