“I don’t know. Someday, perhaps.”
“I’m going,” I said.
“Tomorrow. I know.”
“I’m scared,” I said.
“Avery, do you remember why I chose you as a student? It was because there are qualities in you, good human qualities, that I wanted the Vardeshi to see before they passed sentence on us as a people. I’m not surprised that you were the one they asked to come to Vardesh Prime. I take it as a testament to their good judgment. They saw something in you too, something beyond merely language ability. They knew, just as I did, that you were the right choice—the inevitable one.”
“You make it all sound so . . . predestined.”
“Perhaps I do. There’s a certain comfort, at my age, in imagining that things unfolded precisely as they were meant to do. I’m sure Novak Takheri will tell you the same thing when you meet him.” He reached into an interior pocket of his coat and withdrew a small paper-wrapped parcel. “I’m sending you with a gift, by the way, in the hope that you do meet him. It’s a token of my thanks.”
I took it carefully. “What is it?”
“A gold pocket watch that belonged to my grandfather. Not very original, I know, but I’m more than usually certain it won’t be a duplicate. During the silent years, I used to look at it and wonder if the seconds were counting up from our only glimpse of the Vardeshi or down to our next encounter with them. Now that I know, and the waiting is finally over, I’d like him to have it. I think he’ll understand.”
“I’ll do my best to get it to him,” I promised. All my luggage had already been transported to the launch site. I tucked the parcel into the tote bag with my notebook and turned back to Dr. Sawyer.
He was studying the uniform that hung on a hook next to the door. I hadn’t even noticed it until that moment. I had no idea who had delivered it, or when; I hadn’t been back to my room since morning. At a glance the garment looked identical to Zey’s, but I’d been too distracted by his presence to pay much attention to what he was wearing. This one was mine. Since the moment I had known I was permitted to wear one, I had been desperate to hold it in my hands. As a symbol it was potent, but even more than that, it was the first physical artifact of the Vardeshi to come into my possession. My fingers itched to stroke the fabric, to puzzle out the unfamiliar fastenings.
Dr. Sawyer must have felt something of the same compulsion, because he reached out and brushed a hand down one silky gray sleeve. Without looking at me he said, “Avery, I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I said instantly.
“That may be easier said than done. You and I are the same. We feel the allure of the Vardeshi like a gravitational pull. We’re drawn to them. It’s more than curiosity. We don’t just want to comprehend them. We want to become them. Somehow, they make us want to transcend our own humanity.”
I was silent. I hadn’t realized he knew me so well.
“It appears that they are offering you the chance to do precisely that, and I can’t deny that I’m jealous—profoundly so. But I’m also afraid for you. I’m afraid that out there, far away from your own kind, you’ll forget your reason for going. After all, it’s meant to be an exchange. A sharing in both directions.”
“I know.”
“Wearing their clothing, speaking their language, following their orders . . . Your immersion will be nearly complete. I need you to promise me that you won’t let yourself drift so far into their world that you begin to reject your own.”
“I’ll . . . try,” I said.
He nodded. “Just remember that humanity has something unique to offer the universe. So does Avery Alcott of Earth. She was here before Novi Alkhat of the Pinion. She’s the one I’m proud of. She’s the one I love like a daughter. And she’s the one I hope will come back to me when it’s all over.”
I hugged him again, wordlessly, and then he was gone, and with him my last lingering connection to Earth. I was adrift in the dark, alone, and my journey hadn’t even begun.
PART TWO:
ADRIFT IN THE DARK
CHAPTER EIGHT
The shuttle flight to the Pinion was uneventful in every respect save that it was my first excursion beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The launch itself was intentionally low-key: no cameras, no reporters, just Councillor Seidel and Dr. Sawyer and myself standing in the field behind the Villiger Center at seven o’clock in the morning, shading our eyes against the sun. The orange crates containing my gear were stacked on the grass in preparation for transport later that morning. The pile looked at once enormous and impossibly small, given that it was intended to keep me alive in space for a year. I had a day’s worth of food and toiletries and a change of clothes in a brightly patterned duffel bag slung over one shoulder and felt ludicrously like a college freshman headed off to her first year on campus.
