roamers

Most travelers he met were like him: moving slowly to acclimatize themselves to each new place. In this world the local micro-biome made newcomers sick. Moving slowly, growing used to a place and letting the place grow used to him gave him time to learn the local customs. In many senses, he took time to fit in. He met a few other travelers who moved quickly, flitted from place to place. They had the latest news. But they were always sick. Then he heard of their city, a place that had antisepticized itself, They had wiped out the local micro-biome. Newcomers did not get sick. That’s where these fast travelers came to rest.

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right angle

A territory was not considered legally settled until it met certain criteria, which included pavement. Certain factions wanted the benefits of settlement status, others preferred the freedom from obligations that went with remaining ‘unsettled’. The debate was fought on many battlegrounds, one of the more arcane of which was the definition of pavement. Thus you could find no macadam in the bustling city, but you could find brick here and there, though spaced carefully, and embedded as stepping stones in softer material. Planks of wood seemed to be a common compromise, with the benefit of being easy to rip out if definitions shifted.

twirling

The tangle of filaments twisted into one of the three shapes that would trigger an explosion. Usually capsules are segregated into groups of nor more than a dozen within a shielded container that any combined detonation, but this happened to be in transit.

pedunculate

I sent you the app broken into pieces, as attachments on several emails. It will correct all of your faults, and make you into a female worshipper. Use unrar and they should be assemble together just fine even if you’re missing a piece or two. I just hope your email provider isn’t using a filter which modifies attachments.

stretch battery

He has gathered almost everything needed for the wedding. For the last article, the only one in town was owned by a male prostitute.

clathrate

The court martial sentenced him to dephysicalization. His consciousness would contribute to calculating the properties of a voxel in a real-time VR graphics engine. He would be part of a three-member panel, so if he tried to send a coded message by changing the color or something like that, he would be over-ridden by the other two minds.

replicable

Many assembled at the site and in remote broadcast location to watch the pouring of the acid live. The nanoworms should have constructed a protective scaffold around the encased person as they burrowed through the block of material that would now be burned away.

reddish laugh

The cat swatted at the tufty week growing through the holes in the skull. So far it had only toyed with the poisoned ones, batted them with its paws. It had not chewed any of them. He would have to rethink his strategy.

consent decree

An interesting prospectus landed on my desk the other day. It was an offer to buy shares in a scheme to blackmail one of the gods. One of the sections, I think it was titled, “Wait, isn’t this illegal?” addressed the risk of the profits being lost in court by saying that one of the conditions placed upon the god in the extortion would be to use his or her power to set aside any such verdict.

explanation project

During the lunch break, while her co-workers gossiped about each other’s salaries, she went out to her car, reclined the seat, and thought about all the different kinds of darknesses. She was cheerful enough when she returned to work, but her co-workers didn’t trust her. When the investigation into fraud and negligence began, she was an easy scapegoat.