Forgotten Suns (58 page)

“A message,” Aisha answered without perceptible hesitation. “Using
Mother’s code. To the nearest tradeship, to come and help the people at
Starsend.”

“Help them do what?”

“Whatever they need.”

Khalida sank down in the cradle next to her. “Now I’m
embarrassed by what I was thinking.”

“We’re all on edge,” Aisha said. “We’re going to Nevermore.”

“I figured that,” said Khalida. “This ship is wanted from
one end of U.P. to the other. Its captain is wanted, if possible, even worse.
Best we get in as fast as we can, get the cargo delivered, and then get out.
Unless we’re planning to be arrested and charged with every crime the Corps can
think of.”

“I cling to optimism.”

Khalida spun. Rama had appeared as he had a habit of doing.
He summoned a hoverchair and sat in it.

He tilted his head toward Aisha’s screen. “
Amosh,
there. Not
Elosh.
”

Aisha made a face. “I always get those two confused.” She
keyed in the correction while Khalida simmered.

Rama smiled at them both. “I have no intention of spending
all or even a fraction of my remaining days in the Corps’ custody.”

“You should have thought of that while you were burning your
way through United Planets’ space,” Khalida said sourly.

“I regret very little,” he said, “and what I did to the
Corps is not in that category.”

“Nor in mine,” Khalida admitted. “We’d better hope they
haven’t laid an ambush for us around Nevermore.”

“Why would they? I’m known to be heading outward. If they go
hunting origins, they’ll aim for Dreamtime.”

“Or Govinda,” Aisha said. “There’s nothing official to
connect him with Nevermore.”

“Unless they’re tracing him everywhere he might be found.”

“You’re MI,” Aisha said. “You’re thinking things through. I
don’t think they are.”

“They followed us as far as Kom Ombo,” Khalida said. “Nobody
thought they’d do that, either.”

“We disappeared from this universe,” said Rama. “We won’t be
reappearing anywhere, or anywhen, that is possible according to what your
science thinks it knows.”

“Except Dr. Ma,” Aisha said.

Khalida gave it up. “What will be will be. I hope at least
some of your mages can fight.”

