Free River of Blue Fire by Tad Williams Page A

else was wrong. But what could it be?
    She scooped Misha from her lap and put him down on the floor. He whimpered once, then began to scratch behind his ear. She stood and began to pace, only remembering to set down her teacup when the hot liquid sloshed onto her hand.
    If the circuitry was good, what was bad? Was it just her own faulty internal mechanisms after all? Was she clutching at exotic answers because she wasn’t truly ready to face the unpleasant truth, no matter how stoic she thought herself?
    Olga Pirofsky stopped in front of her mantelpiece to stare at a 3-D rendering of Uncle Jingle, an original sketch from the production company’s design department, given to her at her tenth anniversary party. Uncle’s eyes were tiny black buttons that could look as innocent as a stuffed toy’s, but the toothy grin would have given Red Riding
    Hood a lot to think about. Uncle Jingle had rubbery legs and huge hands, hands that could do tricks to make children gasp or laugh out loud. He was an entirely original, entirely artificial creation, famous all over the world.
    As she stared at the white face, and as the radio played soft piano melodies, Olga Pirofsky realized that she’d never liked the little bastard much.

CHAPTER 3
    The Hive
----
    NETFEED/NEWS: Bukavu 5 Fears in Southern France
(visual: ambulance, police vehicles on airport runway, lights flashing)
VO: A small private airstrip outside of Marseilles in southern France has been quarantined by French and UN health officials amid rumors that it was the entry point for an entire planeload of Central African refugees sick with what is now being called Bukavu Five. An eyewitness account claiming that all the passengers were dead when the plane landed, and the pilot himself near death, has appeared as actual confirmed news on some net services, but as of now is still unconfirmed rumor. Officials of the local French prefecture will make no comment as to what caused the quarantine, or why UNMed is involved
 . . .
----
    T HE water was full of monsters, huge, thrashing shapes that in her old life, in the real world, Renie could have snatched up with one hand. Here, she would be less than a mouthful for any one of them.
    A vast smooth side pushed past her and another great wave rippled out, spinning her wildly along the surface. In the backwaters, beyond the roil of the feeding madness, the water was strangely solid, almost viscous, and it dimpled beneath her rather than swallowing her whole.
    Surface tension
, she realized, not in words but images from nature documentaries: She was too small to sink through it.
    An eye as big as a door loomed near, then slid back into the murk beneath her, but the water’s cohesion was broken and she began to sink. She struggled to stay upright, fighting panic.
    I’m really in a tank
, she reminded herself desperately.
A V-tank on a military base! None of this is real! I’ve got an oxygen mask on my face—I can’t drown anyway
!
    But she could no longer feel the mask. Perhaps it had slipped loose, and she was dying in the sealed, coffinlike V-tank. . . .
    She blew out her held breath, then sucked in air, along with far more water spray than she wanted. She had to sputter it out before she could scream.
    â€œ!Xabbu! Martine!” She threw out her arms and legs, desperately trying to keep her head above the surface as the water plunged like a giant trampoline. Just a few dozen yards away the river was seething as titan fish collided in their frenzy to reach the hovering insects. She saw no sign of the leaf or any of her fellow passengers, just tidal-wave crests and canyon troughs of river water, and the erratic movements of the hatchlings flying overhead. One of them had drawn close, and was hovering almost directly above her, the noise of its wings for a moment obscuring the first voice she had heard that was not her own.
    â€œHey!” someone shouted hoarsely from close by, faint