The Evolutionary Void (44 page)

“Oh.”

“Second, the clue is in who we’re going to see.”

“Ozzie?”

“Yes, which is why I haven’t tried anything like the glacier again.”
Inigo grinned up at the ceiling. “Yet.”

“I thought you didn’t like Ozzie.”

“No. Ozzie doesn’t like me. He was completely opposed to Living Dream, so
I can only conclude that Aaron’s masters are also among those who don’t want
the Pilgrimage to go ahead.”

Corrie-Lyn shrugged and pushed some of her thick red hair away from her
eyes. Intent and interested now, she fixed him with a curious look. “Why didn’t
Ozzie like you?”

“He gave humanity the gaiafield so that we could share our emotions,
which he felt was a way of letting everyone communicate on a much higher level.
If we could look into the hearts of people we feared or disliked, we should be
able to see that deep down they were human, too—according to his theory. Such
knowledge would bring us closer together as a species. Damn, it was almost
worth building a faction around the notion, but the idea was too subtle for
that. Ozzie wanted us to become accustomed to it, to use it openly and
honestly, and only when we’d incorporated it into our lives would we realize
the effect it’d had on our society.”

“It has.”

“Not really. You see, I perverted the whole gaiafield to build a religion
on. That wasn’t supposed to happen. As he told me, and I quote. ‘The gaiafield
was to help people understand and appreciate life, the universe, and everything
so they don’t get fooled by idiot messiahs and corrupt politicians.’ So I’d
gone and wrecked his dream by spreading Edeard’s dreams. Quite ironic, really,
from my point of view. Ozzie didn’t see that. Turns out he doesn’t have half
the sense of humor everyone says he has. He went off to the Spike in a huge
sulk to build a ‘galactic dream’ as a counter to my disgraceful subversion.”

“So he hasn’t succeeded, then?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Then how can he help?”

“I haven’t got a clue. But don’t forget, he is an absolute genius, which
is a term applied far too liberally in history. In his case it’s real. I
suspect that whatever plan is loaded into Aaron’s subconscious expects Ozzie
and me to team up to defeat the Void.”

“That’s a huge gamble.”

“We’re long past the time for careful certainty.”

“Do you have any idea how to stop the Void?”

“No. Not a single glimmer of a notion, even.”

“But you were an astrophysicist to begin with.”

“Yes, but my knowledge base is centuries out of date.”

“Oh.” She pushed the empty coffee mug to one side with a glum expression.

“Hey.” His hand stroked the side of her face. “I’m sure Ozzie and I will
give it our best shot.”

She nodded, closing her eyes as she leaned into his touch. “Don’t leave
me again.”

“We’ll see this through together. I promise.”

“The Waterwalker never quit.”

Inigo kissed her. It was just the same as it had been all those decades
ago, which was a treacherous memory. A lot of very strong emotions were bundled
up with the time he and Corrie-Lyn had been together, most of them good. “I’m
not as strong as the Waterwalker.”

“You are,” she breathed. “That’s why you found each other. That’s why you
connected.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, nuzzling her chin. His hands went down to
the hem of the big loose shirt. “But he never faced a situation like this.”

“The voyage of the
Lady’s Light
.” She began to
tug at the seam on his one-piece.

“Hardly the same.”

“He didn’t know what he was coming home to.”

“Okay.” He pulled back and stared at her wide eyes. “Let’s just find our
own way here, shall we?”

“What about …?”

“Screw him.”

Corrie-Lyn’s tongue licked playfully around her lips. “Me first. I’ve
been waiting a
very
long time.”

“L
AND AHOY
,” came the cry from the lookout.

Edeard craned his neck back to see the crewman perched atop the main mast
of
Lady’s Light
. It was Manel, grinning wildly as he
waved down at everyone on the deck. The young man’s mind was unshielded as he
gifted everyone his sight, which right now was looking down on their upturned
faces.

“Manel!” came a collective sigh.

His amusement poured across the ship, and he shifted his balance on the
precarious platform to hold the telescope up again. Despite regular cleaning,
the lenses in the brass tube were scuffed and grubby after four years of daily
use at sea, but the image was clear enough. A dark speck spiked up out of the
blue-on-blue horizon.

Edeard started clapping at the sight of it, his good cheer swelling out
to join the collective thoughts of those on the other four ships that made up
the explorer flotilla. Everyone was delighted. The distant pinnacle of land
could only be one of the eastern isles, which meant Makkathran was no more than
a month’s sailing away.

“How about that,” Jiska exclaimed. “He did get it right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Edeard agreed, too happy to care about the needling.
Natran, who captained the
Lady’s Light
, had been
promising sight of the eastern isles for five weeks now. People were getting
anxious about his navigational skills, though the captains of the other ships
concurred with him. Jiska had spent that time supporting her husband’s ability.
After a four-year voyage, people were starting to get understandably fretful.

