Crystal Dragon (43 page)

"It might," Cantra said wearily. "Ain't something I've discussed with it."

"The
ssussdriad
is needed," Rool Tiazan persisted, "here."

"I heard you the first time. Seems to me, you being the one who wants it here, that you can bring it here."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, indeed?"

"Indeed. Jela might've been able to carry that damn' tree around like it didn't weigh no more than a data tile, but it's more'n I can do to get it up onto a cargo sled. Besides which, as you've no doubt noticed, I'm a bit hard-used lately and not feeling quite the thing. It being your necessity that wants the tree here, 'stead o'there, I'm thinking you can shift it, or it can stay where it is."

Silence, his face a study in blandness.

With a
fwuummp
! of displaced air, the tree in its pot arrived overlooking the charming vista provided by the window, leaves fluttering wildly. Around it, manifesting with smaller, overlapping
fwuummps
of their own came Jela's kit, the ceramic blade he'd taken off the X Strain a million years ago, a neat pile of her own clothes, and the bank-box.

She inclined her head. "That's thorough. I'll ask you
not
to take
Dancer
in hand."

"Lady—"

"My ship," she growled. "I'll do what's needful, when it's needful."

He bowed.

"Right." Her knees were beginning to wobble, by which sign she knew she needed sleep. She pulled up the sternest look she had on file and gave it to Rool Tiazan.

"You have bidness with the scholar, now's the time to tend to it."

"Ah." He raised his hands, fingers wide. "My lady wishes to give you a gift," he murmured. "Will you accept it?"

She eyed him. "Her being dead—"

"Nay, did I not say that she is with me?" He smiled. "You will take no harm from accepting; so I do swear."

Unless madness was contagious, which, according to everything she'd ever seen on the Rim, it was.

"Fine," she said. "A gift. And then you move on to haunt Ser dea'Syl. Do we have an accord?"

Rool Tiazan smiled.

"Pilot, we do." He stepped forward, hands extended, palm up.

"Your hands on mine," he murmured, and it seemed to her that his voice was higher, sweeter, sterner.

She put her palms against his, felt warmth spread, swift and soothing, through her veins.

"The seed is not well-rooted," Rool Tiazan whispered. "Is it your will to carry the child to term?"

Yes
, she said, or thought, or both.

"Let it be so," the other answered, and stepped back, breaking the connection between them.

Cantra looked down at her hands, the knuckles healed and whole, and then to Rool Tiazan, who was bowing yet again.

"Lady," he murmured. "Until soon."

He blurred at the edges, his body melting into light—and she was alone, saving the tree, in her room.

Slightly unsteady, she looked at the tree and the tumble of her belongings 'round its base. It came to her that her face didn't ache anymore. She applied her fingertips, lightly, to her right eye, found it open and unbruised; the opposite cheek smooth and unmarred.

"Well," she said to the air and the aether, and closed her eyes. "Thank you."

"Impossible, Master?" Tor An went to one knee by the scholar's chair, the better to see into the downturned face.

The old man did not look up; he watched his own hand stroking the orange cat as if the action and the animal were the most important things in the galaxy.

"Allow me to know," he said softly, "when my own work has described a impasse. It is impossible to continue. I have been in error."

Tor An blinked, aghast. "But—your life's work, an error? Surely not!"

The scholar smiled and looked up. "Simply because one has spent one's life at a work does not mean that the work must be correct, or of use." He raised a hand and cupped Tor An's cheek, as if he were one of Alkia's grandfathers soothing a distraught younger.

"What," Tor An asked carefully, in case, like a true Alkia grandfather, this mood of sudden gentleness should evaporate even more suddenly, leaving the younger's ears ringing from a sound boxing. "What of the Enemy, Master? Captain Jela had thought your work the best means of their defeat."

The old man patted his cheek—lightly, even fondly—and tucked his hand 'round Lucky's back.

"Captain Jela was a wise and perceptive man," he told the cat. "Yet even wise and perceptive men can sometimes be mistaken. Certainly, he wished, as I do and you do, to discover some way in which we might outwit the Enemy and snatch liberty from defeat. That was, as near as I am able to know his mind from his annotations, the breadth and depth of his hope for us all. It was not an unreasonable hope, and indeed it seems to me that he was correct in believing my work represented the best potential of realizing it. It is no dishonor to his memory that his best hope was not good enough."

