The transformer trilogy, p.44
The Transformer Trilogy, page 44
She looked up and sighed deeply. She had been completely oblivious of time, and wondered how much time had elapsed while she had been reading. But she knew one thing about her system that this exercise had taught her: it was a great deal more sensitive to subtleties. The finer focusing came a lot easier. She could still sense the upper range of it, but now she saw that as just the beginnings of the whole system. She could now ask for and do a lot more finely focused things. She breathed deeply, relieved. Her hands were dry.
Nazarine looked up at the bed, absently, and felt a short, small, sharp motion in the lighter. There was a distant, muffled, mechanical bumping, which did not alarm her. The lighter was docked. She was a part of the world of Kalmia now.
12
“Power is always relative-appropriate. In the conventional sense, one who is a power in one environment loses that power in changing to a different surround. Few change willingly; they are usually changed by others who arrange shifts to make this lessening possible. Is it any wonder change is a fearsome thing?”
—H.C., Atropine
DURING THE WAIT after boarding, and during the trip up world From Oerlikon to Kalmia, Kham and Palude had separated and circulated quietly among the passengers and open spaces of the lighter, hoping to catch a glimpse of a tall girl-woman whose image they both carried in their heads. Kham himself saw a couple who might have been, but on discreet closer inspection proved to be different from the one sighting he had had of the girl on the train. One in particular had her height and general bearing, color hair, and smoothness of face, but when he saw her from the front, any resemblance vanished; this girl had a long, equine face and a nose that was distinctive in that there was no indention of the brow line. His target had a rounder face, and a rather small nose. The other lacked the body, although she was graceful and willowy. Too slender.
As agreed, he met Arunda Palude by the exit ramp as they were nearing docking. He said, without gesture, “I had no luck. You?”
“Nothing. Although there’s no shortage of smallish men with delicate features, girlish.”
“Spacers of the commercial variety. Travelers. Bad fortune, that we never saw him and only had a fragmentary description to go on. Could be anyone.”
“Why so many like that?”
“Agility, precision, fine-detail work. That’s the sort you see in this kind of travel. Not like what we’re used to.”
“She couldn’t possibly know what she was doing when she picked him.”
“Couldn’t she? What if she’s recovered Jedily Tulilly? What if she’s used her Art to see beyond Oerlikon?”
Arunda looked off at the wall for a moment. “You’re assuming the worst, which is good tactical thinking, but which may not be true. I have another explanation, which will do almost as well: the attack that failed alerted it enough so that it knows it has to get offworld. It’s moving blind. Cautious, sighted in part through its oracle, but nothing more. And some luck on its side. That won’t run forever, and it’s in our world now, not us in its world. Sooner or later it will have to move, and it will become visible. Then we can deal with it.”
“Possible. Either way. But we’ll get one more shot here in the lighter, here, by the exit ramp. After that, we’ve got a larger environment to search.”
Palude did not seem worried. “And more time to look for it in. Here, it could hide somewhere, but there it will have to move eventually.”
“It’s seen me. If it sees me again ...”
“I know. That means I do most of the looking.”
“Not the way you think. You’ll do the close work. But I’ll be working, too.”
“We don’t have people on Kalmia?”
“Doubt it. Almost surely not.”
There was a small movement of the lighter, followed by a short vibration, and then silence. Far off down the corridor they could hear announcements being made through the PA system, and while they were waiting, a crewmember, wearing a plain gray coverall marked only by a horizontal color strip above the left breast, approached them. He looked them over, and then made a visual inspection of the telltales, before unsealing. Apparently everything was in order, for he reached into a recessed panel and operated the switches that would activate the door. Behind him, the corridor was filling with people, none walking hurriedly, more drifting along in the general direction, most of them carrying bundles, some larger, some smaller.
For a time, they were able to wait by the door, but eventually the movement of the people created a small bottleneck, and one of the crew asked them politely but firmly to move along, and at a glance from Kham, Arunda complied. They entered the Kalmia, which at least by the entry seemed not greatly different from the lighter that serviced it. A long, dim corridor, unbroken and gently curving, unrelieved by side openings, windows, vents, or wickets.
They walked slowly along the corridor, and Kham said, “We only had one shot at it back there. Best to move on. We don’t want to attract any attention. Not until I’ve had a chance to feel out the security officer.”
“Where do you think it is?”
Kham gestured over his shoulder. “Back there. It’ll be one of the last out. If this runway was straight and we could stop and look, we could probably see it now.”
“Why don’t we wait here?”
“Under observation.”
“Then we’ve got the whole ship to go through.”
“Right.”
“Then we’d better get settled and get on with it.”
Kham nodded, dolefully. He had an idea how difficult it was going to be, aboard a ship the size of Kalmia. “Right. Soon as we do get settled, I want you to relax, concentrate, and do a reading, see what you get.”
Nazarine knew they were docked, but she composed herself and waited. She knew Cinoe had to come back here before he went on to the main ship, and she thought it would be better to wait for him, although she knew very well now, from her session with the teaching machine, that she could very well go on alone. No. Let this develop as it will.
