Fractal Mode by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epic, Darius (Fictitious Character) - Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Colene (Fictitious Character), Fiction, Fantasy, General, Darius (Fictitious Character), Colene (Fictitious Character) - Fiction
ISBN: 9780441251261
Google: sTBaAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 0441251269
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1992-01-01T06:40:35+00:00

THEY wasted no time in the morning. They ate a solid breakfast and headed out to the anchor. They passed through it without difficulty; this one had no animus magic bollixing it. They were back on the Virtual Mode.

Provos lost her certainty. She had remembered the events of the prior day, but now it was past and she had forgotten them. She had no memory of the realities they passed in seconds, and had to enter a reality in which they were going to remain before her memory came. Before, she had known she had to go home for supplies; that had perhaps not been memory so much as common sense. Now she had only memory, and it wasn’t enough.

It was time for Colene to take the lead. She knew where she was going: Earth. It was her home, and she could orient on it more readily than Provos could. She had no memory of the trip there, because it was in her near future, but her knowledge of her purpose guided her.

She oriented, and felt the faint Rightness that was the direction of her anchor. “This way, Provos,” she said, assuming command.

But almost before she took the first step, she paused. If they went directly to Earth, not passing Go or collecting $200, they would walk smack back into that sea that had balked them before. They couldn’t go that way.

Colene pondered. There was more than one way to go. They could move to the side, seeking to get around the sea. Or they could circle the Virtual Mode the other way. Any Virtual Mode, Darius had explained, was like a circle, or rather a pentagon, anchored by five connections. The lines of awareness tended to follow the edge of it; maybe it was the edge she sensed, rather than her home reality. If she followed the edge the opposite way, eventually she could complete the circuit and reach Earth. It was inevitable. It might take longer, but it made sense, because there should be no sea. Maybe. She hoped.

She reoriented. She felt a fainter rightness in the opposite direction. “No, this way,” she said.

Provos had already shrugged, accepting it. She lacked the memory to argue. Colene had not argued when they were in Provos’ world, for similar reason.

They set off, marching through the changing forest. At times animals flicked into view, spooking at the sudden presence of the two human beings, and flicking out of view again as the two strode on across the next invisible boundary. This was a weirdness to which Colene had become accustomed; in fact she rather enjoyed it. But she knew it could be dangerous, and kept alert.

The landscape changed. The hills and valleys became ridges and furrows, crossed by right-angled ridges and furrows, as if some giant cookie-cutter had shaped the terrain. The trees became lumps of colored protoplasm. When some developed tentacles, Colene got increasingly nervous. She had them pause to take out knives they had bought, and they held them in their hands as they walked.

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