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The Ivets gathered round as the last flames sputtered and died. All that remained was a blackened outline of scorched earth scattered with glowing clinker-like ashes. They crackled sharply as they cooled.
“What a waste,” Jackson Gael said.
They turned as one to look for Horst Elwes. But he had fled long ago.
Ruth Hilton and the other remaining adult villagers were grouped around the community hall in a defensive ring. The children were all inside it. Nobody knew quite what to make of Jay’s story, but there was no disputing she had seen Quinn Dexter.
Torchlight sliced round the empty cabins and muddy paths. The wooden slat walls shone a pale grey in the beams. Those whose rifles were equipped with nightsights were scanning the surrounding jungle.
“Christ, how much longer before the hunting party gets back?” Skyba Molvi complained. “They’ve got enough fire-power to blow out an army of Ivets.”
“Won’t be long,” Ruth muttered tightly.
“I see him!” someone bellowed.
“What?” Ruth spun round, every nerve hotwired. Targeting lasers stabbed out, forming bright ruby and emerald zigzag patterns in the air. A magnetic rifle trilled. A patch of ground forty metres away bucked as the slugs hit, forming deep narrow craters, and surrounding vegetation caught light.
The firing stopped.
“Bugger; it’s a dog.”
The breath rushed out of Ruth. Her arms were trembling.
Children were shouting from the hall, demanding to know what was happening.
I should be in there with Jay, Ruth thought. Fine mother I am, letting her wander off into the jungle while I’m busy moping. And what the hell did happen out there anyway?
Horst came ploughing out of the jungle, arms spinning madly for balance. His clothes were torn, face and hands scratched and grazed. He saw the beams of light sweeping out from the hall, and shouted at the top of his voice.
Ruth heard someone say: “It’s that idiot priest.”
“Drunk again.”
“That bastard could have saved Carter.”
Ruth wanted to shrink up into a little ball that no one could see. She was sure everybody could smell her own guilt.
“Demons,” Horst cried as he ran towards the hall. “They’ve unleashed demons. Lord save us. Flee! Flee!”
“He is drunk.”
“It should have been him, not Carter.”
Horst staggered to a halt in front of them, his body aching so badly from the exertion he could hardly stand. He saw the disgust and contempt in their faces, and wanted to weep. “For pity’s sake. I promise you. Quinn is out there, he killed Powel Manani. Something happened, something came.”
There were angry murmurs from the crowd. One of them spat in Horst’s direction.
Ruth noticed her torch was dimming. She slapped it.
“Why didn’t you help Powel, priest?” someone asked.
“Ruth?” Horst begged. “Please, tell them how evil Quinn is.”
“We know.”
“Shut up, priest. We don’t need a worthless piss-artist telling us about the Ivets. If Quinn shows his face here, he’s dead.”
Ruth’s torch went out.
Alarmed gasps went up from the others as all the torches began to flicker and fade.
“Demons are coming!” Horst yelled.
Fierce orange flames shot out of one of the cabins fifty metres away from the hall; they licked along its base then raced up the stanchions to the roof. Within thirty seconds the whole structure was ablaze. The twisting flames were ten metres high.
“Holy shit,” Ruth whispered. Nothing should burn that quickly.
“Mummy!” a child called from the hall.
“Horst, what happened out there?” Ruth cried.
Horst shook his head, a bubbling giggle coming from his lips. “Too late, too late. Satan’s beasts walk among us now. I told you.”
A second cabin began to blaze.
“Get the children out of the hall,” Skyba Molvi shouted. There was a general rush for the door. Ruth hesitated, looking at Horst imploringly. Most of the village clearing was now illuminated by erratic amber light. Shadows possessed a life of their own, leaping about at random. A black silhouette fluttered between the cabins in the distance behind the priest.
“They’re here,” she said. Nobody was listening. “They’re here, the Ivets!” She tugged her laser rifle up. The green targeting beam pierced the air, sending relief flooding through her. At least something bloody worked. She pulled the trigger, sending a barrage of infrared pulses after the elusive figure.
The children swept out of the hall like a wave, some of the older ones scaling the flimsy metre-high side walls. Cries and shouts broke out as they tried to run to their parents.
“Jay!” Ruth called.
A line of flame streaked along the roof. It was an unerringly straight line, Ruth could see the wood turning black an instant before the actual flame shot up. Maser!
She worked out roughly where it must be firing from, and brought the laser rifle to bear. Her finger punched down on the trigger stud.
“Mummy,” Jay called.
“Here.”
The laser rifle bleeped. Ruth ejected the drained power magazine and slammed in a fresh one.
Several other people were firing into the jungle. The neon threads of targeting lasers lashed out, chasing elusive phantoms.
There was a concerted movement away from the hall, everyone crouching low. It was pandemonium, children wailing, adults shouting. The woven palm wall of the hall caught fire.
They could kill every one of us if they wanted to, she realized.
Jay rushed up and flung her arms round her waist. Ruth grabbed her arm. “Come on, this way.” She started towards the jetty. Another three cabins were on fire.
She saw Horst a couple of metres away, and jerked her head in a determined gesture. He began to lumber along after them.
A scream sounded across Aberdale, a gruesome drawn-out warbling that could never have come from a human throat. It shocked even the distraught children into silence. Targeting lasers jabbed out in reflex, spearing the gaps between the cabins.
The scream faded to a poignant desperate whimper.
“Jesus God, they’re everywhere, all around.”
“Where are the hunters? The hunters!”
There seemed to be fewer targeting lasers active now. The first burning cabin suddenly crumpled up, blowing out ephemeral spires of brilliant sparks.
“Horst, we’ve got to get Jay away,” Ruth said urgently.
“No escape,” he mumbled. “Not for the damned. And were we ever anything but?”
“Oh, yeah? Don’t you believe it.” She began to pull Jay across the stream of people, heading towards the nearest row of cabins. Horst lowered his head and followed.
They reached the cabins just as some kind of commotion started down by the jetty: shouting, the splash of something heavy falling into the river. It meant nobody was paying her much attention.
“Thank Christ for that,” Ruth said. She led Jay down the gap between two cabins.
“Where are we going, Mummy?” Jay asked.
“We’ll hide out for a couple of hours until that bloody hunting party gets back. God damn Powel for stripping the village.”
“He’s beyond damnation now,” Horst said.
“Look, Horst, just what—”
Jackson Gael stepped around the end of the cabin and planted himself firmly in front of them. “Ruth. Little Jay. Father Horst. Come to me. You are so welcome.”
“Bollocks,” Ruth snarled. She swung the laser rifle round. There was no targeting beam, even the power-level LEDs were dead. “Shit!”
Jackson Gael took a step towards them. “There is no death any more, Ruth,” he said. “There will never be death again.”
Ruth thrust Jay towards Horst. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done. “Get her out of here, Horst, get her away.”
“Trust me, Ruth, you will not die.” Jackson Gael held out his hand. “Come.”
“Screw you.” She dropped the useless laser rifle, standing between him and Jay.
“There is no sanctuary,” Horst mumbled. “Not on this cursed planet.”
“Mummy!” Jay wailed.
“Horst, just for once in your fucking pitiful life do something right; take my daughter and get her out of here. This bastard isn’t getting past me.”
“I—”
“Do it!”
“God bless you, Ruth.” He started to pull a struggling Jay back the way they had come.
“Mummy, please!” she shrieked.
“Go with Horst. I love you.” She drew her Bowie knife from its belt scabbard. Good solid dependable steel.
Jackson Gael grinned. Ruth could have sworn she saw fangs.
Chapter 14
“What a waste,” Jackson Gael said.
They turned as one to look for Horst Elwes. But he had fled long ago.
Ruth Hilton and the other remaining adult villagers were grouped around the community hall in a defensive ring. The children were all inside it. Nobody knew quite what to make of Jay’s story, but there was no disputing she had seen Quinn Dexter.
Torchlight sliced round the empty cabins and muddy paths. The wooden slat walls shone a pale grey in the beams. Those whose rifles were equipped with nightsights were scanning the surrounding jungle.
“Christ, how much longer before the hunting party gets back?” Skyba Molvi complained. “They’ve got enough fire-power to blow out an army of Ivets.”
“Won’t be long,” Ruth muttered tightly.
“I see him!” someone bellowed.
“What?” Ruth spun round, every nerve hotwired. Targeting lasers stabbed out, forming bright ruby and emerald zigzag patterns in the air. A magnetic rifle trilled. A patch of ground forty metres away bucked as the slugs hit, forming deep narrow craters, and surrounding vegetation caught light.
The firing stopped.
“Bugger; it’s a dog.”
The breath rushed out of Ruth. Her arms were trembling.
Children were shouting from the hall, demanding to know what was happening.
I should be in there with Jay, Ruth thought. Fine mother I am, letting her wander off into the jungle while I’m busy moping. And what the hell did happen out there anyway?
