Fractal Mode

CHAPTER 9—VIRTUAL

COLENE blinked, looking for Provos. There she was, waiting just ahead. Nothing seemed to have changed, except that all the others were gone. There were no people and no horses, just a sea-edge landscape.

Colene had not seen this place from within the Virtual Mode before. They had been spinning through realities, and stepped out the moment things stabilized. Perhaps it had been involuntary, the result of the spuming; they had been thrown out by centrifugal force. Actually there was no such force, she knew; it was an illusion, an apparent force, the result of inertia diverted. But for all that, it had a measurable effect, just as magic did. Anyway, now the two of them were back on the Virtual Mode, and Colene felt oddly at home here, though she wished Darius and Seqiro were with her.

But it was dangerous too. Fortunately both she and Provos were experienced here, and would not make obvious mistakes. The first of which was to get separated from each other. A person could quickly get lost amidst realities.

Colene closed her eyes and turned around, tuning in on her own anchor, Earth. She could sense where it was, or at least in what direction it was. Provos would be able to sense her own. They could probably sense the other anchors too, if they tried. Without that ability, they could truly get lost.

She felt the direction, and stopped, facing it. She opened her eyes.

She was facing directly out toward the sea.

Oh, no. They couldn’t walk that way, and it would be disastrous to try to swim in that cold, choppy water. With magic they had been able to walk under it, but Colene had no magic, and neither did Provos.

Could they make a boat? No, because anything they made would disappear in ten feet, dumping them. The only material that would stay with them would be from an anchor reality—and if they stepped out onto Oria to get it, they would be stuck there again, with the despots waiting. So crossing the sea was out.

But maybe they could go around it. In fact, if they just walked beside it, in due course the realities would change so that there would no longer be a sea there, and they could cross whatever was there. It was frustrating to have to lose time in a detour, but that was just the way it was.

She turned to the other woman. “What do you think, Provos?”

But Provos was already stepping out, knowing where she was going—toward the despots’ castle.

Colene hurried to catch up with her. “But that’s directly away from—”

She broke off, because the woman had disappeared.

But in a moment she reappeared, as Colene stepped across the same plane of reality. That was the nature of travel through the Virtual Mode: a person saw an entire reality, or at least as much of it as any person saw from one spot, but this was not exactly illusory so much as unapproachable. Because every few steps took the person up another rung of the ladder, as it were, and it was like looking out at another floor of an endless building. Maybe like an elevator with glass walls, which hovered at each floor but gave admittance to none that was not an anchor. That wasn’t a perfect analogy either, but would do for now. Each floor was real on its own terms, but might as well be illusion, because the elevator just didn’t stop there. And the moment it crossed the line between floors, everything on one floor disappeared, and everything on the next one appeared. The layout of each floor might be almost identical, but the people would change.

Indeed, this new reality looked the same as the last. The castle remained, and the fields and fences. But this was just another sliver of mica in the block, and it had its own identity.

Probably there were despots there, and even maybe a gruff king, a voluptuous queen, and a dastardly knave. But their names would differ, and they would look different. Probably magic worked. But not quite as it did in Nona’s reality. And of course no one had visited from the Virtual Mode. No girl from Earth, no telepathic horse.

They crossed the next border between realities, and the next. There was no sensation, merely the spot disorientation of seeing the scenery shift slightly. One reality had a field of sheep; then they were gone and it was an overgrown pasture. The distant castle remained on the top of its hill—actually a fortified rad, but who really cared?—and looked much the same. But why was Provos going there? What did she remember?

In fact, as Colene understood it, Provos had very little memory when traveling through the Virtual Mode, because her memory was of her future in a particular reality, and they were in any one reality only a few seconds. How could she know where to go?

Colene paced the woman, bothered. Obviously Provos did remember enough to make her certain of her direction, but it couldn’t be of these transitory realities. Was it of one beyond, where they did stay, so she was merely headed for it? Colene had not had more than passing association with the woman before; Provos had traveled with Darius. But unless Colene had gotten things muddled, Provos’ memory did not work that way. She had to be in a specific reality before she started to remember its future.

So why was the woman heading so purposefully somewhere? Colene wished she could at least ask.

Well, maybe she could. She waved a hand, signaling Provos. When Provos looked at her, she asked, “What are you up to?” and plastered a really confused look on her face to get the message across.

“You are tired?” Provos asked. She spoke in her own language, but Colene understood well enough. It really did seem that she was developing telepathy, from her association with Seqiro. It had been wonderful, verifying this with Nona, and it made her feel a lot better about leaving Darius and Seqiro with her. Nona was a decent person. That had come through along with the symbols she had been thinking. So now Colene could understand Provos, but Provos couldn’t understand Colene. Because it seemed that Colene’s little bit of telepathy was just one-way: receiving. But that didn’t matter all that much, because Provos didn’t remember the past anyway, so most dialogue with her was truncated.

But she hadn’t answered the right question. Colene pondered a moment, then decided that her luck might be better if she made it the right question. “I have a concern.” That could be taken as an indication she was tired.

“My home,” Provos answered.

