Chapter One: The City Only I Could See

Thirteen tail feathers radiated in perfect order. It did not merely resemble a hummingbird. It was a hummingbird. More precisely, it was a city in the shape of one. Straight avenues crossed concentric plazas, and dense structures overlapped like feathers. At its center, a heart-shaped shadow pulsed once every seven seconds. Lin did not shout. His first reaction was to stamp the time and call up the raw return. His second was to push his coffee away before his shaking hand ruined the keyboard. "Su Mi." He called the laboratory next door. "Wake up and look at something." "If it's another subglacial lake, I'll be excited in the morning." "It isn't a lake."