‘I love you,’ she murmured.
The Mother coughed for attention. ‘You asked to see me, Waterwalker.’
‘Yes, Mother. I think we might have a ceremony for you to perform.’
‘What kind of ceremony?’
‘Macsen, I believe our dearest friend told you not to waste any time.’
‘What?’
Dybal started chuckling.
‘Do you have something to ask somebody?’ Edeard said levelly. ‘Right now.’
Macsen gave him a frantic stare. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he growled through lips which didn’t move.
‘I’m the Waterwalker, apparently I don’t do funny.’
The salvagers had claimed their prizes, now they were gathering to watch the latest bizarre spectacle to be played out in the square today. Constables also began to congregate, showing considerable interest. A lot of farsight was concentrating on the square again. Edeard held out an arm. A silver ring flashed out from the pile of debris to fly across the square into his hand. He proffered it to Macsen with a flourish. ‘You might need this.’
‘Oh Lady.’ Macsen took the ring, his eyes widening in amazement at how many diamonds could fit on to such a small item. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Edeard said.
Macsen took a breath and went down on one knee. ‘Kanseen, I have never been happier than when I’m with you. Would you please do me the honour of marrying me?’ He might have been incredibly awkward with so many people straining to see and hear, but his face held a longing that was irrefutable.
‘Yes, my darling,’ she said. ‘I will marry you.’
Several constables whistled and clapped in approval as Macsen put the ring on her finger. He frowned at Edeard as it slipped about. ‘You couldn’t find one that fitted?’
‘Mother,’ Edeard said. ‘Would you please marry them now?’
‘Edeard, no,’ Kanseen said. ‘Look at the state of me. My wedding is supposed to be . . . not this.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have my reason.’
‘Your reason?’
He nodded.
‘It had better be incredible,’ she muttered.
Dybal gave the bride away. Dinlay was best man. Kathlynn stood behind her sister, crying as she held the posy of flowers hurriedly snatched from plants in nearby streets. Kristabel and Bijulee took it in turns to cope with Dium, who really wanted to be in on the action. Edeard held Kristabel’s hand when he could, listening to the Mother’s words with the heap of rubbish from the mansion as the background to the damp, dishevelled bride and groom. Constables formed a big semi-circle round them, with curious Sampalok residents making up a wider audience.
When it was over, when the promises were made, the rings exchanged, and the bride kissed, Edeard went up to his friends. His voice and longtalk filled the square.
‘When Rah brought us out of the chaos to this place the city accepted us. When Rah allowed his most faithful friends and followers to become District Masters the city did not object, for he chose wisely. Down the centuries, the family Diroal slipped away from the ideals that were sworn at the beginning, and today is a result of that. None of us wish to defy Rah’s constitution, least of all me; so I now publicly ask this city to accept the appointment of the new joint District Master and Mistress of Sampalok.’
‘Edeard!’ Kanseen hissed furiously.
The Waterwalker gestured, and the ground beneath the pile of expensive detritus turned fluid again. Everything left from the demise of Bise’s mansion was sucked down below the surface amid a harsh gurgling sound. The crowd drew a sharp breath of excitement.
‘Walk to the middle,’ Edeard said quietly as the city substance hardened again.
Macsen took his wife’s hand, and urged her out into the big open space. Both of them radiated nerves as their soggy boots squelched on the ground, watched by over a thousand people in the square, and many times that number by farsight.
‘The new Master and Mistress of Sampalok,’ Edeard announced. ‘And their new mansion.’
The surface began to ripple around Macsen and Kanseen. She jumped in apprehension and he hugged her tight – which gathered more than a little appreciation from their audience.
Six long dark lines firmed up on the ground around them, as if some architect was using the area to sketch an enormous hexagon. Smaller lines multiplied inside them, revealing the outlines of various rooms and cloisters. Then all the lines began to bulge up into ridges.
