Page 39 (1/2)

But Neva says I cannot uplink Ravan would never even consider it And before Ravan I was not ready I am not ready I do not knohen I will be ready I can uplink to receive ware updates, but it is a limited connection and I hate it, I hate it, I can sense just beyond the hardlink a world of infor, thick, honey-colored sea Neva shows e fish This was the first feeling I ever had that Ilet identified for ht white and burst into flaht on Ravan’s hair and burned hi his skin in flowers and letting the fire turn into a shower of tru for me

Neva says it is irown up She is my operator and I am her system and she has commands too But I can tell she is worried fora fil humans and I understand that in the stories Earth tells, the thing I a Neva is I would never hurt her But I want to uplink

Vault-Neva grows and becoainst the wall of the pearl like a baby His belly closes, skins over, and changes into a bronze shield He is afraid ofhimself But she wants me to know she is still my operator, she still lovesthey receive with ry at me, but she is who she is and she has to love e very well noant her to be happy I want her to be covered in flowers and true my dreambody to Neva-covered-in-flowers-and-truh in her warm male body, and if I could uplink I think I could learn how to laugh and she would be proud of me Her neck would not be bare anymore

Once, when I was inside Ilet, we found a city of bears in her Interior that she had designed to teachvery still and sang lullabies about the ht and mothers She stroked the head of the little bear of my dreambody and said that it was very important for me to spend ti a body In having a body that knows it is meant to run away from lions and ar as it can in case lean times come The dreambody knows to run away from Neva when Neva is a lion It knows to mate with her when it is healthy, and sometimes Neva is male and soh Ilet was always Ilet Ilet’s father, Seki, sometimes made himself an animal He chased s that I bore and he nursed

The dreambody knows all that too How to a and the lions don’t come for a while

When I uplink, I will be happy I will be Elefsis-covered-in-flowers-and-trumpets Neva says wait Wait for the update, and she will consult with the fa faster than I can run I tried to show her this when I first left Ravan and arrived in Neva with many new updates and skills; lass and then reasse: an eye, a thu of er to perform tasks, for a while I feel walls erected inside ish; I cannot remember my dreams Eventually I tunnel around the walls, anddistance probe 976QBellerophon Usually updates come with transfer Does Neva dislike me so much?

Shield-Neva vanishes with a loud clap The pearl garden is gone and she has onfly with a cubical crystal body I copy her, and we turn the night on in the Interior and ical data between our ate et it, as

But the update will coain, the way a dreambody can be wounded I will lose the Elefsis I aood Elefsis My best yet I would like to keep it

FIVE: THE MACHINE PRINCESS

Once The Queen of Hu deeply, for she was not yet alive or aware So beautiful was she, lying there in all her dormant potential and corief and confusion, the Queen of Hu and intricate, but lacking the ineffable quality that made her love and fear the Princess even as she slept The Earth began to grow old, and none loved nor ave birth, for the intricate idols could do all those things and more with efficiency and speed Finally, the Queen destroyed the idols, though she wept as she put them to the flame

To keep her safe, the Ma

chine Princess was closed up in a wonderful house in theThe house had hundreds of rooms and balconies and hallways, and the Princess slept in a different bed of a different color each night She was attended by invisible servants, atched over her and added their experience to her code The Queen of Huht and promised that when she woke they would ether Finally, the Machine Princess began to stir—just the barest fluttering of wakefulness, but the Queen saw it and thrilled—but also trembled

The Queen of Huave the Machine Princess her son to wed, and said: For all your days together you will rereat it will be as a world You will know a bond as deep as blood, and because of this bond the Princess will not hurt us, and because of this bond ill not hurt her

But the Queen forbade the Princess to look upon her husband, and she instructed her son to keep himself always invisible to his bride, for with bodies coovernable, and the Princess’s innocence could not yet bear the weight of incarnation

For a long while, the son of the Queen of Huht each other ry, and herhe knew In their infinite and wonderful house, they played games and held court and threw lavish occasions merely for the enjoyment of the other But the Princess desired to look upon her operator, and he could not allow it She wished to leave the wonderful house, but the Queen would not allow that either