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individual people, floating in the air.
Two other giant vessels, each barely an eighth of the size of the Sanctioned
Parts List, shared the envelope of the GSV's surrounding field enclosure.
Riding a few kilometres off each side, plainer and more dense-looking, they
were surrounded with their own concentrations of smaller flying craft.
~ It is a little more impressive on the inside, isn't it?
Hadesh Huyler remained silent.
He was made welcome by an avatar of the ship and a handful of humans. His
quarters were generous to the point of extravagance; he had a swimming pool
to himself and the side of one cabin looked out into the chasm of air whose far
wall, a kilometre distant, was the GSV's starboard outrigger. Another self-
effacing drone played the part of servant.
He was invited to so many meals, parties, ceremonies, festivals, openings,
celebrations and other events and gatherings that the suite's engagement-
managing ware filled two screens just listing the variety of different ways of
sorting all his invitations. He accepted a few, mostly those featuring live
music. People were polite. He was polite back. Some expressed regret about
the war. He was dignified, placatory. Huyler fumed in his mind, spitting
invective.
He walked and travelled through the vast ship, attracting glances everywhere
- in a ship of thirty million people, not all of them human or drone, he was the
only Chelgrian - but was only rarely forced into conversation.
The avatar had warned him that some of the people who would want to talk to
him would be, in effect, journalists, and might broadcast his comments on the
ship's news services. Huyler's indignation and sarcasm were an advantage in
such circumstances. Quilan would have carefully measured his words before
speaking them anyway, but he would also listen to Huyler's comments at such
moments, seemingly lost in thought, and was quietly amused to see that he
gained a reputation for inscrutability as a result.
One morning, before Huyler had made contact again after the hour of grace,
he rose from his bed and went to the window which gave out onto the external
view, and - when he ordered the surface transparent - was not surprised to
see the Phelen Plains outside, scorched and cratered and stretching into the
smoke-filled distance beneath an ashen sky. They were traversed by the
punctured ribbon of the ruined road on which the blackened, crippled truck
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moved like a winter-slowed insect, and he realised that he had not awakened
or risen at all, and was dreaming.
The land destroyer jerked and shook beneath him, sending waves of pain
through his body. He heard himself groan. The ground must be shaking. He
was supposed to be beneath the thing, trapped by it, not inside it. How had
this happened? Such pain. Was he dying? He must be dying. He could not see,
and breathing was difficult.
Every few moments he imagined that Worosei had just wiped his face, or had
just sat him up to make him comfortable, or had just spoken to him, quietly
encouraging, gently funny, but each time it was as though he had somehow -
unforgivably -fallen asleep when she had done these things, and only woken
up after she had slipped away from him again. He tried to open his eyes but
could not. He tried to talk to her, to shout out to her and bring her back, but
he could not. Then a few more moments would elapse, and he would jerk
awake again, and feel certain once more that he had just missed her touch,
her scent, her voice.
'Still not dead, eh, Given?'
'Who's that? What?'
People were talking around him. His head hurt. So did his legs.
'Your fancy armour didn't save you, did it? They could feed most of you to the
chasers. Wouldn't even have to mince you up first.' Somebody laughed. Pain
jolted from his legs. The ground shook beneath him. He must be inside the
land destroyer with its crew. They were angry that it had been hit and they
had been killed. Were they talking to him? He must have dreamt it turretless
and burning, or perhaps it was very big inside and he was in an undamaged
part. Not all dead.
'Worosei?' said a voice. He realised it must be his own.
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