“Oh, they can,” Rama said. He sounded as if he relished the
thought.

~~~

In the process of thinking things through, Khalida ran
head-on into the prospect of several hundred psi masters appearing on
Nevermore. When U.P. got wind of that, or MI, or ye gods, the Corps…

Rama could hardly have failed to think of that. He had not
let it stop or even slow him. His world had been there millennia before U.P.
existed. It belonged to him and to his people. What U.P. thought, or what they
might do, he honestly did not care.

“You should,” she said when she could catch him alone. That
was hard: the ship was full of his people.

She managed it by tracking him to his quarters on a rare
occasion when he would agree to rest. It was cruel and she was merciless and he
deserved it.

“A few hundred of you,” she said, “even with what powers
your people have, can’t hold against trillions of us.”

“We don’t need to,” he said. “Remember the status of this
world designated MEP 1403. A status which, as I understand, Dr. Kanakarides
insisted on, and fought for, even to Centrum and the Senate.”

“How did you know that?”

“I know everything that concerns me,” he said.

“Now that I almost believe.”

He bowed slightly and set about undressing.

She got the message. She elected to ignore it. “Nevermore is
a restricted planet—a permanent preserve. No one can colonize it or build on
it.”

“Except its native peoples. Which,” he said, “we are.”

“Marina didn’t know that. She’s not psi. Or precog, either.
What she is is protective. To the death. And you can bet that torque you cling
to, that Centrum will come down on us all.”

“She won’t die for us,” Rama said. “I promise you that.”

“You had better keep that promise,” Khalida said.

Finally it was happening. The long jump was almost over.

The mages were more than ready. Even for people with their
talents, who could spend jump practicing and honing them, jump was a tedious
and often maddening place to be. Not because it was a place of madness, but
because they couldn’t be outside the ship, exploring and learning and feeling
the way Ship did.

Someday, Aisha thought, one of them would figure out how to
jump without a ship. They were already talking about it, and asking the
scientists questions that half drove them crazy and half made them dive into
their databases in search of progressively more complicated solutions.

Now, with their voyage almost ended, the mages had gone
silent. Waiting. Hardly breathing.

She wasn’t breathing all that well herself. What she’d found
was so much bigger than she’d imagined, and so much stranger.

That was wonderful and amazing and satisfying. But more than
that, she was coming home. Where Mother and Pater were. And Jamal and Vikram
and Malia and Jinni and—

“Steady,” Rama said. He’d taken his place to the bridge just
before jump, along with the scientists and Aunt Khalida. Daiyan and Elti and a
handful of the others had come in with him, who were too curious or too excited
to stay in their quarters.

There weren’t enough cradles for them all. She wanted to say
so, but the words wouldn’t come out.

The jump alarms went off. The Earthfolk dived for their
cradles. Some of the mages did, but most caught hold of struts and screen
supports and went on staring at the screens.

Rama wasn’t pretending to need a cradle, either. Aisha had a
moment’s temptation to climb out and stand beside him, but she wasn’t that
brave yet. She stayed where she was, with the hatch open as always.

The universe warped and then twisted itself straight again.
Through the haze of drugs and jump, the mages were completely solid. Rama most
of all. As if, while the universe shifted around them, they stayed in one place
and one state.

There was a truth in that. About psi. About people from
Nevermore.

She made a new note on the long list, to find answers when
she could. Now they’d settled into orbit around Nevermore, and the familiar
land masses and seas rolled below. They’d come out directly above the planet, not
pretending to need open space for jump, any more than they had on Araceli.

Ship sent out its own hail. It had learned to do that while
the humans were busy elsewhere. “Research vessel
Ra-Harakhte
, Tsinghua University, Beijing Nine.”

“Research Vessel
Ra-Harakhte
,”
Nevermore replied. “State your business here.”

That was Vikram’s voice. Ship didn’t answer; it hadn’t
learned that part yet.

Nobody else said anything, either. They were all either
recovering from jump, getting ready to land, or not able to speak PanTerran.

Aisha took a deep breath. “
Ra-Harakhte
greets MEP 1403. We’re bringing the ship all the way down
with a load of cargo.”

She tried to deepen her voice and sound more like a grown
woman, but Vikram’s ears were much too sharp for that. “Aisha? Aisha Nasir
Kanakarides? Is that you?”

“And Aunt Khalida,” Aisha said. “Captain Nasir, I mean. Will
you let us come down?”

“What in the name of all that’s unholy are you doing—”
Vikram broke off as if he’d remembered his Spaceforce training. When he spoke
again, he clipped out the words in proper professional style. “Stand by for
landing coordinates.”

~~~

They came down on the plain outside the ruined city, where
tourist ships usually went, and the ground had been leveled to hold them. Ship
was much bigger than any ship or shuttle that had landed there yet, but there
was room for it, just.

It could dive through the heart of a star. This planet’s
atmosphere and gravity were nothing to it, as long as it had the sun to fuel
it. It was happy enough to let the planet hold it up.

Aisha had been going to put on the good clothes Alexandra
had bought for her in Kom Ombo, the pretty blue dress and the headscarf with
the gold sequins, but at the last minute she decided to go with her plain
ordinary digging clothes. Rama had the same idea, but Aunt Khalida had gone the
other way, with an embroidered coat she’d found on the rogue moon, and the rest
of the outfit to match. The boots had copper heels.

She looked like one of them, with her narrow brown face and
her wide dark eyes, except for her clipped hair. She was making a statement
with that, probably. Aunt Khalida always had to dare people to argue with her.

Aisha’s hands were cold and her mouth was dry. One way and
another she found herself in the lead while they waited for the hatch to open
in the shuttle bay, that being the only part of Ship that could hold all eight
hundred of them at once.

She was alone in front of them all, with no time or room to escape.
Dr. Ma stood close behind, and Kirkov. Everybody else hung back, even Elti.
Especially Aunt Khalida and Rama.

Aisha felt like a scout probe. If she blew up, the rest
would know not to go out there.