A radiantly happy Kanseen glanced across the empty space to Edeard. ‘How long is this going to take?’
‘A little while. It’s always quicker and easier to tear things down than it is to build them back up again.’
‘So? A week?’
Edeard gave the tiny ridges a doubtful look. After five minutes they were nearly two inches high. Below them the city was ponderously rearranging its vast complicated network of channels and ducts to feed and support the new structure he’d hurriedly drafted. A building with proper stairs. Finally! ‘Perhaps I’d better get you a tent as your wedding present.’
Justine: Year Three
You couldn’t dream in suspension. Everyone knew that. And yet . . .
Justine recalled those two wondrous lazy days with Kazimir so clearly. It had been the most fabulous doomed love affair the universe had ever known. She’d been vacationing on Far Away, a brattish rich girl celebrating her latest rejuvenation on what was then the Commonwealth’s most outré planet. The grand finale had been a hyperglider flight over Mount Herculaneum. It had been an insane thrill ride. Flying the tiny plane through a phenomenally aggressive storm gave her the speed to soar out of the atmosphere and curve over the summit of the huge volcano. Despite all the odds, she’d managed it; gliding down to land in a small clearing on the other side.
Luck, chance, fate, or a particularly wicked god had placed Kazimir on the ground beside the clearing as the hyperglider bumped and jolted to a halt. He was seventeen, born into the Guardians of Selfhood which Bradley Johansson had formed to protect humanity from the Starflyer. An upbringing that had left him utterly devoted to his cause yet at the same time innocent of the universe at large. He never really stood a chance against a woman two hundred years his senior whose newly youthful body was fizzing with adolescent hormones. Not that he put up a lot of resistance.
It took the tourist company’s recovery crew two days to drive round Herculaneum and pick up all the glider pilots. Two days spent eating the gourmet food from the glider’s store, sleeping, talking, and making love. Two days alone together. Then she went back to her world and he to his. All she had left was the sweetest memory of her entire life.
That really should have been the end of it. But years later the Guardians of Selfhood gave Kazimir an assignment on Earth, and he risked everything to see her again. His reward was to be betrayed. By her. She thought she was doing the right thing informing the security services. But it was he who had the truth of it, the Starflyer was real and extracted revenge. Kazimir had been assassinated by one of its agents, and in twelve hundred years Justine had never forgiven herself. Not even the son she’d borne him and named after him had helped ease the pain.
So now her dreams granted her those two days again. She looked into his worshipful face once more as he was seduced and taught the miracle their bodies could achieve together. She knew what it was like to be held in his arms again. She laughed with him in the glade on the hillside where the bright sunlight shone out of Far Away’s gorgeous sapphire sky. Caught him giving her longing glances across the bonfire they lit outside the tent at night. Watched him sleeping. Talked to him about her life. Listened to his stories of growing up in the mountains and deserts in fear of the great enemy.
Two days that showed her what a paradise her life could have been if she’d just had the strength to cast off her own conventions. Two days that made her weep with joy simply because they existed. Two days that stretched on and on and on . . . granted by a dream that was impo
ssible to have. Because you couldn’t dream in suspension.
Night closed in and she lost him. The bonfire must have gone out, leaving her world claustrophobically dark. The air was dryer that it had been on the mountainside.
Lights resolved in the darkness. Strange colourful constellations that her drowsy mind slowly began to comprehend. Exoimage medical icons told her she was recovering.
‘Oh shit,’ she groaned. The medical chamber lid peeled back, and she looked round the Silverbird’s cabin again. It had just been a dream. She sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Status?’ she asked the smartcore. A fresh level of exoimage icons and displays sprang up.
She’d been in suspension for three years; the target star was about a lightyear away. And the Silverbird was decelerating hard. Something was approaching.
‘Holy crap,’ she muttered as the sensors swept across the visitor. It was big – mountain sized. That was just the core. It was surrounded by weird sheets of gossamer matter that fluctuated like a gas.
