Reality Dysfunction — Emergence

You don’t think it is nanonics?

No; Laton said it was an energy virus. Whatever that is.

And you believe him?

I hate to say it, but I’m giving what he said a great deal of credence right now. There’s certainly something at work here beyond our normal experience.

Do you want to capture this man? If he is a victim of the virus we should learn all we need to know from him.

I’d hate to try chasing anyone through this jungle, especially a lone man on foot who obviously has colleagues nearby.

We go on to Ozark, then?

Yes.

The Coogan advanced up the river at a much slower pace, waiting for the sun to set before passing the two paddleboats. For the first time since he arrived on the planet, Darcy actually found himself wishing it would rain. A nice thick squall would provide extra cover. As it was they had to settle for thin clouds gusting over Diranol, subduing its red lambency to a sourceless candle-glow which reduced ordinary visibility to a few hundred metres. Even so the trader’s wheezing engines and clanking gearbox sounded appallingly loud on the night-time river where silence was sacrosanct.

Lori engaged her retinal implants as they crept thieflike between the two boats. Nothing moved, there were no lights. The two derelicts set up cold resonances in her heart she couldn’t ignore. The ships brooded.

“There should be a small tributary around here,” Darcy said an hour later. “You can moor the Coogan in it; that ought to make it invisible from anyone on the Zamjan.”

“How long for?” Len asked.

“Until tomorrow night. That should give us plenty of time, Ozark is only another four kilometres east of here. If we’re not back by 04:00 hours, then cast off and get home.”

“Right you are. And I ain’t spending a minute more, mind.”

“Make sure you don’t cook anything. The smell will give you away if there’s any trained hunting beasts in the area.”

The little tributary stream was only twice the width of the Coogan , with tall cherry oak trees growing on the boggy banks. Len Buchannan backed his boat down it, cursing every centimetre of the way. Once cables had secured it in the middle of the channel, Len, Lori, and Darcy worked for an hour cutting branches to camouflage the cabin.

Len’s dark mood became apprehensive when Darcy and Lori were finally set to leave. Both of them had put on their chameleon suits; matt grey, tight fitting, with a ring of broad equipment pouches around the waist. He couldn’t see an empty one.

“Look out for yourselves,” he mumbled, embarrassed at what he was saying, as they walked down the plank to the jungle.

“Thank you, Len,” Darcy said. “We will. Just make sure you’re here when we get back.” He pulled the hood over his head.

Len raised a hand. The air around the Edenists turned impenetrably black, flowing like oily smoke around their bodies. Then they were gone. He could hear their feet squelching softly in the mud, slowly fading into the distance. A sudden chill breeze seemed to rise out of the cloying jungle humidity, and he hastened back into the galley. Those chameleon suits were too much like magic.

Four kilometres through the jungle in the dead of night.

It wasn’t too bad, their retinal implants had low-light and infrared capability. Their world was a two-tone of green and red, shot through with strange white sparkles, like interference on a badly tuned holoscreen. Depth perception was the trickiest, compressing trees and bushes into a flat mantle of landscape.

Twice they came across sayces on a nocturnal prowl. The animals’ hot bodies shone like a dawn star amongst the lacklustre vegetation. Each time, Darcy killed them with a single shot from his maser carbine.

Lori’s inertial guidance block navigated them towards the village, its bitek processor pumping their coordinates directly into her brain, giving her the mindless knowledge and accuracy of a migratory bird. All she had to watch out for was the lie of the land; even the most exhaustive satellite survey couldn’t reveal the folds, rillets, and gullies that hid below the treetops.

Two hundred metres from the edge of Ozark’s clearing, their green and red world began to grow lighter. Lori checked through Abraham high overhead, keeping the bird circling outside the clearing. There were a number of fires blazing in open pits outside the cabins.

Seems pretty normal,she told darcy.

From here, yes. Let’s see if we can get in closer and spot any of the sheriffs and their weapons.

OK. One minute, I’ll bring Kelven in. We’ll update him as we go.in case anything happens and we don’t get back, that way they’ll have some record—but she tried not to think that. She ordered her communication block to open a channel to the naval ELINT satellite. The unit had a bitek processor, so the conversation wouldn’t be audible.

We’re at Ozark village now,she told the navy commander.

Are you all right?kelven solanki asked.

Yes.

What’s your situation?

Right now we’re on our hands and knees about a hundred metres from the fields around the village. There are several fires burning in the village, and a lot of people moving round for this time of night. There must be three or four hundred of them outside, can’t be many in the cabins. Apart from that it looks pretty ordinary.she wormed her way forward through the tangle of long grass and creepers, avoiding the