Horst came ploughing out of the jungle, arms spinning madly for balance. His clothes were torn, face and hands scratched and grazed. He saw the beams of light sweeping out from the hall, and shouted at the top of his voice.
Ruth heard someone say: “It’s that idiot priest.”
“Drunk again.”
“That bastard could have saved Carter.”
Ruth wanted to shrink up into a little ball that no one could see. She was sure everybody could smell her own guilt.
“Demons,” Horst cried as he ran towards the hall. “They’ve unleashed demons. Lord save us. Flee! Flee!”
“He is drunk.”
“It should have been him, not Carter.”
Horst staggered to a halt in front of them, his body aching so badly from the exertion he could hardly stand. He saw the disgust and contempt in their faces, and wanted to weep. “For pity’s sake. I promise you. Quinn is out there, he killed Powel Manani. Something happened, something came.”
There were angry murmurs from the crowd. One of them spat in Horst’s direction.
Ruth noticed her torch was dimming. She slapped it.
“Why didn’t you help Powel, priest?” someone asked.
“Ruth?” Horst begged. “Please, tell them how evil Quinn is.”
“We know.”
“Shut up, priest. We don’t need a worthless piss-artist telling us about the Ivets. If Quinn shows his face here, he’s dead.”
Ruth’s torch went out.
Alarmed gasps went up from the others as all the torches began to flicker and fade.
“Demons are coming!” Horst yelled.
Fierce orange flames shot out of one of the cabins fifty metres away from the hall; they licked along its base then raced up the stanchions to the roof. Within thirty seconds the whole structure was ablaze. The twisting flames were ten metres high.
“Holy shit,” Ruth whispered. Nothing should burn that quickly.
“Mummy!” a child called from the hall.
“Horst, what happened out there?” Ruth cried.
Horst shook his head, a bubbling giggle coming from his lips. “Too late, too late. Satan’s beasts walk among us now. I told you.”
A second cabin began to blaze.
“Get the children out of the hall,” Skyba Molvi shouted. There was a general rush for the door. Ruth hesitated, looking at Horst imploringly. Most of the village clearing was now illuminated by erratic amber light. Shadows possessed a life of their own, leaping about at random. A black silhouette fluttered between the cabins in the distance behind the priest.
“They’re here,” she said. Nobody was listening. “They’re here, the Ivets!” She tugged her laser rifle up. The green targeting beam pierced the air, sending relief flooding through her. At least something bloody worked. She pulled the trigger, sending a barrage of infrared pulses after the elusive figure.
The children swept out of the hall like a wave, some of the older ones scaling the flimsy metre-high side walls. Cries and shouts broke out as they tried to run to their parents.
“Jay!” Ruth called.
A line of flame streaked along the roof. It was an unerringly straight line, Ruth could see the wood turning black an instant before the actual flame shot up. Maser!
She worked out roughly where it must be firing from, and brought the laser rifle to bear. Her finger punched down on the trigger stud.
“Mummy,” Jay called.
“Here.”
The laser rifle bleeped. Ruth ejected the drained power magazine and slammed in a fresh one.
Several other people were firing into the jungle. The neon threads of targeting lasers lashed out, chasing elusive phantoms.
There was a concerted movement away from the hall, everyone crouching low. It was pandemonium, children wailing, adults shouting. The woven palm wall of the hall caught fire.
They could kill every one of us if they wanted to, she realized.
Jay rushed up and flung her arms round her waist. Ruth grabbed her arm. “Come on, this way.” She started towards the jetty. Another three cabins were on fire.
She saw Horst a couple of metres away, and jerked her head in a determined gesture. He began to lumber along after them.
A scream sounded across Aberdale, a gruesome drawn-out warbling that could never have come from a human throat. It shocked even the distraught children into silence. Targeting lasers jabbed out in reflex, spearing the gaps between the cabins.
The scream faded to a poignant desperate whimper.
“Jesus God, they’re everywhere, all around.”
“Where are the hunters? The hunters!”
There seemed to be fewer targeting lasers active now. The first burning cabin suddenly crumpled up, blowing out ephemeral spires of brilliant sparks.
“Horst, we’ve got to get Jay away,” Ruth said urgently.
“No escape,” he mumbled. “Not for the damned. And were we ever anything but?”
“Oh, yeah? Don’t you believe it.” She began to pull Jay across the stream of people, heading towards the nearest row of cabins. Horst lowered his head and followed.
They reached the cabins just as some kind of commotion started down by the jetty: shouting, the splash of something heavy falling into the river. It meant nobody was paying her much attention.
“Thank Christ for that,” Ruth said. She led Jay down the gap between two cabins.
“Where are we going, Mummy?” Jay asked.
“We’ll hide out for a couple of hours until that bloody hunting party gets back. God damn Powel for stripping the village.”
“He’s beyond damnation now,” Horst said.
“Look, Horst, just what—”
Jackson Gael stepped around the end of the cabin and planted himself firmly in front of them. “Ruth. Little Jay. Father Horst. Come to me. You are so welcome.”
“Bollocks,” Ruth snarled. She swung the laser rifle round. There was no targeting beam, even the power-level LEDs were dead. “Shit!”
Jackson Gael took a step towards them. “There is no death any more, Ruth,” he said. “There will never be death again.”
Ruth thrust Jay towards Horst. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done. “Get her out of here, Horst, get her away.”
“Trust me, Ruth, you will not die.” Jackson Gael held out his hand. “Come.”
“Screw you.” She dropped the useless laser rifle, standing between him and Jay.
“There is no sanctuary,” Horst mumbled. “Not on this cursed planet.”
“Mummy!” Jay wailed.
“Horst, just for once in your fucking pitiful life do something right; take my daughter and get her out of here. This bastard isn’t getting past me.”
“I—”
“Do it!”
“God bless you, Ruth.” He started to pull a struggling Jay back the way they had come.
“Mummy, please!” she shrieked.
“Go with Horst. I love you.” She drew her Bowie knife from its belt scabbard. Good solid dependable steel.
Jackson Gael grinned. Ruth could have sworn she saw fangs.
Chapter 14
Ione Saldana stood in front of the tube carriage’s door, urging it to open.
I can’t make it go any faster,tranquillity grumbled as the backwash of emotion dissipated through the affinity bond.
I know. I’m not blaming you.she clenched her fists, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The carriage started to slow, and she reached up to hold one of the hand hoops. The memory of Joshua flashed into her mind—she’d never be able to use the carriages without thinking of him again. She smiled.
There was a frisson of disparagement from Tranquillity sounding in her mind.
Jealous,she teased.
Hardly,came the piqued reply.
The carriage door slid open. Ione stepped out on the deserted platform and raced up the stairs, her serjeant bodyguard clumping along behind.
It was a southern endcap cove station, a couple of kilometres away from the Laymil research project campus. The cove was six hundred metres long, a gentle crescent with fine gold-white sands and several outcrops of granite boulders. A rank of ageing coconut trees followed the beach’s curve; several had keeled over, pulling up large clods of sand and roots, and three had snapped off halfway up the trunk, adding to the vaguely wild look of the place. At the centre of the cove, sixty metres out from the shore, there was a tiny island with a few tall palm trees, providing an appealing nook for the more enthusiastic swimmers. A shingly bluff planted with coarse reeds rose up from the rear of the sands, blending into the first and widest of the endcap’s terraces.
Six low polyp domes, forty metres in diameter, broke the expanse of grass and silk oak trees behind the bluff, giving the impression of being partially buried. They were the Kiint residences, grown specifically for the eight big xenocs who participated in the Laymil project.
Their involvement had been quite a coup for Michael Saldana. Even though they didn’t build ZTT starships (they claimed their psychology meant they had no real interest in space travel), the Kiint remained the most technologically advanced race in the Confederation. Up until Michael’s invitation was accepted they had refrained from any joint scientific enterprise with other Confederation members. However, Michael succeeded where countless others had failed, in presenting them with a peaceful challenge which would tax even their capabilities. Their intellect, along with the instrumentation they provided, would inevitably speed up the research. And of course their presence had helped to bolster Tranquillity’s kudos in the difficult early days.
Eight was the largest number of Kiint resident on a human world or habitat outside the Confederation capital, Avon. Something else which had given Michael a considerable degree of underhand satisfaction—Kulu only rated the customary pair as ambassadors.
Inside Tranquillity the Kiint were as insular as they were in the Confederation at large. Although cordial with their fellow project staff members, they did not socialize with any of the habitat’s population, and Tranquillity guarded their physical privacy quite rigorously. Even Ione had only had a few formal meetings with them, where both sides stuck to small-talk pleasantries. It was just as bad as having to “receive” all those national ambassadors. The hours she’d spent with those semi-senile bores . . .
Ione had never been out to the Kiint buildings before, and probably never would have. But this occasion justified it, she felt, even if they were upset with her breach of etiquette.
She stood on the top of the bluff, and looked down at the bulky white xenocs bathing in the shallows. From her vantage point she could see a lot of splashing going on.
Thirty metres away, there was a wide path of crumbling soil leading to the sands. She started down.