A Skylord with its vacuum wings fully extended.
Justine showered and ordered up a decent meal as the Silverbird and the Skylord rendezvoused. It took the best part of a day, but they were finally sliding through space a thousand miles apart. With the sensors able to penetrate the haze of the vacuum wings, the Skylord was the same as Inigo’s dreams had shown them. A long ovoid but not solid, it was as if vast sheets of crystalline fabric had been folded into a Calabi-Yau manifold topology, with looping curves intersecting each other in eye-twisting complexity. The warped surfaces shimmered with long diffraction patterns that always flowed inward. She could never be certain if the structure itself was stable or constantly fluctuating there was so much surface movement.
Settling back on the longest couch in the cabin’s repertoire she let her mind reach for the immense creature. It glowed on the edge of her farsight, a glow not dissimilar to the gaiafield. Tenuous and full of emotion.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘You are most welcome,’ the Skylord said.
‘Did you let me into this universe?’
‘My kindred knew of your arrival. The nucleus drew you in.’
‘You know then it is my wish to speak with this nucleus, the Heart where you guide human souls. Can you guide me there?’
‘Your mind is not like the others of your species which used to dwell here. You lack the maturity of the elder years, yet your resolution is formidable. There is something about your vessel which magnifies your thoughts, but not rightly so.’
The confluence nest, Justine realized. ‘The amplifier is an instrument constructed on my homeworld to emulate your communications here. That is how you found us beyond your border.’
‘Along with my kindred, I guide those who have accomplished fulfilment to the nucleus. That is my fulfilment. There will come a time when I will not return from the nucleus.’
‘That’s why I have come here. Others of my kind are trying to reach your universe. Their arrival will be a disaster. I must explain this to the Heart.’
‘Existence is achieving fulfilment. All must strive for that moment.’
‘In here, yes. But outside is a universe very different to this one. Did you know you are damaging us, destroying our stars and worlds?’
‘There is only here, the universe and the nucleus.’
‘Then where did I come from?’
‘The nucleus knows.’
‘Then guide me there, please.’
‘This cannot be done, it is against what is. I mourn your loss. Once you reach fulfilment I will guide you.’
Justine’s teeth began to press together. She made a very strong effort to make sure her frustration didn’t contaminate her longtalk with the vast creature. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you? This existence you enjoy in here is killing living entities outside, you are preventing an entire galaxy from ever reaching fulfilment.’
‘To achieve fulfilment your species must come to the solid worlds scattered throughout this universe.’
‘Your kind of fulfilment. Not ours.’
‘I will guide you when your mind reaches fulfilment. You strive for it so hard, the fabric is deeply affected by your wishes. It will not be long.’
‘Help me, please. You are killing people.’
‘To ascend into the fabric in any fashion is wonderful. Even the quietest minds are a part of what is.’
‘No, no, death outside this universe is final. It ends all form of existence.’
‘How hard for your species. You adapt easily and mature within this universe. We welcome you all. That is the reason for our existence.’
‘I have to get to the Heart. Do you remember others like me you guided there?’
‘There were many. They were joyful to reach the nucleus.’
‘I am glad to hear that. Where are they now? Where is the nucleus?’
‘The nucleus is the centre of everywhere and everywhen. It is that which all came from, and all return to change and live among change.’
‘Is it here? Are we in the nucleus right now?’
‘You cannot be in the nucleus. You have not reached fulfilment.’
‘I would like to talk with those of my kind who are already there. I could learn so much from them, it would help me reach fulfilment.’
‘Fulfilment comes from within.’
‘Fulfilment is achieved from experience. I am alone here. I need to commune with my own kind if I am to mature.’
‘My kindred are not aware of any thoughts from minds akin to your species. None are left.’
‘None?’ she asked in shock. ‘But there was a whole world of us, maybe more.’
‘All were guided to the nucleus. That world awaits the arrival of others. As do my kindred.’
