Aurora in Four Voices Read Free Page B

black marble no human hand had ever before touched. Back in his rooms, he fashioned it into a bird with its wings spread wide, taloned feet beneath its body, supported by a stand carved from the same stone. Next he made clay copies of it. He spent several years cutting facets into the copies, redoing them until he was satisfied. Then he carved the facets into the statue and inlaid them with crystalline glitter.
    Dreamers used elegant mathematical theories to design their creations. Jato knew his was simple in comparison. The geometry of the facets specified a fugue in four voices, each voice an aspect of his life: loss, of his home and life on Sandstorm; beauty, as in the stark glory of Nightingale; loneliness, his only companion here; and the dawn, which he would never again see.
    Holding the statue, he lay down in bed and fell asleep.
The bird sang a miraculous fugue, creating all four voices at once. Jato held it as he ran through Nightingale. The pursuing Mandelbrot drone gained ground, until finally it whirred around in front of him. Fractals swirled off its surface and turned into braided steel coils. They wrapped around his body, crushing his chest and arms, silencing the bird. He reeled under the icy stars and fell across the first step of the SquareCase.
    He wrestled with the coils until he worked his arms free, easing the pressure on the bird. It sang again and its voice rose to the stars on wings of hope.
    The fractal coils fell away from his body. As Jato stood up, the spacer appeared, walking out of the shadows that cloaked the SquareCase. She toed aside the coils and they melted, their infinitely repeating patterns blurred into pools of glimmering silver. The bird continued to sing, its fugue curling around them in a mist of notes.
    The spacer stopped only a pace away. Her eyes were a deep green, dappled like a forest, huge and dark. She brushed her fingers across his lips. Jato put his hand on her back, applying just enough to pressure to make the decision hers; stay where she was, or step forward and bring her body against his.
    She stepped forward. . . .
    The Whisper Inn was a round building, graceful in the night. Holding his bundle, Jato stood at its door, an arched portal bordered by glimmering metal tiles.
    "Open," he said.
    Nothing happened.
    He tried again. "Open."
    Swirling lines and speckles appeared on the door and a holo formed, an amber rod hanging in front of the door. A curve appeared by the rod and rotated around it, sweeping out a shape. When it finished, a vase hung in the air with the rod piercing its center. Soothing pastel patterns swirled on the image.
    "Solid of revolution complete," the door said. "Commence integration."
    "What?" Jato asked. No door had ever asked him to "commence integration" before.
    "Shall I produce a different solid?" it asked.
    "I want you to open."
    Silver and black swirls suffused the vase. "You must calculate the volume of the solid."
    "How?"
    "Set up integral. Choose limits. Integrate. Computer assistance will be required."
    "I have no idea how to do that."
    "Then I cannot unlock."
    Jato scratched his chin. "I know the volume of a box."
    The vase faded and a box appeared. "Commence integration."
    "Its volume is width times height times length."
    Box and rod disappeared.
    "Open," Jato said.
    Still no response.
    Jato wondered if the Innkeeper had his door vex all visitors this way. Then again, Dreamers would probably enjoy the game.
    "Jato?" the door asked.
    "Yes?"
    "Don't you want to enter?"
    He made an exasperated noise. "Why else would I say 'Open'?"
    Box and rod reappeared. "Commence integration."
    "I already did that."
    "I seem to be caught in a loop," the door admitted.
    Jato smiled. "Are you running a new program?"
    "Yes. Apparently it needs more work." The door slid open. "Please enter."
    Muted light from laser murals lit the lobby. As the floor registered his weight, soft bells chimed. Fragrances wafted in the air, turning sharp and then sweet in periodic