How do they get to the project campus every day?she asked, suddenly curious.
They walk. Only humans demand mechanized transport to move from one room to another.
My, but we are touchy this morning.
I would point out that guaranteed seclusion was part of the original agreement between the Kiint and your grandfather.
Yes, yes,she said impatiently. she reached the bottom of the path, and took her sandals off to walk across the sand. The towelling robe she wore over her bikini flapped loosely.
There were three Kiint in the water, Nang and Lieria, a pair who worked in the Laymil project Physiology Division, and a baby. Tranquillity had reported its appearance as soon as Ione woke up that morning, although the personality refused to show her its own memory of the birth, which had come sometime in the night. Would you like recordings of your labour pains shown to xenocs simply because they were morbidly curious?it asked sternly.
She had acquiesced with bad grace.
The baby Kiint was about two metres long, its body more rounded than the adults’ and slightly whiter. The legs were a metre high, which brought the top of the head level with Ione’s. It was clearly having a rare old time in the water. The tractamorphic arms were formshifting at a frantic rate, first scoops, then paddles slapped about to raise sheets of spray, now bulblike pods which squirted out jets of water. Its beak was flapping open and shut.
The parents were patting and stroking it with their arms as it charged about in circles. Then it caught sight of Ione.
Panic. Alarm. Incredulity. Thing has not enough legs. Topple walk. Fall over not. Why why why? What is it?
Ione blinked against the sudden wash of jumbled emotions and frantic questions that seemed to be shouted into her mind.
That’ll teach you to creep up on entities,tranquillity said drily.
The baby Kiint butted up against Lieria’s flank, hiding itself from Ione.
What is it? What is it? Fear strangeness.
Ione caught the briefest exchange of mental images that the adult Kiints directed at the baby, an information stream more complex than anything she’d known before. The speed was bewildering, over almost as it began.
She stopped with her feet in the warm, clear water and gave the adults a small bow. Nang, Lieria, I came to offer my congratulations on the birth, and to see if your child has any special requirements. My apologies if I intrude.
Thank you, Ione Saldana,lieria said. there was a suggestion of lofty amusement behind the mental voice. Your interest and concern is gratifying, no apology is required. This is Haile, our daughter.
Welcome to Tranquillity, Haile,ione told the baby, projecting as much warmth and delight as she could muster. It came easily, the little Kiint was so cute. Very different from the solemn adults.
Haile pushed her head comically round Lieria’s neck, huge violet-tinged eyes looked steadily at Ione. It communicates! Alive think.
There was another fast mental communiquй from one of the adults. The baby turned to look at Nang, then back at Ione. The tumult of emotions leaking into the affinity band began to slow.
Formal address wrongness. Much sorriness. Greetings ritual observance.the thoughts stopped abruptly, almost like a mental gathering of breath. Hello Ione Saldana. Rightness?
Very much.
Human you are?
I am.
I Haile am.
Hello, Haile, I’m pleased to meet you.
Haile squirmed round excitedly, water frothed around her eight feet. It likes me! Happiness feel much.
I’m glad.
Human identity query: Part of the all-around?
She means me,tranquillity said.
No, I’m not part of the all-around. We’re just good friends.
Haile surged forward, ploughing the water aside. She still hadn’t quite got the hang of walking, and her rear pair of legs almost tripped her up.
This time Ione could understand the adults’ warning perfectly. Careful!
Haile stopped a metre short of her. Warm breath exhaled from the facial vents smelt slightly spicy, and the tractamorphic arms waved about. She held her hand out, palm facing the baby, fingers spread. Haile tried to imitate the hand; her attempt looked like a melted wax model.
Fail! Sorrowness. Show me how, Ione Saldana.
I can’t, mine’s always like this.
Haile emitted a burst of shock.
Ione giggled. It’s all right. I’m very happy with the way I am.
It is rightness?
It is rightness.
There is so much strangeness to life,haile said wistfully.
You’re right there.
Haile bent her neck almost double to look back round at her parents. The fast affinity exchange which followed made Ione feel woefully inadequate.
Are you my friend, Ione Saldana?haile asked tentatively.
I think I could be, yes.
Will you show me the all-around? It has a vastness. I don’t want to go alone. Loneliness fear.
It would be a pleasure,she said, surprised.
Haile’s arms hit the water sending up a giant plume of spray. Ione was instantly drenched. She pulled the wet hair from her eyes, sighing ruefully.
You have no liking of water?haile asked anxiously.
I’ll have you know I’m a better swimmer than you.
Much gleeful!
Ione,tranquillity said. The Lady Macbeth has just emerged from a ZTT jump. Joshua has requested docking permission.
“Joshua!” Ione shouted. Too late she remembered Kiint did have auditory senses.
Haile’s arms writhed in alarm. Panic. Fright. Joy shared.she shied back from ione and promptly fell down.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ione splashed towards her.
Nang and Lieria came up and slipped their arms under Haile’s belly, while the baby Kiint coiled an arm tip around Ione’s hand. She tugged.
Query Joshua identity?haile asked as she regained her feet and stood swaying unsteadily.
He’s another friend of mine.
More friends? My friend? I meet him?
Ione opened her mouth—then thought about it. Away at the back of her mind Tranquillity was registering a serene hauteur.
Ione closed her mouth. I think we’ll wait until you understand humans a little better.
It was almost an infallible rule that to be an Edenist a human must have affinity and live in a habitat; certainly every Edenist returned to a habitat for their death, or had their thoughts transferred to one after death. Physically, the bitek systems integral to their society were capable of sustaining a very high standard of living at little financial cost: the price of steering asteroidal rubble into a habitat maw, the internal mechanical systems like starscraper lifts and the tube carriage network. Culturally though the symbiosis was much more subtle. With the exception of Serpents, there were no psychological problems among the Edenist population; although they displayed a full emotional range, as individuals there were all extremely well adjusted. The knowledge that they would continue as part of the habitat personality after bodily death acted as a tremendous stabilizing influence, banishing a great many common human psychoses. It was a liberation which bestowed them with a universal confidence and poise that Adamists nearly always considered to be unbridled arrogance. The disparity in wealth between the two cultures also contributed to the image of Edenists being humanity’s aristocrats.
Edenism, then, was dependent on habitats. And bitek habitats were only to be found orbiting gas giants. They were totally reliant on the vast magnetospheres of such worlds for power. Photosynthesis was a wholly impractical method of supplying a habitat’s energy demands; it necessitated the deployment of vast leaf-analogue membranes, and the numerous difficulties inherent in doing so from a rotating structure, as well as being unacceptably susceptible to damage from both particle impact and cosmic radiation. So the Edenists were confined to colonizing the Confederation’s gas giants.
However there was one exception, one terracompatible planet which they settled successfully: Atlantis; so named because it was a single giant ocean of salt water. Its sole exports were the seafood delicacies for which it was renowned across the Confederation. The variety of marine life below its waves was so great that even two hundred and forty years after its discovery barely one-third had been classified. A vast number of traders, both independent and corporate, were attracted to it; which was why Syrinx flew Oenone there right after their navy duty tour finished.
Syrinx had decided to go straight into the independent trading business once her discharge order came through. The prospect of years spent on He3 deliveries depressed her. A lot of voidhawk captains took on the tanker contracts for the stability they offered, it was exactly what she’d done when Oenone started flying, but the last thing she wanted was to wind up in a rigid flight routine again; the navy had given her quite enough of that already, a feeling the rest of the crew heartily shared (apart from Chi, who left along with all the weapons hardware in the lower hull). Although some doubts lingered obstinately in her mind, it was a big step from the precisely ordered navy life she was used to.
On seeing her daughter dithering, Athene pointed out that Norfolk was approaching conjunction, and spent an evening reminiscing on her own flights to collect the planet’s fabled Tears. Three days later Oenone left the maintenance station dock at Romulus; new cargo cradles fitted, a new civilian registration filed, licensed by the Confederation Astronautics Board to carry freight and up to twenty passengers, crew toroid refurbished, and crew-members in a tigerish frame of mind.
It emerged from its wormhole terminus a hundred and fifteen thousand kilometres above Atlantis, almost directly over the dawn terminator. Syrinx felt the rest of the crew observing the planet through the voidhawk’s sensor blisters. There was a collective emission of admiration.
Atlantis was a seamless blue, overlaid with rucked spirals of pure white cloud. There were fewer storms than an ordinary world, where continental and sea winds whipped up high and low air fronts in unceasing turmoil. Most of the storms below were concentrated in the tropical zones, stirred by the Coriolis effect. Both the polar icecaps were nearly identical circles, their edges amazingly regular.
Ruben, who was sitting in Syrinx’s day cabin in the shape-moulding couch beside her, gripped her hand a fraction tighter. This was an excellent choice, darling. A true fresh start to our civilian life. You know, in all my years I’ve never been here before.