Kristabel came up beside Edeard, her contentment merging with his. He
smiled back at her as they linked arms, and together they made their way up to
the prow. It was getting quite cluttered on the middeck now, which Natran was
generally unhappy over. As well as the coils of rope and ship’s lockers, a
number of wicker cages were lashed to the decking, each containing some new
animal they’d discovered on their various landings. Not all had survived the
long voyage home. Taralee’s cabin was full of large glass jars where their
bodies were preserved in foul-smelling fluid. She and the other doctors and
botanists had probably gained the most from their expedition, cataloging
hundreds of new species and plants.

But no new people
, Edeard thought.

“What’s the matter?” Kristabel asked.

A few of the crew glanced over in his direction, catching his sadness. He
gave them all an apologetic shrug.

“We really are alone on this world,” he explained to Kristabel. “Now that
we’re coming home, we know that for certain.”

“Never certainty,” she said, smiling as she pushed some of her thick hair
from her eyes. It was getting long again. They’d been eight days out from
Makkathran when Kristabel simply sat down in the main cabin and got one of the
other women to cut her already short hair right back, leaving just a few curly
inches.

“It’s practical,” she’d explained calmly to an aghast Edeard. “You can’t
seriously expect me to fight off my hair on top of everything else storms will
throw at us, now, can you? It’s been bad enough for a week in this mild
weather.”

But you managed with a plait
, he managed to
avoid saying out loud. Kristabel without her long hair was … just plain wrong
somehow.

Edeard could laugh at that now—besides, she was still rather cute with
short hair, and elegant with it. It was the least of the changes and
accommodations that they’d collectively made. He couldn’t even remember the
last time he’d seen a woman in a skirt aside from the formal dinner parties
held every month without fail. With the exception of the flotilla’s Mother,
who’d maintained her traditional decorum at all times, they wore trousers,
shorts in the summer. The small revolution meant they were able to help with
the rigging and a dozen other shipboard tasks that were usually the exclusive
province of sailors. Indeed, there had been a lot of grumbling from the
Mariners Guild at the very thought of women going on such a voyage, whereas the
general Makkathran population had been mildly incredulous—the male population
in any case. Edeard had received a huge amount of support from the city’s
womenfolk.

Skepticism about taking women, shaken heads over the prospect of
repeating Captain Allard’s grand failure, more consternation from Kristabel’s
endless flock of relatives concerning the cost of five such vast vessels. At
times it had seemed like the only ones in favor were the Guild of Shipwrights
and a horde of merchants eager to supply the flotilla. Such a dour atmosphere
had lurked across Makkathran’s streets and canals from the time he announced
his intention until that day three years later when the ships had been
completed. Then, with the five vessels anchored outside the city, attitudes
finally began to mellow into admiration and excitement. There wasn’t a quay
large enough or a Port district channel deep enough to handle the
Lady’s Light
and her sister ships, adding to their allure.
Trips around the anchored flotilla in small sailing boats were a huge and
profitable venture for the city’s mariners. To lay down the keels, Edeard had
even gone to the same narrow cove half a mile south of the city that Allard had
used a thousand years ago to build the
Majestic Marie
.
It all fostered a great deal of interest and civic pride. This time the
circumnavigation will be a success, people believed. This is our time, our
ships, our talent, and we have the Waterwalker. It probably helped that Edeard
announced his intention the week after the first Skylord arrived to guide
Finitan’s soul to the Heart.

Edeard prided himself that he’d held out that long. He never wanted to go
back so far into his own past again. Querencia might have been saved from the
nest, but the personal consequences had been too great. It had been a terrible
burden to live through every day again, watching the same mistakes and failings
and wasteful accidents and petty arguments and wretched politics play out once
more when he already knew the solution to everything from his previous trip
through the same years. Time and again he was tempted to intervene, to make
things easier for everyone. But if he began, he knew there was no limit to what
he could and should do once that moral constraint was broken. There would be no
end to intervention; constant assistance would become meddling in the eyes of
those he sought to help.

Besides, those repeated events he endured weren’t so bad for everyone
else, especially since the nest hadn’t arisen this time around. People had to
learn things for themselves to give them the confidence to live a better life
in their own fashion. And ultimately … where would he draw the line? Stop a
child from falling over and breaking an arm wouldn’t teach the child to be more
careful next time, and that was a lesson that needed to be learned. Without
caution, what stupidity would they do the next day?

So with the exception of preventing several murders he recalled, he
restrained himself admirably. That was why he was so desperate to build the
ships and sail away on a voyage that would last for years. As well as
satisfying his curiosity about the unknown continents and islands of Querencia,
he would be doing something different, something new and fresh.

And it had worked; the last four years had been the happiest time he’d
known since he’d come back to eliminate Tathal. Kristabel had gladly responded
to that, even relishing being free of the Upper Council and its endless
bickering politics. They were as close now as they had been on their wedding
day.

