Diamonds in the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

perceptual side effects, and they might want to know about this. Mind you, this wasn’t so bad. A little trippy, but not unpleasant. But still…

    She was just pulling out her datappliance to make the call when it chimed, reminding her that she was due at the Morgenstern HVF in fifteen minutes.

    Dana double-checked that all the work files on her datappliance were up to date, then slipped on her coat and headed for the door. The facility was ten minutes’ walk across campus and she didn’t want to chance being even a minute late. She’d call right after her session.

    Waiting for the elevator, she realized that she felt a little wobbly on her feet, and the lights overhead seemed to thrum, unnaturally vibrant. Was she being foolish? Should she call in sick, try to reschedule? But as she hurried across campus, the imposing tower of the HVF looming over the Physics building, she realized that she didn’t have any choice but to proceed. She was just a lowly post-doc … she’d had to pull every string she had to get even four hours of that multi-billion-dollar facility’s time to herself. If she bailed out at the last minute, the administrators would have to scramble to fill her slot and she’d be on their shit list for sure. It might be months before she’d get another time slot, if ever.

    She quickened her pace.

    * * *

    The HVF technician’s shirt was a colorful collage of moving images, and Dana had to close her eyes as he leaned over her to buckle the strap across her chest. The interface drugs would help prevent her body from moving during her session, among other things, but just as when dreaming, a certain amount of motion did occur and nobody wanted the IV to pull out.

    “Comfy?” the tech said, patting the buckle.

    Dana’s mouth was dry. She just nodded and tried to smile.

    “All right. You can put your caps here.”

    She snapped the cloisonné caps off of her temple sockets and dropped them clattering onto the proffered tray, which the tech set down on a small table beside Dana’s couch. He then handed her a pair of neural cables, which she snapped into place, white on the left and red on the right as usual.

    “Now, you might feel a little pinch…”

    “I’d prefer the right arm, please.”

    “Got it.”

    The tech was good; the IV needle slid into Dana’s vein with little more than a tweak of pain. After he’d secured the needle with a dab of sterile adhesive, he helped her to slip her wrists under the elastic on the couch’s arms. So far it was just like every other HVF session she’d had, with no sign that for the next four hours she’d have the computer on the other end of the cables — the third-most-powerful scientific data visualization facility in the world — entirely to herself. She couldn’t wait.

    Finally, the tech bent down to where she could see her. Already it was getting hard for her to keep her eyes open. “Okay, you’re good to go. Lights on or off?”

    “Off, please.”

    “Productive dreams!”

    The tech moved away, and a moment later darkness descended. Dana thought she could hear the HVF thrumming all around her, but that was absurd — the room was thoroughly soundproofed. For the next four hours the only information going in or out of this room would be through her neural cables.

    Dana keyed her access code into the numeric pad under her right hand. It was awkward, but she’d learned to cope with a right-handed world. Then she took a breath, closed her eyes, and pressed ENTER.

    * * *

    When she opened her eyes, or seemed to, Dana saw what appeared to be a loose, fuzzy ball of stars. It floated ahead of her in the darkness at chest level; if she wanted to, she could lean forward and put her arms about half-way around it. A thin, tepid warmth came from the ball, like the heat of a single match at arm’s length, gently warming her chest and the underside of her chin.

    This was her dataset. This was the accumulated result of decades of observations,