Syrinx knew she was still too tense after every swallow manoeuvre, alert for hostile ships. True navy paranoia. She let the external image bathe her mind, soothing away the old stress habits. The ocean had a delightful sapphire radiance to it. Thank you. I think I can smell the salt already.
As long as you don’t try and drink this ocean like you did on Uighur.
She laughed at the memory of the time he had taught her how to wind surf in that beautiful deserted cove on a resort island. Four—no five years ago. Where did the time go?
Oenone descended into a five-hundred-kilometre orbit, complaining all the while. The planet’s gravity was exerting its inexorable influence over local space, tugging at the stability of the voidhawk’s distortion field, requiring extra power to compensate, a degradation which increased steadily as it approached the surface. When Oenone reached the injection point, it could barely generate half a gee acceleration.
There were over six hundred voidhawks (and thirty-eight blackhawks, Syrinx noted with vague disapproval), and close to a thousand Adamist starships, sharing the same standard equatorial orbit. Oenone ’s mass-sensitivity revealed them to Syrinx’s mind like muddy footprints across snow. Every now and then sunlight would flash off a silvered surface betraying their position to the optical sensors. Ground to orbit craft were shuttling constantly between them and the buoyant islands floating far below. She saw that most of them were spaceplanes rather than the newer ion-field craft. There was a quiet background hum in the affinity band as the voidhawks conversed and exchanged astrogation updates.
Can you find Eysk for me?she asked.
Of course,Oenone replied. Pernik Island is just over the horizon, it is midday for them. It would be easier to reach from a higher orbit,it added with apparent innocence.
No chance. We’re only here for a week.
She sensed the affinity link to Eysk opening. They exchanged identity traits. He was fifty-eight years old, a senior in a family business that trawled for fish and harvested various seaweeds then packaged them for transit.
My sister Pomona said I should contact you,syrinx said.
I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,eysk replied. We haven’t quite recovered from her last visit.
That’s my sister, all right. But I’ll let you decide. I’m sitting up here with a tragically empty cargo hold which needs filling. Four hundred tonnes of the classiest, tastiest products you have.
Mental laughter followed. Heading for Norfolk by any chance?
How did you guess?
Take a look around you, Syrinx, half the ships in orbit are loading up ready for that flight. And they place contracts a year in advance.
I couldn’t do that.
Why not?
We just finished a Confederation Navy duty tour three weeks ago. Oenone has spent the time since then in dock having the combat-wasp launchers removed and standard cargo systems fitted.she felt his mind close up slightly as he considered her request.
Ruben crossed his fingers and pulled a face.
We might have some surplus,he declared eventually.
Great!
It’s not cheap, and it’s nowhere near four hundred tonnes.
Money’s no problem.she could sense the dismay tweak of the crew at that blasй statement. They had all pooled their navy severance pay, and taken out a big loan option from the Jovian Bank, in the hope of putting together a cargo deal with a Norfolk roseyard-association merchant. Contrary to the firmly seated Adamist belief, the Jovian Bank did not hand out money to any Edenist on request. Between them, Oenone ’s crew had only just scraped together enough fuseodollars for a cash collateral.
I should be so lucky,eysk said. Still, anything to help out an old naval hand. Do you know what you’re looking for?
I had some unlin crab once, they were gorgeous. Orangesole, too, if you have some.
Futchi,cacus chipped in.
And silvereel,edwin said eagerly.
I think you’d better come down and have a tasting session,eysk said. Give you a better idea of what we have available.
Right away. And do you know any other families who might have a surplus we can buy up?
I’ll ask round. See you for supper.
The affinity link faded.
Syrinx clapped her hands together. Ruben kissed her lightly. “You’re a marvel,” he told her.
She kissed him back. “This is only half the battle. I’m still relying on your contact once we get to Norfolk.”
“Relax, he’s a sucker for seafood.”
Oxley,she called. Break out the flyer, it looks like we’re in business.
Joshua hadn’t expected to feel like this. He lived for space, for alien worlds, the hard edge of cargo deals, an unlimited supply of adventurous girls in port cities. But now Tranquillity’s drab matt-russet exterior was filling half of the Lady Mac ’s sensor array visualization, and it looked just wonderful. I’m coming home.
A break from Ashly moaning about how much better life was two centuries ago, no more of Warlow’s grumpiness, an end to Dahybi’s fastidious and perfidious attention to detail. Even Sarha was getting stale, free fall didn’t provide an infinite variety of positions after all—and once you’d discounted the sex, there wasn’t much else between them.
Yes, a rest was most definitely what he needed. And he could certainly afford one after that Puerto de Santa Maria run. Harkey’s Bar was going to resemble a pressure blow-out after he hit it this evening.
The rest of the crew were hooked into the flight computer via their neural nanonics, sharing the view. Joshua guided the ship along the vector spaceport traffic control had datavised to him, keeping the ion-thruster burns to a strict minimum. Lady Mac ’s mass distribution held no mysteries now, he knew how she would respond to the impact of a single photon.
She settled without a bounce on the cradle, and the hold-down latches clicked home. Joshua joined the rest of them in cheering.
Two serjeants were waiting for him when they came through the rotating pressure seal connecting the spaceport disk with the habitat. He just shrugged lamely at his openmouthed crew as the bitek servitors hauled him towards a waiting tube carriage, all three of them skip gliding in the ten per cent gravity field, his shoulder-bag with its precious contents trailing in the air like a half-inflated balloon.
“I’ll catch up with you tonight,” he called over his shoulder as the door slid shut.
Ione was standing on the platform when it opened again. It was the little station outside her cliff-base apartment.
She was wearing a black dress with cut-away sides and a fabulously tight skirt. Her hair was frizzed elaborately.
When he stopped looking at her legs and breasts in anticipation he saw there was a daunting expression on her face.
“Well?” she said.
“Er . . .”
“Where is it?”
“What exactly?”
A black shoe with a sharply pointed toe tapped impatiently on the polyp. “Joshua Calvert, you have spent over eleven months gallivanting around the universe, without, I might point out, sending me a single memory flek to say how you were getting on.”
“Yes. Sorry. Busy, you see.” Jesus, but he wanted to rip that dress off. She looked ten times more sexy than she did when he replayed the neural nanonic memories. And everywhere he went people were talking about the new young Lord of Ruin. Their fantasy figure was his girl. It just made her all the more desirable.
“So where’s my present?”
He almost did it, he almost said: “I’m your present.” But even as he started grinning he felt that little spike of anxiety inside. He didn’t want anything to foul up this reunion. Besides, she was only a kid, she needed him. So best to leave off the crappy jokes. “Oh, that,” he murmured.
Sea-blue eyes hardened. “Joshua!”
He twisted the catch on his shoulder-bag. She pulled it open eagerly. The sailu blinked at the light, looking up at her with eyes that were completely black and stupendously appealing.
They were described as living gnomes by the first people to see them, thirty centimetres fully grown, with black and white fur remarkably similar to a terrestrial panda. On their home world, Oshanko, they were so rare they were kept exclusively in an imperial reserve. Only the Emperor’s children were allowed to have them as pets. Cloning and breeding programmes were an anathema to the imperial court, they lived by natural selection alone. No official numbers of their population were given, but strong rumour suggested there were less than two thousand of them left.
Despite the bipedal shape, they had a very different skeleton and musculature to terrestrial anthropoids. There were no elbows or knees, their limbs bent along their whole length, making their movements incredibly ponderous. They were herbivores, and, if official AV recordings of the Emperor’s family were to be believed, clingingly affectionate.
Ione covered her mouth with one hand, eyes alight with incredulity. The creature was about twenty centimetres high. “It’s a sailu,” she said dumbly.
“Yes.”
She put a hand into the bag, extending one finger. The sailu reached for it in a graceful slow motion, deliciously silky fur stroked against her knuckle. “But only the Emperor’s children are supposed to have these.”
“Emperor, Lord—what’s the difference? I got it because I thought you’d like it.”
The sailu had clambered upright, still holding itself against her finger. Its flat wet nose sniffed her. “How?” she asked.
Joshua gave her a precocious smile.
“No. I don’t want to know.” She heard a soft crooning, and looked down, only to lose herself in the adoring gaze. “It’s very wicked of you, Joshua. But he’s quite lovely. Thank you.”
“Not sure about the ‘him’. I think there are three or four sexes. There’s not much on them in any reference library. But it does eat lettuce and strawberries.”
“I’ll remember.” She eased her finger from the sailu’s grip.
“So what about my present?” Joshua asked.
Ione struck a pose, tongue licking her lips. “I’m your present.”
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Joshua got her dress off just inside the door, and in return Ione tugged at his ship-suit seal so hard it broke. The first time was on one of the alcove tables, after that they used the ornate iron stair railings for support, then it was rolling around on the apricot moss carpet.
The bed did get used eventually, after a shower and a bottle of champagne. Hours later, Joshua knew he’d missed the party in Harkey’s Bar, and didn’t much care. Outside the window the light filtering through the water had faded to a dusky green, small orange and yellow fish were looking in at him.
