Elysium Fire (Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #2)

by Alastair Reynolds

‘It’s hard, Father,’ Caleb said, the strain making him look older, finding the invisible weaknesses in his face that would eventually turn into folds and wrinkles. ‘You’ve done very well. Give the staff back to your brother. Julius – see if you can straighten the staff. It’s sometimes easier to restore something to an earlier state, if you have a clear idea of the desired end.’ Julius took the bent staff and tried to undo Caleb’s work. But the staff was as unresponsive as it had been before. ‘I can’t,’ he said, offering the staff back. ‘You tried, and that’s all we expected for today,’ Father said. ‘I remember my first time – your mother hers. Don’t you, dear?’ Her answer was terse. ‘Of course.’ ‘Days of frustration before the quickmatter moved to our will,’ Father went on. ‘After that, though, I knew all the doors stood open, and the world was mine for the shaping. Here.’ He reached out

here – but I still have the knack, I think.’ He made the staff straighten out. Then the end pinched itself into a knob, and the knob shaped itself into a tiny human head, with eyes and nose and mouth. For a few seconds Father looked as if he was satisfied with that, before holding the staff up so the head was level with his view of their mother, and he began to shape the head’s proportions and features to correspond to hers. Julius and Caleb looked on, their father’s face set with quiet concentration. The quickmatter moved like clay under an invisible hand, bulging, clefting, gaining lines and texture here, smoothing over there. Whether or not the end result was a close likeness to their mother was almost beside the point; it was certainly recognisable as a woman and aspects

and jaw were undeniably...