Darius ran back and put his hands on the fallen axle. “Give me strength, Seqiro!” he gasped. Then the axle came up so that it was level.
“Haul it on through!” Darius cried.
The horse lurched forward—and disappeared. But his harness still connected, and the wagon moved. Darius staggered, hauling the axle—and disappeared too. So did the front of the wagon. There was nothing there but sand and the circle of hivers.
“Move!” Colene cried, getting to her feet. Nona got up and started forward too.
The hivers realized that the prey was getting away. They resumed blowing rocks. But they were too late. Both disappeared, and the rocks bounced harmlessly off sides of the wagon, which remained erect. Then the of the wagon disappeared, with a line across it that steadily erased it backwards. Finally that line reached Burgess, and the wagon reappeared, with its back missing but resuming as the line moved on behind.
The axle dropped as Darius let go, his brief strength exhausted. He sat on the ground, panting. Colene ran to him and flung her arms about his head and shoulders as she dropped to her knees. She hauled the wooden helmet off and brought his head in to her chest. “You poor, wonderful man!” she cried. “Your arms must be just about yanked out by the roots.”
Nona came around to Burgess. She got beside him and put her hand on a contact point. That was when he got the update so that he was able to make sense of the expressions of the others; he had heard them but not properly understood them before. Now it was as if he had always understood them.
Indeed, he was understanding them more than before. Colene was hugging Darius, and kissing him, and loving him, and Darius was loving the hug and kiss and her. The emotion was of such intensity that it made Burgess himself want to love, though he did not know how. He felt that he had been missing something wonderful, all his life. But how—?
“Like this,” Nona said. She got down beside him, leaned forward, put her arms around his top section, and touched her mouth to him, between two eye stalks. “You have now been kissed.”
It felt very good, in an alien way.
THEY diminished the wagon and the armor for man and horse, so that they could walk free. But they did not walk. Darius and Seqiro had been up all night, doing hard labor, and both were fatigued. So they slept while the women and Burgess took care of the details and did some preliminary exploration. The plain extended around them, uninhabited. But it might come to life at any time, and the suckworms might come out by night. So they used poles to poke the ground for worm shells, making sure it was safe. Then they made a campsite.
“Now we must eat and drink only what we brought with us,” Colene said.
But there were fruit trees in sight, with ripe fruit. Burgess was satisfied to be sustained by those.
“Nuh-uh, airfoot. You got things to learn about the Virtual Mode, just as we did. Let me show you.” She stooped to pick up a rock. “Watch where it goes.” She threw it a short distance.
The rock flew through the air and landed on the ground, exactly as it should have.
“Now something we brought,” she said. She took out a round bit of metal. “This is a coin from my reality. I can’t spend it here, so I’ll throw it away.” She did so.
The coin stopped in midair and dropped to the ground.
Burgess was surprised. The coin should either have landed beside the stone, or disappeared as it crossed the boundary between Modes.
“Now let’s carry stuff across,” Colene said. She picked up another stone and held it out to him. “Hold this in your trunk, and we’ll step across to where that rock landed.”
She stepped and Burgess floated. They moved together across the invisible line. Nona, standing to the side, disappeared.
The scene did not change significantly. But the stone vanished. He had not dropped it; it had just stopped being with him. “See? You can’t carry something from a Mode across the boundaries. Unless it’s from an anchor Mode. And look—where is that stone I just threw here?”
Burgess knew where it was—but it, too, had vanished.
“See, it didn’t cross either. It stayed in its own reality,” she explained.
They crossed back. Nona reappeared. There on the ground beside the coin was the rock Burgess had held in his trunk. And there beyond was the rock Colene had thrown.
“We see the reality we’re standing in,” Colene explained. “But we can’t go more than ten feet across it. Because then we step into the next reality, and leave the things of this one behind. We can’t take any of it with us. Now suppose you eat a fruit, and cross the boundary?”
Burgess understood her point. The fruit would vanish in the same manner as the rock, leaving him unfed. But the things of his own Mode remained with him, if he carried them. So his food had to be what they had brought in the wagon. Much had been lost when the wagon started to come apart, but much remained.
“However, we can go as far as we want to the sides,” Colene said. “Because these slices of realities are sort of two-dimensional. They have width and height, but only ten-feet depth. So if you realty want to take a walk without constantly changing Modes, go to the sides. And if you see a monster coming at you, step forward or backward so you can pop out of existence before it reaches you. Even if it’s right in front, you can step into it, and vanish. It’s important to get your reactions in order, because which way you jump on the spur of the moment can make the difference between life and death. Either way: you don’t want to jump into a reality you can’t see, because there might be another monster there, or a deep pit, or a forest fire. So you jump only when you have to.” She glanced at him. “Or fast-float. You know what I mean.”
Burgess did. He moved back and forth across the boundary, carrying rocks, and shooting them in various directions, until he understood exactly how it worked.
Nona expanded a fruit, so that Burgess could make a full meal of a single item. Her magic was a useful thing.
“Say, I forgot,” Colene said. “We’re back on the Virtual Mode! You can do all your magic now, Nona.”
“Why, that’s right,” Nona agreed, surprised. She rose from the ground, floating, but she did not use air. She picked up Colene’s coin and it became a fragment of stone, and then a blade of grass. Burgess was amazed.
“Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Colene murmured.
Nona smiled. Then a tiny plant appeared before her, and grew rapidly until it was as high as she was. It changed color, becoming a tree, and its trunk expanded until it formed a wall. The wall extended to circle Burgess and Colene, and the top leaned over, forming a shelter like that of the closed wagon. Openings appeared in the sides, showing the scene beyond—but every one was different. One was a bright green landscape, with a brighter green sun shining down. Another was a blue chamber with a red creature. The third was white sky with black creatures crossing it. They were not shears, but alien things.
“Blackbirds,” Colene said. “Birds are creatures who fly in my Mode. Most of them are harmless to us, but they eat insects. You’ll see stranger things than that, soon enough, I’m sure.”
The birds turned and came directly toward the window. They passed through it, into the chamber, and became twisting flames. The wall caught fire, and in a moment it was a chamber of fire with a roof of smoke. But there was no heat.
Then the fire lifted, forming a canopy above while the regular land showed below. The canopy diminished, until it was only an insect, which flashed as it flew away.
“A firefly!” Colene exclaimed, delighted. Then, to Burgess: “That was a show of illusion. Of things which are more apparent than real. Everybody in her Mode can do it. They don’t even consider it to be magic, because it hasn’t any substance. But it can be pretty impressive, for those who don’t realize its nature.” She squeezed his contact point. “Of course you were never fooled, were you, air-head?” Then she laughed at his confusion, but her feeling was positive.