As I waited I felt restless, uneasy in my new uniform. I had examined every inch of it the night before. Zey had told me the Fleet was a civilian organization, but the uniform looked vaguely military to my eyes. It was austerely simple, slate gray with dull gold panels on the shoulders, its only ornamentation a scattering of brass studs on the collar and the top of the right wrist. The seams were so fine as to be nearly invisible, and finding no obvious zippers or buttons, I had puzzled over how to put it on. Eventually I discovered that one of the collar studs was in fact a snap, and when I unsnapped it, a seam running the entire length of the torso fell open. After overcoming my initial horror, I ventured to put it on. The length was correct—someone on the Pinion had estimated my height with remarkable accuracy—but the cut was far too generous. The sleeves flapped loosely around my arms. Dismayed, I looked at my reflection in the mirror, contrasting it with the trim figures of the Vardeshi I had met. It definitely didn’t fit. I would ask for another one tomorrow, I thought, and snapped the collar fastening into place. To my astonishment, that simple action triggered some sort of automatic adjustment process. The garment tightened around my body into the neat, slim cut of the other uniforms I’d seen, the excess fabric vanishing as if by magic. I stared at my transformed reflection. No item of clothing I had ever worn in my life had fit me with such precision. What would the clothing designers of Earth pay for this technology? I couldn’t imagine. With the fit adjusted, the uniform was actually rather flattering. The brassy gold of the shoulder panels was nearly an exact match for my hair. I doubted there were many Vardeshi who could say the same. If nothing else, I would look the part when I stepped aboard the Pinion tomorrow.
Assuming I was still invited, I thought now as I stood on the frost-rimed grass, toying anxiously with the strap of my bag. What if they’d changed their minds? Until the gleam of the landing craft appeared directly above us, I was certain they wouldn’t come. When I finally saw it, I felt a momentary reprieve. Then, as the silver vessel settled down neatly onto its painted cross, a new host of worries crowded in. I watched with my heart hammering in my chest as the panel slid back and the ramp extended onto the grass. No one emerged. They were waiting for me.
I shook the councillor’s hand, gave Dr. Sawyer a last quick fierce hug, and went up the ramp without looking back.
The passageway was narrow and climbed at a steep angle. It led directly into the main chamber of the little craft. The interior was dim after the brightness outside, and I had to blink away the glare before I could make out my surroundings. What I saw fascinated me. I had seen more than my share of economy-class airplane cabins and train cars, and none of them had looked anything like this. There were no straight lines, no sharp angles to be found. In their place were smooth curves and organically rounded contours. Soft light emanated from globes the size of oranges set into the walls and ceiling. These, too, were placed at deliberately irregular intervals. A bank of softly twinkling lights at one end of the chamber indicated a control panel of some kind. Directly in front of it, where the pilot’s and copilot’s seats would have been on an airplane, were two backless cushioned stools. Zey was standing in fro
nt of one of them. I smiled at him, but my attention went immediately to the woman at his side—the first Vardeshi woman I’d met. She was a little shorter than me and looked to be around my own age. Her slate-gray hair framed her face in a neat bob, the center section pinned back in a complicated braid. I couldn’t see the color of her eyes—they were blue, I learned later—but their gaze was cool and appraising.
“She’s tall,” she observed to Zey in Vardeshi. “They had to give her a men’s uniform, did you know that?”
Crestfallen, I looked from my own uniform to hers. “Are they different?”
Her face registered surprise before resuming its neutral expression. “Vai,” she said softly, the same exhalation of surprise I’d heard from Zey. She added directly to me, “You understood what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, Rhevi,” Zey murmured.
“Yes, Rhevi,” I amended quickly.
She looked from me to Zey and back again. “Good. That will make things easier—for everyone.” She raised her right hand in the traditional greeting. “I am Athra Ziral, flight specialist aboard the Pinion. You may introduce yourself.”
I returned the salute. “I am”—I hesitated and then gave my name the Vardeshi pronunciation—“Eyvri Alkhat, Novi . . . ?”
“Second Novi,” Zey corrected.
