Download Sleeping Beauty - Harper Voyager Books

A flicker of concern over those perfect features. Builder-ghosts werewoven from the story of a person’s life – every detail – extrapolatedfrom a billion seconds of scrutiny. This one I felt had drifted far fromits template, but not so far it couldn’t still know fear.‘Purged?’‘With fire.’ Kalla’s face flickered briefly to a look of horror, returningto its customary serenity a moment later. I wondered fromwhat instant that look had been stolen and what had set it on theface of the real Kalla – flesh and blood and bone like me, dust thesemany centuries. Had the creature before me grown far from its rootsor had Kalla shared this madness? ‘Enough fire to leave these hallshollow and smoking.’‘Better open the fucking door then.’ And I banged the stand inearnest.‘Careful!’ A hand flew to her mouth. ‘There! It’s open!’The hall beyond lay crossed with shadow and lit by irregularpatches of light bright enough to make me squint. Steel tables linedeach wall. A stench of rot filled my nose, along with something sharp,astringent, chemical. Corpses lay on each table. Some in pieces. Somefresh. Some corrupt. Organs floated in glass tubes running fromceiling to floor, threaded with bubbles – hearts, livers, lengths of gut.Behind the table closest to me a metal skeleton, or some close approximation,leaned across yet another corpse. Despite lacking muscleor flesh the thing moved, the cleverly articulated fingers of one handswiftly driving the needle of a drug-vial into vital spots all across thecadaver before it. The other hand moved from unstrapping the remainsto depressing raised bumps on certain mechanisms, replacing sectionsof the body such as the elbow joints. It finished by turning a dial on