Fractal Mode

Chapter 23

mental picture of planets strung together like beads, the string between them winding in fancy patterns. Obviously not the same thing. Primitive mythology, perhaps.

"You do not understand?" Stave asked, picking up her return thought. "How can you not, since you come from another world?"

"My world is the same as yours, only not the same," she said. "It is in a different plane of reality. So it has different people, and maybe different geography, and different laws of nature, but it is not removed in space or time from yours, exactly. We have established a Virtual Mode, with Nona as an anchor person."

He shook his head. "That is beyond my understanding!"

"Just as your concept is beyond mine," she said. "Later on we"ll get together and hassle this out. For now, just accept the fact that we are stranger to you than we look. We"ll just follow you up to the castle, and you do your duty and turn us in, and go away. We"ll get in touch with you later."

Stave wasn"t satisfied with that. "The despots may mean you ill. They treat everyone with contempt. Do not trust them."

"We don"t," she assured him. "We can read their minds." Only if they allow it, Seqiro reminded her.

Oops! She had become so accustomed to the free expression among the four of them- herself, Darius, Provos, and Seqiro-that she had forgotten this was because they were all willing. A person could close his mind, if he knew how, and strangers tended to be closed anyway, because they were apt to be suspicious or hostile.

"But they will want to communicate with us, to question us," Darius said. "Therefore they will open their minds as we become responsive."

She nodded. That made sense. "But how do they treat horses?" she asked Stave.

"Well, if they are docile. But once they take your horse, they will not give him back unless you satisfy them that you are despots from another center."

"Another center?" Darius asked.

"There are hundreds of despot territories, all across the planet," Stave explained. "All oppress their theows similarly, and though they may contest with each other for dominance, they are united against theows. Only a despot has any rights, in his home territory or when traveling through others."

Colene patted Seqiro on the shoulder. "They will not take this horse." Nevertheless, she suffered a qualm. She had had some experience with a despotic regime.

Proves laughed. "They try!" she said.