A Passage of Stars

  “That’s the other reason Central doesn’t regulate this route,” said Jenny, sipping at her water. “It’s so damned slow, it cuts down your profit line quick enough to have to sit out here waiting for a clear window.” She eased down into the plastine chair and lifted her bare feet up to rest on the tabletop. Her soles were paler than her skin, pinkish, leathery from the demands of a mercenary’s training.

  “How did you get to be a mercenary?” Lily asked.

  Jenny grinned. “To get out of having children.”

  “I wondered”—Lily shrugged—“hired mercenaries don’t usually get to bring their dependents along on their jobs,”

  “Easy Virtue isn’t a usual ship. Too large for the kind of traffic she turns, but too poor to pay a decent crew.”

  “It must be a hard life for Lia and Gregori.”

  “Said most diplomatically, Lily-hae.” Jenny gave her a mock salute. “What you mean is, how can they stand to be stuck in that tiny cabin all day. And how can I stand to leave them there.”

  Lily said nothing, merely took another drink, regarding the mercenary seriously.

  Jenny sighed, more heartfelt, perhaps, than she realized, or perhaps Lily simply knew enough of her by now to read it so.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said now. “I’ve never realized until the past few weeks how easy my life as the young Saressa was. What you’re doing can’t be easy for you.”

  “Given the alternatives? I don’t know. Have you ever heard of Unity?”

  “I’ve heard the name. Out beyond the Saladin route. Don’t they export aris-cote?”

  “Among other things, yes. Unity’s a tidal planet, long, hot stretches of sand flat that just go on and on and on.”

  “It’s a little hard for me to imagine,” Lily said. “We never even see the sun on Unruli. But we do have lots of sand.”

  “The universal bane of machinery. Aris can only be harvested manually because of it. But Unity is so far off the main routes that no one wants to immigrate there, and with so many industries dependent on human hands, Unity has just never had enough—hands, that is. They tried artificial wombs—”

  “I thought artificial wombs were illegal.”

  “So are contraceptives,” said Jenny. Lily blushed. “Point made, I think. They don’t work anyway. A few are still bred for the really noxious jobs, but Council settled on a different way to solve the problem. They just trot us girls out at sixteen and get us pregnant.”

  “You didn’t have any choice?”

  “None at all.”

  “Hoy,” said Lily. The ventilation fans hummed in a drone above them, a muffled pedal point to Jenny’s story.

  “I had a daughter at sixteen, a boy at eighteen. They were put in crèches. The time came for my next go round—I was sick at the thought of having to do it all over again. That’s when the Immortals came recruiting.”

  Suddenly that hard core resting beneath Jenny’s cheerful exterior became explicable to Lily. “Hoy,” she said. “You were an Immortal. No wonder you’re so good. But I thought Immortals couldn’t retire.”

  “They can’t,” replied Jenny with a self-mocking smile. “I’m not retired. I’m a fugitive.”

  “But we’re going straight in to Central!”

  Jenny took an unconcerned draught from her cup. “If you haven’t guessed by now, Jenny Seria is not the name I was born with. And if I told you Aliasing’s whole name, you’d recognize it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a long story. After graduating from the Academy, I was stationed at Central, and I moved up as one does given a little effort. It’s actually rather an easy life, being an Immortal.”

  “Being celibate is easy?”

  Jenny chuckled. “Our commanders believed in the concept of self-control through lack of opportunity. We each had individual rooms—cells, more like—that we were locked into during our sleep shifts. And a lot of us, at least at first, embraced the entire image of the Immortal. Including, you know, the idea that sexually frustrated men and women make better fighters.

  “That’s an interesting hypothesis,” said Lily tactfully.

  “Especially as we novices discovered that many of our colleagues were having affairs—well, for the women it had to be other women, because of the risk of pregnancy, but the men might go either way. It was also a cachet among the senatorial families and the other high-society folk in Central to have an Immortal to your bed, of whichever sex, despite the celibacy rule. I don’t know, perhaps because of it. That’s how I met Lia.”

