The Paul Di Filippo MEGAPACK ™: 22 Tales of the Fantastic by Paul Di Filippo

Author:Paul Di Filippo [Di Filippo, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: science fiction, short stories., sci-fi, fantasy
ISBN: 9781479404391
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Stopping for a mid-afternoon meal, Ruy felt fully at ease. How different from harried and burdensome life in the city! His second skin kept him comfortable and full of energy, subtly massaging his muscles with waves of microtwitches. No unnatural noises disturbed. The temperate breezes registered like gentle caresses. Rich smells were a symphony.

He did not derive any direct solar-generated sustenance from the Nuvaderm—that option was one token of the dingos—and so an MRE and lots of water went down heartily. Proty took some water through an extruded a-flesh siphon, but seemed otherwise content with sunlight. Big Dog ran on a CNSA-derived radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

After just twenty minutes of meditative inactivity, Ruy got underway again, trekking expertly across the challenging terrain.

The sun was nigh to setting when he came within sight of the first Carbon Spires. Initially, Ruy thought the lofty structures were being tinted by the slanting solar rays. But then he realized the truth. Vast portions of the Spires had been painted, in a mad swirl of abstract shapes and color fields, the purity of their untinted calcium carbonate ruined.

Ruy experienced anger, and picked up his pace. But soon caution prevailed. No sense in bulling ahead uninformed. He decided to deploy Proty as his scout. He sent his commands to the drone through his thinking cap. Within seconds, the mass of synthetic protoplasm had reshaped itself to a close approximation of a road runner. Proty took off in a flash.

Ruy put the Big Dog to sleep, aware that its chuffing would alert the intruders. He set off after Proty, keeping the drone’s telemetry in one corner of his eye.

As darkness descended, Ruy’s Nuvaderm allowed him to see in the infrared. Sensors derived from viperine facial pits banded his chest. Their spectrum-shifted feed came to him through the thinking cap and replaced his baseline vision. Proty’s telemetry reflected the same capabilities.

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