“It is crazy,” Bel-Keneke said. “You have gone mad in isolation.”
“It’s not impossible at all,” Bagnel countered, now so intrigued he forgot to use the formal mode. He got up and started pacing and muttering to himself.
“Do you really believe in this, Marika?” Kiljar asked. “Have you convinced yourself that, despite the obvious problems, it can actually be done?”
“My conviction is absolute, mistress. I have yet to find an insuperable barrier, though there were more problems than I at first expected. Yes, it can be done—if the Communities and the brethren are willing to invest the resources and the energies.”
Bagnel’s pacing took him to a window. He stared out at the frigid world. The most seniors watched him uneasily. “You have done it again, haven’t you, Marika?”
“Done what, Bagnel?”
“You have overturned everything. And bigger than ever before. No wonder you had to take a few years off. You needed that long to wake the earthquake.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Three meth are going to leave this room with your notion fixed in their minds. All three are going to find some reason to consult others about it. Those others will tell others. The news will spread. In time it will have reached those for whom it will represent an almost religious opportunity for salvation. It will become impossible for us, brethren and Communities alike, to do anything but attempt it, even if it proves impossible. For the alternative will be destruction at the paws of outraged bonds who will believe themselves betrayed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am saying you have let a devil loose. That you proposed this with no thought for the social implications. I am saying that you have made undertaking the project mandatory simply by stating that you believe it is feasible. I am saying that such a project will reshape society as well as weather. I ask you to think about what you are asking.”
Taken aback by his vehemence, Marika said, “Tell me.”
“You are asking that the brethren be restored to grace. You are asking two dozen dark-faring Communities to join forces in one grand project instead of flying off in all directions, spending half their energies sabotaging and one-upping each other. You are proposing a project of such vast magnitude that bond meth will have to be given technical training because the brethren available to do the work are not numerous enough. You are letting devils out. Those are things I foresee just off the top of my head. More thought would produce more, surely. And the project is bound to have repercussions that cannot be foreseen at all—some just because of its scale. Did none of this occur to you?”
“No. I was not concerned with anything but the practical considerations.” Marika took a turn at the window and thought of Jiana the doomstalker, reflecting on the fact that destruction need not be physical, as it had been with the Degnan packstead, Akard, Maksche, and TelleRai. She turned. “You really think so?”
“Yes.”
“Given that, do you think it would be worth the effort?”
“Actually, I do. Because the alternative is a longer, slower, more certain doom. This cooling cycle is going to continue till the whole planet becomes too cold to support life. The permafrost line is within three thousand miles of the equator today. It shows no inclination to slow its advance, though I am sure it will in time—after it is too late for us. I suspect that we dare not waste many more years or for the meth it will be too late for anything but awaiting the end. Which will not come in our time, of course. But it will come.”
Marika looked at Bel-Keneke and Kiljar. “Mistresses?”
Kiljar said, “I approve pushing ahead. Tentatively. Trusting your judgment, Marika, and that of your friend. I will want to see more solid data before I approach my Community with the proclamation that this project is the only way we can save our world.”
“I understand. Bel-Keneke?”
“You are outside my expertise. You know that. All I know about the void is that it is cold and dark out there. I do very much share the male’s social fears. I foresee great troubles and terrible changes. But I am in your debt, and I respect the opinion of mistress Kiljar. If you can convince her, I will follow her lead and back you.”
Marika walked back to the window and stared out at the chill landscape. Once Ruhaack had been warm and lush. Now it was barren, except where meth had planted vegetation adapted to a near arctic climate. After a moment she turned.
“Bagnel may be right, about the social upheaval. I plead guilty to failing to consider that aspect. But we are in a corner from which there is no escape. There is no future without trying. If the race is to survive, we must pay the price.”
She was amazed that the most seniors were so agreeable. Perhaps the world had grown more desperate than she knew.
“Bagnel, can the brethren provide the necessary calculators?”
“We call them computers. Yes, we have them. We may have to develop a breed designed specifically for the project, but that would not be an insurmountable problem. A matter of increasing capacity, I expect.”
“What about the engineering? Do you have anyone capable of designing the mirrors?”
“That I cannot say, but I can find out. Given adequate time, I am sure, someone—more likely many someones—could be trained. I will find out and let you know.”
“So that is that. We are agreed. We go ahead a step.”
III
Marika gaped at Bagnel. “Eight years? Just to get the materials together?”
“It’s a big project, Marika. I think that’s too optimistic a figure, myself. It assumes total cooperation by all the Communities in providing the labor we’ll need for getting the titanium out, building new plants to process the ore and metal, building new power plants to provide energy for those plants, and so on and so on and so on. I told you it would reshape society. And it will. My guess is that we’ll be extremely fortunate to get even one mirror functional within ten years. There will be hitches, hang-ups, problems, delays, personality conflicts, bottlenecks, shortages….”
“I get the picture.”
