A Working of Stars (28 page)
Read A Working of Stars Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
“I understand.” Though he didn’t, not really. Isayana had struck him at their first meeting as the kind of person who never forgot anything. Of course, he’d never before seen her on a day when she had accomplished something new in the universe. “I’ll come.”
“There’s no need to trouble yourself with riding the public transport at this hour,” Isayana said. “Wait where you are, and I’ll send one of the family’s groundcars over with a driver.”
He closed the connection and sat on the edge of the bed, deep in thought. He remembered that he didn’t know Isayana, not well—but one of the things he
did
remember about her was that she was capable of working against someone who had every natural reason to expect her loyalty.
did
remember about her was that she was capable of working against someone who had every natural reason to expect her loyalty.
Also, she was Arekhon’s sister—
and face it,
Kief said to himself,
’Rekhe could talk rocks and stones into behaving unwisely if it suited his purpose.
and face it,
Kief said to himself,
’Rekhe could talk rocks and stones into behaving unwisely if it suited his purpose.
Thoughts of betrayal made him remember another day, long ago now, when armored vehicles came growling up the road to Demaizen Old Hall, and armed men poured out of them to kill Garrod and Del and Serazao. Only luck had saved him then, and he suspected—he believed—that it was time for him to make his own luck now.
He rose from the bed, put back on his robes and mask, and slipped out into the dark.
ERAASI ORBIT: SUS-PELEDAEN COURIER SHIP
LAST-DAY -OF-SUMMER
ERAASI: HANILAT OPHEL: SOMBRELÍR
LAST-DAY -OF-SUMMER
ERAASI: HANILAT OPHEL: SOMBRELÍR
T
he sus-Peledaen courier ship
Last-Day-of-Summer
hung in high orbit over Eraasi, awaiting the signal to depart. The
Summerday
was a small runner, set for light and fast cargoes, designed to travel without a large fleet escort. It was cramped, at least compared to the large merches, but comfortable enough.
he sus-Peledaen courier ship
Last-Day-of-Summer
hung in high orbit over Eraasi, awaiting the signal to depart. The
Summerday
was a small runner, set for light and fast cargoes, designed to travel without a large fleet escort. It was cramped, at least compared to the large merches, but comfortable enough.
Under normal circumstances—which these were not—the
Summerday
would be used for security and for message carrying, not for passenger transport. The pilot had been articulate on the subject, to say the least, and more than a little disgruntled when the pair of high-level operatives from family security answered his complaints with an equally high-level authorization chit.
Summerday
would be used for security and for message carrying, not for passenger transport. The pilot had been articulate on the subject, to say the least, and more than a little disgruntled when the pair of high-level operatives from family security answered his complaints with an equally high-level authorization chit.
Egelt and Hussav didn’t care about the pilot’s opinion one way or the other. They had problems of their own, and they had to come up with solutions for them soon. They stood on the
Summerday
’s cramped bridge and spoke to each other in a tense undertone.
Summerday
’s cramped bridge and spoke to each other in a tense undertone.
“Well,” Hussav said, “our boy definitely made his Void-translation and took the lady with him. So what are we going to do now?”
“What we’ve been doing. Follow him.”
“The boss won’t be happy—finding out that he can say ‘Shut the spaceports!’ all he likes, but not everybody is going to listen.”
Egelt grimaced. “That’s one reason I like the idea of being under way.”
“What if he recalls you, wants you to give your report?”
“I’ll tell him that I don’t want to lose the momentum of the case, and that he should hang tight.”
“That’ll
go over well.”
go over well.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a beachcomber anyway,” Egelt said. He took a step forward to look out of the forward bridge window, even though the pilothouse was so small that it hardly rated the title of “bridge.” There wasn’t anything outside the window but black space and stars—Eraasi wasn’t visible from this angle. The view helped Egelt to think clearly, though, and to make plans that weren’t shadowed by worry about the whims and the temper of Lord Natelth sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen.
“Give me a minute,” he said, looking out at the distant stars. “Let’s see. Our boy’s probably going to Aulwikh. Main port is Firreka. Nice place, big enough to get lost in, no sus-Dariv interests to draw our attention. It’s on his arc So we’ll go to Aulwikh. But in case he’s pulling a fast one, I’m going to get some help. Messenger drone to every system, house cipher, with pictures of the malefactor—the one Lady Isa generated, and the matching images our people pulled out of port security—a description of his ship, a description of the happy bride, and a request to send replies to me at Firreka on Aulwikh.”
“The boss won’t like having his shame discussed on all of the settled planets, not to mention most of the unsettled ones.”
“The idea you’re groping for is ‘apoplexy,’” Egelt said. “As in, if he drops dead of one, his sister will succeed, and she’s reasonable. But if Lord Natelth truly wants his new-wed lady back—well, when we show up in his office with her, he’ll be so grateful that he’ll kiss us, and never mind the methods we used to do it.”
“You hope.”
