trying very hard to be nice and she had reached the point in the evolution of her feelings about him that his effort gratified her.
/
Horss turned on the apartment lights and came back to stare at the floor. He squatted at the edge of the hole and studied the circular cut. He brushed some dirt from the slanted surface and felt how perfectly smooth it was. He felt the lower edge, thinking it looked very sharp. It was. "Damn! I cut myself! This hole is not just a simple circle. It doesn't go straight down. It angles inward. I need a shovel to move some of this dirt."
/
"Let me see your hand!" Mai demanded. There was blood dripping onto the tile! She grabbed at his waving hand and tried to get him to stop what he was doing. She didn't understand yet what was making him so excited. She got a good look at the wound and wanted to treat it immediately but he pulled the hand away.
Jon shook his cut hand, sending more blood drops flying. He looked around the room for something to move the tundra.
Mai felt anxious about Jon's wound but it was hardly a serious wound. She had to stop and wonder at herself. Because it was Jon, she could not maintain professional objectivity. Here she was, feeling young and urgent in the presence of Jon Horss. And she was still missing the reason for Jon's excitement.
/
Horss stepped onto the tundra and started kicking it, pushing it under the floor into the void beneath the floor. He felt the tundra sag under his weight when he stepped into the middle of the circle, which made him stay near the edge of the circle. He uncovered a floor joist and saw how it continued the inward angle of the cut and showed a curve that descended toward the middle of the circle.
"This hole in the floor is a section of a sphere!" Horss declared. "A little deeper and it would have gone into the room below the floor."
"Look up," Mai said.
"I'll be damned!" Horss saw a shallow concavity carved into the ceiling of Daidaunkh's apartment. "It's where the top of the sphere took a bite!"
"I've heard stories of perfect bowl-like shapes carved into the ground in several places on Earth." Mai said, finally capturing Horss's hand and urging him away from the tundra. "It's the first time I've seen one myself. I think it's scary."
"It's more than that. You know where tundra comes from."
"From the Arctic, of course."
"That tundra came here and the section of floor was cut out and almost certainly sent to the Arctic. I don't want to say the word for what this might be. It isn't what I imagined it would be like. It looks very dangerous. I've watched too many old episodes of Deep Space. And it sure doesn't look like their version of it."
"Gate?" Mai offered.
"That's the word." He shook his head. "I took pictures." He pointed to his eyes. "One of these days I'll embarrass myself by showing them to a scientist. Or maybe I'll embarrass the scientist."
/
Mai still held his injured hand at the wrist. "Let me clean this and put a bandage on it." She always carried at least a minimal medical kit. She took her time. She was tired and didn't want to do a poor job. "When we get back to the Clinic I'll heal it."
"I want to stay here," Jon said. "If they return, I want to be here."
"Why would they return here? Why don't you come stay with me?" What am I saying? I need sleep! She didn't know what she was about to do, but his lips were so close, so convenient.
= = =
[Where, where, where? Quickly!]
[I don't know! The Navy will find them anywhere we put them. They have transponders. Can you remove their transponders?]
[Not easily. We don't have much time. The Bitch will discover us.]
[Think!]
= = =
"Fidelity?"
She stopped at the sound of her name. Her name. No one ever called her by that name, except Rafael. Even Samson called her admiral. It still pleased her that Rafael used her name, but it began to feel like it was never really her name. Nor Demba. Ruby Reed? A cabaret singer. She liked it better than Fidelity, but it was no more comfortable. Why did Rafael call her name? Because he couldn't see her, of course! Except for latent infrared and stars in the sky, it was dark as pitch in the alley behind the hotel. She could see Rafael, Daidaunkh, and Samson because her sight was augmented.
"I'm back," she called to them as she approached.
"Find anything?" Rafael asked.
"Nothing that I would trust. This place has been deserted for at least a century."
"It will be the same everywhere," Rafael said. "Nothing to eat. But perhaps we won't be here much longer."
They sat on plastic boxes next to Daidaunkh’s pedicab in the alley behind the hotel, surrounded by tall shapes that blocked the patterns of stars. Samson groped for her in the dark and she helped him sit down between her legs.
"I agree," she said. "It would be wasted effort to search this area for food. Clothing is another matter. We may go somewhere cold again."
