Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 569
appeared I had to sacrifice myself for her temporary survival.
I found my shot, and clipped the top from the aerostat. It
screamed outrage on numerous frequencies, and I heard the
swans respond. They normally made a giant invisible shell
orbiting around the planet, billions of black cables absorbing
energy from the sun and the planet’s magnetic field. I had
been able to thread my way among them before, and they
obliged as in a game; the swans sang as they swayed aside, and
when two or more met they were liable to twine together in a
burst of energy, and form fantastical shapes, like beasts or
birds, or their favorite, winged women. To orbit Ventus is to
sail a river of song, where apparitions rise and shimmer and
vanish behind.
Now, enraged, they made a net, and the net appeared as
an angel with a flaming sword.
It’s an instinct, said Marya. Part of their original
programming is to make these shapes from EuroAmerican
mythology. The Ventus terraforming team were insane.
Or brilliant, countered Axel.
I, designed to resemble a bird of fire sixty meters long,
would have appeared as small as one of this creature’s fingers.
It used the shear and pull of magnetic forces among its
countless threadlike members to wrap me in a bundle of fibre,
like a black spiderweb.
I tried to signal my captain, but the crisscross of threads
made a Faraday cage that my signal could not penetrate. The
swans had me, and according to everything I knew about them,
that meant I was to be destroyed.
There had been no time to signal any of the other craft in
the system. I had no way of knowing if any had seen my
capture. That meant my captain’s insurance claim might be
difficult to process. I was unable to pursue my main purpose