"I think it may be a little hard to find a virgin in these parts."
"Nearest one's probably somewhere near Uranus," said Prynne. "Pretty long drive." Tem turned to gaze in amusement at the man. Some people, he told himself, are less than aware of their own words. . . . "Right. Scratch that idea. Let's go look anyway." It was something of a letdown. The low gravity gave the lie to even a fairly steep slope, made it seem flatter than it really was. The fact that the darkest ices had probably been spewed up made it seem a little more impressive, but only if they thought about it first. The summit pit on one did have an open channel reaching who knew how far down, but no one wanted to jump in and find out. Tired from leaping around, they went back to the car and got in.
The craters to be found on the ocellus were usually irregular, shallow depressions, but suddenly the car was skirting the rim of a great hole more than a hundred meters across. It was new enough so that the edges were sharp and the shape was a distinct bowl. It was easy to see the layering of successively darker materials that had formed the central planitia , and in the distance bright rays could be made out where they mantled the bed-ice. At the bottom there was a pool of nowfrozen meltwater. This ice was translucent, smooth as new glass, and looked very much like the frozen surface of a terrestrial lake. Sealock gazed at it silently, slowing down and steering the car around the rim. He tried to look at the layering, to examine it in a detached, scientific fashion, but his eyes kept drifting back to that big patch of clear ice. There was something about the smooth, glassy surface that tickled his memory and he wished for 'net access. What was it? He tried to remember on his own, and at last succeeded. He'd been sitting in his room at NYU one day, more than ten years ago, and had fallen into the grip of an unbreakable boredom. In desperation he'd hooked up to the CoNY Entertainment 'net and tapped a cast of the well-known epic fantasy series "Nineteen Sixty-six"—by luck, it had been the last episode, so the whole two hundred hours was available at one time. He watched, enthralled, pausing for sleep only when he could put it off no longer.
It detailed a grand year of adventure for four young men, crossing the vast expanses of the once open and free continent of North America. The men had had long, shaggy hair, unshaven faces . . . they'd worn fantastic dirty costumes and spoken in a rich, almost incomprehensible dialect that had a romantic appeal to modern ears.
There was one specific thing he was trying to remember, something they'd done during one of the riotous winter scenes. Dammit, that episode was legendary . . . they'd had a car very much like this one—just a bit bigger, and with some kind of fold-back roof. They ... It came back to him suddenly, and he acted.
As the car lurched to one side, Tem looked over at Sealock and saw that a sudden change had come over the man's features. Brendan was hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it hard in gloved hands. His lids were narrowed, green eyes glittering with what looked like . . . Krzakwa fished for a good phrase and the expression "psychotic glee" came to him in response. The rim rushed at them, and Tem wondered, What is he going to do? in dismay.
Prynne cried out suddenly, a squeal of rage and horror, as
Sealock ran 60vet over the edge, yet the wheels somehow managed to stay in contact with the ice as they fell onto the 45-degree slope. Accelerating rapidly, they shot out onto the clear ice and Brendan slammed the wheels into a hard-over position. The car whirled sickeningly through a series of complete turns, sliding forward as it spun, then they hit a small ridge and were launched on a low, whirling trajectory. Sealock, deep in the clutches of the fantasy, screamed, "Far fuckin' out!" They landed tail first and the rear wheels grabbed the ice, pulling the nose down with a jolt. Tem found himself unable to imagine how they were staying upright as they went into another series of vertiginous spins. Sealock was giggling like a child and Prynne, buffeted helplessly in the back, was cursing angrily. Krzakwa held on, shut his eyes, and waited for the end to come. When it was through, he looked out into the spinning stillness and said, "OK, asshole. How do we get it out of here now?" Sealock's eyes were still bright. "Why, we carry it up, of course!"
Demogorgon and Vana Berenguer were sitting in the garden of the CM dome, sprawled naked in lawn chairs and doing nothing, which was coming to be their usual activity. The CM itself had been somewhat modified and, in this setting, it looked rather like an avant-garde cottage. The platform that surrounded its base had been covered with a layer of soil in which shrubbery would soon sprout. Floodlights, intended for the good of the plants, felt warm and prickly on their skins, projecting shadows that easily overcame those from the sun.
Vana slid her hand down over her vulva and squeezed, hard, then snarled, "I'm fucking bored!" The Arab looked at her and smiled. "Really, dear? And just how bored is that?" She peered over at him and said, "I don't suppose you'd like to . . ."
"I have a much better notion." He grinned and stretchedlanguorously. "Would you like to visit the Illimitor World with me? It's been ready for some time now."
"That artsy, interactive thing you were working on back home?" She considered it, seeming dubious. "I don't think so. It's just not . . . real. I don't go in for that kind of stuff."
"'That kind of stuff,' indeed!" He laughed and, standing, stretched out a hand to her. "Come on. You'll like it, I promise...."
"But ..."
"Come on. It really is a lot better than what you get over the entertainment 'nets." She held back for a moment, then said, "Well . . . what the hell. Why not?" They went to the man's room and he activated his Shipnet access points and took out a set of induction leads. "No circlets for this, I'm afraid. How many can you handle?"
"Four, in Binary."
The Arab felt vaguely surprised. She would have to go along as a passive element. "OK. I can get you in using one of the adapter subplots that Brendan made for me." It might well be better this way. She'd have absolutely no control over what was going on and so would have to accept his version of reality without question.
They hooked up, plugged in, and he thought out his sequence of access codes in the high-level language Sealock had created:
Call Tri-vesigesimal. Activate 8(3y)i::5-mixer Node-network 501AA227::SysMat "Bright Illimit" Install Rider Unit .001 Call Uplink Assist. Call AI. com "Darius." SetPiece class="underline" :Transact::"Demogorgon-en-Arhos . . ."
They submerged.
Demogorgon en Arhos and Vana ten Exqrai stood on a marble balcony of the silent palace, looking down over a brilliant panorama. Arhos, the Jeweled City on the Mountain, fell at their feet in a series of shining terraces that were crowded with graceful, multicolored buildings. The sky was a fathomless wash of pale sapphire that descended to a yellow-orange horizon far beyond the Plain of the Twelve Cities, andthe twin red suns, almost touching, were high overhead. To the south, in the middle distance, the jade-green waters of the Tovoreng River could be seen, flowing toward Arheinzei and the Salqxel Sea. A soft breeze sprang up, carrying a smell like mimosa and creating waves in the diaphanous curtains that were behind them.