Tool

Indeed, even as the man and girl spoke, more of Tool’s faculties were returning, the world opening around him like a flower, petals splayed wide: scent, touch, taste, hearing. The world began to illustrate itself in his mind.

Salt scents and rippling water. The ocean whispering, pushing brackish fingers into swamplands. Water skippers skating over glasslike swamp ponds. Sun dappling over his skin. Rustling kudzu. Birch leaves shivering in the wind. Bird calls: crows and magpies, jays and cockatoos. In the far distance, the yip of coywolv and the squeal of a pig.

More and more information poured in. Twenty meters away, a python swished through reeds, a baby practically, no more than two meters long. Overhead, a squirrel’s claws scrabbled up a tree trunk—a banyan, judging from the scent and the rustling curtains of foliage and roots that draped all around.

The theater of operation built itself in Tool’s mind. From the gaps in rustling leaves, he sensed trails running through the jungle. From the lap of waters, he knew the shapes of stagnant pools. He could guess where gaps in the kudzu led, thanks to the lingering scents of coywolv and deer. Access and egress routes. The most likely paths of enemy attack if he were besieged. The best lines of escape if he was forced to retreat. A battle map, constructed entirely in his head.

He could fight blind, if need be.