Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 488
the floor was scattered with chunks large and small.
Thousands of small black sticks lay everywhere too.
Jordan wiped his fingers across the surface he was sitting
on, and licked them. "Salt," he said to himself in sudden
understanding.
Tamsin gave a sudden shriek and pointed. Jordan turned.
A dead morph lay like a heap of sodden laundry not three
meters away. Beyond it Jordan saw skittering movement. It
took him a few seconds to realize that what he had taken to be
sticks was actually hundreds, maybe thousands of small rock
lizards, like the ones he had seen sunning themselves in the
desert. They were scrambling around trying to escape the
light; or maybe they ran like this all the time.
"What’s with the lizards?" Again Tamsin beat him to the
question.
"Mediation makes a new breed," said the desal.
"So your name is Mediation?"
"No. `My’ name is desal 447. Mediation is the current
plan."
Jordan shook his head, this time in bewilderment. "And
what about the morph? Did you kill it?"
"Yes. It is within the mandate of Mediation."
Jordan stood up carefully, minding his throbbing head.
Now that he knew there were little monsters scampering
everywhere, the floor didn’t seem quite so comfortable.
"There’s no mecha here at all, is there?" he asked.
"No. The Ventus worldbuilding mechanisms do not
interpenetrate."
"And you block all the--" what had Calandria called
them?-- "signals going and coming in here?"
"This chamber is radio and EPR silent, yes."
"So why are we hostages?" asked Tamsin.