Fractal Mode

Chapter 27

But there was no picture of Seqiro. Evidently they didn"t think the horse was important. How little they knew!

A picture of the man on the largest throne appeared. "King Lombard," Hobard said. The word for king was foreign, but Seqiro translated it. Maybe it was dictator or monarch or muck-a-muck or chicken-manure; it didn"t matter. This was the head despot.

Lombard? Colene stifled a giggle. There was a special lexicon of colloquial acronyms, back in her subculture on Earth, and one of these was LOMBARD: Lots of Money but a Real Dickhead. Well, maybe that was the case here. Lombard was also a Germanic tribe that invaded Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire. That, too, might fit.

Then the chief woman: "Queen Glomerula." Colene kept a straight face; this was the one who was going to try to seduce Darius! Was it her imagination, or was the woman a nymphomaniac? She enjoys playing with unfamiliar men, Seqiro clarified. This is the impression Hobard has. She seduced him some time ago, then lost interest. The king is tolerant, since his own interest is in helpless theow girls. The king and queen consider it bad form to be stuck with each other for entertainment. The horse was merely reporting Hobard"s private assessment, but Colene found it hilarious, except that the queen"s next target was Colene"s man. She also found it funny that the queen"s name in translation sounded something like an aspect of a kidney. She"d love to give the queen a kidney disease!

Finally "Knave Naylor," the one who was going to try to r**e Colene herself. Colene kept her face straight. He looked sinister to her, a knave indeed. But he was going to have a rude surprise when he tried to tackle this supposedly innocent visiting maiden.

Hobard appeared again in the image. Beside him formed a picture of a neat house on a hill. The picture drew away, and landscape appeared between the house and the man. Hobard spoke, saying his name and several other words. He is from Hillside Acres, some distance west of here, Seqiro clarified.

Now the group of them appeared. "Darius, Proves, Colene, from where?" Hobard asked.

They pretended to be slow to understand, which was reasonable enough, while they consulted mentally with each other. This was a straightforward question, but difficult to answer, assuming they wanted to give such information. How could they clarify that they were not only from three different places but from three different realities, and the horse from a fourth? That they had traveled through the Virtual Mode, which was a kind of temporary reality anchored at each of then-homes, crossing other realities at ten-foot intervals, so that things could change abruptly with a single step forward? That the people, geography, and fundamental natural laws changed with each reality, so that in some animals were telepathic while in others there was super- science that allowed gravity cancellation or travel at many times the velocity of light? That Darius could perform a kind of magic in his reality, while Proves remembered the future and not the past? That each of them was associated with his/her anchor, which was both place and person, and that they could get off the Virtual Mode only