It seemed a long time after they docked, but eventually he knocked at the door, and then tried it. He said, “I thought you might have gone on.”
Now he spoke in the language of the offworlders, which to Nazarine’s ear, although sensible and comprehensible, sounded harsh and clipped, congested with consonants. She answered him in the same speech, “No. I waited.”
“Do you still want to share a room?”
“I don’t know. I realized from the machine how little I know. I will have to have a lot more. I suppose they have such devices aboard.”
“Yes. That one, like on this lighter, is just the rudiments. You can tie into the mainship’s computer to get the rest of it.”
“I feel like a fleischbaum gatherer in the city for the first time.”
Cinoe stood back and looked at Nazarine carefully. “You certainly don’t look like one.”
She almost told him of her conversation with the crewmember, but she didn’t. She said, “What do I seem like to you? I bought some clothes to travel in, but I don’t know how these people present themselves.”
Cinoe laughed, but there was a slight uneasiness in it. “What you have is fine. Very good taste.”
“We are by no means bumpkins in Clisp.”
“Yes, just so. Well, you will have to excuse me; the way I must go involves no frills. I get three meals a day and a place to sleep, and the good fortune to have a ride back to civilization. Otherwise, it’s much the same as on the Rondinello. Except, of course, the heat. We won’t be cold again.”
She smiled. “Yes, the heat. I thought I would never get warm again.”
“Nor I. But we seem to recover fast.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, and then ventured, “You understand that if you remain with me, we’ll go into the steerage dormitory, with the rest of us refugees.”
She said, thoughtfully, “I’m not a refugee. I’m a spy, remember?”
“Yes. With an unlimited expense account underwritten by the Prince of Clisp. Well, down there it’s pretty plain and not a lot of privacy....”
“You could come with me....”
For a long moment, she saw indecision reflected in Cinoe’s face, in his body movements. Then she saw the change in him: he decided. “Might be better for us both if I didn’t. Of course, we’re not prisoners down there—we have the run of the ship. There’s a lot here; has to be. This kind of ship does some pretty long runs. Months, sometimes years. So everything is here....”
She sensed that he was looking for a graceful way to leave her. Why? She said, “I suppose you’ll want to spend a lot of time with people you haven’t seen in years.”
“I’ve already met several I knew before. All have amazing tales to tell. There were some events in Marula!”
“Yes. I have heard some, from our side.”
“And you will need to move around, learn, study. And do whatever things you must do.”
“Yes. But we could still meet.”
“I’d like that.”
“I would also.” She picked up her bags. “Come on. They’ll lock us out here in the lighter.”
Cinoe laughed, “Already you’re learning to be civilized and be in a hurry.”
Nazarine flashed him a quick, sharp glance, and let it go. It angered her that he would toss that off so easily. Uncivilized, was she? She had felt a dull pain in her chest at the thought of losing someone with whom she had been in love, with whom she had made love, yielded up everything, held nothing back, but that revelation from him blunted it a great deal, and restored some of the simmering anger she had almost forgotten. Of course, it didn’t make up all the difference, but she thought she could live with what she had to live with. And she caught herself smiling, and thinking with some of the corrosive cynicism of Rael, from long ago, You aren’t here to rub bellies with prettymens, you’re here to visit some of these people with fire and sword and worse. Like microsurgery. She tossed her head, sending the gold-brown curls flying. “Come on.” And she set off out of the room, into the corridor toward the gate, walking with a confidence she did not really feel, but she knew that would come in its own time. Cinoe followed, not saying anything, as if he knew he had already said too much.
When they had traversed the long corridor into the ship proper, they came at last to a long counter where accommodations were assigned. Cinoe went first, identified himself, and was assigned a place in steerage with a minimum of comment. The officer handling the assignments motioned him toward a group waiting toward the end of the counter. When Nazarine’s turn came, she presented her credit voucher and asked what was available. It turned out that the Kalmia was somewhat crowded, more so than usual, but some places were still left, and so she settled eventually for a single room, with its own entertainment connection and a separate recreation room. The cost of it caused her to swallow hard, but she signed the voucher and the officer handed her a packet containing a chart of the ship and where she could find various things, including her rooms.
She approached the group Cinoe had joined. They were all silent now, not chattering as they had on the lighter. She said, “I will tell you my room number.”
He shrugged. “No need. You can query through the shipmind. It’ll tell you, unless you pay extra for unlisted registry.”
She shook her head. “Too much already. No, I am listed as myself. Nazarine Florissante Alea, native of Oerlikon.”
“I am listed as Cinoe Dzholin, as you know.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Please do. I’ll wait.”
At that moment, a porter appeared from a side passage, and picked up her bags. This one wore a crew uniform, and asked her what her number was. The porter was a girl, stocky and solid, but graceful and smoothly economical of movement. She didn’t even acknowledge the presence of the group of refugees. “What apartment, Serra?”
Nazarine hesitated a moment, looking uncertainly at Cinoe, who had turned his attention to a girl in the group and was talking with her. “Four-Q-two.”