“The word is spreading already, just as I forecast. I keep running into brethren who know before I consult them, though I swear everyone to silence when I do consult them.”
“We expected that. We chose to live with it.”
“I have another scenario for you. In this one your old enemies get wind of the project. As inevitably they must.”
“You think they would try to sabotage it?”
“I am certain they’ll try. Wouldn’t you? The cold is on their side.”
“Then we must neutralize them.”
“How, when no one has been able to find them?”
“No one has tried hard enough. A truly major effort…”
“There. You’re talking about diverting energies from your project. Which means having to stretch it out a little.”
Marika sighed. “Yes, I guess I am.”
“You see? One thing affects another.”
“We’ll do what we have to. Are you ready to face Kiljar and Bel-Keneke? And beyond them, a convention of all the Communities?”
“I believe so.”
“Good. Because Kiljar is failing and I believe that to have a chance the thing has to get rolling before she dies.”
“Arrange for me to see her. I’ll sell her.”
“Just give her the truth. Let it argue for itself. You cannot mislead her. And she’ll have to sell it to others on its provable merit.”
“Of course. That’s understood. Did you happen to notice that I flew down here in a Sting? We haven’t flown together for a long time.”
“I did notice that. And I was thinking of stealing you and it if you didn’t come up with the suggestion yourself.”
“This afternoon, then? After I have seen the most seniors?”
“Yes. Don’t let them intimidate you. They may try, just to see what you’re made of.”
“Those old arfts? Not likely. Not whe
n I have to deal with my factors and bond masters every day.”
Bel-Keneke and Kiljar needed very little convincing. They had done their own investigating. “I am amazed,” Kiljar admitted. “The response among the Communities has been almost messianic in intensity. They believe you are going to show them the pathway into a new age, Marika.”
“It must be timing,” Bagnel remarked. “Purely a matter of timing. Everyone is just frightened enough, just certain enough. Ten years ago no one would have taken the project seriously. Conservative elements would have killed it. But now the world is in desperate need of a hope, and this one fills the need. I find extremes of enthusiasm everywhere within the brethren. All the factors and masters, once they examined the data, showed uncharacteristic excitement. Even some who were very suspicious before. It has softened the appeal of the rogues tremendously. There have been almost no incidents at all this past month.”
Bel-Keneke added, “I have consulted a number of senior sisters from a number of orders. My experience has been the same everywhere. Tremendous enthusiasm, discovering a hope where none was thought to exist, except in that the dark-faring sisterhoods might have established a few feeble colonies upon the starworlds. How long the enthusiasm will persist I cannot tell. Seldom has any meth devoted herself to a project for as long as this will require.”
“There will be problems,” Marika agreed. “The project will hurt some orders more than others. It will draw attention and energy away from the starworlds. None of those sisterhoods will be pleased by that. I do have a suggestion, though it may not prove popular.”
“Yes?” Kiljar inquired.
“We could survey all the sisterhoods, including those without rights in the void. Then conscript every sister capable of serving aboard a darkship out there. We could even retrain some of the strongest bath as Mistresses for workships. We would then have to depend less heavily on those sisters normally preoccupied with the starworlds. Too, we will have to lift the ban on the brethren so they can participate as fully as possible. That is an absolute necessity. We will get nowhere without them because of the traditional silth resistance to becoming involved in physical labor. Also, ships of the sort that were associated with Starstalker before she vanished would be valuable if we could build them. That would ease our dependence upon a very small supply of void-capable Mistresses of the Ship.”
Bagnel said, “We should be able to develop construction ships. I have suggested that it be given some thought. I doubt that anything we came up with would be as good as those rogue vessels, but because some saw them we know what has to be done. There are problems, though, Marika. Fuels. Energy. We’re right down to it now, and you may not want to hear this. The fact is, one way or another, we have to tap the resources of the Ponath. It is going to take a tremendous amount of energy to produce the necessary titanium.”
“You were going to look into the possibility of producing it in orbit, in solar-powered factories.”
“I was and I did. There are no adequate titanium ores available anywhere in the system other than right here on the planet. I’m sorry. The girderwork will have to be produced down here and lifted into orbit.”
Kiljar asked, “Who will manage all of this? Consider the politics. It will be an alliance of all the Communities and the brethren, and will represent and include most meth bonds. With that many interests, there is no hope of working in harmony for the time required. Many sisters will not tolerate taking orders from old enemies or from competitors in other orders. None will take directions from brethren, even where brethren are the competent experts. None will work with bonds as though they are equals.”
“Setting this in motion will require a formal convention, as Senior Kiljar has said,” Marika said. “Most of that will have to be fought out there. One possibility would be for the Communities to elect a most senior of most seniors for a fixed term and give her absolute powers and a group of judges to enforce them.”
“The smaller sisterhoods would object strenuously,” Kiljar said.
“Then, perhaps, a continuous convention in which grievances can be aired as they arise, given the understanding that work must go on uninterrupted.”