Tor An considered. It was, he thought, very possible that the scholar was merely exhausted. He had stinted himself on sleep and on food, the hours of his days spent with his notes and his tiles, his work screen a riot of nested calculation.

"My Aunt Jinsu had used to tell us youngers," he began slowly, "that a pilot's best friend was—"

Lucky the cat jerked to attention on the scholar's lap, ears pricked forward. A moment only he stared past Tor An into the great room, then leapt to the floor and ran, tail high. Tor An twisted 'round, peering into the dimness, then came all at once to his feet, situating himself between the scholar and a red-haired man in formal black tunic and pants. The man paused, eyebrows up, Lucky weaving complex, ecstatic figures around his ankles, tail high and whiskers a-quiver.

"Did the guard admit you, sir?" Tor An asked, sharply. "I did not hear the door."

"Nay, Housefather, I admitted myself," the man said in soft and cultured accents. He bowed, low and respectful. "My name is Rool Tiazan. I was allied with M. Jela and seek to continue his purpose. I am come to offer assistance to the master, if he will have me, and it."

"Stand aside, child," Master dea'Syl said to Tor An, "you obscure my view of our guest."

Reluctantly, Tor An stepped to the right, keeping his eye upon Rool Tiazan.

"Well," the master said after a long scrutiny. "Certainly one who was allied with the estimable M. Jela is welcome on that count alone. What sort of assistance do you offer, Ser Tiazan?"

The man moved a graceful hand, encompassing the abandoned desk, notes, and screen. "I believe your work founders on the particulars of an energy state transformation under special near-ideal and probably unique circumstances. It happens that I am something of an expert in energies and their states, and have also some insight into the nature of the approaching, probably unique, event. Also, I bring with me another ally, who has seen the Enemy falter."

"Hah." The scholar leaned forward in his chair, eyes gleaming. Tor An took a careful breath. "If you can show me the error in my work, I shall be most obliged to you." He raised a hand, beckoning. "Come here, young man. Seat yourself. Tor An—a glass of wine for our guest, if you please."

"Certainly." He inclined his head and moved to the kitchenette as Rool Tiazan walked forward and took the chair by the scholar's table.

By the time he returned with the tray, the two gentlemen were deep in conversation, and the cat was asleep on Rool Tiazan's elegant lap.

CANTRA WOKE UNEXPECTEDLY refreshed, more filled with energy than she had been since Jela died, and with the clear sense of having taken a decision while she slept.

She dressed quickly from the store of clothes Rool Tiazan had so kindly delivered to her, watered the tree, which offered her neither comment nor salute, and was on her way down the hall, headed for the gate.

It was early yet; the overnight dusting of snow still glittered in the abundant shadows. Sitting in a pool of sun on the low wall near the gate was the odd couple of Tor An yos'Galan and Arin the librarian, dark head and light bent over a shared scroll. Cantra hesitated, then changed course.

"'morning, Pilots," she said cheerily, and gave them a grin to go with it when they looked up, startled.

Arin recovered his wits first, inclining his head respectfully. "Pilot Cantra. Good morning."

The boy echoed the sentiment a heartbeat later, his voice a bit strained, and dark smudges showing under those improbable eyes. The scroll was an old star-map, its edges tattered and the three-dee grainy; she couldn't tell which sector drom a casual glance, and she wasn't there to discuss maps, anyway.

"Arin," she said, holding his eye. "Some happy news for you. Saw your brother on-port yesterday."

The dark eyes sparkled. "I thank you, Pilot. This is, as you say, welcome news. Did he mention when he might come to us?"

"Got the impression he thought you'd rather to go him," she said. "Seemed to be having a couple lines of trade going—you know how he is."

"I do indeed," Arin said, with irony, "know exactly how he is." He fingered the scroll, and sent a sideways glance at the other pilot's face. "Your thoughts on my small difficulty were very welcome, Pilot. However, filial duty calls, and—"

"I understand," Tor An assured him, voice soft and sad. He extended a hand and touched a portion of the map lightly. "It would be my pleasure to assist you further, if you have need, after duty is answered."