“Where are we going?” Colene asked, getting the feel of it. She pointed ahead, making her query-face. This was information, but it still didn’t address the issue. It was Colene’s home they were supposed to go to, and she was sure the woman understood that, because Seqiro’s telepathy had made it plain.

“Because we need supplies,” Provos replied, touching her back.

It was like an exploding lightbulb. “Why are we doing this?” she asked, spreading her hands in simulated bafflement. Because the despots had taken their supplies. They had had to change to local tunics, and of course Seqiro had been stripped of his burden. Without Nona’s magic, Colene wouldn’t even have panties now. Since they could not eat on the Virtual Mode, because food, like other things, disappeared with the crossing of the realities, they had to carry their supplies with them, and these supplies had to be from one of the anchor realities. They had headed almost naked into the Mode, and would never survive it—unless they got supplies. So Provos was heading for her own anchor, which must be close, where she could get those supplies. She didn’t need to remember the realities they passed on the way; all she had to remember was that they spent a while at her home getting stocked up.

Suddenly Colene was very glad it was Provos she was with. None of the others had thought of this aspect, in their focus on the immediate problems of Oria. Had Seqiro come here, they would have been stuck, because they did not dare return to his reality. They had barely escaped it before, and could not sneak back. Not with unfriendly telepathic horses there. Assuming it was even within reach. But Provos, with her future memory, must have known that her own anchor was close enough, and could be used to solve this problem.

Colene wanted to thank her for that insight and action, but didn’t see how she could do it now without confusing things. She should have done it at the outset. So she just kept the pace.

Now the castle was changing, by small stages, as they advanced toward it. So was the landscape. The contours of the Mandelbrot set fuzzed, becoming more like conventional earthly hills and valleys. They were leaving the region of fractals. Maybe that was just as well, because that was one weird universe! If they had gone into anything even stranger, they might have had a real problem getting through.

Provos continued purposefully down through the valley, then on up the hill. The woman was a determined walker! The castle loomed larger, and not just because it was closer. It now covered a more extensive section of the hill, and the walls towered up several stories. Against what kind of enemy were these ramparts intended to defend?

They stepped into one more reality—and there was a dragon before them. A big wingless fire-breathing creature with metallic scales. Both of them abruptly stopped. The dragon was between them and the castle.

The dragon heard them, and turned its head. Its near eye fixed on them.

Of course they could escape it merely by stepping into an adjacent reality. But if they stepped back, the monster might be lurking for them the moment they resumed forward progress. It would be better to step forward, seemingly into it, but crossing to a new reality before reaching it. Except that Colene’s logic warred with her common sense. Nobody walked toward a horrendous fantasy dragon!

Then the dragon uttered not a roar but a squeak. It turned tail and fled toward the castle. Astonished, they watched it go. It remained visible because it had no reality boundaries to cross; it was in its own universe, and they could see it as long as they stood where they were.

The dragon charged up to the castle—and inside. No one challenged it. The drawbridge cranked up after it.

It was a dragon castle. And the dragons were terrified of people.

Colene exchanged a glance with Provos, who presumably remembered a similar occurrence in the near future.

Sure enough, in a moment another dragon arrived. The drawbridge lowered to let it in, then lifted again.

“We don’t want to meet them,” Provos said firmly.

“I wonder what sort of people live in this reality?” Colene said musingly. She realized that they must be getting closer to the beginning of the woman’s experiences on the Mode, because in the past she had usually managed to wait for a question before answering it. Now she did not, as if she had not yet learned to. Maybe she had discovered, early in the experience of the others but late in her own with them, how to give her answer before hearing the question, just as the others were learning to ask their questions after hearing the answer. The convolutions of such interactions might become as devious and intricate as those of the filaments of the Mandelbrot set.

They resumed their march. The castle shifted several more times, then disappeared entirely before they reached it. They crossed over a wooded hill, and kept going. Colene was getting tired, but did not complain. She wanted to reach Provos’ safe anchor before nightfall, if they could. Not all dragons might be chickens.

They trekked into the valley beyond, forging through thickening forestland. The trees had gradually changed, and now they had yellow trunks and blue leaves. Colene didn’t worry about it; if that was the only odd thing about this region, they were well off. Trees were trees.

Then they came to it: the anchor. It was no more visible than the one on Oria, but Colene could tell; there was a feel about the region. Provos had oriented on it unerringly, because it was her own, but now that it was close, Colene could spot it also. It was just a place in a glade in the forest.

They stepped through. Colene felt a kind of firming around her, and knew that she had entered the anchor reality. This was where Provos lived.

Provos paused, as if remembering. Indeed, that must be what she was doing: assimilating the future experience she would have in this place she had left behind. Colene would take similar stock of her past experience when she set foot back on her own reality of Earth. Everything was comfortable, for Provos.

But the pause was brief. This meant, as Colene figured it, that they would not be here long. That was the way she wanted it; she hoped to get to Earth, get the information, and return to Oria as fast as possible, because she felt alone and naked without Seqiro, and tense and depressed without Darius. Without them she was incomplete.

