Free Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata Page A

else, where they might go unseen, at least for a little while. The R osa would sort through every thread of stolen conversation, seeking choice quotes.
    Ela listened to the rising bustle and hum in the village. The population of the little shantytown had quadrupled since the fisherfolk returned at sunset. They had carried their boats into the village, laying them upside down on the platforms. Wet hulls gleamed in the light of flowscreens ablaze with opera programs and kung fu films. Phuong had disappeared, now that the last of the children in her care had been turned over to their parents. Ela decided she would take a walk too.
    First though, she had to protect her belongings against theft. She hid her backpack and diving gear under some of Phuong’s empty boxes, leaving a button camera on top of the pile so that Kathang could monitor. Then just for luck, she added a stink trap primed to explode with a noxious odor if Kathang gave the signal. After that, Ela felt ready to explore.
    With her farsights in recording mode she strolled between the shacks, capturing the sound of phones trilling, and the sight of fish roasting on sticks, or on grills set over charcoal beds, and of the many people eating vacuum-packed meals.
    Nguyen had insisted that any data she collected be stored in an account on his server. Ela felt uneasy with the arrangement. She had no guarantee the data would not be wiped or pirated. Then again, what did it matter? Ky Xuan Nguyen was paying her to go through the motions without producing anything real. It was an insult to her integrity, but in the circumstances, it was the best she could do.
    She stopped to watch a kid with a synthesizer as he doubled, then redoubled his voice until he had a whole chorus of selves singing a heartbreaking teen suicide anthem. Farther on, it was oldies night: a pack of kids bounced ecstatically to the aggressive rhythm of Burn Out .
    On the inland side of the shantytown several women had set up trading tables, where fresh fish was exchanged for commercially prepared foods. Relative values fluctuated as the women eyed the pace of one another’s business. The scene rivaled the Can Tho marketplace for noise. Ela examined the catch, surprised there were still so many fish to be found in the overworked water. Some of the better-looking specimens were being hawked as produce of the fish farms, though Ela didn’t believe it. She had seen the robo-sub. Poaching would have taken more resources than she saw on display here.
    Beyond the trading tables, a tall coastal levee rose in dark silhouette against the night sky. Ela climbed its steep face, to look out over a checkered field of fishponds glittering in the light of a rising moon. Tiny campfires sparkled on the narrow strips of land between the ponds. Who was out there?
    “Kathang: Nightvision.”
    Now her farsights multiplied every incoming photon, so that Ela looked out on a ghostly green landscape nailed in place by fierce points of fire. Several seconds passed before she spotted a slender figure moving between the ponds, swift and graceful, making for the levee on which she stood. After a few seconds she saw another, and then another. They popped into her awareness like hidden creatures in a puzzle drawing.
    Perhaps half a mile away a caretaker stepped out on the porch of a little prefab house balanced on the back of the levee, his open door blazing like a furnace in Ela’s farsights. He watched the silent migration. Ela wondered if these might be his workers. It didn’t seem so, though, for he did not raise a hand. He did not call a greeting, or even a warning as they began to climb the levee’s inland slope. A wind chime on his porch sang in a slow night breeze.
    Ela shifted nervously, wondering if she should stay or go. But none of the figures was headed directly for her. They would pass to either side if they kept going as they were.
    She stayed, watching as they reached the levee’s summit, as they spilled down the