She grew fearful of the world and turned away from it, seeking solace. She intended to return.
She never did.
When one turned away from the world in those days, one was subject to a binary. Binaries were a sort of self-imposed tyranny, imagined by the one but expected by the totality. So, turning away from the world, for Sierra St. Sandalwood IV, involved a choice—of necessity illusory—between going up and out or going down and in. The first choice was blue. The second choice was green.
The first choice was green. The second choice was blue.
See? Illusion.
Sierra went up and out. Going up, she theorized, she would be able to look down at the receding world, watching for signs of pursuit. Had she gone down, the world would have closed over behind her as she hacked through roots, as she gnawed through bedrock, as she braved the magma mantle washing the iron and nickel core. How can that be said to be turning away from the world at all?
That would be going under, thought Sierra.
But so many people chose down. Her husband had. Her godmother had. The twins, of course, painfully young, swore they were determined to embrace the world through all the numberless days gifted them by the life force. Devon called the life force Gaia and Denisa called it motion. Denisa waved her arms, dreamy and languorous, whenever she spoke of motion.
Sierra was graceless in the up and out. She had never been outside the gravity well. Her go suit prompted her to make the adjustments necessary to steer a clear course, but only because she had activated those options. Options for prompts for adjustments—some of the very things from which Sierra was turning away. Perhaps up and out was not so different from down and in. Perhaps neither was any different from the world itself.
She approached a tumble of great rocks trailing the world. Each of them was inconceivably cold on one side, gamma-drenched hellfire on the other. A guard god was sitting on one of the rocks, breathing smoke and looking at her with idle curiosity. The go suit suggested she stop and visit.
“Hello. How are things?” asked the guard god.
“How are you breathing smoke?” asked Sierra. “How can you talk? How can I hear you? Why is a god trailing the world?”
“First,” it replied, “I’m smoking a cigarette, which technically is breathing smoke, but not exactly what you are imagining. I can talk because I learned how at my father’s knee. I can hear you because I am listening. I am trailing the world because I’m on watch.”
“What does a god watch for?” asked Sierra. Her go suit maneuvered its way onto the surface of the rock; she was briefly nauseous before her see-plate stabilized the view.
Illusion.
“I’m more of a poppet deity than a god. And I’m watching for people who go up and out.”
“Like me,” said Sierra.
“Much like you, yes. Mostly like you. You should tell me who you are.”
The suit made it impossible to nod, though Sierra reflexively attempted one. “My name is Sierra St. Sandalwood IV,” she said.
The guard god did nod, though its thick neck, wider than its block of a head, made the movement negligible. “Thank you. That is welcome information. However, I did not ask your name. I asked who you are.”
Sierra thought very carefully. “I think if I knew that I would be at home with the twins.”
The guard god nodded again, this time with more alacrity. Pebbles and dust floated out into the nothing. “I think you have a question.” It sounded delighted. “Let’s take an equatorial walk.”
It lurched up and Sierra realized she had not made a careful enough study of her interlocutor. Its waist and legs were seamlessly bonded to the outcropping of silicates she’d thought simply served as a throne until it cracked free. It stretched, dreamy and languorous.
“My go suit keeps me from careening away,” said Sierra. “But how are you treating this little rock as firma?”
The guard god looked at her and furled its face, a sort of miniature avalanche concealing what Sierra thought might be emeralds deep in the crags of what she thought might be orbital sockets. When it opened them again, its eyes were sapphires.
It started to force its way through the tumult of stalagma that extended to the horizon in every direction.
The horizon wasn’t very far.
Sierra blinked her right eye, just so, and she floated after the guard god. When she was moving alongside it, she asked again, “How are you walking on this little rock? Shouldn’t you fly off into the nothing?”
“You haven’t asked the question I think you need to ask, yet, but you do ask a lot of others,” it said. “I like that. Yes, I should fly off because of, you know”—and here it made a circular motion with one of the three spindly fingers sprouting from its upper right hand—“the spinning. Also, there are fundamental forces of the universe to be taken into consideration. At least one or two of them. But it’s okay. I kind of bend down a little bit so I won’t spin off. As for violating fundamental forces, I have a permit.”
Sierra tried to nod again. When she couldn’t, again, she breathed a query to her go suit, piano, asking if there was a way she could move her head freely. The suit flashed a series of glyphs on the inside of her see-plate, seizure fast. Sierra interpreted them as saying, “Sure.”
“Those things are hilarious,” said the guard god. It had stopped and seemed to be considering their route. “Have you ever talked to a go suit when it’s not being worn?”
Sierra shook her head, greatly satisfied with her freedom of movement. “I didn’t think they had any independent agency.”
“Eh,” said the guard god. “People get up here, they look around. A good number of them take off their go suits and launch themselves skyclad into the nothing, giving up their little essences in favor of… well, in favor of what each one of them individually seeks. Sometimes the suits stick around for a bit after that.”
It continued, “I think the equator of this rock will prove a little rough. How do you feel about a circumpolar walk?”
“Do asteroids have poles?” ...
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