Then Provos led the way through the glade, along a path through the blue-trunked trees, and to a cleared region. There was a house. It was odd, by Colene’s definition: it seemed to be about ten feet on a side, square in cross section, and reached up six stories. There were guy wires holding it in place against the wind. In the distance were other houses, of similar type.

Yet as they walked toward it, she realized that it did make sense on its terms. On Earth houses tended to sprawl across the landscape; only in cities did they become taller than they were wide. But on Earth much of the natural terrain had been destroyed by man’s advance. Here a house took up no more space than it had to, and the trees and other vegetation remained. This was a nice region. The field seemed to consist of cultivated plants of a number of kinds, all mixed in together: wheat, beans, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, and roses. No weeds. How did they manage that? Did they remember where the weeds would be growing, and take them out before they got started?

They came to the door—and it wasn’t a door, but a window, screened by light mesh instead of glass. Provos opened the mesh and stepped inside, and Colene followed.

The chamber was cubical, maybe eight feet on a side, with the furniture set into the walls. There were cabinets and a closet against one wall, a narrow table with built-in chairs on either side against the next, a thin sink and stove against the third, and a thin stairway climbing the fourth. That was all; the center was bare.

Provos went to the stairs and climbed. Colene followed, feeling increasingly out of place. Just how well did any of their party know Provos? Could she, Colene, find herself trapped in this towerlike edifice? But she reminded herself that Seqiro had known what was in the minds of all of them, and had accepted Provos; the woman had to be okay.

The stair was strange. Each step was just about one foot square and one foot high—but the steps for the left and right feet were offset by six inches. It was like two sets of stairs, one for the right foot, the other for the left foot. Each stairway rose at a forty-five-degree angle, so that by the time it crossed from one side of the house to the other it also reached the next floor. But the ascent was not steep, because only six inches separated the height of the alternate feet. This was efficient and effective. But only just big enough; it was essentially one-way. Two people could not pass each other at all conveniently, because the full width of the sides together was only two feet. But then how often did people need to pass on a stair, especially if this was a residence for one person, as it seemed to be?

The second floor was comfortably set up with shelving on three walls, with books, and a thick soft mat on the floor. Evidently the library or living room.

The stair turned the corner and continued on up. Provos showed the way.

The third floor was a bathroom: sink, tub, toilet, all close enough to what Colene knew to be no trouble. That was a relief!

The fourth floor was storage; there were bins and boxes and jars, and what might be a deep-freeze. Colene wasn’t sure what kind of technology existed on this world, but surely they knew how to store their food.

The fifth floor was empty. It was a spare room, perhaps available for expansion when there was a family.

The sixth floor was the bedroom: clothing hung on one side, and a cushion bed was on the other.

The stairs continued to the roof. That was a railed platform. From it the surrounding landscape could be seen, forest, field, and houses.

Provos smiled, acknowledging a compliment.

“Oh, I like it!” Colene exclaimed. “This is a nice world.” She was not being facetious; she wished her own world were more like this.

Then they returned to the storage room, where Provos fetched what looked like red potatoes and green eggs. Down to the kitchen, where she prepared something like a cross between a green omelet and red mashed potatoes, with pale orange milk. The food was served on square blue wooden plates, and the milk was in a yellow cup which appeared to have been fashioned from a thick, glossy yellow leaf. The stuff looked weird, but tasted good, and Colene ate heartily.

But with this relaxation came fatigue. Colene had known she was tired, and now realized that she had underestimated the case. She was starting to feel at home here, a little, and that meant she could become aware of lesser things. Such as fatigue. She was ready to drop.

Provos smiled. She did not seem as tired. She was old—about sixty—but tough. Maybe because of living in a house like this, with all the climbing, and walking around the farm. Or maybe she just concealed her wear and tear better.

As they finished, Provos took the plates and cups. “I’ll wash the dishes,” Colene offered unenthusiastically, trying to do her part.

But Provos was already shaking her head. She set the dishes in the sink and stepped back. From the screen behind the sink a vine entered. It curled down among the dishes, dripping glistening sap and stroking them with little tonguelike leaves. It was the dishwasher!

They went upstairs. Colene used the toilet facilities, then followed Provos up to the bedroom. Then she remembered that there was only the one bed, and had a horrible thought. Provos had never expressed any interest in men. Maybe she was too old. But was it possible that her interest was in women? Like maybe fresh clean young women? Colene had some scores to settle with men, who could be crude, brutish, and perpetually sexual, while women were in general more refined and decent. But that did not mean she had any desire to—

But Provos was already shoving her hanging clothing over to the center. It slid along wooden rods, making a space beyond. Then the woman fetched cushions from somewhere and threw them down. Colene had a separate bed.

“Thank you,” she said, for more than just the bed, and flung herself flat. In an instant she was asleep.

OF course her green tunic was sadly rumpled in the morning; she hadn’t thought to remove it. But she found clothing laid out for her: a gray sweater, black blouse, brown knit wool skirt, and knee-length black boots. Also green underwear: a kind of loose corset extending from breast to rump. Surely the kind of clothing worn by girls of this world. She remembered that Provos had worn similar, and that was reassuring. It wasn’t exactly a familiar outfit, but neither was it totally alien.

