“Over in New Kanagawa,” I said instead, “I heard they’re wiring ripwings with microcam systems. Training them too. Any truth in that?”

He snorted.

“Yeah, they were saying the same thing a hundred and fifty years ago. It was paranoid crabshit then, and I guess it still is now. What’s the point of a microcam in a ripwing? They never go near human habitation if they can avoid it. And from what I recall of the studies done, they don’t domesticate or train easily. Plus more than likely the orbitals would spot the wiring and shoot them down on the wing.” He gave me an unpleasant grin, not one from the Renouncer monk serenity suite. “Believe me, you’ve got quite enough to worry about climbing through a colony of wild ripwings, never mind some sort of domesticated cyborg variety.”

“Right. Thanks. Any other helpful tips?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Don’t fall off.”

But there was a look in his eyes that belied the laconic detachment he affected and later, as he uploaded the data for outside collection, he was quiet in a tightened way that had none of his previous monkish calm to it.

When he led us back down through the monastery, he didn’t speak at all.

Brasil’s visit had ruffled him like spring breezes coming in across the carp lakes in Danchi. Now, beneath the rippled surface, powerful forms flexed restlessly back and forth. When we reached the entrance hall, he turned to Brasil and started speaking, awkwardly.

“Listen, if you—”

Something screamed.

The Renouncer’s construct rendering was good—I felt the minute prickle across my palms as the Eishundo sleeve’s gekko reflexes got ready to grab rock and climb. Out of peripheral vision suddenly amped up, I saw Brasil tense—and behind him I saw the wall shudder.

“Move!” I yelled.

At first, it seemed to be a product of the doorkeeper tapestries, a bulging extrusion from the same fabric. Then I saw it was the stonework behind the cloth that was bulging inward, warped under forces the real world would not have permitted. The screaming might have been some construct analogue of the colossal strain the structure was under, or it might simply have been the voice of the thing that was trying to get in. There wasn’t time to know. Split seconds later the wall erupted inward with a sound like a huge melon cracking, the tapestry tore down the centre and an impossible ten-metre-tall figure stepped down into the hall.