Aurora in Four Voices Read Free

angles, giving them elliptical, parabolic, and hyperbolic cross-sections.
    "Circle today," Crankenshaft said. Then he headed across the drafty studio to a console in the corner where the two holo-walls met.
    Jato looked at Silicate and she looked back, as cool and as smooth as stone. Then she too walked away, leaving the studio via a slit in a thermoplastic wall.
    A gust rumpled Jato's hair and he shivered, wrapping his arms around his body. "Do you have a jacket?" he asked.
    Crankenshaft didn't answer, he just stooped over his console and went to work. So Jato waited, trying to clear out the haze left in his mind by the sedative.
    A globe nudged his shoulder. When he stayed put, it pushed harder. "Flame off," he muttered.
    A syringe extended out of the globe.
    Still intent on his console, Crankenshaft said, "It shoots a heat stimulant. A strong specimen such as yourself might tolerate it for ten minutes before going into shock."
    Jato scowled. Where did Crankenshaft come up with this sick stuff? He looked at the globe, at Crankenshaft, at the globe again. With Crankenshaft he used care in choosing his battles. This one wasn't worth it.
    He took off his boots and went to the pool. The knee-deep water was cool today, but at least no ice crusted the surface. He waded to the truncated cone and climbed up onto it, then sat cross-legged, hugging his arms to his chest for warmth.
    "Move ten centimeters to the north," Crankenshaft said.
    Jato moved over. "Can you warm it up in here?"
    Crankenshaft sat down at his console, concentrating on whatever he was doing. So Jato moved to the south side of the cone.
    Crankenshaft looked around. "Move to the other side."
    "Turn on the heat," Jato said.
    "Move."
    "After you turn on the heat."
    Stalemate.
    Reaching back to the console, Crankenshaft touched a panel. A globe whirred behind Jato and he heard a syringe hiss. Heat flared in his biceps, spreading fast, up his shoulder and down his arm.
    "Hot enough?" Crankenshaft asked.
    It was excruciating, but Jato had no intention of letting on how much it bothered him. He simply shrugged. "What will you do? Put your model into shock because he objects to freezing?"
    A muscle under Crankenshaft eye twitched. He went back to work, ignoring Jato again. However, the room warmed and the burning in Jato's muscles cooled. Either Crankenshaft had lied or else the drone had delivered an antidote with the poison, probably in a bio-sheath that dissolved after a few minutes in the blood.
    Over the next few hours the wind dried Jato's clothes. Silicate came in once to bring Crankenshaft a meal on a stone platter. Jato wondered about her, always attentive, always silent. Did she create her own art? Most Dreamers did, even those who worked other jobs. Silicate's only occupation seemed to be waiting on Crankenshaft. But then, Jato doubted Crankenshaft would tolerate artistic competition in his own household.
    Finally Crankenshaft stood up, rolling his shoulders to ease the muscles. "You can go," he said, and left the studio.
    Just like that. You can go. Get out of my house. Clenching his teeth, Jato slid off the cone and limped across the pool, sore from sitting so long. After coaxing his boots on under his wet trousers, he went to a door in the corner of the studio where the window-wall met one of the thermoplastic walls.
    Icy wind greeted him outside. He stood at the top of a staircase that spiraled down the cliff Crankenshaft owned. The city glimmered far below, and beyond it ragged mountains stretched into the darkness. Millennia ago a marauding asteroid had struck the planet, distorting it into a blunt teardrop that lay on its side, its axis pointed at Quatrefoil, the star it orbited. Although Ansatz was almost tidally locked with Quatrefoil, it wobbled enough so most of its surface received at least a little sunlight. Night reigned supreme only here in this small region around the pole.
    Crankenshaft's estate was high enough to touch the transition zone