Skye Object 3270a Read Online Free Page B

light because they were protected from the airless vacuum of space by a transparent, self-repairing canopy that rose over the city like a bubble, held up by the pressure of air.
    The grand walk encircled the city’s highest, narrowest level. From the restaurant balcony, Skye could look down past the low-rise buildings of Ado Town to the green belt of Splendid Peace Park, 600 meters below. She waited until the boys moved off. Then she said, “You think I’m crazy, because I believe there could be other lifeboats out there.”
    â€œI don’t think you’re crazy. I think you just don’t want to be, well . . . alone. You know you’re not alone.”
    â€œSooth. Zia, the point is we don’t know if there are any more . . . like me. Because no one’s looked.”
    Zia crossed her arms over her chest. “So why don’t you look?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œInstead of whining about it, why don’t you go look?”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œHow should I know? I just know that if it’s more important to you than to anyone else, you should be doing it.”
    Skye was already nodding, as ideas sprouted in her head. “Ord!”
    â€œYes, Skye?” The little robot poked its head over the far rim of the table. “Order food now?”
    â€œNo. Forget lunch. Remember the article you found for us on the swan burster fragment?”
    â€œLunch forgotten, Skye. Article remembered.”
    Zia choked on her drink as Ord started to recite the article in full; Skye smiled. “Good Ord. Don’t read it to me again, okay? Just tell me who wrote it.”
    â€œAuthor credit, Devi Hand, Astronomical Society.”
    Skye winked at Zia. Then, using the formal address for real people— Maturus —meaning “fully aged” and abbreviated simply as “M,” she said, “M. Hand tracked that swan burster fragment. Maybe M. Hand might also have something to say about tracking lifeboats.”
    â€œDo you think he’d be interested in talking to ados? He’s probably five hundred years old.”
    Skye shrugged. “I don’t know, but it won’t hurt to ask. Let’s go find him.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œNow.”
    â€œUh-uh.” Zia shook her head. “Work.”
    â€œOh. Sooth.” Skye frowned.
    The people of Silk counted days in groups of six, for no better reason than that it suited them. So Skye and Zia had classes for three mornings, and then they were off for three mornings. Most of the afternoons they worked as interns – student helpers rotating through different professions, exploring their world from the inside out.
    Zia was presently working with a team of planetary biologists. Skye was studying nanotechnology. Usually she enjoyed every minute spent under the tutelage of Yan, learning a branch of engineering in which matter was shaped atom by atom, to build precise structures that ranged from simple threads of pure diamond fiber, to tiny, complex, programmable nanomachines called Makers that patrolled the human body, defending it against disease and the breakdown that had once been caused by aging. Once, people had died after only seventy or eighty years of life. Skye had a hard time imagining such a thing, but Yan insisted it was so. “Without Makers to keep us healthy, our bodies would quickly wear down and eventually fail. It’s our Makers that allow us to go on living past our first hundred years.” Past adolescence, that is. In Silk, no one was considered fully adult—or truly real —until they were at least a century old.
    Yan himself was 274 years old. He’d been one of the original immigrants to Silk, arriving at the age of two, a baby in cold sleep, just like Skye. Except he’d come on a great ship, accompanied by his parents, and they had all been revived together.
    Despite his years, Yan looked as youthful and healthy as any adult. The age of real people showed