Free Limit of Vision by Linda Nagata Page B

other side like rain rolling down a windshield. A green-tinted ghost of a face, smooth and fresh, slid by only an arm’s length away. A child , she realized, perhaps eight years old. They were all children—and every one of them wore farsights, just like the children she had seen working in the fishponds along the river.
    The boat captain had called those children Roi Nuoc , a phrase Kathang translated as “water puppets.” Ela had ordered a search of the term and found two definitions. The first was a traditional theater using wooden puppets on a stage formed by the surface of a pool or lake, with the puppeteers half-submerged behind a bamboo screen. But in the delta Roi Nuoc had taken on a second meaning, referring to a mythically elusive clan of wild children, reputed to be half spirit, or half ghost in nature, but always recognizable by their ever-present farsights.
    Ela turned to watch the graceful youths disappear into the shantytown’s crowded alleys, wondering if the Roi Nuoc could be the story that would finally get her work into the premiere markets of the west.
    A masculine voice interrupted her speculations, speaking softly from her farsights: “ They emerge as if made of mud and darkness .”
    She recoiled, gasping in a spasm of panic—a reaction that drew a chuckle of mild amusement from the electronic intruder. “Forgive me, Ms. Suvanatat. This is your new employer, Ky Xuan Nguyen.”
    Mr. Nguyen? How had he wormed in on her system? His icon was not even present on her screen. Then Ela grimaced, as she saw through the puzzle. “You are here through the recording link?”
    Nguyen didn’t bother to answer. “Look at these children,” he said. “Why do you suppose they have come here?”
    Ela watched a boy in a much-faded Nagoya Dragons baseball jersey move between the trading tables. She recognized him as a newcomer only because he wore farsights. Otherwise, he might have passed for one of the village children. Why had he come? Perhaps for food. Perhaps to trade.
    “Maybe they come for company,” Ela said, too familiar with loneliness in her own life.
    “Follow them,” Nguyen urged. “See what you can learn.”
    Curiosity moved her, as much as Nguyen’s bidding. She climbed back down the levee. “On the river, the boat captain acted funny when we saw a group of children working on the shore. He called them Roi Nuoc .”
    “There are rumors,” Nguyen said. “Some say these children of the delta have no parents—and never did. Never.”
    Made of mud and darkness? Ela had heard ugly rumors like that before. “So I guess farmers have started planting embryos in the mud?”
    Nguyen chuckled. “There are many ways to view the world. Watch.”
    The farsighted boy in the Nagoya Dragons jersey—he couldn’t be more than ten or eleven—called out to a group of local kids even younger than himself. They shied away, but they didn’t leave. They listened at a distance as he talked to them in a soft stream of Vietnamese that Kathang could not hear well enough to interpret. He showed them something hidden under his shirt, and they drew closer.
    “I can’t see what he offers them,” Ela said.
    “It is always farsights.”
    “Do you know why?”
    “A private benefactor, I expect, interested in their welfare.”
    “The boat captain said it was a youth cult.”
    Nguyen laughed. “It is just the Roi Nuoc .”
    A young man burst into sight between two shacks. His gaze was wild, and he held a heavy stick in his right hand. When he spotted the children, he plunged toward them, yelling something that Kathang translated as “ Evil spirit! Go! Go away! ” The village children scattered like a pack of dogs frightened off a carcass, while the Roi Nuoc boy ducked around the corner of a shanty and disappeared. The young man gave a fierce yell and sprang in pursuit.
    Silence fell over the camp. Along with everyone else, Ela listened. Several seconds passed, and then she heard a child’s terrified cry.