Sea of Silver Light

"You don't have to apologize for that," Paul said hastily. "I'd like to think that if it was offered to me, and I knew how many children would have to suffer and even die, that I'd say no, too."

"Yes, the children," Kunohara nodded. "There is the matter of the children, too." For a moment he sat in distracted silence. "But the Other, that is truly astonishing. I had long suspected that some kind of unique artificial intelligence underlay the system, and even that in some ways it had begun to change the environments. As I said, there have been unlikely mutations in my own biosphere almost since the begi

The idea of the monstrous personality that Renie had described having such power over the network sent a chill through Paul.

"And your own story is just as strange," Kunohara said abruptly. "You were actually employed by Felix Jongleur?"

"That's what I remember, but beyond that point there's still some kind of block. The rest is all blank, except for the angel—except for Ava."

"Jongleur's daughter." Kunohara frowned. "But how could that be? The man is nearing the end of his second century of life. From what I know, his body has been almost entirely useless for many decades, floating in a tank, kept alive by machines—far longer than the age of the girl you apparently tutored. Why should he want a child?"

Paul sighed. "I hadn't even thought of that. I don't understand any of it. Not yet."

Kunohara slapped his hands on his legs and stood.

"There will be much to consider and discuss tomorrow, but I see that you are falling asleep. Find yourself a place to stretch out. If you need anything you have only to ask the house, but I think you will find the beds are comfortable. I will darken the wall of the place you choose so the morning sun will not wake you too soon."

"Thank you." Paul got laboriously to his feet. "I said it before, but I'll say it again. You saved my life."

Kunohara shrugged. "As you may yet save mine. Information is the most valuable capital in this network. I have always maintained sources of my own, of course, out of necessity. Sharing this network with Jongleur and his associates is like living in the Florence of the Medicis. But I must confess that we have come to a time when my knowledge is failing me."

Paul staggered across the room toward an alcove where a bed that was little more than a padded mat lay unrolled on the floor. "One more question," he said as he slumped onto it. "Why were you so certain we'd lost? That the Brotherhood had won?"

Kunohara paused at the entrance to the alcove. His face was again a stoic mask. "Because things have changed."

"Those new mutants?"

He shook his head. "I did not know of them until I saw your distress. But shortly before that happened, I discovered that I have been affected by the same thing you others have experienced, despite being one of the founders of this virtual universe." His smile seemed almost mocking. "I can no longer leave the network. So I too can die here, it seems." He gave a brief bow. "Sleep well."

Paul woke in the middle of the night, disoriented from yet another dream of being chased across clouds by a giant whose every step made tremors. He sat upright, heart speeding, and discovered he was still bouncing, although it was less than in the terrifying dream-pursuit, but as he saw the quiet, restful shapes of Kunohara's house around him, he relaxed. It was raining outside, the drops huge from his perspective. They thudded down on the bubble walls and stirred up the waters of the eddy, but Kunohara had apparently buffered the force so that Paul felt it as no more than a mild jouncing.

He had just lain down again, trying to make his mind a companionable blank in the hope of finding a more soothing dream this time, when a loud and weirdly familiar voice filled the room.

"Are you there? Can you hear me? Renie?"

He scrambled to his feet. The room was empty—the voice had come from thin air. He took a few steps and banged his shin on a low table.

"Renie, can you hear us? We're in bad shape. . . !"

It was the blind woman, Martine, and she sounded frightened. Paul pawed at his head, confused and frustrated by the voice from nowhere. "Kunohara!" he shouted. "What's going on?"

Light began to glow all around him, a dim, sourceless radiance. His host appeared, dressed in a dark robe. He too seemed disoriented. "Someone . . . someone is using the open communication band," he said. "The fools! What do they think they are doing?"

"What communication band?" Paul demanded, but the other man was making a series of gestures. "Those are my friends! What's going on?"

A group of view-windows sprang open in midair, filled with darting sparks of light that might have been numbers or letters or something even more obscure, but they seemed to make sense to Kunohara, who scowled. "Seven hells! They are here—in my world!"

"What's going on?" Paul watched as Kunohara opened a new and larger window. This one was full of dark forms; it was a moment until Paul realized he was looking at a section of the macrojungle by moonlight. Rain was splashing down with a force like artillery shells. Paul could make out several dim shapes huddled beneath an overhanging leaf. "Is that them? How are they talking to us?"

"Please answer us, Renie," Martine's voice moaned. "We're stuck somewhere without. . . ."

The sound abruptly died. Before Paul could open his mouth to ask more questions, another disembodied voice cracked through the room, deeper and stronger than the first. He had heard this one before too, Paul realized with mounting horror, but only once—from the sky above the black glass mountain. . . .

"Martine! Is that you, sweetness?" The big bad wolf discovering that bricks were no longer being issued to pigs could not have sounded more pleased. "I've missed you! Do you have any of my other old mates with you?"

Martine had lapsed into what was doubtless terrified silence, but the gloating voice did not seem to mind.

"I'm a bit busy at the moment, my old darling, but I'll send some friends to find you. Don't move! They'll be with you in a few minutes. Actually, go ahead and move if you want—it won't do you a bit of good." Dread laughed, a clear, wholehearted sound of enjoyment. The figures Paul could see in the open view-window shrank back even farther into the shadows beneath the leaf.

He turned and grabbed Kunohara's arm. "We have to help them!"

In the dim light, Kunohara's profile seemed carved from unmoving stone. "There is nothing we can do. They have brought this on themselves."

"You saved me!"

"You did not reveal yourself to those who would destroy me. In any case, I think it is too late for them anyway, no matter what this Dread chooses to do. They have been found by a nearer enemy."

"What are you talking about?"

Kunohara pointed at the window. The leaf where Martine and the others huddled still bounded beneath the heavy raindrops, but a huge shadow had crossed into Paul's field of view, a towering mass of jointed legs and armor that seemed, eclipse-like, to swallow the projected image.

"It is a whip scorpion," said Kunohara. "At least they will not suffer long."