Fifty were complete so far. A hundred would be ready by the end of the week. The Docks drifted into night. With its shallow atmosphere, twilight was short, but the colors were spectacular. The beach and the trees glistened in the horizontal rays. The scent of evening flowers mixed with the tang of sea salt. On the far side of the sea,
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mbt lami civiar, all was stark bright and dark, silhouettes that might have been Vrinimi fancies or functional dock equipage -- Ravna had never learned which. The sun slid behind the sea. Orange and red spread along the aft horizon, topped by a wider band of green, probably ionized oxygen. The Riders didn't turn their skrodes for a better view -- for all she knew, they had been looking that way all along -- but they stopped talking. As the sun set, the breakers shattered it into a thousand images, glints of green and yellow through the foam. She guessed the two would have preferred to be out there just now. She had seen them often enough around sunset, deliberately sitting where the surf was hardest. When the water drew back, their stalks and fronds were like supplicants' arms, upstretched. At times like these she could almost understand the Lesser Skroderiders; they spent their whole lives memorizing such repeated moments. She smiled in the greenish twilight. There would always be time enough later to worry and plan. They must have sat like that for twenty minutes. Along the curving line of the beach,
Beats Studio (Gold) Monster Headphones, she saw tiny fires in the gathering dark: office parties. Somewhere very nearby there was the crunch crunch of feet on sand. She turned and saw that it was Pham Nuwen. "Over here," she called. Pham ambled toward them. He'd been very scarce since their last confrontation; Ravna guessed that some of her jibes had struck deep. This once,
Monster Beats By Dr. Dre, I hope Old One made him forget. Pham Nuwen had the potential to be a real person; it hadn't been right to hurt him because his principal was beyond reach. "Have a seat. Galaxy-rise in a half hour." The Skroderiders rustled, so deep into the sunset that they were only now noticing the visitor. Pham Nuwen walked a pace or two beyond Ravna and stood arms akimbo, staring across the sea. He glanced back at her,
beats pro, and the green twilight gave his face an eerie fierceness. He flashed his old,
Beats Studio (Gold) Monster Headphones, lopsided smile. "I think I owe you an apology." Old One's gonna let you join the human race after all? But Ravna was touched. She dropped her eyes from his. "I guess I owe you one too. If Old One won't help, he won't help; I shouldn't have lost my temper." Pham Nuwen laughed softly, "Yours was certainly the lesser error. I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong, and ... I don't think I have time now to learn." He looked back at the sea. After a moment, Ravna stood and stepped toward him. Up close, his stare looked glassy. "What's wrong?" Damn you, Old One. If you're going to abandon him, don't do it in pieces! "You're the great expert on Transcendent Powers, eh?" More sarcasm. "Well --" "Do the big boys have wars?" Ravna shrugged. "You can find rumors of everything. We think there's conflict, but something too subtle to call war." "You're pretty much right. There is struggle, but it has more angles than anything down here. The benefits of cooperation are normally so great that.... That's part of the reason I didn't take the Perversion seriously. Besides, the creature is pitiful: a wimpy cur that fouls its own den. Even if it wanted to kill other Powers, something like that never could.
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