He felt—cold wasn’t the word, but a sensation as deep as if freezing water were drawing all the warmth out of his body. There was a thin film between Hansen and everything around him. He felt the pressure of Lea’s hand but not its warmth.
“We’re so sorry,” she said through a corridor of mirrors. “It isn’t a fault in you, Mr. Hansen, but weapons don’t exist here in Diamond.”
She raised onto her toes to kiss him. He couldn’t feel her lips. Everything was becoming gray. He remembered the capsule in which he’d arrived, ash that divided into dust motes as a breeze swept it gently from the promenade.
“Goodby, Mr. Hansen. . . .” called a distant, childish voice.
“And you are a weapon . . . ,” whispered words that were only a shadow in Hansen’s mind as he felt the structure of Diamond interpenetrate him completely and leave only nothingness.
Chapter Six
Rolls found Fortin with his back to an outcrop, looking down the slope and through the shimmering discontinuity to a forest on the Open Lands, the surface which could be reached from any of Northworld’s other planes. Armed figures groped among the dimensionally-distant trees, an army searching for the foe with whom it would fight to decide . . . nothing or everything, a matter of perception.
Fortin was tossing pebbles. They quivered when they struck the discontinuity. Fortin’s arm wasn’t strong enough to hit the warriors from his vantage point, but his tiny missiles flicked snow from the tree branches.
“Planning to visit the colonists?” Rolls said, seating himself beside Fortin. North’s son had surely seen him climbing from the valley below; if he chose to ignore Rolls’ approach, that was merely a ploy—and as such to be ignored.
“Perhaps,” said Fortin without looking around.
He threw another stone. It sparkled and switched planes. By adjusting their vision, the two men could focus on either the stream a thousand meters below in their reality or the snow-wrapped forest and ignorant army. “Do you care, Rolls?”
Rolls chuckled. Seen from this angle, Fortin’s face had the cool perfection of a well-struck medal. “What you plan is no concern of mine, Fortin,” he said. “You know where my interests lie.”
Fortin turned at last to face him. “Whatever I do,” he said, “you’ll know.”
Rolls shifted slightly. “That’s right,” he agreed easily. “You—do things. I observe. Eisner learns.”
The granite ledge on which they sat was flaking; Rolls reached beneath his buttocks to sweep aside some sharp-edged bits. Fortin picked up one of them, looked at it, and dropped it again instead of flinging it through the dimensional barrier.
“Why are you here?” he demanded.
Rolls smiled. “I’d like,” he said, “to borrow Penny’s necklace.”
Fortin began to laugh. He had a tenor voice, as smoothly pleasant as his features—and as cool. “Then you’d better ask Penny, hadn’t you?” he said, looking down for the stone he’d just cast aside.
“I thought perhaps you might help me,” said Rolls.
“Did you?” the half-android remarked without interest. His index finger dug at the ledge, trying idly to worry another bit loose.
“I . . . want to borrow it for only a moment,” Rolls said, trying to keep his voice clear of the concern he was beginning to feel. He had no way to coerce Fortin, and a claim on the halfling’s friendship would be as empty as claiming to be a friend of the Matrix itself.
Though the Matrix was not perverse.
“It’s nothing to me how long you want it,” Fortin said. “Or what you want it for.” He met Rolls’ eyes again.
Rolls grinned. He was willing to bargain with Fortin; for a moment, though, he’d been afraid that there was nothing he could provide that the other wanted.
He should have known better. Schemes filled Fortin the way maggots did a three-days corpse. There was sure to be a scheme which impinged on Rolls or what Rolls could do. . . .
“Yes,” Rolls said, “I can see that.” He settled himself against the crag, closing his eyes to feel the sunlight warm their lids.
“I’ve been thinking of visiting Ruby, you know,” said Fortin in a voice as coolly distant as if it came through the dimensional barrier. “It seems to me that Ruby might have something to do with the problem of nightmares on Diamond.”