Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 382
Ka drifted from room to room, reporting what it saw. Its
habit was to hover at least a meter above the heads of the
empty ones, because a randomly swung arm could smash it.
This had happened to more than one of its previous bodies. Ka
was in its own way proud that it had survived in this one for
thirty years now.
Desal 463 did not mind Ka’s servitude to the magician.
Neither did Ka. Its patrol was the market anyway, where it
hunted for ecological deviations. The entire city hovered on
the edge of abomination, but the empty ones had learned
scrupulous cleanliness over the centuries. Every now and then,
however, some visitor imported something outside the
terraforming mandate --petroleum, crude electric devices, most
recently some cheerfully glowing radioactives stolen from a
fallen aerostat--and it was Ka’s job to find the offending
substance. Then other agents of the desal would act,
recovering the deviation and generally killing any empty ones
associated with it. Empty ones made good fertilizer when they
died; it neatly balanced the equation.
The being who had called it forth from the market was
something else entirely. Its voice had the power to compel in a
way the magician’s could not. As far as Ka was concerned, it
was a Wind.
"Tell me what you see," it said now.
"I can relay the information directly to your sensorium, if
you wish," said Ka.
"What? What do you mean? Show me."
Ka beamed an image of the corridor to the waiting Wind.
"Ah! Stop it!"
"As you wish."
"Um... can you do that with hearing? Can I hear what’s