“My lord,” I said when all the Bo lieutenants were out of earshot. “I’ll notify the hundred captain.”
“No,” said one Anaander. “Your Var deck is empty.”
“Yes, my lord,” I acknowledged.
“I’ll stay there while I’m on board.” Nothing further, no why or how long. Or when I could tell the captain what I was doing. I was obliged to obey Anaander Mianaai, even over my own captain, but I rarely had an order from one without the knowledge of the other. It was uncomfortable.
I sent segments of One Esk to retrieve One Var from the hold, started one section of Var deck warming. The three Anaander Mianaais declined my offer of assistance with their luggage, carried their things down to Var.
This had happened before, at Valskaay. My lower decks had been mostly empty, because many of my troops had been out of the hold and working. She had stayed on the Esk deck that time. What had she wanted then, what had she done?
To my dismay I found my thoughts slipping around the answer, which remained vague, invisible. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.
Between the Esk and Var decks was direct access to my brain. What had she done, at Valskaay, that I couldn’t remember, and what was she preparing to do now?
13
Further south the snow and ice became impermanent, though it was still cold by non-Nilt standards. Nilters regard the equatorial region as a sort of tropical paradise, where grain can actually grow, where the temperature can easily exceed eight or nine degrees C. Most of Nilt’s large cities are on or near the equatorial ring.
The same is true of the planet’s one claim to any sort of fame—the glass bridges.
These are approximately five-meter-wide ribbons of black hanging in gentle catenaries across trenches nearly as wide as they are deep—dimensions measured in kilometers. No cables, no piers, no trusses. Just the arc of black attached to each cliff face. Fantastic arrangements of colored glass coils and rods hang from the bottoms of the bridges, sometimes projecting sideways.
The bridges themselves are, according to all observations, also made of glass, though glass could never possibly withstand the sort of stress these bridges do—even their own weight should be too much for them, suspended as they are with nothing for support. There are no rails or handholds, just the drop, and at the bottom, kilometers down, a cluster of thick-walled tubes, each one just a meter and a half wide, empty and smooth-walled. These are made of the same material as the bridges. No one knows what the bridges and the tubes beneath them were for, or who built them. They were here when humans first colonized Nilt.
Theories abound, each one less likely than the one before. Inter-dimensional beings feature prominently in many of them—these either created or shaped humanity for its own purposes, or left a message for humans to decipher for obscure reasons of their own. Or they were evil, bent on destruction of all life. The bridges were, somehow, part of their plan.
Another whole subfield claims the bridges were built by humans—some ancient, long-lost, fantastically advanced civilization that either died out (slowly, pathetically; or spectacularly as the result of some catastrophic mistake) or moved on to a higher level of existence. Advocates of this sort of theory often make the additional claim that Nilt is, in reality, the birthplace of humans. Nearly everywhere I’ve been, popular wisdom has it that the location of humanity’s original planet is unknown, mysterious. In fact it isn’t, as anyone who troubles to read on the subject will discover, but it is very, very, very far away from nearly anywhere, and not a tremendously interesting place. Or at the very least, not nearly as interesting as the enchanting idea that your people are not newcomers to their homes but in fact only recolonized the place they had belonged from the beginning of time. One meets this claim anywhere one finds a remotely human-habitable planet.
The bridge outside Therrod wasn’t much of a tourist attraction. Most of the jewel-bright arabesques of glass had shattered over thousands of years, leaving it nearly plain. And Therrod is still too far north for non-Nilters to endure comfortably. Offworld visitors generally confine themselves to the better-preserved bridges on the equator, buy a bov-hair blanket guaranteed hand-spun and handwoven by masters of the craft in the unbearably cold reaches of the world (though these are almost certainly turned out on machines, by the dozen, a few kilometers from the gift shop), choke down a few fetid swallows of fermented milk, and return home to regale their friends and associates with tales of their adventure.
All this I learned within a few minutes of knowing I would need to visit Nilt to achieve my aim.
Therrod sat on a broad river, chunks of green-and-white ice bobbing and crashing in its current, the first boats of the season already moored at the docks. On the opposite side of the city, the dark slash of the bridge’s huge trough made a definitive stop to the straggling edge of houses. The southern edge of the city was flier-parks, then a wide complex of blue-and-yellow-painted buildings that was, by the look of it, a medical facility, one that must have been the largest of its kind in the area. It was surrounded by squares of lodgings and food shops, and swaths of houses, bright pink, orange, yellow, red, in stripes and zigzags and crosshatches.
We had flown half the day. I might have flown all night, I was capable of it, though it would have been unpleasant. But I saw no need for haste. I set down in the first empty space I found, told Seivarden curtly to get out, and did so myself. I shouldered my pack, paid the parking fee, disabled the flier as I had at Strigan’s, and set off toward the city, not looking to see if Seivarden followed.
I had set down near the medical facility. The lodgings surrounding it were some of them luxurious, but many were smaller and less comfortable than the one I’d rented in the village where I’d found Seivarden, though a bit more expensive. Bright-coated southerners came and went, speaking a language I didn’t understand. Others spoke the one I knew, and fortunately this was the same language the signs used.
