Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds

Author:Alastair Reynolds [Reynolds, Alastair]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-12-30T11:12:43+00:00

Despite her injuries she helped us on the retreat.

I was able to stumble from room to room, balancing myself against the wall and hopping on my good leg. I had lost no great quantity of blood, for while I had suffered one or two gashes from close approaches of the pendulum, my limbs had been detached below the points where they were anchored to flesh and bone. But I still felt the shivering onset of shock, and all I wanted to do was make it out of the Spire, back to the sanctuary of the shuttle. There, I knew, Trintignant could make me whole again. Human again, for that matter. He had always promised it would be possible, and while there was much about him that I did not like, I did not think he would lie about that. It would be a matter of professional pride that his work was technically reversible.

Celestine carried Childe, tucked under her arm. What remained of him was very light, she said, and he was able to cling to her with his undamaged forepaws. I felt a spasm of horror every time I saw how little of him there was, while shuddering to think how much more intense that spasm would have been were I not already numbed by the medichines.

We had made it back through perhaps one third of the rooms when he slithered from her grip, thudding to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Celestine asked.

“What do you think?” He supported himself by his forelimbs, his severed trunk resting against the ground. The wound had begun to close, I saw, his diamond skin puckering tight to seal the damage.

Before very long he would look as if he had been made this way.

Celestine took her time before answering, “Quite honestly, I don’t know what to think.”

“I’m going back. I’m carrying on.”

Still propping myself against a wall, I said, “You can’t. You need treatment. For God’s sake; you’ve been cut in half.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Childe said. “All I’ve done is lose a part of me I would have been forced to discard before very long. Eventually the doors would have been a tight squeeze even for something shaped like a dog.”

“It’ll kill you,” I said.

“Or I’ll beat it. It’s still possible, you know.” He turned around, his rear part scraping against the floor, and then looked back over his shoulder. “I’m going to retrace my steps back to the room where this happened. I don’t think the Spire will obstruct your retreat until I step—or crawl, as it may be—into the last room we opened. But if I were you, I wouldn’t take too long on the way back.” Then he looked at me, and again switched on the private frequency. “It’s not too late, Richard. You can still come back with me.”

“No,” I said. “You’re wrong. It’s much too late.”

Celestine reached out to help me make my awkward way to the next door. “Leave him, Richard. Leave him to the Spire. It’s what he’s always wanted, and he’s had his witnesses now.

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