Colene shrugged and put the stuff on. It fit her reasonably well. The sweater was actually a bit tight, because Colene was fuller in the chest than Provos. This gave her perverse pride; she had been feeling somewhat inferior compared to Nona. The skirt reached all the way to her ankles, as she was shorter than Provos. The boots were loose on her, because her feet were smaller than the woman’s, but she laced them up tight and it was all right. It wasn’t as if the soiled and rumpled green tunic and slippers were any better; that was Oria clothing. She would have to get to Earth to get her own kind of dress.

She went down the odd stairs, winding around to the bathroom, which she used. This time she was more observant, and saw that the toilet did not actually flush; it fed into a chamber which seemed to contain some kind of gray moss. Another hungry plant.

When it came to environmental responsibility, this was one savvy world.

That made Colene think. Provos seemed to have a good life here. Why had she left it? Darius had needed a woman, Seqiro had needed to escape and explore, and Colene herself had needed both the man and the horse. They all had had reason to risk the rigors of the Virtual Mode. But Provos seemed to need nothing. Why should she have taken such a step? It hadn’t been just accident; she had sought her anchor, and had been prepared for it. Oh, she had told Darius that she had remembered a mysterious blank in her future, but there had to have been simpler ways to fill that in. A piece of her puzzle was missing.

Colene wound the rest of the way down to the kitchen. There was Provos, with breakfast just ready. Remarkable timing? No, the woman simply remembered when Colene had come down.

This time the meal was a greenish pudding with blue sauce. The blue turned out to be blueberry syrup; the green tasted vaguely like cornmeal mush. It would do.

After breakfast, Provos produced knapsacks and hats. The knapsacks were functional and capacious. The hats looked like insect heads; they were shiny black with two long antenna-like projections that wavered when the hats moved. Colene would have worn such a thing only on a dare at home. Here she knew it would be standard conservative attire.

Provos nodded affirmatively.

“We have to go shopping?” Colene asked. It was mostly rhetorical; she had picked up that message from the woman’s mind.

They walked out along the path. Colene’s legs were a little stiff from all the walking in the Virtual Mode, but that was working out. They followed a winding, almost invisible path to the woods, and then no path at all, except that Provos knew where to go.

They came to a canal through the forest. It was only a few feet wide, and the trees overhung it; it would not be visible from above. As they arrived, something rushed along it. A monstrous serpent!

But Provos seemed unalarmed. She stood right by the canal as the thing slid up. It stopped, its huge body almost filling the trench so that the water level rose. There was some sort of framework associated with it, a network of wooden bars and fiber cords.

Then the woman stepped onto the snake’s back. Colene realized that this was transportation, the equivalent of a boat or bus. Feeling Provos’ certainty, she joined her on the creature. There were four seats suspended by cords between side-bars, in tandem. Provos took the first, so Colene took the second.

Provos snapped her fingers. The serpent slid forward. Its coils didn’t loop up; instead it nudged the canal on either side, and though the touches hardly seemed strong, it immediately accelerated. Colene had to hang on to the bars as her seat rocked with the swaying motion. They were moving at what seemed like a phenomenal pace, though probably it was only about fifteen miles an hour.

Colene looked around. The trees of the forest were passing swiftly behind, the more distant ones seeming to move more slowly because of the perspective. This was a fun way to travel!

The serpent swung around a turn, and the seats swung out. “Like a roller coaster!” Colene exclaimed. But not exactly; this was smoother, and all on the horizontal.

Then the snake slowed. Two more people were waiting at the next stop, a woman and a boy. The woman had the same kind of outfit that Provos and Colene wore; the boy had shorts and a cap that resembled a squished slug. Slugs and snails, that’s what boys are made of, Colene thought, smiling.

The new woman said something to Provos, and Provos replied. Maybe it was the other way around, the reply coming before the remark. Colene gathered from Provos’ mind that she did not know the woman, and that she preferred it this way. Because Provos did not want to have to explain her future absence.

Future absence. Of course—these people did not remember the past, so had no old friends. They had new friends, folk they would associate with in the future. Maybe Provos had known this other woman for decades before, but this was at the end of their acquaintance, so it counted for nothing. And it was reassuring to know that Provos would soon be leaving again; that meant that Colene would be too.

It was a bit scary to realize that at this point, Provos did not remember what had happened in the past. The adventure on Oria was lost to her, just as the coming visit to Earth was lost to Colene’s memory. Provos knew Colene only from what was to come. Perhaps to the woman it seemed odd to think that Colene knew her only from what was past. Colene depended on Provos to have an accurate memory of that coming excursion, and Provos depended on Colene to help her with past memories. They were a haphazard but feasible team.

Meanwhile the woman and the boy got on the serpent. They had of course remembered that it would arrive at this time with two seats available. Had that not been the case, they wouldn’t have bothered.

The snake moved out again. This time the ride was longer, and took them out of the forest and into a town. The buildings were similar in cross section, but much taller; they reached up twelve or eighteen stories, and had stronger guy lines. They just didn’t take up any more ground space than they had to.

