The Spell of Rosette - Kim Falconer [3]
‘Bodies? It takes practice. We call it “childhood”.’
He struggled to rise.
‘What took you so long?’ she asked as she helped him up. ‘It’s been almost a week.’
‘Time’s playing tricks, I guess.’ He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘I was right behind you.’
She winked at him. ‘Come look at this world. I think you’ll find it was worth the delay.’
He stood next to her at the edge of the mountainside, gazing over the gorge below.
‘Welcome to Gaela,’ she said, opening her arms wide.
The scent of flowering herbs mingled with oat grass as the wind carried the fragrance up from the valley. The surface of the gorge water was emerald green, sparkling like white diamonds. Dark swans with red bills sailed around the edges, disappearing in and out of the reeds. A few grazing beasts dotted the hills to the west.
‘And there,’ Janis pointed at them. ‘Have you ever seen such gorgeous creatures?’
‘Horses?’
‘Palominos,’ she said, looking at their red-gold coats in the afternoon light. ‘You don’t see those colours on Earth any more, but they’d be in your databanks.’
‘I’ve got them.’ He scratched his head. ‘You programmed me with an awful lot of equestrian data, considering I lived in a box.’ He chuckled. ‘Did you know this would happen?’
‘I’m not called the Techno-Witch for nothing…’ She watched him take in the vista.
‘Everything’s so clear,’ he said.
‘Pre-industrial environment. It’s got a clean atmosphere, fresh water, balanced eco-systems.’
‘Hegemony?’
‘Magical.’
His eyebrows went up.
‘Can you handle it?’ she asked.
He took her hand again, welcoming the sensations. ‘It’s perfect.’
They spent many days exploring their surroundings before deciding that the deep portal gorge would be the perfect place to entomb the backup quantum CPU. If the worm did break through into this world, it wouldn’t find it easily under all that water, nor would it detect him in his Tulpa, at least not right away. There was no sophisticated technology here, no electronics and few inhabitants—only a handful of coastal cities and the tiny village of Corsanon nestled in the foothills nearby. Small farms spread over the lower plains. That was it.
As long as the chip remained hidden, Jarrod could bide his time while Janis got on with her research. Everything rested on whether she, or one of her offspring, could destroy the worm. When she did, JARROD would be free to return to Earth and tackle the results of ASSIST’s environmental protocols. JARROD would survive indefinitely as long as her family line, her DNA with the matching key-codes, continued.
‘You’re going to have more, aren’t you?’
‘More what?’
‘Daughters.’
Janis drew in her breath, holding it while he searched her face. ‘I guess I have to now.’
‘What if…?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.’
She waited for Jarrod to create a nuclear magnetic resonance and handed him the vial containing his backup CPU. She called it Passillo, the word for corridors in her mother’s native tongue. When mixed with her altered DNA, this vial was the lifeblood of JARROD, the future of the many-worlds.
‘Bury her deep.’ She nodded towards the dark green water below.
Jarrod hesitated, staring at the shimmering surface. ‘There’s a little problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I can’t swim.’ He blushed. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’ve only just got this body. I haven’t had time to work everything out.’
She smiled. ‘You best learn quickly. This is a water world, and it’s pure as gold. You can drink it, cook with it and swim in it, just as it is.’ She held out her hand. ‘Pass it over. I think I remember how.’
Janis stripped and dived in, disappearing under the surface without a ripple. She kicked hard to the bottom, clearing her ears as the pressure increased, feeling the sensation of the water gliding over her bare skin, her hair floating behind her, bubbles escaping her mouth and nose. She was amazed by the sensations and shocked at how cold the deeper water became. Tucking the vial under a cairn of granite, she patted the rocks.
Rest well, Passillo,