Ione was sitting cross-legged on the rubbery transparent sheet with her back resting against some of the silk cushions. The sailu was snuggled up in her hand as she fed it with the crinkled red and green leaves of a lollo lettuce. It munched them daintily, gazing up at her.
Isn’t he adorable?she said happily.
The sailu genus exhibit a great many anthropomorphic traits which endear them to humans.
I bet you’d be nicer if it wasn’t Joshua who brought him.
Removing the sailu from its home planet is not only in complete contravention of the planetary statutes, it is also a direct personal insult to the Emperor himself. Joshua has put you in an invidious position. A typically thoughtless action on his part.
I won’t tell the Emperor if you won’t.
I was not proposing to tell the Emperor, nor even the Japanese Imperium’s ambassador.
That old fart.
Ione, please, Ambassador Ng is a very senior diplomat. His appointment here is a mark of the Emperor’s respect towards you.
I know.she tickled the sailu under its tiny chin. face and body were both flattish ovals, joined by a short neck. Its legs curved slowly, pressing the torso against her finger.
“I’m going to call him Augustine,” she announced. “That’s a noble name.”
“Great,” Joshua said. He leant over to the side of the bed and pulled the champagne bottle out of its ice bucket. “Flat,” he said, after he tipped some into his glass.
“Proves you have staying power,” she said coyly.
He reached for her left breast, smiling.
“No, don’t,” she moved out of the way. “Augustine’s still feeding. You’ll upset him.”
He lay back, disgruntled.
“Joshua, how long are you staying this time?”
“Couple of weeks. I need to get a contract with Roland Frampton sorted out. Distribution, not a charter. We’re going for a Norfolk run, Ione. We raised a lot of capital on some of our contracts; put that together with what I had left over from scavenging, and we’ll have enough for a cargo of Norfolk Tears. Imagine that! A hold full of the stuff.”
“Really? That’s wonderful, Joshua.”
“Yeah, if I can swing it. Distribution isn’t the problem. Acquisition is. I’ve been talking to some of the other captains. Those Norfolk roseyard-association merchants are tough nuts to crack. They won’t allow a futures market, which is pretty smart of them actually. It would be dominated by offworld finance houses. You have to show up with a ship and the cash, and even then it’s not a certainty you’ll get any bottles. You need a pretty reliable contact in the trade.”
“But you’ve never been there, you don’t have any contacts.”
“I know. First-time captains need a cargo to sell, a part-exchange deal. You’ve got to have something the merchants can’t do without, that way you can get a foot in the door.”
“What sort of cargo?”
“Ah, now that’s the real problem. Norfolk is constitutionally a pastoral world, there’s hardly any high technology they’ll allow you to import. Most captains take cordon bleu food, or works of antique art, fancy fabrics, stuff like that.”
Ione put Augustine down carefully on the other side of the silk pillows, and rolled onto her side facing him. “But you’ve got something else, haven’t you? I know that tone, Joshua Calvert. You’re feeling smug.”
He smiled up at the ceiling. “I was thinking about it: something essential, and new, but not synthetic. Something all those Stone Age towns and farms are going to want.”
“Which is?”
“Wood.”
“You’re kidding? Wood as in timber?”
“Yeah.”
“But they have wood on Norfolk. It’s heavily forested.”
“I know. That’s the beauty of it, they use it for everything. I’ve studied some sensevise recordings of the place; they make their buildings with it, their bridges, their boats, Jesus they even make carts out of it. Carpentry is a major industry there. But what I’m going to take them is a hard wood, and I mean really hard, like metal. They can use it in their furniture, or for their tool handles, their windmill cogs even, anything that’s used every day, or rots or wears out. It’s not high technology, yet it’ll be a real cost-effective upgrade. That ought to get me in with the merchants.”
“Hauling wood across interstellar space!” She shook her head in amazement. Only Joshua could come up with an idea so wonderfully crazy.
“Yep, Lady Mac should be able to carry almost a thousand tonnes if we really pack the stuff in.”
“What sort of wood?”
“I checked in a botanical reference library file when I was in the New California system. The hardest known wood in the Confederation is mayope, it comes from a new colony planet called Lalonde.”
Oenone ’s flyer was a flattened egg-shape, eleven metres long, with a fuselage that gleamed like purple chrome. It was built by the Brasov Dynamics company on Kulu, who had been heavily involved with the Kulu Corporation (owned by the Crown) in pioneering the ion-field technology which had sent panic waves through the rest of the Confederation’s astroengineering companies. Spaceplanes were on their way out, and Kulu was using its technological prowess to devastating political effect, granting preferential licence production to the companies of allied star systems.
Standard ion thrusters lifted it out of Oenone ’s little hangar and pushed it into an elliptical orbit that grazed Atlantis’s upper atmosphere. When the first wisps of molecular fog began to thicken outside the fuselage, Oxley activated the coherent magnetic field. The flyer was immediately surrounded by a bubble of golden haze, moderating the flow of gas streaking around the fuselage. Oxley used the flux lines to grab at the mesosphere, braking the flyer’s velocity, and they dropped in a steep curve towards the ocean far below.
Syrinx settled back in her deeply cushioned seat in the cabin along with Ruben, Tula, and the newest member of the crew, Serina, a crew toroid generalist who had replaced Chi. All of them were gazing keenly out of the single curving transparency around the front of the cabin. The flyer had been customized by an industrial station at Jupiter, replacing Brasov’s original silicon flight-control circuits with a bitek processor array; but the image from the sensors had a poor resolution compared to Oenone ’s sensor blisters. Eyes were almost as good.
There was absolutely no way of judging scale, no reference points. Unless she consulted the flyer’s processors, Syrinx didn’t know what their altitude was. The ocean rolled past below, seemingly without end.
After forty minutes Pernik Island appeared on the horizon. It was a circle of verdant green that was so obviously vegetation. The islands which Edenists had used to colonize Atlantis were a variant of habitat bitek. They were circular disks, two kilometres in diameter when they matured, made from polyp that was foamed like a sponge for buoyancy. A kilometre-wide park straddled the centre, with five accommodation towers spaced equidistantly around it, along with a host of civic buildings and light industry domes. The outer edge bristled with floating quays for the boats.
Like habitat starscrapers, the tower apartments had basic food-synthesis glands, though they were primarily for fruit juices and milk—there simply wasn’t any need to supply food when you were floating on what was virtually a protein-packed soup. An island had two sources of energy to power its biological functions. There was photosynthesis, from the thick moss which grew over every outside surface including the tower walls, and triplicated digestive tracts which were fed from the tonnes of krill-analogues captured by baleen scoops around the rim. The krill also provided the raw material for the polyp, as well as nutrient fluids. Electricity for industry came from thermal potential cables; complex organic conductors trailing kilometres below the island, exploiting the difference in temperature between the cool deep waters and the sun-heated surface layer to generate a current.
There was no propulsion system. Islands drifted where they would, carried by sluggish currents. So far six hundred and fifty had been germinated. The chances of collision were minute; for two to approach within visible range of each other was an event.
Oxley circled Pernik once. The water in the immediate vicinity was host to a flotilla of boats. Pernik Island’s trawlers and harvesters produced a crisscross of large V-shaped wakes as they departed for their fishing fields. Pleasure craft bobbed about behind them, small dinghies and yachts with their verdant green membrane sails fully extended.
The flyer darted in towards one of the landing pads between the towers and the rim. Eysk himself and three members of his family walked over as soon as the haze of ionized air around the flyer dissolved, grounding out through the metal grid.
I can’t make it go any faster,tranquillity grumbled as the backwash of emotion dissipated through the affinity bond.
I know. I’m not blaming you.she clenched her fists, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The carriage started to slow, and she reached up to hold one of the hand hoops. The memory of Joshua flashed into her mind—she’d never be able to use the carriages without thinking of him again. She smiled.
There was a frisson of disparagement from Tranquillity sounding in her mind.
Jealous,she teased.
Hardly,came the piqued reply.
The carriage door slid open. Ione stepped out on the deserted platform and raced up the stairs, her serjeant bodyguard clumping along behind.
It was a southern endcap cove station, a couple of kilometres away from the Laymil research project campus. The cove was six hundred metres long, a gentle crescent with fine gold-white sands and several outcrops of granite boulders. A rank of ageing coconut trees followed the beach’s curve; several had keeled over, pulling up large clods of sand and roots, and three had snapped off halfway up the trunk, adding to the vaguely wild look of the place. At the centre of the cove, sixty metres out from the shore, there was a tiny island with a few tall palm trees, providing an appealing nook for the more enthusiastic swimmers. A shingly bluff planted with coarse reeds rose up from the rear of the sands, blending into the first and widest of the endcap’s terraces.
Six low polyp domes, forty metres in diameter, broke the expanse of grass and silk oak trees behind the bluff, giving the impression of being partially buried. They were the Kiint residences, grown specifically for the eight big xenocs who participated in the Laymil project.
