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dragging with me. The splendid red dress. It was saturated with muck.
    I drew myself far enough onto land to be sure I wouldn’t slide back in, and blessedly closed my eyes. Under the shushing of tide, there was a mournful, inhuman voice. The whale’s song sounded pretty, and I smiled into sleep.

    Two faces hovered over mine.
    Two men, but not techs from the lab, nor scholars who had the pale skin and organized hair of those who worked in clean seclusion. These faces were bronze from the sun and red from biting wind and cold. Both men had ash blond hair that hung over me in waves, with braids that fell from their temples.
    They were from the simulation. They were Vikings. I was still in the tank.
    “Chief,” one of them called in thunderous Old Norse. “She is awake.” His breath told of recently-eaten fish, a vivid and complex smell, disgusting but fresh, not the rank smell of old bad breath. Jeff had made a breakthrough in the design quality. I wondered at the glitch that was giving the man an odd accent, though. He’d spoken just a few words, but I knew inside and out what he was supposed to sound like. I’d designed it, and this wasn’t it. I had never heard the lyrical language spat so roughly before.
    He helped me to sit and held me up. My head swam and contacts struggled, sputtering. LX89.9scssXXZ998877zp . An attempt at temperatures, heights, a last gasp. The data faded, and there were four men. Four horses. One of the riders swung his leg over and dismounted with an elegant ease. I thought about the detail, and who among the geniuses at the lab had bothered to program such grace. The two men who hovered about me had called him Herra. Their chief, then. Their leader, the protector and commander of their clan. Or perhaps the word was slightly altered, used to mean simply boss, or—I smiled drowsily—perhaps like one might call a little boy “Hey, Chief.”
    Regardless, I hadn’t expected there to be one in today’s session.
    My two rescuers quickly gave way to him. In the damp sand, he knelt before me on one knee. He was no little boy. His forehead, the long straight line of his nose and high cheekbones reflected gold in the setting sun. Strong features were framed by hair of the deepest black, shot through with the blue of a crow. Drawn back on top, it fell in tangles and waves over his shoulders. His beard was trimmed close to the skin. Raven hair and eyebrows contrasted with shocking eyes like sunlit straw. They evaluated me. But behind the scientific and wolfish gaze there was a hint of something softer.
    In the next instant, hair and eyes were eclipsed by the scar. I drew a sharp breath. It was a birthmark. A massive one that darkened most of the left side of his face in shades of mud and blood and berries. Its edge was indistinct and fractal, like a coastline lapped with an angry tide. I followed the mark with my eyes as it continued down his throat and disappeared into his linen shirt. He seemed so real, I actually felt sorry for insulting him with my stare.
    He stood abruptly then, and with an economy of motion turned and mounted his horse.
    “Bring her home.” He said this without looking back, sure of being obeyed. His voice was quietly commanding, not warm, but I idly thought I would follow it anywhere. Something about it tugged at me. Again, the accent, the almost-not-right words. I knew the pronunciation conventions that historical linguists had agreed on, the options in cases where experts didn’t agree, and I knew for a fact what I had chosen for this sim. I’d heard all of six words since I woke up in the mud, but I could tell this was different, almost like a riff on the language that I knew in my sleep.
    I was lifted onto a horse and without thought I leaned back into the strong body sitting behind me. I had no idea who it was programmed to be, but it was warm.
    The animal turned in a tight circle, orienting behind the chief’s dark horse, and the animal’s warm, moving body