Islands in the Net
The sea lay in simmering quiet, a slate-green gumbo seasoned with warm mud. Shrimp boats trawled the horizon. Pilings rose in clusters, like blackened fingers, yards out in the gentle surf. Once, Galveston beach homes had crouched on those tar-stained stilts. Now barnacles clustered there, gulls wheeled and screeched. It was a great breeder of hurricanes, this quiet Gulf of Mexico.
Heavy Weather
Smart machines lurked about the suite, their power lights in the shuttered dimness like the small red eyes of bats. The machines crouched in inches in white walls of Mexican stucco: an ionizer, a television, a smoke alarm, a squad of motion sensors. A vaporizer hissed and bubbled gently in the corner, emitting a potent reek of oil, ginseng, and eucalyptus.
Crystal Express
"I will miss your conversation during the rest of the voyage," the alien said.
Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel folded his jeweled hands over his gold-embroidered waistcoat. "I regret it also, ensign," he said in the alien's own hissing language. "Our talks together have been very useful to me. I would have paid to learn so much, but you gave it freely."
Taklamakan
A bone-dry frozen wind tore at the earth outside, its lethal howling cut to a muffled moan. Katrinko and Spider Pete were camped deep in a crevice in the rock, wrapped in furry darkness. Pete could hear Katrinko breathing, with a light rattle of chattering teeth. The neuter's yeasty armpits smelled like nutmeg.
Obras de Bruce Sterling.