The serpent halted at a convergence of canals, and they disembarked. There were many people here, all in the outfits of this realm. This seemed to be a shopping center, for the houses had transparent screens on the sides facing the central street, and their interiors had many goods and items laid out.

Provos headed up a ramp suspended between buildings, one floor, two, three, four. Colene followed, content just to watch. When they took a level hanging walk, the open faces of many buildings were available. These had foodstuffs sealed away in packages. There were breads, and jars of spreads, and tubers and bundles of herbs and eggs of all types. Everything packed for traveling.

Colene nodded. Provos knew what she was doing. She probably remembered a need for certain quantities of a number of items, and knew what Colene’s needs and tastes would be. Darius had thought or mentioned—in the presence of Seqiro it didn’t make much difference—how Provos had intercepted him near her anchor, well prepared for the journey. It had taken him some time to catch on that she remembered the future, but it had turned out to be a literal lifesaver for him. It would probably be the same for Colene.

Provos made purchases. Her money turned out to be beads on a string. Colene thought of wampum, supposedly American Indian money, though it was doubtful whether the Amerinds used money before the white man came. At any rate, it seemed to work here.

When both their packs were full, they returned to the ground, and to the canal. A snake was just arriving with just the right number of seats for those who needed them. Colene reminded herself that this was really like people getting off a full bus on Earth: there was no coincidence that they got off together and went their separate ways, the ride a memory. Here, people came to fill the bus in the manner they remembered.

The serpent coursed out of the town and to the forest. The day was waning; they would make it back just about dusk. Again, no coincidence; Provos probably remembered finishing promptly then.

And so it was. They stepped into the house as darkness closed, and had supper. Colene realized that they had never had lunch; they had been so busy shopping that she had never noticed. She had not gotten hungry; that green pudding had stayed with her. If that was the kind of food they would have while traveling the Virtual Mode, it was good.

They slept. Colene dreamed of Darius, of being in his arms, of tempting him with her body and not succeeding, but managing to frustrate him something awful. It was a fun dream. The time will come, Seqiro thought to her.

She woke. Had she really received the horse’s thought? Probably not; they were now on different realities, with a slew of intervening realities. She had thought she received him once before, when they had been separated by thousands of light-years in the super-science Mode, but that had turned out to be her own dawning telepathic ability.

Or could it have been some of both? Her just-barely-developing power of mind, and his expanding mature power? How could they be sure of the limits of it? They weren’t separated by light-years now, but by realities, with the anchors connecting them. Maybe his telepathy could pass through the one anchor, and cross the realities, and cross the other anchor, and reach her. It was a nice thought.

She smiled in the darkness. That was a pun, maybe: a nice thought of hers, and a very nice and powerful thought of Seqiro’s, if it had reached her across those realities.

She drifted back to sleep, satisfied.

THEY wasted no time in the morning. They ate a solid breakfast and headed out to the anchor. They passed through it without difficulty; this one had no animus magic bollixing it. They were back on the Virtual Mode.

Provos lost her certainty. She had remembered the events of the prior day, but now it was past and she had forgotten them. She had no memory of the realities they passed in seconds, and had to enter a reality in which they were going to remain before her memory came. Before, she had known she had to go home for supplies; that had perhaps not been memory so much as common sense. Now she had only memory, and it wasn’t enough.

It was time for Colene to take the lead. She knew where she was going: Earth. It was her home, and she could orient on it more readily than Provos could. She had no memory of the trip there, because it was in her near future, but her knowledge of her purpose guided her.

She oriented, and felt the faint Rightness that was the direction of her anchor. “This way, Provos,” she said, assuming command.

But almost before she took the first step, she paused. If they went directly to Earth, not passing Go or collecting $200, they would walk smack back into that sea that had balked them before. They couldn’t go that way.

Colene pondered. There was more than one way to go. They could move to the side, seeking to get around the sea. Or they could circle the Virtual Mode the other way. Any Virtual Mode, Darius had explained, was like a circle, or rather a pentagon, anchored by five connections. The lines of awareness tended to follow the edge of it; maybe it was the edge she sensed, rather than her home reality. If she followed the edge the opposite way, eventually she could complete the circuit and reach Earth. It was inevitable. It might take longer, but it made sense, because there should be no sea. Maybe. She hoped.

She reoriented. She felt a fainter rightness in the opposite direction. “No, this way,” she said.

Provos had already shrugged, accepting it. She lacked the memory to argue. Colene had not argued when they were in Provos’ world, for similar reason.

They set off, marching through the changing forest. At times animals flicked into view, spooking at the sudden presence of the two human beings, and flicking out of view again as the two strode on across the next invisible boundary. This was a weirdness to which Colene had become accustomed; in fact she rather enjoyed it. But she knew it could be dangerous, and kept alert.

The landscape changed. The hills and valleys became ridges and furrows, crossed by right-angled ridges and furrows, as if some giant cookie-cutter had shaped the terrain. The trees became lumps of colored protoplasm. When some developed tentacles, Colene got increasingly nervous. She had them pause to take out knives they had bought, and they held them in their hands as they walked. The thing was that if a tentacle grabbed a person, that person might not be able to escape it by stepping across the next boundary. Because the tentacle would hold that person right there in that reality. So they needed to be sure they had at least five feet of freedom, so they could reach the boundary forward or behind. A quick cut at a tentacle might make the difference.