Their involvement had been quite a coup for Michael Saldana. Even though they didn’t build ZTT starships (they claimed their psychology meant they had no real interest in space travel), the Kiint remained the most technologically advanced race in the Confederation. Up until Michael’s invitation was accepted they had refrained from any joint scientific enterprise with other Confederation members. However, Michael succeeded where countless others had failed, in presenting them with a peaceful challenge which would tax even their capabilities. Their intellect, along with the instrumentation they provided, would inevitably speed up the research. And of course their presence had helped to bolster Tranquillity’s kudos in the difficult early days.
Eight was the largest number of Kiint resident on a human world or habitat outside the Confederation capital, Avon. Something else which had given Michael a considerable degree of underhand satisfaction—Kulu only rated the customary pair as ambassadors.
Inside Tranquillity the Kiint were as insular as they were in the Confederation at large. Although cordial with their fellow project staff members, they did not socialize with any of the habitat’s population, and Tranquillity guarded their physical privacy quite rigorously. Even Ione had only had a few formal meetings with them, where both sides stuck to small-talk pleasantries. It was just as bad as having to “receive” all those national ambassadors. The hours she’d spent with those semi-senile bores . . .
Ione had never been out to the Kiint buildings before, and probably never would have. But this occasion justified it, she felt, even if they were upset with her breach of etiquette.
She stood on the top of the bluff, and looked down at the bulky white xenocs bathing in the shallows. From her vantage point she could see a lot of splashing going on.
Thirty metres away, there was a wide path of crumbling soil leading to the sands. She started down.
How do they get to the project campus every day?she asked, suddenly curious.
They walk. Only humans demand mechanized transport to move from one room to another.
My, but we are touchy this morning.
I would point out that guaranteed seclusion was part of the original agreement between the Kiint and your grandfather.
Yes, yes,she said impatiently. she reached the bottom of the path, and took her sandals off to walk across the sand. The towelling robe she wore over her bikini flapped loosely.
There were three Kiint in the water, Nang and Lieria, a pair who worked in the Laymil project Physiology Division, and a baby. Tranquillity had reported its appearance as soon as Ione woke up that morning, although the personality refused to show her its own memory of the birth, which had come sometime in the night. Would you like recordings of your labour pains shown to xenocs simply because they were morbidly curious?it asked sternly.
She had acquiesced with bad grace.
The baby Kiint was about two metres long, its body more rounded than the adults’ and slightly whiter. The legs were a metre high, which brought the top of the head level with Ione’s. It was clearly having a rare old time in the water. The tractamorphic arms were formshifting at a frantic rate, first scoops, then paddles slapped about to raise sheets of spray, now bulblike pods which squirted out jets of water. Its beak was flapping open and shut.
The parents were patting and stroking it with their arms as it charged about in circles. Then it caught sight of Ione.
Panic. Alarm. Incredulity. Thing has not enough legs. Topple walk. Fall over not. Why why why? What is it?
Ione blinked against the sudden wash of jumbled emotions and frantic questions that seemed to be shouted into her mind.
That’ll teach you to creep up on entities,tranquillity said drily.
The baby Kiint butted up against Lieria’s flank, hiding itself from Ione.
What is it? What is it? Fear strangeness.
Ione caught the briefest exchange of mental images that the adult Kiints directed at the baby, an information stream more complex than anything she’d known before. The speed was bewildering, over almost as it began.
She stopped with her feet in the warm, clear water and gave the adults a small bow. Nang, Lieria, I came to offer my congratulations on the birth, and to see if your child has any special requirements. My apologies if I intrude.
Thank you, Ione Saldana,lieria said. there was a suggestion of lofty amusement behind the mental voice. Your interest and concern is gratifying, no apology is required. This is Haile, our daughter.
Welcome to Tranquillity, Haile,ione told the baby, projecting as much warmth and delight as she could muster. It came easily, the little Kiint was so cute. Very different from the solemn adults.
Haile pushed her head comically round Lieria’s neck, huge violet-tinged eyes looked steadily at Ione. It communicates! Alive think.
There was another fast mental communiquй from one of the adults. The baby turned to look at Nang, then back at Ione. The tumult of emotions leaking into the affinity band began to slow.
Formal address wrongness. Much sorriness. Greetings ritual observance.the thoughts stopped abruptly, almost like a mental gathering of breath. Hello Ione Saldana. Rightness?
Very much.
Human you are?
I am.
I Haile am.
Hello, Haile, I’m pleased to meet you.
Haile squirmed round excitedly, water frothed around her eight feet. It likes me! Happiness feel much.
I’m glad.
Human identity query: Part of the all-around?
She means me,tranquillity said.
No, I’m not part of the all-around. We’re just good friends.
Haile surged forward, ploughing the water aside. She still hadn’t quite got the hang of walking, and her rear pair of legs almost tripped her up.
This time Ione could understand the adults’ warning perfectly. Careful!
Haile stopped a metre short of her. Warm breath exhaled from the facial vents smelt slightly spicy, and the tractamorphic arms waved about. She held her hand out, palm facing the baby, fingers spread. Haile tried to imitate the hand; her attempt looked like a melted wax model.
Fail! Sorrowness. Show me how, Ione Saldana.
I can’t, mine’s always like this.
Haile emitted a burst of shock.
Ione giggled. It’s all right. I’m very happy with the way I am.
It is rightness?
It is rightness.
There is so much strangeness to life,haile said wistfully.
You’re right there.
Haile bent her neck almost double to look back round at her parents. The fast affinity exchange which followed made Ione feel woefully inadequate.
Are you my friend, Ione Saldana?haile asked tentatively.
I think I could be, yes.
Will you show me the all-around? It has a vastness. I don’t want to go alone. Loneliness fear.
It would be a pleasure,she said, surprised.
Haile’s arms hit the water sending up a giant plume of spray. Ione was instantly drenched. She pulled the wet hair from her eyes, sighing ruefully.
You have no liking of water?haile asked anxiously.
I’ll have you know I’m a better swimmer than you.
Much gleeful!
Ione,tranquillity said. The Lady Macbeth has just emerged from a ZTT jump. Joshua has requested docking permission.
“Joshua!” Ione shouted. Too late she remembered Kiint did have auditory senses.
Haile’s arms writhed in alarm. Panic. Fright. Joy shared.she shied back from ione and promptly fell down.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ione splashed towards her.
Nang and Lieria came up and slipped their arms under Haile’s belly, while the baby Kiint coiled an arm tip around Ione’s hand. She tugged.
Query Joshua identity?haile asked as she regained her feet and stood swaying unsteadily.
He’s another friend of mine.
More friends? My friend? I meet him?
Ione opened her mouth—then thought about it. Away at the back of her mind Tranquillity was registering a serene hauteur.
Ione closed her mouth. I think we’ll wait until you understand humans a little better.
It was almost an infallible rule that to be an Edenist a human must have affinity and live in a habitat; certainly every Edenist returned to a habitat for their death, or had their thoughts transferred to one after death. Physically, the bitek systems integral to their society were capable of sustaining a very high standard of living at little financial cost: the price of steering asteroidal rubble into a habitat maw, the internal mechanical systems like starscraper lifts and the tube carriage network. Culturally though the symbiosis was much more subtle. With the exception of Serpents, there were no psychological problems among the Edenist population; although they displayed a full emotional range, as individuals there were all extremely well adjusted. The knowledge that they would continue as part of the habitat personality after bodily death acted as a tremendous stabilizing influence, banishing a great many common human psychoses. It was a liberation which bestowed them with a universal confidence and poise that Adamists nearly always considered to be unbridled arrogance. The disparity in wealth between the two cultures also contributed to the image of Edenists being humanity’s aristocrats.
Edenism, then, was dependent on habitats. And bitek habitats were only to be found orbiting gas giants. They were totally reliant on the vast magnetospheres of such worlds for power. Photosynthesis was a wholly impractical method of supplying a habitat’s energy demands; it necessitated the deployment of vast leaf-analogue membranes, and the numerous difficulties inherent in doing so from a rotating structure, as well as being unacceptably susceptible to damage from both particle impact and cosmic radiation. So the Edenists were confined to colonizing the Confederation’s gas giants.
However there was one exception, one terracompatible planet which they settled successfully: Atlantis; so named because it was a single giant ocean of salt water. Its sole exports were the seafood delicacies for which it was renowned across the Confederation. The variety of marine life below its waves was so great that even two hundred and forty years after its discovery barely one-third had been classified. A vast number of traders, both independent and corporate, were attracted to it; which was why Syrinx flew Oenone there right after their navy duty tour finished.
Syrinx had decided to go straight into the independent trading business once her discharge order came through. The prospect of years spent on He3 deliveries depressed her. A lot of voidhawk captains took on the tanker contracts for the stability they offered, it was exactly what she’d done when Oenone started flying, but the last thing she wanted was to wind up in a rigid flight routine again; the navy had given her quite enough of that already, a feeling the rest of the crew heartily shared (apart from Chi, who left along with all the weapons hardware in the lower hull). Although some doubts lingered obstinately in her mind, it was a big step from the precisely ordered navy life she was used to.
