Archiwum
- Index
- Giovanni Guareschi [Don Camillo 01] The Little World of Don Camillo (pdf)
- Christine Young [Highland 01] Highland Honor (pdf)
- Angela Verdenius [Heart & Soul 16] Soul of a Guardian (pdf)
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 5 Zmierzch przy Studni Dusz (pdf)
- Dahlia Rose, Brenda Steele, Regina Paul, Dorian Wallace Mating Season (anth.) (pdf)
- Cooper McKenzie [Menage Amour 161 Club Esotera 03] Minding Mistress (pdf)
- Dena Garson [Emerald Isle Fantasies 03] Ghostly Persuasion [EC Twilight] (pdf)
- Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 07] Arena of Antares (pdf)
- Ciara Lake [Xihirian Shifters 01] Xihirah [Siren Classic] (pdf)
- Desiree Holt [Sentinels 02] Night Moves (pdf)
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- gim12gda.pev.pl
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You don t like the way they re administrating your culture. It wasn t a
question.
Instead of answering Gail narrowed her eyes. There you go again. Implying
you aren t from the system. Everyone knows Elysium has been isolated from
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Earth for centuries. Everyone right down to the kids knows about the political
schism that s developed over the last fifty years. Of course they do the
system could erupt into civil war at any moment. Gail frowned. But not you.
You re . . . curious and . . . ingenuous. You don t know what s going on here.
You re finding out things, aren t you?
The Doctor grinned. Guilty as charged.
At least you re honest about it. Gail s voice changed, became younger, more
excited. Do you really come from outside the system? What about Bernice
and Ace? Are they aliens too? Your arrival here could be the most important
event in our entire history!
The Doctor s grin faded. A situation all too familiar in my life, I m afraid.
He glanced down the length of his body, then pointed, his finger aimed in
the general direction of the ocean but angled slightly away from their present
course. Do you think we ll be able to reach that clump of jungle?
Gail narrowed her eyes against the glare of the ocean. Maybe. It s pretty
close to the ocean. Have you ever suffered from epilepsy?
No.
Fine, me neither. Light sickness won t be a problem then. She thought for
a moment. Why?
The Doctor smiled and tapped the side of his nose. When I ve worked out
the details you ll be the first to know. He tipped his head to one side as if
thinking hard about something. I don t suppose you have a saw on you? he
asked. A tenon would do in a pinch, but a good rip-saw would be absolutely
splendid.
At Gail s blank stare he began patting his pockets absently. Then again,
don t panic about it, he said with a distracted smile. I m sure I ve got one on
me somewhere.
Rhiannon stood on a rock on the very edge of the field and allowed her lips
to curve in a gentle smile. The interior of the first chamber curled around her
like a colourful map; the cylindrical ocean, ringed in patches by cloud, the rim
forests, the drifting fields of rock. Together they were a series of interlocking
puzzles awaiting a solution.
One of the balloon-sized chemical laboratories, an alchemist, billowed past
and attached itself to the rock with a wet sucking noise. Rhiannon peered
inside it, laughed aloud when she saw the biological changes being wrought
there at a molecular level.
As a child Rhiannon had sometimes wondered what it would be like to
stand on the edge of a mountain, right at the very edge, where the wind was
fiercest and the rock least safe. In her quieter moments she used to imagine
taking that one final step, that tiny, insignificant movement which would alter
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her life forever. As a child she could never have expressed the concept, or the
fear she felt whenever she thought of it, in words; as an adult it was easy to
understand that her thoughts and fears had all been about change. Not just
the obvious changes as her body developed but the more subtle alterations of
thought and expression as her mind developed along with her body. The way
she looked at the world, the way she interacted with it, the way it affected
her and was affected by her; all these things altered subtly throughout her
life, though at the time she d always been too bound up in the moment to
understand how or why.
Now she found herself in some way . . . coming loose from the moment, as
something inside her changed again. Soon she would be free of the moment.
Free to explore herself, to really understand herself.
She stepped from the ledge and pushed off towards the thickly forested rim.
It was only when she tried to whisper a final goodbye to the friends she had
left behind that she realized her lungs were too choked with spores to allow
breath, much less the formation of words.
A younger Rhiannon might have known fear at this realization, but now
she only smiled with amusement, understanding that she had finally come
full circle. As a child she had not understood the need for words; as an adult
she had grown beyond their use.
Gail had said she thought the Artifact was a place brimming with life, colour,
ancient wonder. She wasn t wrong she just couldn t see the full picture.
Couldn t see beyond the moment.
As she drifted towards the rim Rhiannon hoped Gail and the others would
be able to grasp a little of the real beauty of the Artifact of her own beauty
before they died.
Anything else would be such a waste.
12
All he knew was that he had changed. He couldn t put the changes into words
or say how he knew, because he no longer saw things the same way he once
had. In fact, he only dimly remembered the person he used to be. A small,
small man in a big, big universe. Now there was a funny thing. He remem-
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