LINKDING

<blockquote>Raymond was the new care worker at Sunshine. The place was mostly staffed with holographic workers, who ambled around picking up things people had dropped, whether or not they wanted them picked up, and otherwise lurked in corners and shimmered. But Raymond was pale, spotty, and human, with a permanent sneer on his thin face. He turned the dial on the radio and Edie stopped listening. Instead, she thought about the song she’d heard, the few lines of the melody repeating themselves over and over in her head. Da-da-da-DA. It made her feet twitch. She got up, ignoring Annabel’s glare—Annabel thought Radio 4 should be a compulsory Sunshine experience—and went up to her room. In her diary, she scrawled today’s date, followed by: heard music. Name, Lee. Min?</blockquote>

<blockquote>During the unbearable years of tyranny, the political prisoners of the Anchorite Hegemony made a solemn covenant: when the time came, they would cross the last miles to freedom on their feet. For reasons of youth and idiocy, Tishrel thought he would have a choice in the matter. The doors of his cell would open, and rather than flee into the sky, he would make the journey as he had made his way through the years in captivity: with what dignity he could, one foot after another.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make horoscope charts, or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She told the panditji to get his blood pressure checked before he told anyone he was short of breath. The day before the Human Spaceflight Programme was suspended, she called Ekta in Sriharikota and said she should come home. </blockquote>