Maximum Ice (20 page)

“Oh yes. I just meditate when the pain comes. Otherwise, I sleep too much.”

“I have a few questions about the ship.”

Sister blinked. Then she remembered. “Yes, it’s still there.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“I’ll do my best with questions, Mother. You might do better to ask the other sisters. They do all the work.” She chuckled, as though that were sly.

Solange wouldn’t ask the others. She preferred a chat with a woman who was less connected, less likely to chatter. Not that there was anything in particular to hide, but she hid everything on general principles. It was all very well for an organization like
Star Road
to argue things openly. They had religion to unite them. The Zoft kept its secrets, inside and out. For example, there was no electronic messaging here. No electronic chatter and interconnection. No in-person chatter either.

Solange began, “What level of knowledge is required for star travel?”

Sister Verna pushed her glasses farther up on the bridge of her nose. “Knowledge? Oh, most everything.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, such as advanced knowledge of propulsion systems, navigation, astronomy, momentum, gravity—including artificial gravity. Mathematics, of course. I’m just rambling.” Solange nodded for her to continue, and she complied: “Optical inter-ferometry for planetological surveys, biological and biomedical
advances for food production and life extension, such as suspended animation or hypothermia/hibernation…”

“Tronics?” Solange suggested.

“Oh my, yes. I said engineering, didn’t I? Well, as to tronics, the ship must have extensive tronic systems, perhaps augmented by artificial intelligences. Radiation shielding, radiation hardening of systems, redundant components, fault-tolerant… especially if dark matter ever manifested as it once did.”

“What kind of tronics?”

“Oh, pick what you will. Quantum devices, perhaps. Or bionics. Optics is also good.” She smiled at the little joke, and so did Solange. Optics was very good, it was Ice, combined with crystalline adjuncts…

Solange was starting to get the picture, a tantalizing one.
Star Road
likely possessed extraordinary technology, honed to perfection by the demands of space travel, and boosted far above the original superior knowledge of the occupants of the First World.

Swan was right to seek control of the ship. She wanted it too. She felt the paucity of her order’s knowledge, resurrected over millennia, but still inferior to
Star Road.
Unlike the ship that had needed to expand its knowledge over time, the sisters had maintained a narrow focus. Not the best approach, perhaps. But even the ship seemed incapable of interface with Ice, if they spoke frankly.

She thought Captain Razo spoke frankly. He seemed not only guileless, but quite naïve. So eager to placate… all it took was her objection to the use of the armed shuttle in the vicinity of the Zoft—and he capitulated immediately. Astonishing. He called it cultural sensitivity, as though the sisters cared about such things. True enough, the preserves might find the airships threatening—so she played upon that theme, as well.

It worked nicely to delay his representative’s arrival, providing more time for her to develop other ship relationships. From Sister Patricia Margaret’s reports, Zoya Kundara was already unfavorably disposed toward the order. Although that remained to be seen, Solange was finding the first mate more open-minded.

“Processing power,” Solange said, nudging Sister Verna awake.

Unfazed, Sister Verna picked up where she’d left off. “Power and speed and versatility.” Sister sucked on her teeth. “But then, oh dear, the problems: miniaturization, contamination of quantum devices by the outside world. Even more difficult, perhaps they employ neural networks—tapping into the human brain…”

Yes, bionics. Sister Verna knew even less about that than Solange. And Solange knew so much less than Swan. Swan… every time she thought of him, she was filled with uneasiness and, at the same time, elation. Bionics was no doubt the key to Swan’s interface. But that wasn’t the only route, surely.

Sister Verna was saying, “I could ask my work group to think of more, Mother Superior. I’m afraid I’m out of touch these days.”

“No, Sister. Don’t discuss this with anyone.”

Solange detected the fleeting hope on sister’s face. Perhaps, even in her decrepitude, she was hoping for an assignment. Solange knew better than to ignore what people hoped for. It was the difference between her and Anatolly Razo.

“Sister, I have in mind a mission for you. Nothing too strenuous, but a contribution.”

Sister Verna brightened. She brushed the crumbs from her bodice. “Yes, Mother?”

“But we won’t discuss it quite yet.” Solange rose from her chair. “We’ll talk about it soon. For now, it’ll be our secret.”

A confused frown found a new pathway in sister’s wrinkled face.

Solange stood. It was a deeper dusk inside the little cell than out on the barrens. She reached over to turn on the bedside light. “You’ll be informed when it’s time. Can you wait?”

“Of course, Mother Solange.” She waved her hand around the little cell with its clutter. “I have plenty of time. Nothing but time.”

That was not exactly true, but Solange appreciated the sentiment.

CHAPTER NINE

A half-moon diluted the night, turning Ice a spectral gray. That night, Zoya could almost persuade herself that she was in a polar region; the mind stepped into familiar patterns so easily, and the flat white expanse so
wanted to be snow and ice. Her nose should know better. It didn’t smell like snow or ice. She hadn’t realized until then that frozen water had
a smell. Quasicrystal was, if anything, faintly metallic.

Zoya’s small yellow tent—part of her resupply from Lieutenant Mirran—looked like the last spot of color left in the world. She should be inside that spot of color right then, sleeping, but sleep was, as usual, a dicey affair, and never of much interest.

All day they had followed the tracks of the nuns southward. The convoy of children was heading to the Zoft, Wolf’s term for the nuns’ Keep. On board were the snow witch and the unfortunate young woman who would be an inventor of robots. Now this bright young woman would do the nuns’ bidding. Whatever that might be.

