Read Online Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five by Justina Robson - Free Book Online

mouth moving even though
     the rest of her remained in a stupor.
    ‘An angel is an articulated form of energy imbued with mental and emotional faculties that act in accordance with its own
     will. Angels are beings of nonbaryonic dimensions, although they are able to assume baryonic forms, and are not limited to
     ordinary space-time considerations. It is suspected though not proven that their appreciation of the nature of all material
     and immaterial things far surpasses that of the bound races who have intelligence and awareness. Emergence from the purely
     aetheric into material form willresult in a necessary accrual of personality and etcetera according to the usual principles.’
    There was nothing about this voice that was the slightest bit intoxicated.
    ‘Hah!’ said Zal after a second, ‘I know what sh’minds me of. You, Lila! She talks like you do when you’ve got the AI on.’
     He twirled a finger next to his head.
    Lila scowled and fixed her gaze on Teazle who was snickering, his tail tip gently beating the rugs in time with his laugh.
    She felt annoyed. ‘I make more sense though. This isn’t getting us far—’
    ‘Wait, wait,’ Malachi said confidently. ‘Dark takes time to work. Got to get down to get up again, like they say. We jus’
     need to keep going aroun’ the subject an it’ll be fine. You’ll see. Inspiration’ll strike!’
    ‘What
was
the subject?’ Teazle asked. He blinked slowly and the yurt was once again briefly submerged in the sepulchral glow of his
     exposed skin. In that second Lila could see the outline of his body gleaming faintly through the folds of his robe, dappled
     on his lower torso, arms and legs like a cheetah-patterned lightbulb.
    ‘What are we going to do about all the dead people?’ Lila reminded him, ignoring the knot in her stomach as she mentioned
     it. Images of her family home flashed in front of her mind’s eye in an unstoppable rush, which she tried to blot out by carrying
     on. ‘Also, is this the end-times as foreseen by the popular press? And if so, wh—’ but she was interrupted by Zal gently putting
     his hand over her mouth.
    ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘It’s happening. I had an idea that wasn’t my own.’
    ‘And?’ Malachi asked, foregoing the obvious remark about Zal having any kind of idea at all, but sharing the fact that he
     wasn’t saying it by giving Lila and Teazle a significant stare each.
    ‘And,’ Zal said emphatically, including Lila and Teazle in his own three-way group by glancing at them, ‘we should get divorced.’
    Lila did a quick retake on it. ‘
That
was your idea?’
    ‘No. That was my conclusion, given my idea.’
    ‘What was the idea?’ Teazle asked, staring his potential ex directly in the face for a second and then, becoming aware that
     this was painful for Zal, suddenly flicking his thousand watts back to the drinks cooler while still remaining attentive.
    ‘Well, as you were talking I had this vague kind of . . . you know dragons, right?’
    They all nodded vigorously in the hope that he would get to the point.
    ‘Well, we are intersti—, cusp—, beings who’ve been changed one way and another and made into hybrid sort of things, you know?’
     he raised his eyebrows and nodded as if this made things so clear they must leap to an intuitive judgement. When they continued
     to look at him, Lila over her shoulder and Teazle with his long, horsey ears indicating the direction of his attention, he
     sighed. ‘We are . . . what we are . . . and we are together. Between us we cover eighty per cent of the total aethero-material
     troposphere.’
    ‘Whoah, it really
isn’t
his idea!’ Malachi said at the mention of these highly theoretical terms, his jaw going slightly slack.
    Zal shook a fist in Malachi’s direction, but continued. ‘And if you add in Tatters it’s ninety. And if you add in Malachi
     and Xavi it’s ninety-five. And—’
    ‘Tath,’ Lila said. ‘Add Tath and,’ she hesitated,