The Dragon Man - Brian Stableford [5]
Even when you were standing right next to it, Sara realized, the fire fountain was just a special effect.
For that reason, the fact that the fountain was doing what it did in real space rather than virtual space didn’t seem half as significant as the fact that the other children were actually present, rather than being images carved in light. The sparks jetting forth from the fountain to follow dozens of strange trajectories weren’t real sparks at all. They were only bits of light. They weren’t hot; when they landed on someone, they simply winked out of existence, leaving no trace behind of their brief existence. The children, on the other hand, were people. They were solid, intelligent flesh.
That was why it only required two minutes more for Sara’s attention to wander again.
It was then that she caught a glimpse, out of the corner of her eye, of the Dragon Man’s shop window.
* * * *
Looking back, eight years later, Sara wondered why her six-year-old self had been so abruptly captivated by that glimpse, when she couldn’t have been certain of what it was that she was looking at. She remembered that she had stared for thirty seconds or so at the golden dragon that formed the centerpiece of the display before it had dawned on her that the window, like the window of the robocab, really was a window and not a screen pretending to be a window.
Had that really seemed significant, at the time?
No, not significant. Just odd—but odd enough to command a long, hard look.
* * * *
Sara realized, belatedly, that she wasn’t looking through the eye of a camera at a rather poor three-dimensional visualization of a dragon in flight. She was looking through a plate of clear plastic at a rather fine two-dimensional picture of a dragon in flight: a dragon whose scales were golden on top and silver beneath, with a head like....
She couldn’t find anything with which to compare that head among the ranks of living mammals, birds, and reptiles, nor among the much more extensive ranks of the extinct mammals, birds, and reptiles she had seen in virtual reproduction. There was something dog-like about the jaw and brow, something pig-like about the ears, something lizard-like about the teeth and something hawk-like about the eyes, but the head was no haphazard compound. It had its own integrity and its own identity, in spite of being fabulous.
Was it a painting? she wondered. Was it inscribed on paper, or polished stone? She wasn’t sure.
Sated by the glory of the dragon, Sara refocused her gaze to take account of the rest of the window-display—which, because the window was only transparent plastic, had to be composed of actual objects.
There were instruments of several different shapes and sizes, many with cables dangling or inartistically coiled, whose purpose she could not begin to grasp, although she could see easily enough that what Father Stephen would have called “the business end” of each device was something like a tiny drill...or a needle.
* * * *
Looking back from the age of fourteen, Sara could not remember how much of what her six-year-old self had seen had been immediately or eventually understandable. Because she understood it so well now, she could not tell how much she had added to the preserved memory as a result of subsequent research.
She did not doubt, though, that there had been an immediately-perceptible strangeness about the window that was even more profound and remarkable than the sight of the five children.
* * * *
Sara tugged Mother Quilla’s arm, and said: “What’s that, Mother Quilla?”
Mother Quilla turned—and Sara noticed that her other four parents immediately turned too, obedient to her curiosity.
“It’s supposed to be a dragon,” Mother Quilla said.
“I know that,” Sara said. “But what sort of shop is it? Why does it have a painting in the window instead of a virtual display?”
“That’s the Dragon Man’s shop,” said Mother Maryelle. “It’s been