She was not going to blow up. Everybody had come to meet
them: the whole expedition, running to the landing field on foot or in rovers
the way they always did on the rare occasion when a ship came by this part of
the universe. That would be the new interns, most of the usual staff, and
Vikram and Shenliu. And Jamal and Mother and Pater.

Maybe she would blow up after all. She reminded herself to
breathe.

Sunlight flooded through the opening hatch. A cold wind blew
in, bringing smells of earth and grass and melting snow. It was early spring
here, which meant that time had passed a bit faster than it had on the other
side.

That was better than what Aisha had secretly been dreading,
which was that their handful of tendays on the moon had added up to centuries
here. They were more or less in sync after all.

Aisha stepped forward. She wasn’t noticing anything now but
the people outside.

Not just the expedition. Most of Blackroot tribe was there,
and a scattering of people from other tribes. They stood back the way the
people on the ship stood behind Aisha. Waiting. Taking it all in.

Winter-dry grass crackled under Aisha’s feet. She drank a
deep gulp of the clean cold air. She wanted to run toward Mother and Pater and
even Jamal, but there was something she had to do and say first.

She turned back to face the people in the ship. In Old
Language she said, “From light into dark you went, and from dark into light you
return. Be welcome, people of the lost world. Be welcome, and be home.”

She hadn’t bobbled it too badly. Rama could have sung it,
but he was being obstinately silent.

She turned again and faced the daylight. This time there was
movement behind her: people walking slowly out of the ship and into their
ancestors’ world.

~~~

Aisha thought about hiding until it all blew over, but
Nevermore’s part of it would take years, and her part would not end in this
life.

She faced the inquisition that night. It was late and
everyone was ready to fall over, but Pater had a thing about sitting down for a
meal no matter what the distractions. If no one but the family managed it, that
was enough to satisfy him.

Tonight it was just what Aisha wanted. She cooked, which was
as much hiding from everyone as she meant to do. When the parents and Jamal
came in, sparking with all they’d heard and seen and had to look forward to,
she had the lamps lit in the family dining room and the food on the table.

Her heart beat so hard she could barely hear herself think. Her
hands were shaky and cold. She’d gnawed through half a loaf of new-baked bread
to try to calm herself down, and now her stomach felt bloated and sore.

They all stopped just inside the room. Nobody looked at
anybody else, but they sat down in their usual places and started passing bowls
and platters.

She’d made too much. Mostly it was nerves, and some was
habit. She was used to cooking for a mob.

She couldn’t eat. Watching them fix eyes on plates and
shovel in bread and pilaf made her want to climb up in the rafters and scream.

She slammed her hands down on the table. Everything jumped,
even Pater. “That’s it. That’s enough. Just sentence me to house arrest for the
rest of my natural life and get it over with.”

Jamal went back to shoveling in vegetables, but his eyes
were on her for a change. They were angry. “Next time you plot to save the
world, don’t ditch me. I could have helped.”

Aisha flinched. She’d had that coming. It didn’t stop her
from shooting back, “You could have died. I made sure you were safe. Even if
the expedition got kicked off Nevermore, you’d still be alive.”

“But you wouldn’t!”

They glared at each other, breathing hard. Jamal’s eyes
spilled over with tears.

Aisha refused to cry. “I
didn’t
die. Here I am. Right here. I did what I went to do. I helped solve the
mystery. Now the expedition can’t be shut down. The mages won’t let it. They
need us to help them find their way in this new universe. No one else can do it
as well as we can. And they know it.”

“Until U.P. shows up with a fleet of destroyers,” Jamal
said.

“That’s enough, I think,” Mother said. Her tone was
terrifyingly mild. “Aisha, you did an amazing thing and I’m proud of you for
that, but I am your mother, and there are certain standards I’m expected to
meet. You’ll be receiving your worldsweb implant as soon as it’s practicable to
get one shipped here. That will make you much easier to track. In the meantime,
you’re confined to the boundaries of this city. You may, with my express
permission, visit Blackroot village. That’s as far as you’re traveling, except
for such time as the—mages—” She had a hard time saying it; most of the adults
did. She shook her head and tried again. “If the mages need your services, they
will have them. And that will be all, unless and until you prove you can be
trusted.”