“I hope. So, anyway, let me get busy. I want the messages away before we jump, and I want to jump for Aulwikh soon. The longer we delay, the colder the trail will get.”
It was still night outside when Kief left the apartment. He kept to the shadows—his working robes were dark, and should suffice to keep him obscured from watching eyes. He didn’t want to expend energy on hiding himself from view if he didn’t have to, not when he remained exhausted in mind and spirit from the rigors of the working.
He supposed it was possible that Isayana had been telling him the truth—that Arekhon’s sister had only wanted to get his report on the filling process, and not to capture and detain him indefinitely. But Kief was neither optimistic nor trusting, and hadn’t been for years. As far as he was concerned, his best course of action was to make certain he was elsewhere when the sus-Peledaen groundcar arrived.
But which elsewhere? He couldn’t run to his own Mages for help. Kief was the First of their Circle; it was his responsibility to take care of the unranked Mages, not the other way around. And the sus-Peledaen enforcers would be certain to check the Circles before they looked anywhere else. Nevertheless, he had to find a place, somewhere he could go to ground for a few hours until he either figured out a long-term plan of escape or decided that Isayana sus-Khalgath wasn’t a threat.
His legs hurt; this new body wasn’t yet accustomed to traveling long distances on foot. He glanced around, and saw that he’d walked all the way from his apartment to the grounds of the Hanilat Institute while he was lost in thought.
Kief had been a Mage too long to ignore the obvious. There was at least one place on the Institute’s campus that would welcome him. He’d been there—had it been only a day ago now? It seemed much longer. Shaking off the urge to ponder the relationship between time and experience, he headed for the Institute Towers, and within minutes was tapping the code for Ayil syn-Arvedan’s apartment into the front-door pad.
After a short wait, he heard a sleepy but familiar voice come over the annunciator. “Who’s there?”
“Ayil? It’s me. Kief.”
“Again? I thought you’d gone back to wherever it is you’re living these days.”
“Things—happened. Can you put me up for the night?”
“Of course.” She sounded puzzled but agreeable. “Come on up.”
The front door opened, and shut again behind him. He took the elevator up to Ayil’s apartment, and pressed the entry-button. The apartment door opened and showed him Ayil standing there in a night-robe, yawning and hair all awry.
“Come in; come in,” she said. He entered, and she closed the door again behind him, saying as she did so, “You could have stayed here overnight in the first place, you know. I’d have lent you a key.”
“I’d have asked, believe me, if I’d expected to need it. There was a working, and—” he shrugged “—like I said, things happened.”
He knew that the next part couldn’t be put off any longer; she was already regarding his masked face with a puzzled expression. The Institute apartments, as he recollected from his student days, were reasonably soundproof. He took off his hardmask and threw back the hood of his robe.
She didn’t scream, only caught her breath quickly and followed up that slight gasp with a long, long stare, looking him up and down. He should have expected that; but it was always easy to forget that under Ayil’s mild and innocuous surface lay a first-class mind.
“Kiefen Diasul,” she said finally.
“Yes. Despite appearances.”
“If it’s really you—tell me what I was thinking about working on before I decided that studying interstellar gas clouds would actually result in more useful data and less unproductive theory?”
“The sundering of the galaxy,” he said. “Root and proximate causes.”
It was a good question. Ayil had played with the topic over a period of about six months, but she’d never taken it past the talking-in-the-office stage—too much mysticism and not enough fact, she’d said at the time.
He smiled in spite of himself. “You told me that the Teleological and Cosmological Studies Departments had their hooks in the topic and weren’t going to let it go.”
“It
is
you, then.” Her eyes weren’t sleepy any longer; instead, they were suddenly bright with curiosity. “Come, sit down—I’ll make us a pot of
uffa.
And we can talk.”
is
you, then.” Her eyes weren’t sleepy any longer; instead, they were suddenly bright with curiosity. “Come, sit down—I’ll make us a pot of
uffa.
And we can talk.”
Arekhon had always known that there were more habitable—and inhabited—planets on this side of the Gap Between than there were among the homeworlds, but he’d never seen any of them except for Entibor. Making a new life for himself on Elaeli’s world had been hard enough work without making the task more complex with visits to other, and equally alien, places. Now, with
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
grounded on Ophel for the first time and probably the last, he found himself wishing that once or twice he’d taken the chance. At least a few of those other worlds might have been as restful and pleasant to the eye as this one.
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
grounded on Ophel for the first time and probably the last, he found himself wishing that once or twice he’d taken the chance. At least a few of those other worlds might have been as restful and pleasant to the eye as this one.
He sat in a wicker chair on the terrace of a seaside hotel in the city of Sombrelír, sharing a late luncheon with the other members of the
Daughter
’s crew. Other tables, some occupied and some not, dotted the black-and-white tessellated pavement. On the far side of the bay a fishing boat set out to sea, down the crystal-sparkling channel. The sky overhead was an even blue without a trace of cloud, but the air was only pleasantly warm.
