Free Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2) by Linda Nagata Page A

pulse rise. His sensory tears tingled subtly, and suddenly he felt linked to these women, bound to them by a tenuous connection that glinted faintly silver in his awareness. His will flowed outward upon molecular links. Their will flowed back to him.
    His pace slowed. A few dozen steps away, an open-air restaurant filled the alley between the broad bases of two pyramids. It was packed, and many of the patrons had already noticed him. They stood at their seats, jabbering excitedly. His name leaped out from all the meaningless noise, Lot, Lot, Lot . . . the same way Jupiter’s name had threaded the chaos of panicked human screams down in the tunnels.
    Lot felt his perceptions begin to slip. Over a period of seconds the light around him brightened, blurring the structures and vegetation into an increscent silver glow while the people themselves became fluid, melting into humanistic icons, their individuality seeping swiftly away. He stopped in the middle of the street, blinking hard. What was he seeing? His natural vision ran from the visual down through the infrared range. He could see heat as well as light. But this vision did not fit anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum.
    A different interpretation, then?
    Chemical sight . He was seeing faith . . . like a silver wash spilled on the world, dissolving it, homogenizing it, melding it into a skin that enwrapped him, an invulnerable silver armor. He owned these people. He could command them; he could wear their will like a flawless silver hide. . . .
    The tide shifted. Against his throat he felt the cold press of a hand. His own hand shot up, to close hard around a wrist.
    “Look at me, Lot.” The voice fell like a shadow across the silver glow. “Listen to your heart. It’s flowing like a river. Try to slow it down. Slow it down.”
    He could hear his heart. It rumbled like the rake of air across a ship’s skin as it dipped into atmosphere, dumping velocity. Fear darkened his vision, and his grip tightened on the wrist. “That’s right, Lot. Listen to me. Try to see me.”
    “Gent?” His voice was an ugly croak in the fading light.
    “Sooth. It’s me. You’re okay now, aren’t you? Sure.”
    Lot’s hand ached. He looked down, to find himself still clasping Gent’s wrist in a grip so tight the veins stood out, red on white against his knuckles. He let go and Gent quickly lowered his arm, to rub at a band of four parallel purple bruises.
    Lot felt drained. He glanced around: at the street, at the pyramidal buildings rising past the trees, at the breakfast crowd in the restaurant, now returned to their seats though Lot could feel them still, vibrating just beneath his vision. His gaze shifted again. Urban stood behind Gent, his arms crossed belligerently over his chest while tangled skeins of jealousy and anger ran off him. Finally, he looked at Gent.
    In Lot’s personal mythology, Gent didn’t stand out as a big man—an impression derived, perhaps, from the quiet way he’d always moved on the periphery of Lot’s life. So it surprised him that he had to look up to meet Gent’s gaze. When Gent reached out to squeeze his arm, Lot felt the strength in his hand, and knew that Gent could have broken the grip Lot had held on his wrist, if he’d chosen to. “You shouldn’t have stayed away,” Gent said, his voice softly chiding. “We’ve tried to respect your wishes on it, but it hasn’t been good for you.”
    Lot felt a bit of color return to his cheeks. “It wasn’t my choice.”
    Gent’s face was all sharp angles and narrow planes, as if some slow inner heat had melted all the softness out of him. His hair was a mix of blond and black threads woven into eight braids that were waxed and formed into perfect rings pinned just beneath his ears. Lot touched his shoulder. He wore a thin gray shirt, and through it Lot could feel the warmth of his skin, and the rough vibration of blood stumbling through the capillaries. He could wear Gent if he wanted to. He