Zoya buttoned her jacket close to her neck and hunched next to the Ice formation—Mirran had dubbed them
information stacks
—where she’d been trying out her interface for the last hour or so. The information stack was narrow and tall, almost to her height when she stood. It was a promising stack—a live one, as she thought of it—because it lit up inside in fits and starts.

Wolf was keeping watch on a nearby hill. Always watching for the
pack.
Well, she was grateful for his vigilance.

Mirran’s interface was a simple affair, an optical probe that she had to hold to the surface of the stack in order to attempt access to the quasi-crystal configuration. The science team had designed the optical scan to crack the programming code. So far all they retrieved were numerical sequences of the encryption, perhaps coded long ago. Someone wished to keep such probes at bay… but why?

Zoya tried following the pulses of light along the length of the stack, holding the probe close to the last flash of color. “Come on,” she murmured. But Ice was stubbornly mute. Despite that, despite everything, Zoya’s spirits were high. It might be the usual euphoria following release from stasis. But she thought that this time, the feeling would last. She need never suspend her life again. Until the possibility presented itself, she had never realized how badly she wanted to be here, in the here and now.

She heard a noise behind her.

“What does Ice say?” Wolf stood a few paces away

“Nothing.”

He nodded, as though he could have told her so.

Zoya put down her interface. “What are you looking for up there?” She glanced up at the promontory where he’d been, hoping they weren’t in danger on this, their first night out.

“Snow Angel,” he said.

“A strange name.” It sounded so peaceful for a murderer. She thought of lying in a bank of snow as a child, and flapping her arms—leaving in the snow the magical imprint of a snow-suited body about to take flight. “What are snow witches?”

He gazed at her steadily, not even ashamed to ignore her questions.

“Maybe the preserves drive off their mentally disturbed
individuals, or their criminals, or others they choose to punish. Am I close?”

“No.”

Cajoling him to talk was as bad as interfacing with Ice. She persisted: “Why do the nuns pay for witches?”

“Because witches speak to Ice. And nuns wish to.”

She paused. Superstition, or something more? “How do witches speak to Ice?”

He looked off in the direction he’d been looking in before. “Ice is their master.”

The mangled children of Old North. Sometimes she thought he took refuge behind stories. She wondered what he was hiding.

“If snow witches speak to Ice, would a snow witch speak to me?”

He looked at her with what seemed like concern for her sanity. “You saw a snow witch,” he said.

Alive, oh aliiiiive.
The wail still haunted. Wistfully, she quoted from his story of the bean children: “Angry, hungry, and silent.”

He nodded. “So my ancestors say.” He touched his chest, the amulet hanging there, as though saying the traditions were enough. Zoya was not one to argue with tradition. Or accept things at face value. It was at least possible that snow witches weren’t silent and mad.

He was watching her. “Are you a snow witch?”

Now it was her turn to stare at
him.
“Oh, Wolf, such a question. I’ve told you who I am. If you need a label, I’m Ship Mother—for my people.”

He looked unconvinced, weighing things with those hard blue eyes. “You can live on the surface. Despite the darkness, you thrive.”

She shrugged, trying his own lore on him: “Witches don’t make conversation.”

“That’s true.” He pulled at his beard. “You could be a new type.”

He must think if the
darkness
didn’t kill her, she must be magic. “Wolf, there is no darkness. Maybe there once was.”

He looked skeptical.

“We’ve been to the stars. There is no more darkness, not around here, anyway. It’s gone now.”

He looked out where the moon was plunging behind a serrated ridge of mountaintops. “Gone now…” His voice came in a whisper. As he turned back to her, a pulse of red light exploded in the stack, firing the side of his face. He cupped his amulet in his hand. “Spring will come, then.” Spoken in a flat tone, as though he’d rather it didn’t.

“I hope so, Wolf.”

He dug into his pocket and removed a small bundle. Walking over to where she stood, he unwrapped the wad and offered her a piece of dried meat.

She accepted it, and sat down to contemplate how she would pretend to eat the dried rat jerky, with him right next to her. He sat down as well, taking a large wad into his mouth and chewing vigorously

“You don’t really think I’m a snow witch, do you?” She doubted he would share food with one.

Through a full mouth, he said, “Ship Mother. No one is mother to a ship.”

She sat cross-legged in front of him. She managed to bite into the meat, trying to pretend it wasn’t what it was—rather like trying not to think of a monkey, as the old joke went.

She chewed, swallowed. “They wake me, Wolf,” she said. “I sleep on the ship over many years. And they wake me in times of trouble. They slow down my body functions with chemicals, so I stay asleep. When I awake, everyone I used to know is older or dead. It’s a hard way to live, all in all. But we need
someone who remembers the stories of our people, and why we left the earth. And why we journeyed back. I remember the journey’s purpose. I keep the fire lit in their hearts, or remind them what the fire was.”

She saw that he had stopped eating and was watching her with that cloudy look of his.

After a pause, he asked, “What was the fire?”

He was waiting. The last of the moon slipped away behind the peaks.

“There was war.” She didn’t know if the world had war these days, so she explained: “There were great masses of people who killed each other, depending on whose side you were on. Or what race you were. We were—we are—a race of gypsies. In the time before we left earth, there was a great sickness that swept a land called Europe, and the People of the Road were blamed, because we went from place to place, and we didn’t die of it.