I chose lodging—roomier, at least, than the suspension-pod-size holes that were the cheapest available—and took Seivarden off to the first clean-looking and moderately priced food shop I could find.
When we entered, Seivarden eyed the shelves of bottles on the far wall. “They have arrack.”
“It’ll be incredibly expensive,” I said, “and probably not very good. They don’t make it here. Have a beer instead.”
She had been showing some signs of stress, and wincing slightly at the profusion of bright colors, so I expected some sort of irritable outburst, but instead she merely gestured acquiescence. Then she wrinkled her nose, slight disgust. “What do they make beer out of here?”
“Grain. It grows nearer the equator. It’s not as cold there.” We found seats on the benches that lined three rows of long tables, and a waiter brought us beer, and bowls of something she told us was the house specialty, Extra beautiful eating, yes, she said, in a badly mangled approximation of Radchaai, and it was in fact quite good, and turned out to have actual vegetables in it, a good proportion of thinly sliced cabbage among whatever the rest of it was. The smaller lumps appeared to be meat—probably bov. Seivarden cut one of the larger lumps in two with her spoon, revealing plain white. “Probably cheese,” I said.
She grimaced. “Why can’t these people eat real food? Don’t they know better?”
“Cheese is real food. So is cabbage.”
“But this sauce…”
“Tastes good.” I took another spoonful.
“This whole place smells funny,” she complained.
“Just eat.” She looked dubiously at her bowl, scooped a spoonful, sniffed it. “It can’t possibly smell worse than that fermented milk drink,” I said.
She actually half-smiled. “No.”
I took another spoonful, pondering the implications of this better behavior. I wasn’t sure what it meant, about her state of mind, about her intentions, about who or what she thought I was. Maybe Strigan had been right, and Seivarden had decided the most profitable course, for now,
was to not alienate the person who was feeding her, and that would change as soon as her options changed.
A high voice called out from another table. “Hello!”
I turned—the girl with the Tiktik set waved to me from where she sat with her mother. For an instant I was surprised, but we were near the medical center, where I knew they had brought their injured relative, and they had come from the same direction we had, and so they had likely parked on the same side of town. I smiled and nodded, and she got up and came to where we were sitting. “Your friend is better!” she said, brightly. “That’s good. What are you eating?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The waiter said it was the house specialty.”
“Oh, that’s very good, I had it yesterday. When did you get here? It’s so hot it’s like summer already, I can’t imagine what it’s like further north.” Clearly she’d had time to recover her more usual spirits since the accident that had brought her to Strigan’s house. Seivarden, spoon in hand, watched her, bemused.
“We’ve been here an hour,” I said. “We’re only stopping for the night, on our way to the ribbon.”
“We’re here until Uncle’s legs are better. Which will probably be another week.” She frowned, counting days. “A little longer. We’re sleeping in our flier, which is terribly uncomfortable, but Mama says the price for lodging here is outright theft.” She sat down on the end of the bench, next to me. “I’ve never been in space, what’s it like?”
“It’s very cold—even you would find it cold.” She thought that was funny, gave a little laugh. “And of course there’s no air and hardly any gravity so everything just floats.”
She frowned at me, mock rebuke. “You know what I mean.”
I glanced over to where her mother sat, stolid, eating. Unconcerned. “It’s really not very exciting.”
The girl made a gesture of indifference. “Oh! You like music. There’s a singer at a place down the street tonight.” She used the word I had used mistakenly, not the one she had corrected me with, in Strigan’s house. “We didn’t go to hear her last night because they charge. And besides she’s my cousin. Or she’s in the next lineage over from mine, and she’s my mother’s cousin’s daughter’s aunt, that’s close enough anyway. I heard her at the last ingather, she’s very good.”
“I’ll be sure to go. Where is it?”
She gave me the name of the place, and then said she had to finish her supper. I watched her go back to her mother, who only looked up, briefly, and gave a curt nod, which I returned.
The place the girl had named was only a few doors down, a long, low-ceilinged building, its back wall all shutters, open just now on a walled yard, where Nilters sat uncoated in the one-degree air, drinking beer, listening silently to a woman playing a bowed, stringed instrument I’d never seen before.
I quietly ordered beer for myself and Seivarden, and we took seats on the inner side of the shutters—slightly warmer than the yard for the lack of a breeze, and with a wall to put our backs against. A few people turned to look at us, stared a moment, then turned away more or less politely.
Seivarden leaned three centimeters in my direction and whispered, “Why are we here?”
“To hear the music.”
She raised an eyebrow. “This is music?”
I turned to look at her directly. She flinched, just slightly. “Sorry. It’s just…” She gestured helplessly. Radchaai do have stringed instruments, quite a variety of them, in fact, accrued through several annexations, but playing them in public is considered a slightly risqué act, because one has to play either bare-handed, or in gloves so thin as to be nearly pointless. And this music—the long, slow, uneven phrases that made its rhythms difficult for the Radchaai ear to hear, the harsh, edged tone of the instrument—was not what Seivarden had been brought up to appreciate. “It’s so…”
A woman at a nearby table turned and made a reproving, shushing noise. I gestured conciliation, and turned a cautioning look on Seivarden. For a moment her anger showed in her face and I was sure I would have to take her outside, but she took a breath, and looked at her beer, and drank, and afterward looked steadily ahead in silence.