"I don't think Daidaunkh wants to ride anywhere for a while," Rafael said. "And my legs are almost used up. I may not be able to walk by this time tomorrow."
"I was told you can sing," Daidaunkh commented, stirring in the pedicab. "Why waste these waning moments of our lives? Let me hear you sing. Jarwekh was impressed with what he heard, but Jarwekh is no musician, no proper judge of talent."
"You wish to judge me as a singer?"
"I wish to judge Jarwekh. Can you sing a Rhyan song?"
If only she could impress him, she thought, as Jarwekh may have been impressed. "I don't know. Can you hum a few bars, as they say, of a Rhyan song?"
Daidaunkh thought for a moment, then launched into a melody strange to hear in the dark. He stopped soon.
"He sounds bad!" Samson remarked. "He can't sing on key."
"Oh, you know something about music?" Fidelity asked, amused.
"I have always feared the judgment of children," Daidaunkh said, "which is one reason I remained childless. You don't know that one? Here's an old one, a children's song."
Daidaunkh sang roughly at first but with determination and care. He sang quietly and with improving clarity. Fidelity saw Samson's dim profile as he turned to listen to Daidaunkh with interest, perhaps forming a quizzical expression, as if trying to understand the alien lyrics. Daidaunkh stopped abruptly and stayed quiet for several moments. The darkness obscured his expression but the silence said something.
"I think I know it," Fidelity said. "I have the Rhyan lyrics in my personal data; I'm not sure why. It's a difficult song for an Earthian. Are you sure you want me to try, Daidaunkh?"
"You've sung it before?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"I don't know," she replied, "but I know something about the song."
"What is it?" Samson asked. "What are the words?"
"It sounds strange, doesn't it? It's not a children's song. It's a sad song for grownups, about war and making orphans of their children. The song is said to be more than a thousand years old. To sing it properly you have to understand the words and why certain notes should be sung slightly wrong, according to Earthian ears. In a way, it's almost like Earthian blues - you have to feel it. It isn't a song I would have sung as a performer. It's a cultural artifact of great importance."
"You know all of this," Daidaunkh said, "yet you couldn't remember that you knew any Rhyan songs?"
"I must be packed with data augments!" Fidelity almost complained. "Data was always my first interest. I must have lost count of my data augments. I'm so full of information that I can't easily browse through it and discover things by category. It helps if I know exactly what I need to find, if I have a sample of a thing, like the first few notes of a song."
She stood up to free her diaphragm. Samson stood up beside her and grasped one of the bicycle handlebars for support. Rafael also struggled to his feet and leaned against the pedicab. Fidelity sang the first notes of the Rhyan song. Her voice echoed from the walls around them, augmenting the melancholy feel of the song. Daidaunkh leaned forward in the pedicab, as
if to better hear. She sang, and the ancient song lived again.
"Did you like it?" Fidelity asked Samson when she finished the song.
Samson started to say something, but Daidaunkh interrupted.
"I shouldn't have doubted Jarwekh! It's a deceptively difficult old song for anyone to do properly. Although it pains me to admit it, I've never heard it sung better."
"Thank you, Daidaunkh!"
Light came from everywhere, blinding them, except for Fidelity. She saw the new world appear around them, at all points, above and below, fantastic, stunning in its beauty, endless in its variety.
= = =
"I thought you would want to see this," said his jailer. "And hear it."
"More of the Transmat Prisoners Travelogue?" Pan asked.
The scene on the display wall in Admiral Etrhnk's black and white room began in the Asian street at dusk and played through to the end in the dark alley. Even though Pan was certain Admiral Demba was once the cabaret singer Ruby Reed, he was shocked by the singing of Demba. It was perhaps due in part to the question of what was memory and what was imagination, but Demba sang not only with perfection but with that rare magic that caused hunger for more of her voice.
"I'm not sure Ruby Reed could sing that well!" Pan declared. "Admiral Demba is... astonishing! Thank you for letting me hear her. If it was possible, I would beg her to sing in the Mother Earth Opera."
"Hearing your professional appraisal," Etrhnk said plainly, "I would be predisposed to make it possible. But I'm afraid it's out of my hands now."
"What do you mean?"
"You saw them disappear. You did not see the gate