On seeing her daughter dithering, Athene pointed out that Norfolk was approaching conjunction, and spent an evening reminiscing on her own flights to collect the planet’s fabled Tears. Three days later Oenone left the maintenance station dock at Romulus; new cargo cradles fitted, a new civilian registration filed, licensed by the Confederation Astronautics Board to carry freight and up to twenty passengers, crew toroid refurbished, and crew-members in a tigerish frame of mind.
It emerged from its wormhole terminus a hundred and fifteen thousand kilometres above Atlantis, almost directly over the dawn terminator. Syrinx felt the rest of the crew observing the planet through the voidhawk’s sensor blisters. There was a collective emission of admiration.
Atlantis was a seamless blue, overlaid with rucked spirals of pure white cloud. There were fewer storms than an ordinary world, where continental and sea winds whipped up high and low air fronts in unceasing turmoil. Most of the storms below were concentrated in the tropical zones, stirred by the Coriolis effect. Both the polar icecaps were nearly identical circles, their edges amazingly regular.
Ruben, who was sitting in Syrinx’s day cabin in the shape-moulding couch beside her, gripped her hand a fraction tighter. This was an excellent choice, darling. A true fresh start to our civilian life. You know, in all my years I’ve never been here before.
Syrinx knew she was still too tense after every swallow manoeuvre, alert for hostile ships. True navy paranoia. She let the external image bathe her mind, soothing away the old stress habits. The ocean had a delightful sapphire radiance to it. Thank you. I think I can smell the salt already.
As long as you don’t try and drink this ocean like you did on Uighur.
She laughed at the memory of the time he had taught her how to wind surf in that beautiful deserted cove on a resort island. Four—no five years ago. Where did the time go?
Oenone descended into a five-hundred-kilometre orbit, complaining all the while. The planet’s gravity was exerting its inexorable influence over local space, tugging at the stability of the voidhawk’s distortion field, requiring extra power to compensate, a degradation which increased steadily as it approached the surface. When Oenone reached the injection point, it could barely generate half a gee acceleration.
There were over six hundred voidhawks (and thirty-eight blackhawks, Syrinx noted with vague disapproval), and close to a thousand Adamist starships, sharing the same standard equatorial orbit. Oenone ’s mass-sensitivity revealed them to Syrinx’s mind like muddy footprints across snow. Every now and then sunlight would flash off a silvered surface betraying their position to the optical sensors. Ground to orbit craft were shuttling constantly between them and the buoyant islands floating far below. She saw that most of them were spaceplanes rather than the newer ion-field craft. There was a quiet background hum in the affinity band as the voidhawks conversed and exchanged astrogation updates.
Can you find Eysk for me?she asked.
Of course,Oenone replied. Pernik Island is just over the horizon, it is midday for them. It would be easier to reach from a higher orbit,it added with apparent innocence.
No chance. We’re only here for a week.
She sensed the affinity link to Eysk opening. They exchanged identity traits. He was fifty-eight years old, a senior in a family business that trawled for fish and harvested various seaweeds then packaged them for transit.
My sister Pomona said I should contact you,syrinx said.
I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,eysk replied. We haven’t quite recovered from her last visit.
That’s my sister, all right. But I’ll let you decide. I’m sitting up here with a tragically empty cargo hold which needs filling. Four hundred tonnes of the classiest, tastiest products you have.
Mental laughter followed. Heading for Norfolk by any chance?
How did you guess?
Take a look around you, Syrinx, half the ships in orbit are loading up ready for that flight. And they place contracts a year in advance.
I couldn’t do that.
Why not?
We just finished a Confederation Navy duty tour three weeks ago. Oenone has spent the time since then in dock having the combat-wasp launchers removed and standard cargo systems fitted.she felt his mind close up slightly as he considered her request.
Ruben crossed his fingers and pulled a face.
We might have some surplus,he declared eventually.
Great!
It’s not cheap, and it’s nowhere near four hundred tonnes.
Money’s no problem.she could sense the dismay tweak of the crew at that blasй statement. They had all pooled their navy severance pay, and taken out a big loan option from the Jovian Bank, in the hope of putting together a cargo deal with a Norfolk roseyard-association merchant. Contrary to the firmly seated Adamist belief, the Jovian Bank did not hand out money to any Edenist on request. Between them, Oenone ’s crew had only just scraped together enough fuseodollars for a cash collateral.
I should be so lucky,eysk said. Still, anything to help out an old naval hand. Do you know what you’re looking for?
I had some unlin crab once, they were gorgeous. Orangesole, too, if you have some.
Futchi,cacus chipped in.
And silvereel,edwin said eagerly.
I think you’d better come down and have a tasting session,eysk said. Give you a better idea of what we have available.
Right away. And do you know any other families who might have a surplus we can buy up?
I’ll ask round. See you for supper.
The affinity link faded.
Syrinx clapped her hands together. Ruben kissed her lightly. “You’re a marvel,” he told her.
She kissed him back. “This is only half the battle. I’m still relying on your contact once we get to Norfolk.”
“Relax, he’s a sucker for seafood.”
Oxley,she called. Break out the flyer, it looks like we’re in business.
Joshua hadn’t expected to feel like this. He lived for space, for alien worlds, the hard edge of cargo deals, an unlimited supply of adventurous girls in port cities. But now Tranquillity’s drab matt-russet exterior was filling half of the Lady Mac ’s sensor array visualization, and it looked just wonderful. I’m coming home.
A break from Ashly moaning about how much better life was two centuries ago, no more of Warlow’s grumpiness, an end to Dahybi’s fastidious and perfidious attention to detail. Even Sarha was getting stale, free fall didn’t provide an infinite variety of positions after all—and once you’d discounted the sex, there wasn’t much else between them.
Yes, a rest was most definitely what he needed. And he could certainly afford one after that Puerto de Santa Maria run. Harkey’s Bar was going to resemble a pressure blow-out after he hit it this evening.
The rest of the crew were hooked into the flight computer via their neural nanonics, sharing the view. Joshua guided the ship along the vector spaceport traffic control had datavised to him, keeping the ion-thruster burns to a strict minimum. Lady Mac ’s mass distribution held no mysteries now, he knew how she would respond to the impact of a single photon.
She settled without a bounce on the cradle, and the hold-down latches clicked home. Joshua joined the rest of them in cheering.
Two serjeants were waiting for him when they came through the rotating pressure seal connecting the spaceport disk with the habitat. He just shrugged lamely at his openmouthed crew as the bitek servitors hauled him towards a waiting tube carriage, all three of them skip gliding in the ten per cent gravity field, his shoulder-bag with its precious contents trailing in the air like a half-inflated balloon.
“I’ll catch up with you tonight,” he called over his shoulder as the door slid shut.
Ione was standing on the platform when it opened again. It was the little station outside her cliff-base apartment.
She was wearing a black dress with cut-away sides and a fabulously tight skirt. Her hair was frizzed elaborately.
When he stopped looking at her legs and breasts in anticipation he saw there was a daunting expression on her face.
“Well?” she said.
“Er . . .”
“Where is it?”
“What exactly?”
A black shoe with a sharply pointed toe tapped impatiently on the polyp. “Joshua Calvert, you have spent over eleven months gallivanting around the universe, without, I might point out, sending me a single memory flek to say how you were getting on.”
“Yes. Sorry. Busy, you see.” Jesus, but he wanted to rip that dress off. She looked ten times more sexy than she did when he replayed the neural nanonic memories. And everywhere he went people were talking about the new young Lord of Ruin. Their fantasy figure was his girl. It just made her all the more desirable.
“So where’s my present?”
He almost did it, he almost said: “I’m your present.” But even as he started grinning he felt that little spike of anxiety inside. He didn’t want anything to foul up this reunion. Besides, she was only a kid, she needed him. So best to leave off the crappy jokes. “Oh, that,” he murmured.
Sea-blue eyes hardened. “Joshua!”
He twisted the catch on his shoulder-bag. She pulled it open eagerly. The sailu blinked at the light, looking up at her with eyes that were completely black and stupendously appealing.
They were described as living gnomes by the first people to see them, thirty centimetres fully grown, with black and white fur remarkably similar to a terrestrial panda. On their home world, Oshanko, they were so rare they were kept exclusively in an imperial reserve. Only the Emperor’s children were allowed to have them as pets. Cloning and breeding programmes were an anathema to the imperial court, they lived by natural selection alone. No official numbers of their population were given, but strong rumour suggested there were less than two thousand of them left.
Despite the bipedal shape, they had a very different skeleton and musculature to terrestrial anthropoids. There were no elbows or knees, their limbs bent along their whole length, making their movements incredibly ponderous. They were herbivores, and, if official AV recordings of the Emperor’s family were to be believed, clingingly affectionate.
Ione covered her mouth with one hand, eyes alight with incredulity. The creature was about twenty centimetres high. “It’s a sailu,” she said dumbly.