  “Aliasing was an Immortal?”

  Jenny threw back her head and laughed. Even in that movement, Lily could see the strict control she had over her muscles, almost scientific in its precision. “Lia is the only child of a Senator. Somehow she came out of it unspoiled—well, at least uncynical. Among her friends it was the fashion to lose their virginity—as if it were something simply to get rid of—to an Immortal. But Aliasing was honest in her infatuation and a little disillusioned with her life. She was only sixteen, but old enough—no doubt on Unity old enough—to see the great gap between all her rich friends using contraceptives, and all the young women who had no choice, or no chance, to use the same precautions. She’s not without courage, is my Lia, as well as not without beauty. I never quite understood why she fell in love with me.”

  “You are one of the handsomest women I’ve ever met,” said Lily.

  Jenny smiled. “Thank you. Well, it was a little more obvious why she also fell in love with Mendi.”

  “Mendi?”

  “Mendiya Leyhaennin Mun. Of the Tollgate and Halfway Muns. A very rich family, a bit independent of the government, or at least they pretend they are. But Mendi—well—the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Hair the color of the sun, skin like milk, his eyes—and his body. Well. How can you resist him?”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not. Strangely enough, he was one of the Immortals who I’m sure was really entirely celibate by inclination. I still don’t know to this day why he did what he did. Perhaps both Lia and I did attract him, but the truth is, I suspect he did it simply to get thrown out of the Immortals. Do you want something to eat?”

  Lily laughed. “I want to find out what he did. But I hope I’ve learned enough patience to wait a few minutes.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Jenny rose and left the room, returning minutes later with ship’s fare.

  “You should have seen the meal I had on La Belle Dame.” Lily sighed, but she took her tray.

  “Do you know, it first happened at a feast. I had just turned twenty-four. I’d been seeing Lia for about half a year, and she told me how attracted she was to Mendi. Even within the Immortals we called him the Untouchable. There are always those who are celibate because they’re so unattractive in looks or personality or in devotion to duty that no one wants them. Mendi just plain wasn’t available. I tried to cultivate him, as a friend. He was never at ease, but it wasn’t lack of confidence, more that he was holding an explosive secret inside himself. He had that kind of inner power. Damn my eyes, but he was gorgeous.” The memory softened her face, smoothing the cloak of implacability the mercenary seemed to wear underneath her usual face.

  “You make me want to meet him.”

  “I’m not so sure.” The soft look faded, replaced with a sardonic smile. “Faithless as a Senator’s daughter, as we used to say, was our Mendi. Although that isn’t fair to Lia, But anyway, Mendi and I were part of the guard decorating this one particular function, and I arranged with Lia to get him alone in a room upstairs with her. She can be as lovely as the dawn, that girl, when she puts her mind to it, and she was, for him. She’s never told me what she did, but it worked. He became, as much as I suppose it was in him to be, obsessed by her. How it came about that he propositioned me, I don’t know. But he did, one day, and I refused. I couldn’t risk pregnancy. Lia had no contraceptives; she told me herself she was against it if only the rich could have them
. So I could scarcely ask her to get me some from her friends so that I could tup her male lover, whom she worshipped. But it got me to thinking about the Immortals, and my time with them, and my future with them, and I finally just said, ‘Tup them all,’ and I slept with him.” She pulled her chair in suddenly, leaning across the table, closing herself and Lily into an even tighter unit in the blank-walled room. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Making love to him was like killing someone, totally engrossing but without joy. I think he hated it, not me, not women, but the act itself, or hated himself for wanting it.” She gave a short laugh, almost derisive, and sat back. “But once you’re blooded, you keep coming back for more.”

  “And you got pregnant.”

  “So I did. Not surprisingly, so did Lia. I was found out soon enough. Much to my astonishment, Mendi fessed up as soon as I was arrested, so they jailed both of us. Lia helped us escape, pretty much did the job herself. And damn my eyes if Mendi didn’t squirrel off at his first opportunity and abandon us. That’s when I began to think he’d done it to get thrown out. So there she and I were, fugitives on Central. We had a wild time; in the end, we had to leave the system.”