The tentacular trees faded, replaced by blocks of wood which then became metal. Colene did not feel easy about these either, remembering what Darius had said about machine realities which had almost trapped him and Provos. Provos would not remember, because that was in her past. Damn!

But the metal lumps diminished in size, and the landscape became a kind of plain, not quite level, with lines crisscrossing it, like a sheet of graph paper or a diagram of stress vectors. Suddenly cubistic creatures appeared—and disappeared as Colene and Provos hastily stepped into the next reality. Nimble feet were a great asset on the Virtual Mode.

They stopped to have lunch. It was safe, because Provos remembered that it was, and the meal was good. The woman might remember backwards, but she was competent. Colene wondered again why the woman had left her home to risk the Virtual Mode, and wished she possessed the ability to ask. But that concept was too complicated to convey. Provos just seemed to be here because she was here.

The graph paper humped and distorted, becoming more normal hills and valleys. Moss appeared, which grew by reality stages into shrubs and small trees and then full-sized trees and then giant trees reminiscent of those on Jupiter in the Julia reality. Then these twisted into tentacular monsters, making Colene nervous again. But they remained trees, not grabbing at anyone, and there were birds’ nests in their heights. Big ones. In fact something frighteningly large appeared, with a wing span of perhaps a hundred feet. A reality in which the fantastic roc birds existed? Why not; anything was possible, in some reality.

Colene was interested in the way realities seemed to be contiguous. Adjacent ones were similar to each other, changing by small stages. Such changes might seem rapid when a person was crossing a reality every two seconds, but that meant about thirty realities a minute, and a lot could shift by then. So they had the partial security of seeing new things coming, and if the trend seemed bad, they could go another way and try to avoid it, or slow down and proceed very carefully. So far they had been lucky; the terrain had been mostly innocuous or avoidable.

Then something sinister started. It wasn’t anything in the scenery, which was reasonably ordinary. It was something in Colene’s feeling. Something ugly was festering. Was she turning suicidal again?

She glanced at Provos—who was already looking at her. Then Colene realized that the ugliness was being transmitted from the other woman’s mind.

Provos put her hands to her head as if to squeeze something out. Colene picked up the woman’s alarm. This wasn’t something in Provos, it was something being forced on her. Something mental, like a nightmare.

Colene took the woman’s arm and urged her across the next boundary. It didn’t help. Now it was plain that some mental thing, perhaps like a telepathic horse, had fixed on Provos and was turning her mind into horror.

They stepped back into the prior reality, but it didn’t help. This was something that crossed realities. Seqiro had been able to do that, when contacting Colene the first time; she had found him physically by orienting on him mentally. There were many telepathic animals, in their various realities. This must be a telepathic slug or mindworm, feeding off the thoughts of other creatures, or perhaps driving them to it so it could feed on them physically.

“We’ve got to get out of its range,” Colene said. She would not have understood what was wrong with Provos if she had not been able to read the mind horror directly. Since Colene’s ability was as yet vestigial, it was surely much worse for Provos herself. The woman wasn’t used to mental ugliness. Colene had had some experience, because of her own suicidal depression. Maybe that was why she was more resistant to this attack; the monster preferred healthy minds.

They ran on, and the realities changed, becoming crystalline and mountainous, with sharp little crystals underfoot. Colene was glad now for the knee-length boots. But they could not escape the mind predator, whose strength kept growing. Provos was almost unfunctional, responding only to Colene’s direct hauling on her arm. Maybe the thing didn’t need to bring its victims to it physically; maybe it could just suck out the mind across the realities. This was a new kind of threat, but as bad as any.

The hills became mountains, and the mountains mesas, with flat tops high up. Colene and Provos were in a valley channel, crunching blue, red, green, and yellow crystals with each step. In the sky were pastel-colored clouds. Suddenly Colene recognized this type of scene, from what Darius had told her: this was his home reality! They were approaching his anchor.

“We’ve got to get out of the Virtual Mode!” Colene gasped. “There’s an anchor close by! Come on!” She dragged the woman along, still orienting on the faint rightness that was the route to an anchor. Had the mind-thing been attacking Colene herself, she wouldn’t have been able to do it, for the horror would have blotted out the awareness. That had happened to Provos; Colene could feel it.

They ran on. Provos stumbled, and fell, and Colene fell with her, dragged down by her own hold on the woman. Pain lanced through them both: the sharply pointed crystals had stabbed through their clothing and punctured their skins.

Colene scrambled up, cutting her hand in the process, and lifted on Provos, who seemed not to feel the physical pain. Blood was flowing, soaking their clothing, but they couldn’t worry about that. “On! On!” Colene cried. And in the back of her mind she realized that this was the first time in a long time that her blood had flowed when she hadn’t cut herself. When she wasn’t being suicidal.

