Chill

images.

The floor was covered with more overgrowth of the vines, while down the center of the hangar ran long, parallel ridges about a meter and a half high, humped up under the foliage. At random intervals upon them, three dozen or so orchids rested, dazzling in their array of shapes and colors.

Many swiveled a face as the striped and the spotted orchid and their two escorted human guests came within the chamber, but not all, leading Benedick to wonder what exactly their sensory organs were and where they might be located. Some of the orchids were meters in length, shuffling arrays of tubers and blossoms with tens of heads. The smallest were no larger than a dog, and these had no blossom-faces at all.

They looked, but they did not come closer. There was some rustling of leaves and puffing of tubers among the orchids who accompanied them. Benedick wondered what they might be explaining.

Studying the layout of the chamber, Benedick came to understand that the humped ridges were rows of chairs, buried under vinous overgrowth. The orchids were only putting them to their intended purpose, although not in their intended fashion. He said, 'It's a waiting room.'

Chelsea shook her head, then made a face as if regretting the reflexive motion. Here, where the light was better, he could see that her right iris was clouded, but the raw acid burns beneath the flaking green foam that surrounded it were drying and growing over. It was only a matter of time before the eyeball healed, also.

'Transfer station,' she corrected. 'It's a terminal. What's through that way?'

She pointed at what Benedick had thought to be the back wall. But now, when he squinted, he could see the dense, narrow lines of another wall of vines.

The striped orchid leaned a blossom over her shoulder. 'A pressure seal,' it said. Benedick saw it shudder; from Chelsea's sidelong glance, she felt the trembling of petals beside her face. 'The Enemy lies beyond. There was once another transit shaft there, but it is long failed and disassembled.'

The orchid shuffled to the side and fanned all its petals and its blade leaves forward until its outline resembled a parabolic mirror. He knew he was projecting, but Benedick could not help but read its body language as pleased and proud. 'Look!' it said. 'Television!'

Benedick stepped forward to examine the images. Dramas, comedies, documentaries, something that seemed to feature tiny screaming people running from a creature represented by a man in a poorly articulated costume--all in two dimensions, some of them low-definition in crudely unfocused images, some in images without color. Each one seemed to be broadcast in silence, until he realized that if one sat or stood beside one of the tiny, self-damping, unidirectional speakers that projected from the back of each chair, one could choose a channel. Some of the larger orchids were watching several screens at once, their awkward bodies arranged so as to surround multiple speakers and their blossom-faces twisted this way and that.

Benedick stepped forward, momentarily captivated by an image of a bright wave of fast-moving water humping up, peaking, and curling over itself to break in a long, foaming tube. The sky behind was as brilliant as blood, and as he watched a human being, crouched on a narrow, colorful oblong, shot the length of the tube, just ahead of where it was collapsing into itself.

'What is he doing?' he asked, not caring if Chelsea saw his fascination.

'It's called surfing. That was on Earth,' the orchid said. Benedick could hear the foreignness of the ancient words in its tone, or in the hesitation before it said them. 'That was all filmed on Earth. The shaft has a library. The oldest among us say the programming repeats after about seventy-two years.'

Benedick need not have worried about his sister. She was just as captivated, one hand stretched out as if she could reach the screen--reach into the screen, perhaps. 'Is that what planets look like?'

'Parts of them,' the orchid answered.

Her tongue flicked out the corner of her mouth. She said, very softly, 'I always thought the thing about the sky being blue was poetic license. You know. Hyperbole.'

Benedick looked at his youngest sister and thought of Rien, and still could not manage to make himself take her hand, or even to put into words what he thought. Which was: I should like to see one someday, too.

14 when we had a library

'But,' I asked, 'how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?'

'Didn't you know?' he said and he laughed. 'Everything is permitted to the intelligent man.'

--FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Walking beside Samael in the midst of the serpents and their wardens, Mallory tilted his head and said into Tristen's ear, 'Does it seem accidental to you that we should find exactly these persons here, at exactly this time?'

'Providence,' Samael whispered on his other side.

Tristen dropped his hand on Mirth's hilt. He made a low noise in the back of his throat. Snakes were deaf, so the trick was keeping his voice low enough not to attract the attention of Dorcas and her people, while making himself overheard by Samael. Fortunately, angels had excellent ears.

'Or some less divine intervention.' The sword hummed to itself, satisfied as a cat. Had it brought Tristen to Dorcas intentionally? Was it that aware? He sighed and admitted, 'Mallory was right.'

Mallory snorted. 'I've been trying not to mention it.'

Samael arched up eloquent eyebrows and tipped his head, as if acknowledging Tristen a tiny victory. 'Divinity may be in the eye of the beholder, Tristen Conn. What percentage of a god has to influence the course of events before one admits to divine intervention? By the way, I do not think these people like you very much.'

Tristen didn't need to look around to be aware of the way the farmers held him in their peripheral vision with so much intention. He said, 'If they are Go-backs, they have reason not to.'

Mallory had come up close. 'And if they're not Edenites?'

Tristen arched a look at the necromancer. 'I haven't heard that term in centuries.'

Mallory's lips bent and compressed. 'You haven't been hanging out around a lot of Go-backs. You should get to know what you despise. You might find it enlightening.'

'I think I've been sufficiently enlightened.'

Mallory, the basilisk mantling one shoulder, said, 'You didn't answer my question. If they're not Edenites, what reason have they to consider you an enemy?'

Tristen watched Sparrow's--Dorcas's--stiff back walking before him, and forced himself neither to turn nor look away. 'I am old.'

Mallory might not have understood, but Samael grunted acknowledgment. Because he was Samael, and Samael was old, too, Tristen did not need to explain what he meant. Time passed, and given enough time, anyone could make enemies. Even--especially--a Conn.

The corner of Samael's mouth curled up behind his hair. 'May the enemies you make be interesting ones.'

'My father used to say that.'

'Your father'--the smile made itself patent--'was an interesting enemy.'

'Yes.' Tristen rubbed his fingertips in circles against the heels of his hands, making his armor rasp. 'I recall.'

It felt like a walk to execution. That was not a comparison made idly; Tristen had made such a walk before, though not as the centerpiece of the display. Indeed, he had made it in some of the same company.

This procession was longer, though, leading them as it did the entire length of the valley between high, tattered, moss-hung walls. The mist breathed a pall of unreality over the scene, especially as they came up on the peach-and-gold-walled settlement ascending from it. Graceful green-barked limes and lemons framed the lower