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Outside the cabin, there was snow. There had always been snow, far as the eye could see, and further still. It might be true that the snow extended forever in every direction, sitting heavy on mountaintops and green pines, on frozen lakes and frigid tundra. Asha hadn’t tried to go very far from the cabin. […]
The place I came from, the port across the sea of stars, the isle town edged with sturgeon scales, was built on basalt. The place I came to, the city at the centre of the field of view, the once-ringed origin of dreams, was too large and too important to answer to a single kind of rock, but the first I encountered there was an unpolished railing of coarse-grained granite—the kind that leaves little slivers behind in your palm, but when you go to investigate you find they are only imprints where stone has been.
I’m going to explain everything, I promise, but we don’t have much time. For now, you just have to trust me. In three seconds, I need you to raise your right hand. You know, like you’ve got a question in school. (Shouldn’t be too hard; I know you’ve got tons of questions.) Okay—wonderful. By now you must have raised your hand, or we’d both be gone already.
Gardener ladled dark-purple porridge into her primary digestion sac, staring absently out the viewport at black space and the distant smudge of the planet they had come to study. The simple meal and the gesture it represented soothed her after a long, thorny morning in a section of the growth bay that was in full flower and had needed hand pollinating. Though the other crew members around the mess made do with the usual break time assortment, Cook had steamed and spiced osard grains just for her before going off shift to nap in their rooms.
One time at a convention I ran across the Man of Flowers, the Superman of Daffodils, a long-haired guy, indestructible (of course), who slept in his car and drank a lot of cough syrup and didn’t really fight crime, unless the crimes were happening pretty close by. He was old by then, maybe fifty years old, but with stubble and green eyes and that ageless Tom Petty So-Cal face, and we’d gotten used to the idea that this particular ubermensch was more super-hero vibe than actuality.
Zan’s supervisor tossed the glass square onto their rusting desk. A glass-rendered construct of a silver ticket hovered in the air, text shimmering. Zan held their breath as they re-read it until they were sure their credentials were correct.
Savannah the Librarian, long of leg and short of temper, got out of the city to do some killing. As ever, she rode her sly, dependable white mule, Seldom. As ever, the invisible swikehead demon, Boy, crouched on her left shoulder.
Defense Attorney John Yurasov: Earlier you referred to this trial as a circus. Can you explain what you meant? Defendant Michaela Xiao: I don’t mean it was corrupt. Though that’s very possible. I just mean that the conclusion was always foregone.
Dad went out to get the milk and came back with two scars on his upper chin and a brand from the Druid King on his right thigh. He stumbled through the door like it was nothing; face scarred; eyes full of light.
Mum and Tega and I were eating dinner. We didn’t notice when he stepped through the door.
“Milk’s cold,” Mum said, not taking her eyes away from the TV. These days, she hardly seemed to care.
The buffet was infinite. It existed in a pocket dimension, via some sort of technological jiggering of the sort that you have heard about before and, unless you are totally anal, don’t want to hear about now.
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