"If Maddy would consent to show me how," Zee said, very solemnly.
Alyssa’s objections faded in the face of her sister’s bright affirmation, and she agreed that Zee might look into arrangements.
Rye, Lira and Ys arrived at the tail-end of this discussion—along with the Kalrani girl who was Lira’s designated protector for the day. Her duties ended at the dock, however, and Laura looked back to see her climbing the slope to join another girl in the brown and black uniform, one with a delicate frame, and short hair feathered close to her skull.
Allidi Selkie again, watching with quiet calm. Laura did not need Sight Sight to know she was being evaluated. It was a reminder that Gidds came as a package deal. Psychic daughters. Doubly daunting.
Resolutely, Laura put that issue away for later. She and Gidds had to first work out if there was a solid foundation beneath their attraction, something they could build upon. Whether they would enjoy sharing daily trivialities, and survive arguments, and open up to each other as they really hadn’t yet.
She wished she didn’t have to wait until next week to get him back into bed.
Chapter Ten
A white bird, trailing plumes of silver light, trilled a song that shaped words at the edge of hearing.
Ramara is dead. Zathar’s heart breaks. The seams of the world divide. Bring light. Bring night. Bring life. Stitch the world together.
More than a few of the people around Laura paused to watch the bird disappear over the town’s sloping roofs, but the majority ignored it, for the Messengers of the Weaver were a regular occurrence.
Non-player compared to player characters, Laura wondered. Or newbies versus higher level?
It really was very difficult to pick out the players from the computer-controlled characters. The Muinans didn’t have true artificial intelligence, but their simulations were so sophisticated that much of their basic schooling was conducted by a pair of complex programs. Standing on the bridge into Tekan Town, Laura gazed at travellers heading in every direction and could not pick out the kind of set routines that would give an NPC away.
Then she wondered whether she would be able to spot Gidds without turning on the names display.
Would he have made a character that looked just like himself, except blue? Or simply have gone with a default model, and not wasted his time on customisation? Laura usually chose chibi models herself—she was always entertained viewing a game world from the viewpoint of chubby little gnomes or tarutaru—but Red Exchange did not have the range of races she was used to, so she’d made herself someone who rather strongly resembled Romana II from Doctor Who. A blue English Rose.
Laura sighed, and briefly opened her eyes, the game world receding to a square on her internal screen. She was in her window seat, which was actually a tiny room all of its own, built into the roof level of her house. It was only accessible via a spiral stair from her workroom, was the one room that had a view of the southern reaches of the lake, and featured the most ridiculously luxurious adaptable couch. Filling its own glass-walled nook, the couch was very similar to the ones used on the interplanetary ships, and could be raised and adjusted to all sorts of sitting and reclining positions. Cass had certainly had a lot of fun thinking up things Laura would like in a house.
Although interface games could stimulate the other senses, allowing players to touch, taste, and smell virtual worlds, they did not remove players from the real world, and it had taken time for Laura to grow used to the sensation of being in two places and two people at once. Today it was doubly difficult, because she’d fallen ingloriously while exploring the rocks on Arcadia’s northern shore that morning, and the resulting bruise was making its presence felt.
At least being in the game world didn’t involve any actual effort. Closing her eyes again, Laura thought about walking, and Romana-Angharad obligingly strolled along the street, looking around.
Tekan Town was most definitely worth looking at. It was built across a series of very perpendicular hills, with most of the structures up near the peaks, while the valleys beneath were narrow and filled with fast-running water. Everything was connected by bridges: arches of stone, enormous tree branches adapted for walking, and even the occasional swaying rope construction. In a non-game world, Laura expected such a place would be frighteningly windy, but Tekan Town was a balmy haven, the branches festooned with flowers, the stone bridges decorated with great urns of greenery, and even the rope bridges wound through with vines of what smelled very like jasmine.
Between the bridges, many of the hilltops had been neatly lopped off to provide a flat surface for construction, while others had been hollowed into pointed mountain cathedrals where traders gathered to set up market stalls. The whole place was dizzying, not least because of the layered floral perfume, and made Laura wonder if there were swamp regions in Red Exchange, and whether the programmers would focus on scent to the same extent there.
There was certainly plenty of potential for too much reality in a virtual game, and Laura could readily imagine others where immersion would be a bad idea. She certainly would never have lasted through Resident Evil if she’d been able to smell the zombies.
The arrangement with Gidds had been to meet at the fountain on Porphery Mountain—the centre point of Tekan Town. Laura had been aiming to arrive a little early, but had misjudged her path, and quickened her pace in order to reach the broad plaza almost precisely on time.
Wouldn’t want to be late for our first date, she thought, smiled at the idea, and then looked around for her Serious Soldier.
Gidds had not chosen a default model—at least not from Laura’s memory of the various selections—and there was no distinct resemblance, but the young man sitting on the rim of the round central pool was still unmistakeable. Upright but relaxed, his hands resting on his knees, ineffably himself.
Laura did turn on the names display, just to be sure, and saw Ruvord, which was the name he’d told her he’d use. He’d chosen a similar build to his own, but with a squarer face, and longer hair, which was caught back into a high, short ponytail.
"Gidds."
He turned to her, his brief smile surfacing as he stood, and they clasped hands. No kisses this time, which Laura suspected would have been not quite comfortable for both of them, in their blue-skinned guises.
"Not too tired?" she asked, for while it was midday on Arcadia, it was close to midnight halfway around the world where he’d been stationed.
He shook his head. "Now that the Conclave is over, I’ve much more control over my timetable, so I simply slept for much of the afternoon and evening, making this functionally mid-morning for me. I have only just started, however, and haven’t yet completed the first contract of the game."
"Neither have I," Laura said. "Since we were going to travel together, I haven’t been playing. I found out the game’s based on a long series of books, and read the first one of those instead."
"Background research?"
She laughed at the approving note in his voice. "It helped me understand the system a little more, but not the particular teszen that is supposed to be my first contract. They’re all very individual."
Gidds hadn’t even spoken to his yet, but since both of the spirits were located on the White Plateau, they decided to travel to meet his, and then work on solutions to both contracts.