Daughter
’s crew. Other tables, some occupied and some not, dotted the black-and-white tessellated pavement. On the far side of the bay a fishing boat set out to sea, down the crystal-sparkling channel. The sky overhead was an even blue without a trace of cloud, but the air was only pleasantly warm.
The local inhabitants had seemed unsurprised when a spacecraft as clearly alien as
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
landed at the Sombrelír spaceport. The port, such as it was, lay on the high ground outside the city, an hour’s ride away by wheeled jitney and even longer by draftbeast-carriage. Already during their stay here, Arekhon had noted that hovercars, so common on Entibor, were rare items on Ophel—the few that he’d seen were import items, and certainly not cheap enough to be used for public transit.
Night’s-Beautiful-Daughter
landed at the Sombrelír spaceport. The port, such as it was, lay on the high ground outside the city, an hour’s ride away by wheeled jitney and even longer by draftbeast-carriage. Already during their stay here, Arekhon had noted that hovercars, so common on Entibor, were rare items on Ophel—the few that he’d seen were import items, and certainly not cheap enough to be used for public transit.
The
Daughter
was docked at the port, topping off her fuel reserves and restocking the galley supplies. Those charges—and the crew’s room and board here at the hotel—had come close to wiping out Arekhon’s money supply, but he had decided not to worry about the problem. Once the
Daughter
was resupplied, they would have enough food and fuel to get from Ophel to Eraasi and then back, if the working allowed it, to Entibor. And he still had money left on Entibor.
Daughter
was docked at the port, topping off her fuel reserves and restocking the galley supplies. Those charges—and the crew’s room and board here at the hotel—had come close to wiping out Arekhon’s money supply, but he had decided not to worry about the problem. Once the
Daughter
was resupplied, they would have enough food and fuel to get from Ophel to Eraasi and then back, if the working allowed it, to Entibor. And he still had money left on Entibor.
On the other hand, he reflected, when the
Daughter
got to Eraasi money would be the very least of his problems.
Daughter
got to Eraasi money would be the very least of his problems.
Narin, meanwhile, was watching the distant fishing boat with a combination of nostalgia and expert interest. “This is a nice place,” she said eventually. “I think I could live here. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll come back and give it a try.”
“It’s all right if you don’t mind being at the tail end of nowhere.” Karil Estisk, the pilot, was nibbling on a plate of crumb biscuits and sipping at a cup of wine. “There wouldn’t even be a standard course between Ophel and Entibor if one of InterWorld’s pilots hadn’t taken a blind jump during a running pirate-fight about fifty years back.”
“It’s definitely the farthest-out world on this side of the Gap Between,” agreed Maraganha. “Looked at another way, though, it’s the closest of our worlds to Eraasi.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it close,” said Karil. “Everything from outside the Ophelan system is strange here, and they like it that way. Foreigners come and foreigners go—we could tell ’em we were Khesatan, or Miosan, or even Gyfferan, and there’s no one in a hundred miles would know to say different. We knew the port frequencies, and I speak a bit of pilot-Galcenian, and that’s good enough for the authorities. No problems.”
“Unless you count getting overcharged on our temporary visa fees.” Ty had made himself into the keeper of the
Daughter
’s petty cash—Arekhon, he maintained, didn’t worry enough about money to be trusted keeping track of it—and he remained certain that between the currency exchange rates and the language barrier, they’d been cheated somewhere in the process of converting their bank drafts into Ophelan coin.
Daughter
’s petty cash—Arekhon, he maintained, didn’t worry enough about money to be trusted keeping track of it—and he remained certain that between the currency exchange rates and the language barrier, they’d been cheated somewhere in the process of converting their bank drafts into Ophelan coin.
“It’s all Entiboran money and not worth anything on the other side of the Gap,” Arekhon said. “So we might as well spend it here.” He turned to Maraganha. “Tell me—when the Gap goes away, will ‘here’ still be here?”
Maraganha shook her head. “That I can’t tell you.”
“Do you mean that you can’t, or do you mean that you won’t?”
“I mean that I don’t know the answer,” she said. “But if we’re going to get philosophical here, then let me ask you a question: When we can freely come and go across the Gap, is there really a Gap at all?”
“I suppose not.”
Karil spread her hands in a dramatic gesture. “Then,
poof!
Your working is finished already, and we can all go home. Right?”
poof!
Your working is finished already, and we can all go home. Right?”
“Wrong,” said Arekhon. “We have to make certain that the fabric of Garrod’s working extends to both sides of the galaxy. And so far, there’s scarcely enough threads of luck and life in the Gap to make the pattern with.” He gazed thoughtfully out into the middle distance. “I wonder about what might have happened, though, if Garrod’s Void-walking had relied on the stargazers’ disciplines a bit more, and on the
eiran
a bit less … would he have found this world, and not Entibor?”
eiran
a bit less … would he have found this world, and not Entibor?”
“Better for everyone, maybe, if he had,” said Karil.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Finally Maraganha said, “What’s done is done. And we’ll never know, so there’s no point in fretting about it.”
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