The rightness became so strong that Colene realized that they must be at the verge of the anchor. But they weren’t physically on it; they were to one side. Where was it?

With horror of another kind she realized that it had to be up on one of the mesas. They had to climb to the top. But how could they? The sides were so steeply angled that they were cliff-like.

“Come on!” Colene cried, hauling Provos after her as she circled the most promising mountain. It wasn’t big around the base, but they did cross several reality boundaries in the process.

Then Colene found what she had hardly dared hope for: ladder steps. There were people here, and they did come down off their platforms sometimes, so they had made notches in the stone. In fact there were parallel series, so that one person could climb while another descended.

“Up!” Colene cried, shoving the woman at the right-side ladder and taking the left herself. Colene climbed a few rungs. “Up! Up! It’s the only escape!”

Provos stared at her vaguely, preoccupied by the torment within. Colene tried again. She put all her strength into trying to project her thought mentally. Up! Escape the monster! Up!

It got through. Provos grasped a rung and hauled. Once started, she moved rapidly; she was used to vertical houses and in good condition for climbing. Colene had to scramble to keep up.

Gasping, they reached the top. The mesa was only a few feet across, roughly circular, and it was empty. Had they come up here for nothing? No, the anchor had to be here.

Colene took Provos' arm. She stepped to the center of the circle.

Reality changed. Not on this mesa, but on the adjacent one, whose top was about sixty feet away across the chasm between them. It now had a house. Or perhaps a castle, girt by a small forest.

Colene stepped toward it, still holding Provos, passing through the anchor. Suddenly the horror in Provos’ mind abated. They had escaped the monster!

But that monster would surely catch Provos again if she stepped back into the Virtual Mode. They had to hide here for a while, until the thing lost interest.

Where could they go? They could not reach the larger mesa, unless they climbed down the cliff and walked back through the crystalline valley. They were already bleeding from their prior tangle with those crystals.

But this was Darius’ reality. Magic worked here. There would be people who could help. All she had to do was get their attention. She hoped.

Colene waved at the other mesa. “Help!” she cried.

To her gratified surprise, it worked. A man appeared at the brink of the other mesa, looking across at her. He seemed surprised. She could pick it up in his mind as well as his expression.

“I’m Colene!” she cried. Then she had a better idea. “Darius!”

“Darius!” the man echoed. And disappeared.

But in a moment he was back, with a woman. The woman studied them, and Colene felt an odd but not alien touch on her mind.

The woman consulted with the man. Then both of them jumped across the gulf to land on the small mesa with Colene and Provos. Magic, indeed!

“I’m Colene, Darius’ friend,” Colene said. “This is Provos, also his friend. We are trying to help him, but need help ourselves.” Could they understand her? She feared they could not, because that wasn’t their kind of magic. But they should know Darius, and know about the Virtual Mode.

“Colene,” the woman echoed. She was perhaps forty, but in good condition. She wore a tunic, and under it showed the bulge of her huge diapers. Grown women wore diapers here, Colene remembered, to conceal their sexual attributes. “Provos.” She did understand that much. Then she pointed to the man: “Cyng Pwer.” And to herself. “Prima.”

“Prima!” Colene echoed. The one whom Darius had rescued from the captivity of the dragons, and whom he would marry, so that Colene could be his mistress. Odd as it seemed, this was no rival, but an important and vital friend, for marriage to Darius would kill Colene.

Prima brought out a little figurine that was made up to look like herself. The Cyng did the same, with his looking like him. Then each brought out another doll, a blank one, and quickly doctored them to resemble Colene and Provos. Colene obligingly provided a hair, some spit, and a breath, and Provos did the same. This was a type of magic they understood.

Prima took Colene’s hand, and the Cyng of Pwer took Provos’ hand. Provos, freed of the attack by the mind-monster, was now remembering her coming experience in this reality, and understood. Perhaps better than Colene did. Prima and the Cyng moved the figures.

There was a wrenching, and Colene found herself standing on the larger mesa. This was Darius’ way, all right!

They walked into the Cyng’s castle/house. There pretty young women came to attend to the visitors. Colene and Provos were taken into a separate chamber, stripped, washed, touched with unguent, and magically healed of their cuts. Then, dressed in local tunics, slippers, and diapers—Colene knew better than to balk at this, apart from Provos’ acceptance of it—they emerged to join their hosts.

Or rather, to separate. The King of Power was seated in a comfortable chair, and Provos went to join him. Prima led Colene outside. Colene glanced once at Provos, saw that she was satisfied, and knew that it was all right. They would rejoin and resume their travel in due course. They were simply being offered separate accommodations.

Prima took Colene’s hand and icon, and conjured the two of them to another mesa and castle. “Cyng Hlahtar,” she explained.

The residence of the King of Laughter! This was where Darius lived—and where Colene would also, once she and Darius both got here. This was fascinating.

The current King of Laughter was a huge red-bearded man. He was actually the former king, who had returned to take Darius’ place while Darius was on the Virtual Mode. His name was Kublai.