  “You went through a window pregnant?”

  “More than one. Lia lost hers, of course; she almost died. I didn’t even get sick. At the requisite time, Gregori was born. So here we are.”

  “Hoy,” said Lily.

  “That probably sums it up as well as anything.” Jenny smiled. The intercom rang a pattern of chimes. “Time to go.”

  They stood, but Lily paused on her way to the door, turning back to face Jenny. “You know, Jenny,” she began, a little tentative, “we haven’t known each other very long, but I’ll miss you.” She put out a hand, and Jenny took it, a firm clasp.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Jenny. “I wish I could give you the Virtue’s code, so you could put a standby on it when you get settled in and I could call you whenever we’re back in here, but we can’t risk the regular channels—they’d trace us and haul us in quick as a window.”

  “I know,” said Lily.

  The com came on again, reporting vectoring range. “Come on.” Jenny sent Lily forward with a slap on the back. “Maybe I’ll still have time to make love to that blue-haired doctor of yours before we go over.”

  Lily flushed, but very stiffly said nothing.

  Jenny laughed. “I don’t think you’re ready to share him yet, Lily-hae, whether you know it or not.”

  “Sorry, Jenny,” said Lily, looking shamefaced. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “About old blue-hair?” Jenny put her arm around Lily and hugged her. “Sure I am. I’ll miss you, too, Lily.”

  They separated, and Lily went on alone to Heredes’s cabin. But stepping inside, she found no Heredes but only Kyosti, sitting the length of the cabin away from her, at the computer terminal. For an instant he had not yet registered her presence. His face, unguarded, held the stillness of one long-used to inaction, that quality of being past boredom, past fear, past happiness, but also, perhaps, in the tiniest corner of the mind, past sanity.

  As if he sensed her, he looked up. His eyes widened, taking her in, and he stood.

  They went through.

  Blue hair with the ribbonlike fine texture of threads of cloth. Skin bronzed like the sheen of well-tempered metal, but soft, yielding, scented as all life is scented. Lips like the brush of air. Her name; said so, it defined her anew, from his lips: “You have risen to me out of the heart of light.”

  And came out.

  She was in his arms, kissing him.

  She jerked away from him and stumbled back against the door.

  “Do you hate me so much?” he asked.

  “How did you do that?” she said. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  She lifted a trembling hand. “You were there, over there, and then—”

  He laughed, his face clearing, and came up to her and drew her against him. “I’m a ghost, Lily. I don’t exist. What for you is an instant is for me an eternity.” He lowered his head and kissed her, long and satisfying. “You don’t hate me, do you?” he said at last.

  “I never did,” she replied, feeling lost in the intensity of his blue gaze, but her voice shook, and she looked past him. He had been standing by the terminal, and then he had been embracing her. There had been no time, nothing but the window, between those two actions. “You scared me.”

  “I never meant to do that, Lily.” He bent to kiss her again.

  The cabin door slid open and Heredes stopped in the entrance. For a timeless instant, like a window, none of them moved. Then Lily gently disengaged herself from Kyosti, with a final, brief kiss on his cheek, and turned to face Heredes.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “Easy Virtue is docking at Northbynorthwest Station in two hours. Bolyai is sending us planetside by shuttle before that, and he wants us off quick and quiet. So get your things and meet us by the lock.”

  She gave him a mock salute, and left the cabin.

  13 Wingtuck Takes Fright

  THROUGH THE VIEWPORTS OF the shuttle, Central appeared in blues and greens and browns and the white tracery of clouds.

  “It’s magnificent,” Lily said, leaning toward Heredes so he could hear her above the tumult of the engines. “It’s like a jewel. What’s all the blue?”

  He smiled. “Those are oceans, Lily.”

  “Hoy. That’s all water?”

  “Water and sweet air and the hot summer sun. It is, I believe, early summer where we’re going.”