“Second Novi aboard the Pinion.”
Rhevi Ziral smiled a little. “You have a very incongruous accent, Novi Alkhat.”
“Khavi Vekesh said that too.”
“I don’t doubt it. To answer your question, the uniforms are identical.”
“What about the . . .” I touched the cluster of studs on the top of my right wrist. I had noticed during her greeting that the pattern on her sleeve didn’t match mine.
“That’s your rank indicator. Yours is the same as Zey’s.”
He held out his wrist to give me a closer look.
Rhevi Ziral sat down on her stool, bent over the control panel, and made a few swift adjustments. “We’ve been cleared for launch. Take your seats, novis. We’ll be aboard the Pinion in a few minutes.” Zey sat down on the seat next to hers. I found a few more of the low stools at the rear of the chamber and seated myself on the one offering the best view of what Rhevi Ziral was doing. I watched eagerly as her long fingers flickered over the control panel. I didn’t see anything that looked like keys or buttons, just constellations of tiny glimmering lights. She made a final adjustment, and the blank gray wall above the control panel blinked into sudden illumination. I stared at the array of angles and spirals and diagrams, all etched in lines of white or orange or yellow light against the dark background. I couldn’t begin to interpret them. There were lines of text here and there as well, but the words seemed to be shifting even as I watched, much too quickly for me to follow. I wondered how long it took to prepare for launch. I settled more securely onto my padded stool and felt surreptitiously along its sides for straps or restraints. I couldn’t find any. Maybe the Vardeshi had transcended seat belts.
“Docking now,” Ziral announced.
“Docking?” I repeated. “We’ve been moving?”
Ziral glanced back at me, then touched a control. The colorful diagrams vanished, replaced by a vista of a night sky clearer and crisper than any I had ever seen. Ahead and slightly above us a ship hung suspended against the black. If the landing craft had looked avian to my eyes, this ship looked vaguely piscine, an elongated shape with unexpected fins and curves. Its mirrored surface reflected starlight and sunlight. It was elegant and alien and impossible. And real. My breath caught.
“That’s the Pinion,” Zey said fondly.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, and knew the words were entirely inadequate. The human tradition of meeting extraordinary moments with extraordinary eloquence ended with me. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. One small step for man. I should have looked up a quote in advance—Shakespeare, or maybe Yeats? Reaching for inspiration, I found only a line from an old Vardrama I’d been watching the night before as I drifted off to sleep: Did we conjure you out of our dreams, or chase you out of your nightmares? Gazing at the shape that hung in the darkness before me, luminous and improbably delicate, I knew it was both.
I sat silent and overawed as Ziral deftly guided the landing craft through a hatch in the underside of the Pinion and into a hangar of some kind. My stomach lurched when, after passing through the hatch, the craft pivoted abruptly into a new orientation perpendicular to the previous one. The artificial gravity held me in my seat, and I felt no physical change, but my view of the hangar swung in a dizzying arc. After a touchdown so light I hardly felt it, Zey and Ziral remained in their seats, presumably waiting for the hangar to repressurize. Ziral touched a few more controls, and the panel went dark. At some signal I didn't detect, both of them rose to their feet. I did likewise, shouldering my duffel bag. Ziral gestured to the narrow passageway at the rear of the chamber. “After you, Novi.”
I went slowly down the ramp, trying to watch my footing and look around at the same time. The hangar was taller than it was wide, and while its far corners were lost in darkness, I saw no straight lines or sharp angles here either. Next to the landing craft rested a second vessel about half its size. I stepped down off the ramp—to my surprise, there was no metallic click to accompany my footfall; the floor absorbed the impact like wood—and went to take a closer look. Zey, following behind me, said, “It’s a two-person shuttle. Short flights only.”
I extended my hand and, when he nodded, brushed my fingers tentatively across a ridge of cool metal. “Can you fly it?”
“Of course.” He sounded surprised. I supposed it was like being asked if I could drive a car.
Just then a door slid open in the wall of the hangar, and two men walked in. They came directly toward me and Zey. I raised my hand in greeting. One of them returned the salute; the other ignored me completely and called to Zey, “Hey, how much cargo is the nivakh bringing with her? Can we take the flyer?”
