Aestival Tide

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Book: Read Aestival Tide for Free Online
Authors: Elizabeth Hand
Once inside, the rickshaw jounced as the transportation chamber moved, the worn-out gears turning with a deafening squeal as they dropped, level by level. Ceryl winced and covered her ears. The narrow windows darkened as the chamber passed through Dominations, Virtues, Powers. When the doors opened on Principalities, the rickshaw shuddered out onto an avenue in such disrepair that some of its sidewalk plates bounced up behind them, jangling like broken glass. A hazy crimson light suffused everything, rising from the refineries on Archangels. Here on Principalities there was the stench to contend with as well. Peering through the slats at the rickshaw driver, Ceryl saw that he had pulled a mask over his face. Ceryl covered her nose and coughed. Kef smoke, burning rubber, rancid oil, and fenugreek. Over all a thick smell of the abattoir, of death and blood and singed hair; the smell of the medifacs.
    â€œThere—” Ceryl called out, choking, to the driver. “Stop there by that bonfire—”
    Around the sputtering blaze a half-dozen moujiks were gathered, toasting something on twisted metal skewers and smoking kef. Ceryl gestured at them, pointing at the seat beside her as she leaned over to open the door. As she did so they ran to the cab, pushing her aside as their hands swarmed over the corpse, gabbling in their harsh patois. Ceryl leaned rigidly against the seat, gasping as the last one darted from the cab and followed the others toward the bonfire, all of them clicking their tongues excitedly.
    â€œNow what?” the rickshaw driver sighed as she slammed the door shut. He looked at her wearily through the slats, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth stained red from chewing betel. Ceryl twisted a strand of hair around her finger, glanced up at the Nuclear CLOCK suspended from the Central Quincunx Dome. After eighteen already. She’d skip returning to Thrones, go directly to the vivariums.
    â€œBack to Dominations, I guess,” she sighed. “To my workchambers.”
    The rickshaw driver spat and yawned, then hitched up his poles and began pulling the rickshaw toward the gravator.
    Obviously not everyone had heard of the disaster with last week’s diplomat: several biotechs solicited the gynander on her way to Dominations. Reive turned them down, hoping to find a more affluent patron from a higher level. Finally she consented to the demands of a plum-skinned young man wearing the pink fez and white skirts of the Disciples of Blessed Narouz’s Refinery. He made several lewd suggestions, touching Reive’s penis lightly with a finger. She shook her head—
    â€œWe are celibate,” she said somewhat curtly. Gynanders were sexually immature. They sometimes enjoyed passionate friendships with each other or were adopted by lustful patrons. Otherwise they avoided sensual attachments.
    â€œA reading then—here—” The young man fumbled in the pockets of his loose white skirt and finally came up with a parchment card, imprinted in yellow ink with an invitation to a party that evening on Cherubim Level. “I’ll give you this, I can’t go—”
    When Reive nodded he took her hand, small and pale and limp as her penis, and kissed her palm. Then he recited his dream in low urgent tones.
    Reive listened, eyes closed. The young man finished and fell silent. She breathed deeply, letting his dream speak to her in its own words. From very far away she heard a strange plink… plink… plink, as of water dripping. When she slipped her hand from the boy’s and brought it to her face she could smell, very faintly, the refined petroleum used in Blessed Narouz’s rites. The young man stared at her eagerly.
    â€œThere is a small melanoma within your brain,” she began. “That is the symbolism of the burrowing worm. The girl with no eyes means that you will be refused treatment, because of your affiliation with the new cult. To prevent suffering we

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