“Yes.”
She put a hand into the bag, extending one finger. The sailu reached for it in a graceful slow motion, deliciously silky fur stroked against her knuckle. “But only the Emperor’s children are supposed to have these.”
“Emperor, Lord—what’s the difference? I got it because I thought you’d like it.”
The sailu had clambered upright, still holding itself against her finger. Its flat wet nose sniffed her. “How?” she asked.
Joshua gave her a precocious smile.
“No. I don’t want to know.” She heard a soft crooning, and looked down, only to lose herself in the adoring gaze. “It’s very wicked of you, Joshua. But he’s quite lovely. Thank you.”
“Not sure about the ‘him’. I think there are three or four sexes. There’s not much on them in any reference library. But it does eat lettuce and strawberries.”
“I’ll remember.” She eased her finger from the sailu’s grip.
“So what about my present?” Joshua asked.
Ione struck a pose, tongue licking her lips. “I’m your present.”
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Joshua got her dress off just inside the door, and in return Ione tugged at his ship-suit seal so hard it broke. The first time was on one of the alcove tables, after that they used the ornate iron stair railings for support, then it was rolling around on the apricot moss carpet.
The bed did get used eventually, after a shower and a bottle of champagne. Hours later, Joshua knew he’d missed the party in Harkey’s Bar, and didn’t much care. Outside the window the light filtering through the water had faded to a dusky green, small orange and yellow fish were looking in at him.
Ione was sitting cross-legged on the rubbery transparent sheet with her back resting against some of the silk cushions. The sailu was snuggled up in her hand as she fed it with the crinkled red and green leaves of a lollo lettuce. It munched them daintily, gazing up at her.
Isn’t he adorable?she said happily.
The sailu genus exhibit a great many anthropomorphic traits which endear them to humans.
I bet you’d be nicer if it wasn’t Joshua who brought him.
Removing the sailu from its home planet is not only in complete contravention of the planetary statutes, it is also a direct personal insult to the Emperor himself. Joshua has put you in an invidious position. A typically thoughtless action on his part.
I won’t tell the Emperor if you won’t.
I was not proposing to tell the Emperor, nor even the Japanese Imperium’s ambassador.
That old fart.
Ione, please, Ambassador Ng is a very senior diplomat. His appointment here is a mark of the Emperor’s respect towards you.
I know.she tickled the sailu under its tiny chin. face and body were both flattish ovals, joined by a short neck. Its legs curved slowly, pressing the torso against her finger.
“I’m going to call him Augustine,” she announced. “That’s a noble name.”
“Great,” Joshua said. He leant over to the side of the bed and pulled the champagne bottle out of its ice bucket. “Flat,” he said, after he tipped some into his glass.
“Proves you have staying power,” she said coyly.
He reached for her left breast, smiling.
“No, don’t,” she moved out of the way. “Augustine’s still feeding. You’ll upset him.”
He lay back, disgruntled.
“Joshua, how long are you staying this time?”
“Couple of weeks. I need to get a contract with Roland Frampton sorted out. Distribution, not a charter. We’re going for a Norfolk run, Ione. We raised a lot of capital on some of our contracts; put that together with what I had left over from scavenging, and we’ll have enough for a cargo of Norfolk Tears. Imagine that! A hold full of the stuff.”
“Really? That’s wonderful, Joshua.”
“Yeah, if I can swing it. Distribution isn’t the problem. Acquisition is. I’ve been talking to some of the other captains. Those Norfolk roseyard-association merchants are tough nuts to crack. They won’t allow a futures market, which is pretty smart of them actually. It would be dominated by offworld finance houses. You have to show up with a ship and the cash, and even then it’s not a certainty you’ll get any bottles. You need a pretty reliable contact in the trade.”
“But you’ve never been there, you don’t have any contacts.”
“I know. First-time captains need a cargo to sell, a part-exchange deal. You’ve got to have something the merchants can’t do without, that way you can get a foot in the door.”
“What sort of cargo?”
“Ah, now that’s the real problem. Norfolk is constitutionally a pastoral world, there’s hardly any high technology they’ll allow you to import. Most captains take cordon bleu food, or works of antique art, fancy fabrics, stuff like that.”
Ione put Augustine down carefully on the other side of the silk pillows, and rolled onto her side facing him. “But you’ve got something else, haven’t you? I know that tone, Joshua Calvert. You’re feeling smug.”
He smiled up at the ceiling. “I was thinking about it: something essential, and new, but not synthetic. Something all those Stone Age towns and farms are going to want.”
“Which is?”
“Wood.”
“You’re kidding? Wood as in timber?”
“Yeah.”
“But they have wood on Norfolk. It’s heavily forested.”
“I know. That’s the beauty of it, they use it for everything. I’ve studied some sensevise recordings of the place; they make their buildings with it, their bridges, their boats, Jesus they even make carts out of it. Carpentry is a major industry there. But what I’m going to take them is a hard wood, and I mean really hard, like metal. They can use it in their furniture, or for their tool handles, their windmill cogs even, anything that’s used every day, or rots or wears out. It’s not high technology, yet it’ll be a real cost-effective upgrade. That ought to get me in with the merchants.”
“Hauling wood across interstellar space!” She shook her head in amazement. Only Joshua could come up with an idea so wonderfully crazy.
“Yep, Lady Mac should be able to carry almost a thousand tonnes if we really pack the stuff in.”
“What sort of wood?”
“I checked in a botanical reference library file when I was in the New California system. The hardest known wood in the Confederation is mayope, it comes from a new colony planet called Lalonde.”
Oenone ’s flyer was a flattened egg-shape, eleven metres long, with a fuselage that gleamed like purple chrome. It was built by the Brasov Dynamics company on Kulu, who had been heavily involved with the Kulu Corporation (owned by the Crown) in pioneering the ion-field technology which had sent panic waves through the rest of the Confederation’s astroengineering companies. Spaceplanes were on their way out, and Kulu was using its technological prowess to devastating political effect, granting preferential licence production to the companies of allied star systems.
Standard ion thrusters lifted it out of Oenone ’s little hangar and pushed it into an elliptical orbit that grazed Atlantis’s upper atmosphere. When the first wisps of molecular fog began to thicken outside the fuselage, Oxley activated the coherent magnetic field. The flyer was immediately surrounded by a bubble of golden haze, moderating the flow of gas streaking around the fuselage. Oxley used the flux lines to grab at the mesosphere, braking the flyer’s velocity, and they dropped in a steep curve towards the ocean far below.
Syrinx settled back in her deeply cushioned seat in the cabin along with Ruben, Tula, and the newest member of the crew, Serina, a crew toroid generalist who had replaced Chi. All of them were gazing keenly out of the single curving transparency around the front of the cabin. The flyer had been customized by an industrial station at Jupiter, replacing Brasov’s original silicon flight-control circuits with a bitek processor array; but the image from the sensors had a poor resolution compared to Oenone ’s sensor blisters. Eyes were almost as good.
There was absolutely no way of judging scale, no reference points. Unless she consulted the flyer’s processors, Syrinx didn’t know what their altitude was. The ocean rolled past below, seemingly without end.
After forty minutes Pernik Island appeared on the horizon. It was a circle of verdant green that was so obviously vegetation. The islands which Edenists had used to colonize Atlantis were a variant of habitat bitek. They were circular disks, two kilometres in diameter when they matured, made from polyp that was foamed like a sponge for buoyancy. A kilometre-wide park straddled the centre, with five accommodation towers spaced equidistantly around it, along with a host of civic buildings and light industry domes. The outer edge bristled with floating quays for the boats.
Like habitat starscrapers, the tower apartments had basic food-synthesis glands, though they were primarily for fruit juices and milk—there simply wasn’t any need to supply food when you were floating on what was virtually a protein-packed soup. An island had two sources of energy to power its biological functions. There was photosynthesis, from the thick moss which grew over every outside surface including the tower walls, and triplicated digestive tracts which were fed from the tonnes of krill-analogues captured by baleen scoops around the rim. The krill also provided the raw material for the polyp, as well as nutrient fluids. Electricity for industry came from thermal potential cables; complex organic conductors trailing kilometres below the island, exploiting the difference in temperature between the cool deep waters and the sun-heated surface layer to generate a current.
There was no propulsion system. Islands drifted where they would, carried by sluggish currents. So far six hundred and fifty had been germinated. The chances of collision were minute; for two to approach within visible range of each other was an event.
Oxley circled Pernik once. The water in the immediate vicinity was host to a flotilla of boats. Pernik Island’s trawlers and harvesters produced a crisscross of large V-shaped wakes as they departed for their fishing fields. Pleasure craft bobbed about behind them, small dinghies and yachts with their verdant green membrane sails fully extended.
The flyer darted in towards one of the landing pads between the towers and the rim. Eysk himself and three members of his family walked over as soon as the haze of ionized air around the flyer dissolved, grounding out through the metal grid.