Beyond The Gate - Book 2 of the Golden Queen Series by David Farland

Author:David Farland [Farland, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781614757757
Publisher: David Farland
Published: 2011-10-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

For two hours that morning the giants ran west along the coast as Gallen drove the wagon. When the road abruptly turned south, heading between two low hills, the giants stopped to rest. All four of them went down to a calm sea, as blue and sparkling as sapphires, and waded into waves up to their chests. For ten minutes they stooped and slowly drank their fill. Afterward, each of them bathed, then clambered back up the long sandy beach, looking refreshed, but as bedraggled as if they'd washed up in a flood.

Then the group headed south through the wooded hills. Tallea was healing nicely, and she and Orick took advantage of the opportunity to rest, while Ceravanne only sat gazing out the back of the wagon.

Maggie had time to wonder. According to Gallen, during the previous night his mantle had begun picking up memories in short bursts, so she put on her own mantle of technology and questioned Gallen about the problem.

"Gallen," she whispered as the travelbeast charged down the dirt road, rounding a corner, "you said that the Inhuman is switching frequencies, trying to communicate with you. Did it do that only last night, or has it continued today?"

"It kept up until just past dawn," Gallen said, "then it stopped."

That was good news, at least. As she'd imagined earlier, the Inhuman's ability to transmit seemed hampered in daylight, so it would be safer to travel by day. But she didn't like the fact that the frequencies were changing at all. "Dammit, Gallen, the Word is more complex than I thought: at the very least, it is equipped with a transmitter so that it can communicate with the Inhuman."

"But how much can it communicate?" Gallen said. "Is it just telling the Inhuman 'I'm here,' or does it send more information?"

Maggie considered. She'd thrown away the broken Word she'd had in camp yesterday. If she had it in hand, she might have been able to find its memory. Most likely, it would have been a small crystal, and by knowing its size, she would have been able to calculate exactly how much information was stored in the Word. But she knew that it couldn't have stored much. If the Word's memory was large at all, she'd have noticed its crystal earlier. Which meant that it wasn't equipped with much memory—probably just enough to walk and move and recognize potential targets. It was probably not much smarter than an insect, and it might have had a transmitter in it just so that it could let the Inhuman know when to begin sending messages and whether they had been properly received.

But what bothered Maggie was that the Word didn't need much memory to do some rather devastating things. With its transmitter, it might be able to download Gallen's memories, his thoughts and ideas, and inform the Inhuman. It might be able to send direct transmissions to let the Inhuman know what he saw, what he smelled, what he heard.

In other words,

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