The piece ended, and the audience rapped fists gently on their tables. The string player somehow looked both impassive and gratified, and launched into another, this one noticeably faster and loud enough for Seivarden to safely whisper to me again. “How long are we going to be here?”
“A while,” I said.
“I’m tired. I want to go back to the room.”
“Do you know where it is?”
She gestured assent. The woman at the other table eyed us disapprovingly. “Go,” I whispered, as quietly as I could and still, I hoped, be heard by Seivarden.
Seivarden left. Not my concern anymore, I told myself, whether she found her way back to our lodgings (and I congratulated myself on having had the foresight to lock my pack in the facility’s safe for the night—even without Strigan’s warning I didn’t trust Seivarden with my belongings or my money) or wandered aimlessly through the city, or walked into the river and drowned—whatever she did, it was no concern of mine and nothing I needed to worry about. I had, instead, a jar of sufficiently decent beer and an evening of music, with the promise of a good singer, and songs I’d never heard before. I was nearer to my goal than I’d ever dared hope to be, and I could, for just this one night, relax.
The singer was excellent, though I didn’t understand any of the words she sang. She came on late, and by then the place was crowded and noisy, though the audience occasionally fell silent over their beer, listening to the music, and the knocking between pieces grew loud and boisterous. I ordered enough beer to justify my continued presence, but did not drink most of it. I’m not human, but my body is, and too much would have dulled my reactions unacceptably.
I stayed quite late, and then walked back to our lodgings along the darkened street, here and there a pair or threesome walking, conversing, ignoring me.
In the tiny room I found Seivarden asleep—motionless, breathing calm, face and limbs slack. Something indefinably still about her suggested that this was the first I’d seen her in real, restful sleep. For the briefest instant I found myself wondering if she’d taken kef, but I knew she had no money, didn’t know anyone here, and didn’t speak any of the languages I had heard so far.
I lay down beside her and slept.
I woke six hours later, and incredibly, Seivarden still lay beside me, still asleep. I didn’t think she had waked while I slept.
She might as well get as much rest as she could. I was, after all, in no hurry. I rose and went out.
Further toward the medical center the street became noisy and crowded. I bought a bowl of hot, milky porridge from a vendor along the side of the walkway, and continued along where the road curved around the hospital and off toward the center of the town. Buses stopped, let passengers off, picked others up, continued on.
In the stream of people, I saw someone I recognized. The girl from Strigan’s, and her mother. They saw me. The girl’s eyes widened, and she frowned slightly. Her mother’s expression didn’t change, but they both swerved to approach me. They had, it seemed, been watching for me.
“Breq,” said the girl, when they had stopped in front of me. Subdued. Uncharacteristically, it seemed.
“Is your uncle all right?” I asked.
“Yes, Uncle is fine.” But clearly something troubled her.
“Your friend,” said her mother, impassive as always. And stopped.
“Yes?”
“Our flier is parked near yours,” the girl said, clearly dreading the communication of bad news. “We saw it when we got back from supper last night.”
“Tell me.” I didn’t enjoy suspense.
Her mother actually frowned. “It’s not there now.”
I said nothing, waiting for the rest.
“You must have disabled it,” she continued. “Your friend took money, and the people who paid him towed t
he flier away.”
The lot staff must not have questioned it, they had seen Seivarden with me.
“She doesn’t speak any languages,” I protested.
“They made lots of motions!” explained the girl, gesturing widely. “Lots of pointing and speaking very slow.”
I had badly underestimated Seivarden. Of course—she had survived, going from place to place with no language but Radchaai, and likely no money, but still had managed to nearly overdose on kef. More than once, likely. She could manage herself, even if she managed badly. She was entirely capable of getting what she wanted without help. And she had wanted kef, and she had obtained it. At my expense, but that was of no importance to her.
“We knew it couldn’t be right,” said the girl, “because you said you were only stopping the night on the way to space, but no one would have listened to us, we’re just bov herders.” And no doubt the sort of person who would buy a flier with no documentation, no proof of ownership—a flier, moreover, that had obviously been deliberately disabled to prevent its being moved by anyone but the owner—it might very well be a good idea to avoid confronting such a person.
“I would not presume to say,” said the girl’s mother, oblique condemnation, “what sort of friend your friend is.”
Not my friend. Never my friend, now or at any other time. “Thank you for telling me.”
I walked to the lot, and the flier was indeed gone. When I returned to the room, I found Seivarden still sleeping, or at any rate still unconscious. I wondered just how much kef the flier had bought her. I only wondered long enough to retrieve my pack from the lodging’s safe, pay for the night—after this Seivarden would have to fend for herself, which apparently posed very little problem for her—and went looking for transport out of town.
There was a bus, but the first had left fifteen minutes before I asked after it, and the next would not leave for three hours. A train ran alongside the river, northward once a day, and like the bus it had already left.