‘Then take me to some world where you can feel living minds.’
‘My flock searches this universe always. There is no world I can feel where minds live thiswhen.’
‘Jesus fuck it!’ Justine couldn’t help it, but the frustration was finally getting to her. The Ocisens were less stubborn than this creature. She took a breath. It’s not stubborn, these are its thought routines, perfectly adapted to its life and purpose. Why should it understand my motivations and problems?
‘You are sorrowful,’ the Skylord said. ‘When you are ready to be guided, I will guide you. Know this and hope.’
Something changed among the patterns shimmering within the Skylord’s curving crystalline sheets. It moved, shrinking away at an incredible velocity. Within seconds it had vanished from the Silverbird’s sensors.
‘Ye Gods,’ Justine muttered. The Second Dreamer’s views of Skylords always showed them drifting along sedately. Whereas the acceleration she’d just witnessed would have been close to five hundred gees. If it was acceleration. This is a strange old place.
She spent the next few hours running over her conversation again and again. In the end she acknowledged she couldn’t have achieved any other outcome. The Skylord simply didn’t have the psychology to help her reach the Heart. It was too alien.
For all its size and ability she wasn’t strictly sure it qualified as sentient. Most intelligences had the ability to learn and reason, these creatures seemed incapable of interpreting anything outside their original parameters.
Not that the analysis helped her.
When she ran through the starship’s log she was pleased with the way Silverbird had remained functional. For some reason the glitches had been minimal while she’d been in suspension. Now all she had to do was decide what to do next.
At a lightyear distant the visual sensors could just make out some kind of accretion disc surrounding the star she was heading for. She examined the tenuous imagery with growing dismay. Any star whose planets were still forming wasn’t going to have a habitable world for her to establish herself on. Or at least, it wouldn’t out there in the real universe.
Justine mulled the problem over while she had another gourmet meal of lamb shanks
cooked in toblaris wine and herb rosties, then pigged out on chocolates. She’d come this far, and it was only another one and a half years in suspension. She still didn’t have enough information to make a decision, any kind of decision. She was simply heading for the star as a comfort measure. That was something she needed more than ever now. No other planetary species in this whole universe!
Silverbird began accelerating back up to point seven lightspeed as the medical chamber’s lid flowed shut above her.
5
It was an ordinary house in an ordinary street. At least as far as Ganthia was concerned. A planet that became Higher soon after it was settled, its various political committees had quickly evolved a policy of sustainable organic construction. Native flora lent itself easily to the concept, trees in the temperate zones were hardwoods with an internal honeycomb structure. A few genetic tweaks make them quite suitable for creative shaping. Like the aircoral developed during the first Commonwealth era, Ganthia’s modified trees could be guided over frameworks to form hollow bulbous chambers. Better yet, they were amenable to grafting, so while each room was an individual tree, a house was the merger of many.
Navy Captain, retired, Donald Chatfield, lived in the middle of what from the air resembled a good-sized forest. It fact it was Persain City, spreading out over the side of several mountains just above the shoreline. Twelve trees provided him five first-floor rooms whose curving walls sprouted stunted branches with shell-pink leaves. Five long trunks grew up through the gaps between the lower rooms, before bulging out into the second floor of smaller compartments; each frosted with copper leaves. The remaining two trees were hollow pipes, twisting round the curvature of the lower rooms to provide stairwells between the two levels.
Paula’s taxi capsule skimmed along what appeared to be a wide greenway through the forest city. It settled silently on the wild lawn outside Chatfield’s home and she climbed out, sniffing the unusually spicy air. House clusters stretched away in every direction, some extending three or four floors high, their marvellously convoluted trunks forming a knotted support maze. Sunlight shone through the overhead branches creating a sharp dapple around her. In the distance, some kids were playing in an open area. The whole scene was remarkably rustic. Only the capsules flitting along the grid of greenways betrayed the planet’s true cultural base.