Description: First: THE SECRET RIVER . . . For here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still-tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness. -Herman Melville, Moby Dick CHAPTER 1 Deep Waters NETFEED/NEWS: Schoolkids Need Waiver To Avoid Helmet (visual: children trying on helmets) VO: Children in Pine Station, a suburban town in Arkansas, must either wear a safety helmet during their entire school day or their parents must sign a waiver saying they will not sue for damages should their child be injured. (visual: Edlington Gwa Choi, Pine Station School Dist. Superintendent) GWA CHOI: "It''s quite simple. We can''t afford the coverage any more. They make nice, comfortable helmets now-the kids will hardly even notice they''ve got them on. We''ve done tests. And if they don''t want them, that''s okay too, as long as their folks take responsibility. . . ." A beetle the size of a panel truck was bumping slowly along the shoreline, the baboon beside her was singing, and Renie was dying for a cigarette. "And we go down," !Xabbu chanted in an almost tuneless voice, "Down to the water. Ah! Where the fish are hiding, Hiding and laughing . . ." "What''s that?" Renie watched the beetle hunch across the uneven stones of the beach with the mindless forward drive of one of those drone robots working to tame the surfaces of Mars and the moon. "That song you''re singing." "My uncle used to sing it. It helped him be patient while waiting for fish to pass over the rock dam so we could catch them." !Xabbu scratched at his baboon pelt in a fastidious manner far more human than simian. "Ah." Renie frowned. She was having trouble concentrating, and for once even !Xabbu''s stories about his childhood in the Okavango Delta did not interest her. If someone had told her that she would be transported to what was for all purposes a magical land, where history could be rewritten at a whim, or people could suddenly be shrunk to the size of poppy seeds, but that at least for this moment, her most pressing concern would have been the absence of cigarettes, she would have thought them mad. But it had been two harrowing days since she had smoked her last, and the momentary leisure of floating in midstream on a huge leaf that had once been a boat had finally given her a chance to notice what she was missing. She pushed away from the leaf''s curling edge. Better to do something, anything, than stand around obsessing like a chargehead with a fused ''can. And it was not as though everything was under control, she reflected. In fact, from the moment they had reached Atasco''s virtual golden city, things had gone pretty damn poorly. Across the expanse of water, the beetle had clambered up from the beach and was disappearing into a sea of grass stems, each as tall as the palm trees back home. She walked carefully toward the center of the leaf, leaving !Xabbu to sing his quiet fish-catching song and watch the now empty beach. Sweet William''s stage-vampire silhouette stood at the leaf''s farthest edge, watching the opposite and more distant shoreline, but the others sat in the center with their backs against the huge center vein, a makeshift shelter of skin torn from the leaf''s outer edge draped over their heads to protect them from the strong sun. "How is he?" Renie asked Fredericks. The young man in quasi-medieval garb was still nursing his sick friend Orlando. Even limp in slumber, Orlando''s muscular sim body was a poor indicator of the frail child who animated it. "He''s breathing better, I think." Fredericks said it with real emphasis, enough so that Renie instantly doubted him. She looked down at the curled figure, then squatted so she could touch his forehead. "That doesn''t really work," Fredericks added, almost apologetically. "I mean, some things show up on these sims, some don''t. Body temperatures don''t seem to change much." "I know. It''s just . . . reflex, I guess." Renie sat back on her heels. "I''m sorry, but he doesn''t look good at all." She had only so much strength, and she could not support any more hopeful untruths, even though the things Fredericks had told her about the real Orlando Gardiner tore at her heart. She made herself turn away. "And how are you, Martine. Any better?" The French researcher, who wore the dark-skinned, dark-haired sim of a Temiloeni peasant woman, mustered a very faint smile. "It is . . . it is easier to think, perhaps. A little. The pain of all this new input is not quite so bad for me now. But . . ." She shook her head. "I have been blind in the world for a long time, Renie. I am not used to being blind here." "What you mean, ''here''?" The warrior-robot sim belonged to a Goggleboy-type who called himself "T4b." Renie thought he was younger than he let on, maybe even as young as Orlando and Fredericks, and his sullen tone now only deepened her suspicions. "Thought nobody come here before. What''s all that fen back at the last place if you been here?" "I don''t think that is what she meant . . ." began Quan Li. "No, I have not been here," Martine said. "But online-plugged in. That has always been my world. But the . . . noise since I have come here, the overwhelming information . . . it makes it hard for me to hear or even think the way I am used to." She rubbed at her temples with slow, clumsy movements. "It is like fire in my head. Like insects." "We don''t need any more insects, God knows." Renie looked up as a distant but still unbelievably large dragonfly skimmed the shoreline and started out across the river, loud as an ancient propeller plane. "Is there anything we can do, Martine?" "No. Perhaps I will learn to . . . to live better with it when some time has passed." "So what are we going to do?" Renie said at last. "We can''t just drift with the current, literally or figuratively. We have no idea what we''re looking for, where we''re going, or if we''re even heading in the right direction. Does anyone have any ideas?" She looked briefly at Florimel, who like Martine and Quan Li wore a Temiloeni sim, and wondered when this woman would make her feelings known; but Florimel remained unsettlingly silent, as she had been most of the time since their shared escape had begun. "If we just wait . . . well, Sellars said there would be people coming after us." Renie looked around at the odd assortment of sims. "And we certainly are hard to miss." "What do you suggest, dearie?" Sweet William was picking his way across the irregular surface of the leaf toward them, feathers bobbing; Renie wondered whether he wasn''t finding all that simulated black leather a bit uncomfortable in this tropical warmth. "Don''t get me wrong, all this can-do attitude is most inspiring-you must have been a Girl Guide. Should we build an outboard motor out of our fingernail clippings or something?" She smiled sourly. "That would be better than bobbing along waiting for someone to come and catch us. But I was hoping someone might come up with something a little more practical." "I suppose you''re right." William levered himself down beside her, his sharp knee poking her leg. Renie thought he had changed a little since they had fled Atasco''s palace, that his arrogance had softened. Even his strong northern English accent seemed a little less pronounced, as though it were as much an affectation as his death-clown sim. "So what do we do, then?" he asked. "We can''t paddle. I suppose we could swim to shore-that would give you all a laugh, watching me swim-but then what? I don''t think much of having to dodge yon overgrown buggy-wuggies." "Are they big, or are we small?" asked Fredericks. "I mean, they could just be monster bugs, you know, like in that Radiation Weekend simworld." Renie narrowed her eyes, watching the shoreline. A few flying shapes, smaller than the dragonflies, were hovering erratically at the water''s edge. "Well, the trees are miles high, the grains of sand on the beach are as big as your head, and we''re riding in a leaf that used to be a boat. What do you think? My guess would be ''We small.''" Fredericks gave her a quick, hurt look, then returned his attention to his sleeping friend. Sweet William, too, glanced at Renie with something like surprise. "You''ve got a bit of a bite, don''t you, love?" he said, impressed. Renie felt shamed, but only slightly. These people were acting like this was some kind of adventure game, like everything was bound to turn out all right, that at the very worst they might earn a low score. "This isn''t going to just end with a polite ''Game Over,'' you know," she said, continuing the thought out loud. "I felt and saw a man die trying to break into this network. And whether what happened to the Atascos took place online or off, they''re just as dead." She heard her voice rising and struggled to control herself. "This is not a game. My brother is dying-maybe dead. I''m sure you all have your own worries, too, so let''s get on with it." T

Please Wait