Bagnel snorted derisively. “No, Marika. I see time stretching and stretching already. Nothing ever gets done while silth argue. The arguing has to be done before. During, there can be nothing but the project.”
“Just how critical is the time frame?” Bel-Keneke asked. “Is there a time of no return? Of too late? We will be inside this dust cloud for millennia.”
“I do not know exactly, mistress,” Bagnel said. “One thing we will have to do is chart the density of the dust, just so we can estimate such things. I do know that we do not have millennia. Even now, tapping the petroleum in the Ponath will demand the creation of new engineering techniques. The longer we wait, the deeper the ice. And the greater the difficulties. Everywhere.”
“No matter what we do there will be problems,” Bel-Keneke mused. “No matter what else, then, we have to keep muddling ahead. An inch gained now may mean a foot saved later. Any progress will be better than none.”
Kiljar said, “Our first trial will be assembling a convention capable of acting. That chore I will assume myself, being, you will admit, somewhat more tactful than any of my fellow conspirators.”
Marika was startled. Humor? From Kiljar? You never learned everything about anyone.
Bel-Keneke remarked, “If the project takes twenty years instead of eight, so be it. The Reugge are committed.”
Marika turned from one more look at the icy world. “Bagnel, I believe you promised to take me flying. Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I
Marika’s voidship drifted slowly through the clutter and confusion of the leading trojan point. She could make better speed down on the surface of the planet. Here she dared not fly herself, trusting only herself, for there were so many obstacles to navigation. Passage through the site required the combined efforts of a Mistress of the Ship and a Mistress-qualified pilot-passenger working from the axis. Marika could not imagine how the brethren kept track.
Three years had passed. Initial construction was just beginning. The support industry down on the planet’s surface was not yet more than thirty percent of what it would have to be. Ninety percent of the off-planet effort, so far, had been devoted to the leading mirror.
It would be a demonstrator, in a sense. If it went active and did no apparent good, the rest of the project would collapse.
Marika reached with her touch and scanned the confusion. She remained awed by the magnitude of what she had set in motion. Designing it, planning it, talking about it was not the same as seeing it.
Flares of light speckled the night as crude brethren ships moved materials. Already Bagnel was complaining that they had chosen the most difficult way possible of building the mirror. He was agitating for a giant pack of balloons in the trailing trojan. His brethren had orbited a two-hundred-mile gas-filled reflector the week before. Its energy yield was directed at the developing oil field in the Ponath. Its value might have been more psychological than actual. The workers there claimed they sensed a change in the bitter cold already. Marika had visited and had been able to find no evidence of any local temperature increase. She suspected most of the energy was being absorbed before it reached the surface.
A remarkable vigor and an even more remarkable spirit of cooperation still animated the venture. There had been far fewer conflicts than anticipated. Yet even now Bagnel’s best estimate had the leading mirror eight years from completion.
That protracted unity, in part, sprang from the project’s single biggest problem, which existed down below—a sabotage campaign by those residual brethren still committed to the cause of the departed villains.
These criminals were more subtle than their predecessors. Marika’s old tricks for digging them out did not work nearly as well. But still, enough were taken to keep the mines working at capacity.
 
; Few of the taken had any direct connection with the brethren. More and more disturbing to Marika was the fact that the criminals were able to continue recruiting. And that they now were taking a few females into their ranks. The great hope of the mirror project had not adequately fired the hearts of the mass of bond meth. Marika was distressed, but did not know how to convince ordinary meth that they had as great a stake as the powerful who ruled their lives.
The mines were a problem not yet unraveled. In the past there had been no need for mechanization there. The structure of society had been such that no demand for ores had been so great that plain physical labor could not meet it. Meth did not mechanize simply for the sake of efficiency. They did so only where a task could not be performed by meth alone. But now…
Bagnel had been correct. The project was restructuring society. Traditionally labor-intensive areas like mining and agriculture had to be mechanized either to up volume or release labor for the project. Marika was, she feared, creating the possibility of compelling some of the changes the rogue brethren had aimed toward. Some could not be avoided. There were times when she agonized. She was in the incongruous position of being the principal defender of the silth ideal while not believing in it herself.
Marika’s Mistress of the Ship reached the sunward position she desired, just miles from the heart of the expanding framework. The titanium beamwork sparkled, arms radiating from the anchor point. Marika recalled some old steel bridges, brethren-built, that spanned the river at TelleRai. Bridges constructed with incredibly complex girderwork intended to distribute load stresses. Bridges built in later times were much simpler in design. Was there a similar design problem here? Was the framework needlessly complex? Or, like those old bridges, was the design state of the art for the knowledge available, for the metallurgy of the moment?
Rotate your tip so the framework is overhead, Marika sent. Your glow is obscuring my view.
The framework rose, filling the sky.
A tinny voice spoke in Marika’s ear, from the tiny radio earplug there. “Hello, the darkship. We will need you to pull back a few miles. We are coming through your space with girderwork.”