Read Online The Last Dragon Chronicles: Fire World: Fire World by Chris D'Lacey - Free Book Online Page A

shelf. It flew backwith it towards the bed and dropped it,with reasonable care, on David’s chest.

    Rrrh , it went. Grumpy, but mildlyapologetic. It tapped the book twice withits beak, then flew for the window and
    was gone.
    Rosa stumbled across the floor. Her
    thoughts, like her hair, were in total disarray. She lifted the book off David’s chest. On its cover was a picture of a flaming firebird, though it looked like no variant of one she’d ever seen. Fearsome. Wild-eyed. Terrifying. And   scaly . Her auma struggled to cope with the image. She switched her gaze to the titling instead and read the three words across the top of the cover,   Creatures of Mythology   . The one word across the bottom she spoke aloud. It was unfamiliar to her and the pronunciation, she would later come to learn, was incorrect: “Drar… gones,” she

    breathed.
    Dragons .

    13

    Just seven days after her dramatic visit tothe Merrimans’ home, Aunt Gwynethreturned to take Eliza away. Seven dayswas the standard time allotted for couplesto resolve their commingled auma in theknowledge of an enforced separation. Even so, when the moment came, Harlanstruggled to physically let go of his wifeand had to be admonished again by the Aunt.   Such   outrageous   displays   ofemotion, she snapped, would see   him condemned to a counsellor as well. He
    would then be on file. And what would
    that do for his future with Eliza?
    “How    exasperating,”    Bernard
    Brotherton said, when Harlan told the

    tech:nician about it the next morning. “To be chosen as an Aunt is a great honour, but the timing is dreadful for both of you. How long will she be away?”
    “Who can say?” said Harlan, looking distant, looking lost. Some aspirants were taken for three or four months; some for as long as Co:pern:ica took to complete a full spin. He sighed and smoothed his fingers round the contours of his face. “Any progress on Project 42?”
    Bernard swung round and faced his com:puter. “Well, there the news will be more to your liking. It’s been a challenge, but I have achieved a breakthrough. Those co:ordinates you gave me are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I had to recalibrate
    SETH to accept them. You were right,they do describe a time horizon, but it’s a

    far more complex event than the shimmer we saw on the film. Macro 42,” he said to the machine. The com:puter quickly uploaded a series of routines, then paused, awaiting further input. Bernard’s fingers hovered over the neural control pad. “I ordered SETH to run a simulation of the
    rift that appeared during David’s sleep, based on the data sets from Strømberg’s recording.   The   results   are   quite impressive. I’ve slowed the sim down substantially to give you an impression of its physical composition.” He tapped the pad. The com:puter screen quickly drew a vertical ‘rip’, which appeared to be made up of a limitless number of helical strands, orbiting around a common core.
    Harlan sat forward, his steepled fingers pressed up against his mouth. “Excellent,”

    he muttered. “Did you do the 3D?”
    “Mmm.”  Bernard’s   fingers   flowed across the pad. The screen responded by turning the simulation on its end. At first the two scientists seemed to be looking at a solid hexagonal structure. But as Bernard zoomed in, the screen became filled with a series of fuzzy dots, indicating there were spaces between the individual strands.
    Harlan put on a pair of spex. “What’s the resolution of this?”
    “Sub-atomic. Notice anything?”
    Harlan studied the image and shrugged. “The strands are shimmering, but there’s bound   to   be   a   high   degree   of electro:magnetic force between them.”
    “Oh, it’s far better than that,” said Bernard. “Watch what happens if I apply a

    single colour to a small group of strands.” His hands moved over the pad