The portress nodded. “Right along. Up the lift and along the slide. Good choice. Come along. Won’t be but a minute.” She hefted the bags and set off down an adjoining passageway, not looking back. Nazarine looked back once, and then followed the girl, who strode along purposefully, looking neither left nor right.
Up to this point, everything she had seen had been more or less like things on Oerlikon. Now was when she began to feel the strangeness of the environment she had launched herself into. The portress went a short way along the passageway, and turned at a set of double doors in the wall. The girl said, to the doors, “Open,” and they did. On nothing. A shaft, full of a curdled milky radiance. The girl waited for Nazarine to catch up with her, and then stepped off into the nothingness of the shaft, calling out, “Q.” She fell upward. Nazarine followed her, stepping off into the lights. Nothing happened. She hung in space, supported somehow although she didn’t feel that she was standing on anything. After a moment, she said, “Q,” with a resolve she didn’t feel at that moment. Then she began moving upward. Eventually she stopped at an open door, where the girl was waiting for her with a bored expression on her face.
She stepped out of the lift, not aware of having traversed any great distance. The girl said, “A short walk now, and we’ll transition to section four. That’s a slideway, but it’s a fast one.”
“Do I need to pay attention to how we are going?”
The girl looked around, and said, over her shoulder, “Good question, Serra, for a newcomer.”
“Do I look it?”
She shrugged. “They all do. Look scared to death. Never worry. Ship doesn’t bite.”
“How do you find your way?”
“Oh, that. These are service runs. You’ll never see these again, likely. They gave you a map?”
“Yes.”
“Spend the next day shiptime studying it. If you get lost, in the passenger section there are commpoints all along the walls. Just use one. Say, ‘Where in the bloody hell am I?’ and it’ll tell you straight off, it will. Then venture out as much as you can, get a feel for it. It’s a long run to next halt.”
“Is this that isolated?”
“You wouldn’t believe.... The Jefe-Maximo heard there’d been trouble here and diverted for it. Plenty of money in those rescue billings, he says. Otherwise we’d have transited straight across. Stop in the middle like this and the time’s quadrupled. Passengers don’t care—they don’t pay by the light, but by mapcoords.”
“Explain.”
“The space the ship moves in is like a diagram of realspace, except that the distances in transspace don’t always match. What’s a light in real might be a cent, trans. And vice versa. This place is in the middle of a hole. Nothing there. Long in real, long in trans, both. Funny place, that way.”
The girl now shifted through an oval opening onto a tubular passage whose floor seemed unstable, not there. She stepped onto the “floor” and was whisked off. Nazarine followed.
After several more arcane routes and traverses along floors that weren’t floors, and passageways that seemed to go nowhere, they emerged through an ordinary push-door onto a balcony, overlooking an enormous open space which Nazarine first failed to grasp. She had to stop and get her bearings.
She was on a balcony or walkway, floored with ceramic tile in subtle geometric patterns, with a rail, which overlooked an immense atrium or park or vivarium. She couldn’t tell. Down there, somewhere far below, was a forest, or a park, or a city. She couldn’t tell. She saw what looked like trees, interspersed with low buildings and parklands. She could tell there was another side, somewhere far off, but she couldn’t make out details. It was dim. All she could make out were strings of lights.
They passed one door, stopped at the second. The girl said, “Put your hand flat, palm down on the plate.” Nazarine did so. The door opened, swinging inward silently.
The room was modest, quiet, low-ceilinged. There was a single large bed, a sunken area with a lot of cushions, and another door leading off to the side. The girl followed her eyes, and said, “Bath there.” She went in, and saw another door on the other side. “Study cubicle.” The portress set the bags down, and paused.
Nazarine handed the girl some of the money she’d changed down below, with Cinoe’s help. The girl looked at it for a moment, and then fished in a pocket and handed Nazarine some change back, “Too much the first time. I’m honest.”
“May I ask your name? I may have to ask for you again. I don’t know many people here, and there are some things I need to do....”
“Esme Szilishch. But you probably won’t see me anymore.”
“But could I ask, if I need to ask something? This is my first trip.”
“Um. You grow up down there?”
“Yes.”
“Call if you like. Got someone?”
Nazarine stopped, unsure of herself, and of offworld manners. She said, uncertainly, “I had. Not sure so much now.”
Esme nodded, as if thinking to herself. She looked up, spoke with an odd directness. “Plenty of time to find someone. But I’ll help if you like.” She made a short little curtsey, which caught Nazarine a little off guard, and left. Now she was alone, in her own place. First, I need to sleep, she thought, and began pulling clothes off, all the time looking at the large bed, which looked more inviting by the second.
Sometime much later, she woke up, and for the first time in what seemed like months, her mind was clear. She turned on the lights and began looking. She didn’t move from the bed. The room was surprisingly large, larger than the rooms of most houses she had seen, and larger than some of the rooms in the palace she had seen when she had been Phaedrus. But low-ceilinged. She guessed she could stand and stretch and touch the ceiling with palms flattened. There were no windows, real or imitation, nor were there any sort of decorations on the walls. Bath there, on her left, Study cubicle there, on her right. She nodded. All seemed correct. Now to explore.
