Read Online The Dervish House by Ian McDonald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ian McDonald
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few dozen metres.
Can doesn’t hear the door open. Can doesn’t hear anything. The chase across the rooftops is silent. He only looks up from the robot-versus-robot action when light from the open door dazzles him. A shadow, a sun-blurred spindly alien-thing. His mum. She signs. Can frowns. He always sits facing the door so that he will know when someone comes in but also because the visitor can’t see what he is doing on his computer. Can isn’t allowed excitement. She would cry. Unable to shout or shake or strike, she’s forced into self-martyrdom. See how you’ve made me feel?
She signs again. Have you got a clean shirt for school this afternoon?
Can knows better than to nod. That would make her feel hurt because he was being rude and disrespectful. She might even ask what was so important he couldn’t talk to his mother. His hands can’t afford the time away from the screen but he signs: There’s one in the wardrobe .
Good , she says. The silhouette moves in the bright light as if to go, then turns back. What are you doing anyway?
Can’s heart flutters.
‘Just playing with Monkey.’ It’s no lie.
Well, just you don’t go annoying anyone with him, all right? Then she vanishes into the light and the door closes. Can lets out a hiss of concentration and bends over his roll-up screen. Speed power navigation security. A cat flees as Monkey and its hunter gallop across the rooftop and swing up a water-tank gantry on to the next roof. Distance five metres, power at twelve per cent. Can wonders who is behind those insect eyes; what face lit by what screen.
Whoever you are, Can Durukan Boy Detective will amaze and bamboozle you! Can clenches his fist to summon the reserves from the batteries, then flings his hand open to send Monkey leaping high over the concrete coaming. The hunter-bot leaps after him. Got you! You thought there was a roof but there is nothing but twenty metres of empty air . Can brings his hands together in a silent clap. Falling Monkey explodes into its component BitBots. Nanorobots rain down on to Vermilion-Maker Lane. Can crosses his thumbs and waggles his fingers. The cloud of mite-machines ripples, darkens into smoke and coalesces into a pair of gossamer wings. A bird; Can’s Bird. Power is critical, but Bird beats its wings, swoops over the heads of the men squatting on their teashop stools, so low they duck. Three beats four, and he pulls up out of Vermilion-Maker Lane. In his rear-view camera he sees the hunting bot smashed like a porcelain crab on the cobbles. Shards and splinters and scraps of yellow shell. He turns over Adem Dede square, a great white stork sliding home.
Can’s hands shake. There’s a tightness in the back of his throat and nose of wanting to cry and he needs a pee. His heart thuds tight in his chest, his breath flutters in his throat, his face burns with excitement now that he realizes he was in danger. While he was running it was a game, the best game he has ever played. Now he can think about what would have happened if the men behind the robot had followed him, had come to his door and knocked on it. Now he can be afraid. But he is proud; more proud of escaping the hunter than of anything he has ever done. He wants to tell people. But the kids in the special school are too stupid to understand or have something very wrong with them. His parents: Can knows he would never crawl out from under his mother’s self-flagellation and his father’s silence.
Mr Ferentinou. He will listen. He will know. What he doesn’t know he can guess and his guesses are always right. He was famous for that, so he tells Can. Can Durukan goes to the edge of the balcony, peers into the brilliant morning breaking over Eskiköy and lifts a hand to catch Bird coming home.
You are a fine gentleman of Iskenderun, old Alexandretta, some time in the middle decades of Eighteenth Christian Century, a subject of Sultan Osman III. His empire has ebbed far from its zenith at
Can doesn’t hear the door open. Can doesn’t hear anything. The chase across the rooftops is silent. He only looks up from the robot-versus-robot action when light from the open door dazzles him. A shadow, a sun-blurred spindly alien-thing. His mum. She signs. Can frowns. He always sits facing the door so that he will know when someone comes in but also because the visitor can’t see what he is doing on his computer. Can isn’t allowed excitement. She would cry. Unable to shout or shake or strike, she’s forced into self-martyrdom. See how you’ve made me feel?
She signs again. Have you got a clean shirt for school this afternoon?
Can knows better than to nod. That would make her feel hurt because he was being rude and disrespectful. She might even ask what was so important he couldn’t talk to his mother. His hands can’t afford the time away from the screen but he signs: There’s one in the wardrobe .
Good , she says. The silhouette moves in the bright light as if to go, then turns back. What are you doing anyway?
Can’s heart flutters.
‘Just playing with Monkey.’ It’s no lie.
Well, just you don’t go annoying anyone with him, all right? Then she vanishes into the light and the door closes. Can lets out a hiss of concentration and bends over his roll-up screen. Speed power navigation security. A cat flees as Monkey and its hunter gallop across the rooftop and swing up a water-tank gantry on to the next roof. Distance five metres, power at twelve per cent. Can wonders who is behind those insect eyes; what face lit by what screen.
Whoever you are, Can Durukan Boy Detective will amaze and bamboozle you! Can clenches his fist to summon the reserves from the batteries, then flings his hand open to send Monkey leaping high over the concrete coaming. The hunter-bot leaps after him. Got you! You thought there was a roof but there is nothing but twenty metres of empty air . Can brings his hands together in a silent clap. Falling Monkey explodes into its component BitBots. Nanorobots rain down on to Vermilion-Maker Lane. Can crosses his thumbs and waggles his fingers. The cloud of mite-machines ripples, darkens into smoke and coalesces into a pair of gossamer wings. A bird; Can’s Bird. Power is critical, but Bird beats its wings, swoops over the heads of the men squatting on their teashop stools, so low they duck. Three beats four, and he pulls up out of Vermilion-Maker Lane. In his rear-view camera he sees the hunting bot smashed like a porcelain crab on the cobbles. Shards and splinters and scraps of yellow shell. He turns over Adem Dede square, a great white stork sliding home.
Can’s hands shake. There’s a tightness in the back of his throat and nose of wanting to cry and he needs a pee. His heart thuds tight in his chest, his breath flutters in his throat, his face burns with excitement now that he realizes he was in danger. While he was running it was a game, the best game he has ever played. Now he can think about what would have happened if the men behind the robot had followed him, had come to his door and knocked on it. Now he can be afraid. But he is proud; more proud of escaping the hunter than of anything he has ever done. He wants to tell people. But the kids in the special school are too stupid to understand or have something very wrong with them. His parents: Can knows he would never crawl out from under his mother’s self-flagellation and his father’s silence.
Mr Ferentinou. He will listen. He will know. What he doesn’t know he can guess and his guesses are always right. He was famous for that, so he tells Can. Can Durukan goes to the edge of the balcony, peers into the brilliant morning breaking over Eskiköy and lifts a hand to catch Bird coming home.
You are a fine gentleman of Iskenderun, old Alexandretta, some time in the middle decades of Eighteenth Christian Century, a subject of Sultan Osman III. His empire has ebbed far from its zenith at
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