Zey passed a hand over a section of the little ship’s hull that looked no different to me than any other, and a display shimmered into life. “The charge is low. And she can understand you.”
The man who’d spoken made a sound in his throat that I took for skepticism. “Right. Say something if you understand me, human.”
He spoke quickly and with an unfamiliar accent, but the words were comprehensible. I looked at his sleeve. “I understand you, Rhevi. But I don't know what a nivakh is.”
The second man hissed something I couldn’t make out. The first one stared at me. “On second thought, I think I like them better when they don’t talk. Ask Zey what it means. I don’t have time for a tutoring session.” He nodded to his companion. “Come on, Ahnir, let’s get moving. I want to get this over with before lunch.” He stalked up the ramp onto the larger of the two shuttles without a backward look, followed by the second man. Ziral came down the ramp a moment later and headed for the door.
“Let’s go,” said Zey. “We need to clear the hangar for launch.”
Outside in the corridor he said, “A nivakh is a type of animal. They’re tall and clumsy and they’re not very smart. It’s one of our names for humans. Not one of the nice ones.”
“Are there any nice ones?”
“A few. Remember, some of us like you. A lot of us, actually.”
“Not him, though,” I said.
“No. Not Vethna.”
I sighed. “I’ve been on the ship five minutes, and I’m already making enemies.”
“Vethna isn’t that bad. He’s just annoying. Right now he doesn't like you because he thinks you’re going to make more work for him. Once he knows that’s not true, he’ll ignore you like he ignores me.” I must have looked unconvinced, because Zey said, “Really, it’ll be fine. Come on, I’ll take you to your quarters to drop off your bag. Then we can go exploring.”
I followed him up a gently sloping corridor lit by the same hand-sized globes I had seen on the l
anding craft. The walls were smooth and gray, their blankness enlivened at intervals by a pattern or design. No two were the same as far I could see, but each one evoked a memory of Earth for me: stones in a riverbed, leaves on a tree, feathers on a bird’s wing. I wondered what they evoked for the Vardeshi. I stopped to study a cascade of tiny shards of color like the glimmer of reflected sunset on water. “What are these for?”
“For decoration.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“You won’t really appreciate them for a couple of months. By the time we reach Arkhati Starhaven, you’ll be able to draw them in your sleep. And you’ll have favorites. Everyone does.”
We walked on. The corridor spiraled gradually upward. “We’re going to pass through the axis chamber in a minute,” Zey explained. “Crew quarters are on the far side.”
“What’s the axis chamber?”
“It’s the most important room on the ship. Command center, meeting room, navigation and communications hub. All the corridors lead into it. Khavi Vekesh will be there, and probably some of the others as well. Here we are.” He led me through another door.
The axis chamber resembled a shallow amphitheater, with a ring-shaped upper level surrounding a circular floor. The lower level had only enough space for a low round table flanked by cushioned stools like the ones on the landing craft. A few steps led up to the second level, which housed individual workstations, although I couldn’t tell at a glance what function any of them served. Looking around, I could see four or five doors opening onto the upper level in addition to the one we’d just come through. I thought I would have identified this room as the central node in a network even if Zey hadn’t explained it in those terms. I wondered how defensible it was, with all those doors, and if there was a way to bypass it in case of a hostile occupation. I also thought that, for a command center, the walls seemed curiously blank. Where were all the banks of flatscreen monitors and elaborate control kiosks? Was all Vardeshi technology like the little I’d glimpsed on the landing craft, invisible until summoned into view? Was I going to be expected to operate those mysterious workstations? Uneasiness mingled with the elation I had been feeling since I stepped aboard the shuttle. Over the past few weeks, I had slipped without realizing it into a certain arrogance about my level of expertise regarding the Vardeshi, fueled no doubt by my celebrity status at the Villiger Center. On Earth, having a relatively strong command of their language had meant—or seemed to mean—a great deal. With Earth only a few minutes behind me, I was rapidly discovering how little it truly counted for.
Ascending (The Vardeshi Saga Book 1) Page 12
