Bios by Robert Charles Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

metacarbon panels lofting down from orbit on guided parachutes.
    Today was mainly sunny and warm, according to Hayes. Not that she could tell from the timeless monotony of this walkway. “Days like this,” Hayes said, “we often send the dragonfly remensors out.”
    Zoe looked up from her work.
    Hayes said, “Interested?”
    Yes, very much.
    â€œYour file says you can handle this kind of remote. Is that correct?”
    Zoe adjusted the headset to fit her skull. “Yes.”
    â€œAnd you know the terrain?”
    â€œFrom simulations.”
    â€œOkay. We’ll call this a training jaunt. Just keep me in sight at all times and do as I say.”
    Yambuku operated its telepresence devices from a console room no larger than Zoe’s cabin. She was aware of Tam Hayes in the chair next to hers. In Yambuku’s ultraclean environment, odors became more intense. She could smell him—a clean smell, soap and laundered cotton and his own unique scent, like spring hay. And, alas, herself: nervous, eager. She activated the headset and the room fell away from her awareness—though not the scent.
    Hayes activated the remote, and two dragonfly remensors rose from a bay at the periphery of the shuttle dock into the still noon air.
    The remensors’ fragile wings glistened with photoelectric chiton cells, microscopic prisms. Their elongated bodies curled downward for stability as the devices hovered in place.
    Zoe, wrapped in the headset and hands on the controls, saw what her remensor saw: Yambuku from a height, and the wooded rift valley infinitely deep and wide beyond it, an unbroken canopy of green dappled with gentle cloud shadows.
    Her heart hammered. Another wall had fallen. Between herself and Isis there were many walls, but every day fewer, and soon enough, none; soon enough, only the insensible membrane of her excursion suit. The two realms, her Terrestrial ecology of bloodand tissue and the deep Isian biosphere, would come as close to physical contact as technology permitted. She longed to touch her new world, to feel its breezes on her body. The feeling was startling in its intensity.
    Tam Hayes spoke. He was sitting beside her at the console, but his voice seemed to ring out of the bright blue sky. “We’ll take it slowly at first. Follow as close as you can. If you lose sight of my remensor, use the display target to find me. And don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ready, Zoe?”
    Stupidly, she nodded. But with his headset on he could see only her dragonfly remensor, a device identical to his own. “Ready,” she said belatedly. Her hand trembled on the guide stick. Her remensor quivered responsively in the sunlight.
    â€œUp to three thousand meters first. Give you the long view.”
    As quickly as that, Hayes’ remensor spiraled into a vertical ascent. Zoe promptly guided her own dragonfly upward, not following him slavishly but keeping pace, demonstrating her ability. In the upper left corner of her headset an altitude readout flickered ruby iridescence.
    At three thousand meters, they paused. The winds here were stronger, and the dragonfly remensors bobbed like hovering gulls.
    â€œAltitude is the best defense,” Hayes said. “Given the cost of these remotes, we prefer to keep them away from insectivores. The greatest danger is from aviants. Any large bird within a kilometer will toggle a heads-up alert, at least here in the open. Down in the canopy, things are trickier. Keep your distance from trees if at all possible, and stay at least five or six meters off the ground. Basically, stay sharp and watch the telltales.”
    She knew all this. “Where are we going?”
    â€œTo the digger colony. Where else?”
    â€œJust like that?”
    â€œJust like that.”
    Zoe decided she liked this man Tam Hayes.
    The dragonfly remensors relayed only audiovisual information. As they moved westward, there was no physical sensation of