Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 54
behind her closed eyelids. The scan was registering all the
evidence of the Winds in this vicinity; mostly, it showed lines
like the ghosts of trees, and the pale undulating sheet of the
ground. But here and there, bright oblongs and snake-shapes
indicated the third of Ventus' divisions of life--the mecha,
distinct from the ordinary flora and fauna.
The scan showed evidence of a morph about three
kilometers south of her, but it was moving away. Still, that
was a bit close for comfort. She hoped it hadn't heard her
transmission to Axel.
She opened her eyes. The scan had shown a very small
mechal life form nearly at her feet. She squatted and shuffled
leaves aside until she spotted it, a nondescript bug form.
Watching it crawl brought a strange sense of betrayal to
mind, as though the world around her were somehow fake. It
wasn't--but of all the planets she had been to, Ventus was
somehow the oddest. Maida had been a world of glaciers and
frozen forests; Birghila was enwrapped in lava seas, with skies
of flame; and Hsing's people lived on a strip of artificial land
hovering in tidal stress thousands of kilometers above the
planet itself. But Ventus seemed so like Earth; it lulled the
visitor, so that when you ran into a morph, or a desal, or
witnessed the serene passage of a vagabond moon or the buzz
and smoke of mecha life forms devouring the bedrock, a kind
of supernatural unease was awakened. She'd felt it when she
first arrived, and watching that little bug, knowing the earth
and air were full of nanotechnology as thickly as with life,
made the prospect of lying down to sleep here unpleasant. The
sooner she accomplished her purpose and left Ventus behind,
the better she'd feel.
There was no indication that any of the nano around her
was aware of her. It should have been; this was the greatest