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Dura woke with a start.
There was something wrong. The photons didn’t smell right.
Her hand floated before her face, dimly visible, and she flexed her fingers. Disturbed electron gas, spiraling dizzily around the Magfield lines, sparkled purple-white around the fingertips. The Air in her eyes was warm, stale, and she could make out only vague shapes.
For a moment she hung there, curled in a tight ball, suspended in the elastic grip of the Magfield.
She heard voices, thin and hot with panic. They were coming from the direction of the Net.
Dura jammed her eyes tight shut and hugged her knees, willing herself to return to the cool oblivion of sleep. Not again. By the blood of the Xeelee, she swore silently, not another Glitch; not another spin storm. She wasn’t sure if the little tribe of Human Beings had the resources to respond to more disruption… nor, indeed, if she herself had the strength to cope with fresh disaster.
The Magfield itself trembled now. Encasing her body, it rippled over her skin, not unpleasantly, and she allowed it to rock her as if she were a child in its arms. Then—not so pleasantly—it prodded her more rudely in the small of the back…
No, that wasn’t the Magfield. She uncurled again, stretching against the confines of the field. She rubbed her eyes—the fleshy rims of the cups were crusted with sleep-deposits and felt sharp against her fingers—and shook her head to clear the clouded Air out of the cups.
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