"In the meanwhile," Cantra put in, "if you're at liberty, Pilot Tor An, I wonder if you'd bear me company."

He looked up, brows pulled into a frown. "I, Pilot?"

"Exactly you," she assured him, as Arin adroitly rolled the scroll. "I'd like your opinion on a certain vessel." She tipped her head. "You've had training on the big ships—I mean real ring and pod-carrying transports, multi-mounts, that kind of thing?"

Interest dawned behind the frown. "I have, of course, but—"

"But I ain't had that luck," she interrupted, watching out of the corner of one eye as Arin stood and moved off toward the interior, walking like a man with a pressing errand in mind. "My life's been small ships. I don't know how to take the measure of anything more than a six-crew shuttle or a four place courier." She paused. "If you'll honor me, Pilot."

It might've been the polite that won him, but she thought it was rather the basic human desire to be useful and busy. A good boy was Pilot Tor An, she thought, as he came to his feet and inclined his head. So much the worse for him.

"I will be glad to assist you, Pilot," he said formally.

"Good," she said, and jerked her head toward the gate. "Let's go."

"All of your equations are correct, as far as they go." Rool Tiazan leaned over the scholar's shoulder, Lucky the cat weaving 'round the base of the work screen they studied so intently. He tapped the screen with a light forefinger, feeling the attentive presence of the
sussdriad
within the sphere of his being.

"So here," he murmured; "this term is correct, but makes an incomplete assumption."

"Of course it does!" Liad dea'Syl answered. "There are several values that might be added, all derived properly from the rest of my work." His fingers moved on the coding wand. "Add this one—and behold! We attain an equation which is quite beautiful, though it must be impossible to achieve. At this point in our adventure, surely practical mathematics outweighs mere elegance."

Rool allowed the old gentleman's irony to pass unremarked, taking a moment to skritch Lucky carefully under the chin. The chin being properly taken care of, he turned back to the discussion with a polite smile.

"Grandfather, of course it is practical mathematics which will carry the day. And as you have seen, I am far easier with the practical than the theoretical."

The mathematician snorted, drawing the cat's attention.

"The boy is elsewhere, sir; you may dispense with the fiction that I am your elder, as we both realize that I am not. I suspect that your age is some centuries beyond mine..."

Rool paused, then inclined his head, sincerely respectful. The old one's mind was both agile and facile. Of course he would have formed the proposition that a being which was not bound by possibility would not be bound by time.

"Well," he murmured. "I am here because you are no fool, and I am no mathematician."

"It is possible that you err on both points," the scholar murmured. "But let us not quibble. Pray elucidate this incomplete assumption, and tell me if you have a proof which ties this together so that young Jela's excellent work does not go to waste."

"The value here," Rool tapped the screen again. "This assumes that when the final decrystallization event begins, it will propagate across space. It will not. The event will, as your initial numbers demonstrate, occur across the affected dimensions and energies simultaneously."

The old man seemed to wilt in his chair, though the glow of his life energies were as bright as ever.

"There, my friend," he murmured, "lies the paradox. If the event occurs simultaneously, there will be no wave..."

"The triggering event, however," Rool continued. "The trigger event propagates at the highest possible velocity of transition. When the energy state is sufficient, a coherent decrystallization is the result. Now, note that this is not a reversion to what was, as implied by our limited vocabulary; this is a new state. In this event prior conditions cannot be recalled, they cannot be calculated. Within the new state there is no information exchange or reversibility with the preceding state in any manner that affords sense." He paused, frowning at the screen, and leaned forward to tap another phrase.

"But here, sir," he murmured, "I fear I misapply language again. Let us consider
this
, which implies that what shall occur is that the act of transitioning
will
inform the new location. That is, it will contain the ships, their contents, and whatever else might be accelerated to transitional velocity—and it will contain that impetus and energy..."

"Yes!" Liad dea'Syl said, abruptly enthusiastic. "Of course the transition will inform the new location, just as the new location will inform that which arrives. And observe!—it furthermore implies that the arrival of the ships, the end of the transition, will in effect not be contingent on their relationships before the transition. It
also
implies a transformational energy change, one that will exclude any further energy or information exchange. The universe we arrive at will not be the one we left."