Haile’s appendages was coiled comfortingly round her wrist.
Weight returned quickly. Her soles touched a solid floor, and her knees bent slightly to absorb the impact. Light was shining on her closed eyelids.
We are here.
“I know.” She was suddenly nervous about opening her eyes.
I live there.
Haile’s tone was so eager Jay just had to look. The sun was low in the sky, still casting off its daybreak tint. Long shadows flowed out behind them across the large ebony circle they’d arrived on. It was out in the open air, with the rumpled landscape sweeping away for what seemed like a hundred kilometres or more to the horizon. Flat-cone mountains of pale rock, crinkled with pale-purple gorges, rose regally out from the lavish mantle of blue- green vegetation; not strung out in a range as normal, but spread out across the whole expanse of steppe. Large serpentine rivers and tributary streams threading through the vales glinted silver in the fresh sunlight, while tissue- fine sheets of pearl-white mist wound around the lower slopes of the mountains. The vista was nature at its most striking. Yet it wasn’t natural; this was what she imagined the inside of an Edenist habitat would be like, but on an infinitely larger canvas. There was nothing ugly permitted here; designed geology ensured this world would have bayous rather than dark, stagnant marshes, languid downs instead of lifeless lava fields.
That didn’t stop it from being truly lovely, though.
There were buildings nestled amid the contours; mainly Kiint domes of different sizes, but with some startlingly human-like skyscraper towers mingled among them. There were also structures that looked more like sculptures than buildings: a bronze spiral leading nowhere, emerald spheres clinging together like a cluster of soap bubbles. Each of the buildings was set by itself; there were no roads, or even dirt tracks as far as she could see. Nevertheless, undeniably, she was in a city; one that was conceived on a vaster, grander scale than anything the Confederation could ever achieve. A post-urban conquest of the land.
“So where do you live?” she asked.
Haile’s tractamorphic arm uncoiled from her wrist and straightened out to point. The ebony circle was surrounded by a broad meadow of glossy aquamarine grass-analogue bordered by clumps of trees. They at least looked like natural forests rather than carefully composed parkland. Several different species were growing together, black octagonal leaves and yellow parasols competing for light and space; long smooth boles, capped with a fuzzy ball of pink fern-fronds, had stabbed up from the tops of more bushy varieties, resembling giant willow reeds.
A steel-blue dome was visible through the gaps in the trees half a kilometre away. It didn’t look much bigger than the ones back in Tranquillity.
“That’s nice,” Jay said politely.
It has difference to my first home in the all around. The universal providers have eased life greatly here.
“I’m sure. So where are all your friends?”
Come. Vyano has been told about you. He would like to initiate greetings.
Jay gasped as she turned to follow the baby Kiint. There was a huge lake behind her, with what she assumed could only be the castle of some magical Elf lord. Dozens of featureless, tapering white towers rose from its centre; the tallest spires were those right at the centre of the clump, easily measuring over a kilometre high. Delicate single-span bridges wove their way through the gaps between the towers, curving around each other without ever touching. As far as she could understand it, they followed no pattern or logic; sometimes a tower would have as many as ten, all at different levels, while others had only a couple. The whole edifice scintillated with brilliant red and gold flashes as the strengthening sunlight slithered slowly across its quartz-like surface. It was as dignified as it was beautiful.
“What is that?” she asked as she hurried after Haile.
This is a Corpus locus, a place for knowledge to grow and ripen.
“You mean like a school?”
The baby Kiint hesitated. Corpus says yes.
“Do you go to it?”
No. I am still receiving many primary educationals from the Corpus and my parents. First I must understand them fully. That is a hardness. When I have understanding I can begin to expand my own thoughts.
“Oh, I get it. That’s like the way we do it, too. I have to receive a lot of didactic courses before I can go on to university.”
You will go to university?
“I suppose so. I don’t know how on Lalonde, though. There might be one in Durringham. Mummy will tell me when she comes back and things get better.”
I hope for you.
They had reached the lake’s shore. Its water was very dark, even when Jay stood on the shaggy grass- analogue right at the edge and peered over cautiously she couldn’t see the bottom. The surface reflected her image back at her. Then it started to ripple slightly.
Haile was walking out towards the white towers. Jay paused for a moment to watch her friend. There was something not quite right about the scene, something obvious which her mind couldn’t quite catch.
Haile was about ten meters from the shore when she realized Jay wasn’t following. She swung her head round to look at the girl. Vyano is in here. Do you not want to meet him?
Very slowly, Jay cleared her throat. “Haile, you’re walking on the water.”
The baby Kiint looked down at where her feet-pads were dinting the surface of the lake. Yes. Query puzzlement. Why do you find wrongness?
“Because it’s water!” Jay shouted.
There is stability for those wishing to attend the locus. You will not fall in.
Jay glared at her friend, though intense curiosity was a strong temptation. Tracy’s warning rang clear in her mind. And Haile would never trick her. She put a toe cautiously on the water. The dark surface bent ever so slightly as she began to apply pressure, but her shoe couldn’t actually break the surface tension and get wet. She put even more weight on her foot, allowing her whole sole to rest on the water. It supported her without any apparent strain.
A couple of tentative steps, and Jay glanced from side to side, giggling. “This is brilliant. You don’t need to build bridges and stuff.”
You have happiness now?