  “Summer. That’s a season, isn’t it? What’s it like?”

  Heredes considered this question for a long moment. He finally shrugged with a gentle grin. “To a young woman who comes from a planet which has two seasons, freezing hard winds with dangerous avalanches, and cold hard winds with catastrophic avalanches, I think only experience can answer that question.” He looked past her out the port at the growing land mass beneath. “By the way, the planet is called Arcadia. Central is the government center in the north. It’s different here, Lily, from what you’re used to. Very different. Never hesitate to ask me any question.”

  By now she could pick out surface features, flat plains, winding tracks of blue, mountains thrusting up into the atmosphere. What would Unruli look like, divested of its clouds? A barren wilderness of rock. She turned away from the port. “I do have a question. When you go through a window, it’s instantaneous, isn’t it?”

  Heredes blinked. “That’s not quite the question I was expecting. And I can’t really answer it.” At the corners of his eyes as he thought she could discern the barest trace of lines in his dusky skin. “We perceive the window as instantaneous. However, there has been a great deal of debate about what the essence of a window in and of itself is. For instance, is it in fact no time at all? Or is it outside of time? And how do we account for the—the visions—that we have.”

  “But people, they always experience windows as an instant?”

  “Most experts say it’s physiologically impossible for humans to experience them as anything but an instant.” He touched a finger to his lip, considering. “But I’ve also read that some adepts, in certain forms of meditation, certain frames of mind, perceive a window as time. Perhaps time isn’t the right word. They perceive it as duration. I don’t know if there’s any way to measure it. I don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “I think it is true.” At his surprised expression she leaned closer to him, her lips almost at his ear. “I think Kyosti is one of them.”

  He drew back. “By the Mother.” His gaze flashed to the blue-haired man, who sat at the shuttle controls. “Lily, do you realize—” He stopped, frowning. “What if it’s true?” he said to himself, still watching Kyosti. “Mother protect us. No wonder he’s so altered.”

  “But I thought you would have known.”

  “No. It must have happened since I last saw him.”

  “When did
you last see him?”

  Heredes waved a careless hand. “Twenty-five, thirty years ago. I can’t remember.”

  Lily said nothing, turned back to the port. Kyosti looked perhaps five years older than her. How old could he have been when he held off an entire battalion? When he saved Heredes’s life? How old could Heredes himself be? Rejuv existed, expensive and not particularly effective; her own father indulged now and then. But the technology that had produced Bach and the sleek, massive bulk of La Belle Dame could surely produce miracles of life extension, couldn’t it? Central’s scientists still searched, and failed. What would they make of Heredes? What could she make of him?

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, Heredes touching her, and she remembered what he had said to her long ago, at the Academy: “Trust me, Lily.” She turned back to him and smiled. They spent the time until landing talking about seasons and surface agriculture and breathing air beneath a cloudless sky without needing artificial aids.

  They landed, engines roaring, with a jar. As the shuttle slowed, Lily saw an airstrip, two buildings set on a golden carpet, and beyond that, the roll of hills.

  “Those are trees!” she cried just as the engines cut down to idle, and Kyosti turned from his seat in front to grin at her. They unstrapped themselves, collected their packs and Bach, and disembarked down the shuttle’s stair-step ladder.

  “Look! Kyosti, the sky is the same color as your hair!” she called above the noise of the engines. Heredes took her arm, drawing her away from the shuttle as she stared. “Look! Are those flowers? They’re the same color as your lips! There’s no wind!”

  The shuttle’s engines swelled to a scream. It turned on the airstrip and flung itself into the sky. Lily stared at its arc into the infinity of blue, an arc fading into the golden, bright disk of the sun.

  “Lily!” Heredes’s sharp tone caused her to look at him. “Don’t stare at the sun. You’ll go blind.”

  “Oh.” She reached down to brush tentatively at the grass with one hand. “It’s sharp,” she said, “but so light.” Neither answered her; they walked across the clearing toward the two buildings. Beside her, Bach sang.