Limit of Vision Read Online Free PDF

speculations. The beautiful machine that was Gabrielle had ceased to function, and he could not bring himself to believe that some magic part of her could survive that terrible stop-motion. Like a projection when the lights went out, surely she had simply ceased to be?
    Focus!
    The L ov s were glints across her smooth forehead. He pinched one with the forceps and pulled. It shattered into powdered glass.
    Virgil stared in horror. Where the L ov had been there remained a tiny hollow, cupping a speck of shiny white tissue.
    He smoothed it over with a trembling hand.
    Her fingers twitched.
    Virgil froze. It was a dead reaction, he knew it. Like the kick of a frog’s severed leg when an electrical current is applied, his touch had sent a chaotic signal straight down the L ov ’s nerve trunk to her brain . . . and somehow, some part of the system still worked.
    But even the L ov s would be dying by now.
    Damn it, focus!
    How much time could Panwar buy him? The forceps weren’t going to work. He needed a different tool to remove the L ov s. A metal pick maybe, or a scalpel. They’d been damned stupid never to give a thought to extraction.
    He only had the forceps.
    So he tried again, pinching deeper to get the forceps beneath the next L ov , not squeezing so hard this time.
    Pop!
    The L ov shattered into dust.
    Virgil stared at the botched job, all too aware of the panicked rush of his own breathing. He was not going to be able to do this, not with the forceps. Then how?
    The door banged open, revealing Nash, his round face twisted in horror. Kanaha stood behind him. Virgil followed his smug gaze to a corner of the ceiling where an aerostat floated, riding on differential air pressure, its button cameras fixed on Gabrielle’s body.
    “What are you doing?” Nash demanded. “What have you done to her?”
    Virgil couldn’t think what to say, and yet he spoke, his mouth moving as if some other consciousness directed it. “She moved. When I touched her, her fingers twitched.”
    Kanaha stripped the forceps from his hand and deposited them in a sample bag. He leaned over Gabrielle, his shadow falling across her face. With a gloved hand he stroked her forehead, tracing the pattern of her L ov s. He scowled. “Hey. They’re producing light. Little flickers of light. I saw it before, but I thought they were reflecting the color of that colony thing that was up on the wall.” He turned to look at Nash. “Is this some kind of body jewelry?”
    “That’s right. That’s what it is,” Virgil said, his voice whispery as it emerged from his dry mouth. “Luminescent chips. Glued on. Very pretty.”
    Nash added: “Panwar has them too.”
    “It’s a . . . a fashion,” Virgil stammered. “Where is Panwar?”
    “In his office.” Kanaha studied Virgil, giving his personal agent time to collect the telltales that would confirm his emotional state. “He didn’t like it when he saw you handling the corpse. Why did you want to remove the chips?”
    Virgil’s chin dropped low. Again he found himself talking, almost without volition. “Her mother . . . she wouldn’t approve.”
    “She worried about things like that?”
    Virgil turned half-away, his hands shaking. “She did. Sometimes.”
    Nash looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Virgil? It is body jewelry? That’s what I always assumed.”
    “Sure, Nash.”
    Nash shook his head. “You don’t lie very well.”
    “Step back,” Kanaha suggested. “Let Dr. Chou have a look.”
    Reluctantly, Nash approached the corpse. He leaned over Gabrielle, shading her face from the overhead lights as he examined the embedded L ov s. Then he looked up at the blank screen, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. Abruptly, his face paled. His mouth opened in a round oh of pained surprise. Without saying a word, he ducked his head and hurried from the room.
    “Nash!” Virgil leaped after him, catching him in the hallway outside Panwar’s office. “Nash, wait. Listen to me, please.