Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [99]
* * *
Ocean was choppy. Standing on the lip of the docks, he looked down. It was a long drop. The water was a hard, flinty blue, not at all transparent, specked with white. There was a lot of solid matter down there, churned up by the tides. Houses and rosebushes, locomotives and trucks, imploded machines and the corpses of dogs. It was probably full of angel sharks as well. In his mind he could see them, hunting strange cattle across the sunken gardens of the Tidewater, gliding silently through drowned convents. The towns and villages, roads and hayricks, of a neatly ordered world were gone to submarine jungle now, and ruled by sleek carnivores.
But he did not care. All of Ocean seemed to sing within him. He was not afraid of anything.
He took off his jacket, doubled it over upon itself, and set it down. He slipped out of his shirt. Then his trousers. Soon he was naked. The chill wind off the water ruffled his body hair, raising gooseflesh. He shivered with anticipation. Neatly he piled up his clothes, anchoring them with his shoes.
Gregorian had assumed that without his help, without his access codes, the bureaucrat must die. But even though he was no occultist, he still had a trick or two of his own. The magician had not known the half of the System’s evils; Korda had kept him away from the inner workings of the Division. He should have guessed, though, that no power was ever absolutely forbidden its guardians.
He could feel the shaping agents seizing hold. Ten, he counted, nine. Ocean was a wheel of possibilities, a highway leading to every horizon. Eight. He caught his breath. Newly restructured muscles pinched his nostrils shut. Seven. His center of balance shifted, and he swayed to stay upright. Six, five, four. His flesh tingled, and there was a vivid green taste in his mouth. Undine was out there somewhere, in one of the thirty thousand small islands of Archipelago. Two. He had no illusions he would ever find her.
One.
He leaped into the air.
For an instant Ocean lay blue and white beneath him, the whitecaps sharp and cold.
Changing, the bureaucrat fell to the sea.
OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL SWANWICK
Vacuum Flowers
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter
Jack Faust
Dragons of Babel
Praise for Michael Swanwick
“Michael Swanwick is one of the most intellectually astute SF writers of his generation.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Swanwick’s prose takes no prisoners.”
—Time Out
“Swanwick is that rarest of talents: a writer who fearlessly branches out beyond the safe confines of a genre’s roots, while permitting those very roots to anchor him in the tradition.”
—Starlog
“Swanwick’s work illustrates the power and potential of contemporary science fiction.”
—Publishers Weekly
“What makes Swanwick special is his ability to wring fresh, unexpected consequences from standard SF notions.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick created what was virtually a new genre of imaginative fiction. Dragons of Babel is a brilliant sequel to that book. Well-written, beautifully conceived, it is one of the very few fantasy novels I can unreservedly recommend. I love everything about the book.”
—Michael Moorcock
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STATIONS OF THE TIDE
Copyright © 1991 by Michael Swanwick
Originally published by William Morrow
All rights reserved.
An Orb eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Swanwick, Michael.
Stations of the tide / Michael Swanwick. — 1st Orb ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2791-8
I. Title.
PS3569.W28S73 2011
813'.54—dc22
2010036080
First Orb Edition: February 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8949-7
First Orb eBook Edition: February 2011