Then Colene learned that Prima was Kublai’s wife, but not his love. His love was his former wife, Koren, who was a beautiful young woman not a lot older than Colene, and whose barely concealed bitterness immediately endeared her to Colene. Koren had had to give up her husband, whom she loved, so that he could return to being the King of Laughter and marry Prima. This was because it was necessary for the king to deplete the joy of his wife, eventually discarding her when she had no more joy to give. Prima could handle it; Koren could not. Koren thought that Colene was luckier, and she resented it.

That was one thing Colene could deal with. She understood Keren’s situation a whole lot better than the other woman thought she did.

Colene approached Kublai. “Please, Colene, Koren, put us together,” she said. “Mind to mind.” She knew it wasn’t the same as what Seqiro did, but there were aspects of similarity. “Show her my joy.”

Kublai looked at Prima. Prima said something in their language. She evidently had a notion what Colene was asking.

Kublai nodded. He came to embrace Colene. Colene focused on her internal state, making no effort to suppress the several facets of her feeling: her depressive state, her love for Darius, and her somewhat bitter compromise with her dream: she could love but not marry Darius, for he would marry Prima.

Then Kublai drew from her. It was a terrible, sinking feeling, and Colene thought she would die, literally. In an instant he restored what he had taken, almost. She felt like living again. This was what he did: he took what feeling was in a woman, multiplied it, and sent it out to everyone, including that woman, so that all shared her joy. Except that Colene had not joy but depression to give.

Kublai stepped away from her. That was all. He had done it. Koren understood exactly how Colene felt, because she had received it.

Koren stared at Colene. Now she knew: their situations were exactly similar. Only their men differed—and those men were to have the same wife, Prima, whom neither loved. The two young women were not rivals or enemies, they were victims of the situation. They were sisters in misery and love.

The tears started so suddenly that it was as if someone had dashed a tiny cup of water in Keren’s face. Colene held open her arms, and Koren stepped into them, hugging her.

After that, it was easy. They had no common language, but hardly needed it. Colene was able to pick up what she needed from their minds to get along. She made clear by signals and nods, sometimes twenty-questions type, what she was doing: going home to her reality, to get information she needed to rescue Darius from being stranded in yet another reality.

With, she added sourly, a lovely woman and Colene’s beloved horse.

Koren became positively friendly. She had not before had any acquaintance who understood her situation so perfectly, and it was a great relief to her. She hoped Colene would succeed in bringing Darius safely back, not just because that would allow Kublai to retire and marry Koren again, but because she wanted to be Colene’s friend and companion. Colene liked that notion; it would certainly make her life here easier. But she doubted that anything so nice and simple could come to pass. The Virtual Mode was a sterner taskmaster than that.

But Prima, too, was friendly. She remained most grateful to Darius for rescuing her, and she liked her role as wife to the man she had loved in her youth. That was part of Keren’s problem: she suspected that Kublai’s marriage was not quite as loveless as it was supposed to be. The whole business of Darius’ departure and Prima’s return messed up her formerly idyllic life, and she wanted only to get it put back together the way it once had been. But Prima was reconciled to her situation, and knew how much worse it would have been had Darius not ventured on the Virtual Mode. She had wanted to be the King of Laughter herself, having the special ability for it, but had been denied it because she was a woman. Now she had a portion of it, and would retain that portion if Colene came here. Colene, being depressive, represented less of a threat to her than anyone else.

Koren took Colene out to see the sights: the many mesas, with their separate domiciles of all types, and their elaborate gardens, and the colored clouds which came to nourish those plants. The myriad crystals of the lowlands, reflecting and refracting multicolored splays of light up. The forms of sympathetic magic, which enabled the folk to conjure things or themselves to familiar places. The animals and birds peculiar to this region.

“I love it!” Colene said.

But all this was in her future. First she had to return to Earth, and then to Oria. She had to enable Nona to bring the anima. Only then could they all come here to this marvelous magical land and live happily ever after. Who could say that the authorities would not suffer some change of heart, and allow Prima to assume the role for which she was qualified, freeing Darius to marry Colene just as Darius’ return would free Kublai to marry Koren? It was worth dreaming about. If she could just accomplish her present mission.

She slept in a pleasant bedchamber by herself, declining the offer of a handsome young man to be her companion for the night. Even this aspect of this society was clarifying for her: love, sex, and marriage were three different things, and not necessarily found together. Colene was Darius’ love; neither of the other two changed that. She had met Ella, Darius’ bedmate on off nights; she was pretty, pleasant, bouncy, enthusiastic, and not phenomenally smart. So if Darius married Prima and took off Ella’s diaper, Colene would still be his love. That was what counted.

In the morning, she bid farewell to Koren. “I hope we meet again,” she said. She looked around. “The same for everything and everyone here. It’s a better world than mine.”

Then Prima conjured her back to the residence of the Cyng of Pwer, where Provos was waiting. Provos was in her normal outfit, but Colene had elected to stay with the local clothing, even the diaper. It made her feel closer to Darius.

They went to the anchor and ventured cautiously through, ready to retreat if the mind-monster still lurked. It was clear. The monster must have given up and sought other prey. It might return, but with luck they would be well clear by then. They were on their way again, this time to Earth.