Back on the middeck Natran was the center of an excited crowd, receiving
their congratulations and thanks with good-humored restraint. His little son,
Kiranan, was sitting happily on his shoulders. Born on board three years ago,
the lad was naturally curious about living in the big city the way Edeard and
Kristabel described it to him. In total twelve children had been born on the
Lady’s Light
during the epic voyage, with another thirty
on the other four ships. That was where things had finally, wonderfully, begun
to change. Rolar and Wenalee had stayed behind to manage the Culverit estate
and take Kristabel’s seat on the Upper Council; Marakas and Dylorn had also
chosen to remain in Makkathran. His other children had all joined the flotilla.
Jiska and Natran were married, which they hadn’t been this year before. Taralee
had formed a close attachment to Colyn, a journeyman from the horticultural
association who might well qualify for guild status after this voyage. But it
was Marilee and Analee who had surprised and delighted him the most. He’d
simply assumed the twins would stay behind and carry on partying. Instead,
they’d insisted on coming. Of course, they just carried on in their own way through
shipboard life, almost oblivious to the routines and conventions around them.
Not long out of port, they’d claimed Marvane as their lover, a delighted,
infatuated, dazed junior lieutenant, and enticed him down to their cabin each
night. (Not that they needed to try very hard; his envious friends amid the
flotilla swiftly named him Luckiest Man on Querencia.) It was a relationship
that lasted a lot longer than their usual, for he was actually a decent, worthy
man.

Little Kiranan stretched his arms out toward his grandma and squealed
delightedly as Edeard’s third hand plucked him from his father’s shoulders and
delivered him to Kristabel’s embrace.

“I wonder if it’s changed,” Kristabel murmured as she made a fuss over
the boy.

Kiranan pointed at the horizon. “Island,” he announced. “Big home.” His
mind shone with wonder and expectation.

“It’s close, poppet,” Kristabel promised.

“It won’t change,” Edeard declared solemnly. “That’s the thing with
Makkathran; it’s timeless.”

Kristabel flashed him a knowing smile. “It’s changed since you arrived,”
she said smartly. “Ladies in shorts, indeed.”

He smiled, glancing down. She was wearing a white cotton shirt with blue
canvas shorts, her legs lean and tanned from years of exposure to the sun.
“There are worse revolutions.”

“Daddy,” Marilee called as she made her way along the deck.

“We’ll be back in time,” Analee said, accompanying her sister, the two of
them linking arms instinctively against the swell.
Lady’s
Light
was making a fair speed in the warm southwesterly wind.

“Not that we don’t trust Taralee.”

“Or the ship’s surgery.”

“But it will be a comfort to be back in the mansion with all of the
Doctors Guild on call.”

“Just in case.”

They grinned at him. Both of them were six months pregnant and gloriously
happy despite the constant morning sickness they both suffered from. And on
board that was a very public morning sickness; nobody was completely shielded
from the twins’ nausea, which had brought about a lot of sympathetic barfing
among the exposed crew.

“That’ll be a close call,” he said, trying to be realistic. Not that the
twins had ever paid much attention to that. “Even with good winds it’ll take a
month from here.”

“Oh, Daddy,”

“That’s so mean.”

“We want to have landborn children.”

“Really?” he asked. “What does Marvane want? He’s a sailor, after all.”

Marilee and Analee pulled a face at each other.

“He’s a father now.”

“And our husband.”

“Yeees,” Edeard said. Natran had married the three of them a year and a
half ago. A beautiful tropical beach setting, everyone barefoot while the
bright sun shone down and wavelets lapped on the white sands, the twins
ecstatic as they were betrothed to their handsome fiancé. Querencia had no
actual law against marrying more than one person at a time, though it certainly
wasn’t endorsed in any of the Lady’s scriptures, so it had to be the senior
captain rather than the flotilla’s Mother who conducted the ceremony. With
Marvane’s title now irrefutable, the elated trio spent their honeymoon in a
small shack the carpenters had built for them above the shore while the
expedition took an uncommonly long time to catalog the flora and fauna of the
island.

“So he’s going to settle with us,” Marilee announced as if it should have
been obvious.

“In some little part of the Culverit estate on the Iguru.”

“Where we can raise babies and crops together.”

“Because this voyage is a lifetime’s worth of sailing.”

“For anyone.”

“And Taralee has found us some fabulous new plants to cultivate.”

“Which people are going to love.”

“And make us a fortune.”

Edeard couldn’t bring himself to say anything, though he could sense
Kristabel becoming tense with all the twins’ daydream talk.
But then, why shouldn’t it come true? Stranger things have
happened, and as daydreams go it’s sweet. Besides, that’s what we’re all
ultimately aiming for, isn’t it? An easier, gentler life
. He was saved
from any comment when he sensed Natran’s longtalk to the helmsman, ordering a
small change of course. “Why?” he inquired idly.

“We need to identify the island,” Natran replied. “There are eight on the
edge of the eastern archipelago. Once I’ve got an accurate fix, navigating home
will be easy.”

“Of course.”

“Are you ready for home?” Kristabel asked quietly.

“I think so,” he said, though he knew it to be true.
It’s
all new from now on
. Living in Makkathran again would be easy.
Anticipation stirred a joy in him that had been missing for so long. He guessed
she knew that, judging by the contentment glowing within her own thoughts.

“We could always go the other way around the world,” she teased. “There’s
both poles to explore.”

Edeard laughed. “Let’s leave that to the grandchildren, shall we? You and
I have enough to do taking up our roles again. And I think I might just
consider running for Mayor at the next elections.”