by Jim Grimsley
“We’re Hormling,” he answered. “We take twenty years to decide to do anything.”
She laughed at the joke, because it was true. Then she shook her head. “You said the word yourself a moment ago. Technology. We were afraid of the science that could produce the Twil Gate. We were afraid to cross the gate except as we were invited to do. For fear of offending whatever power made the gate. We figured at some point we would find out who built it and how it works.”
“But now we’ve decided nobody here made the gate,” Himmer said. “Because we don’t see any kind of technology here that could bridge two worlds.”
“Meaning that we’ve stopped short of seeing what’s really here,” she said.
“You’ve lost me.”
She was remembering the words the Krii had spoken. There are thirty billion of the Hormling on this world alone. “Two worlds, Himmer? You say the gate bridges space, but the truth is, we don’t know what it bridges. When we cross to this side of the gate, we don’t know where we are.”
“So you’re one of the people who think this is some kind of parallel universe,” Himmer mused. “I thought it was only the fiction writers who were taking that seriously.”
“I didn’t say that. Maybe Irion is a part of our own world that’s been here all along.”
“You mean, because of something to do with the Twil anomaly.”
She mimicked his phrase. “I’m one of those people who think it’s just too much of a coincidence that the gate appeared in the exact spot where that anomaly has been for all these years. That’s why we named it the Twil Gate, after all.”
He was looking at her intently, now. “You’re from Nadi, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He did not repeat any of the old formulas of acknowledgment, he merely watched her. “Then I don’t have to ask you if you know what the Qons Qatke is?”
“No. I’ve read the texts.” She had reddened some. “The fact that what I’m saying has some similarities to fairy tales doesn’t change anything.”
“The Qons was a real person,” Himmer said. “Even if she was a fanatic. My factor has a long tradition of studying the Qatke texts. Everything that’s in them can be substantiated. The Qons did come to Nadi and did take many of its people with her on a long sea journey, a long time ago, within the first few millennia after our people reached this world. She preached that Krys had brought us here for a purpose, to find a hidden paradise. She preached that there was a place on this planet that she had seen, a place within the world that was nothing like this world at all. We already know the Anin are genetically kin to us.” He seemed lost for a moment, with the colored lights dancing around him. “There’s been some revival of the cult of Qons, since the gate appeared. You’re not the only person to make that association.”
“As I said, I haven’t been trying to draw conclusions. But I’m not ready to close any doors yet. Unlike our military, apparently.”
She had moved back to the window. Himmer followed, put his arms around her in a friendly way, and she found she liked it. He was still thinking, though, and presently said, “How would that explain the gate? The stats not working? The power going out?”
“The power’s out? No wonder the lights wouldn’t come on.”
“All across the city,” he said.
That made her smile again. A thrill ran through her, that something was coming, much larger than anyone guessed. “Another sign the Erejhen aren’t as helpless as we suppose.”
“You think they know how to damp a power matrix?”
She gestured into the night, where the ghost towers shimmered. “Somebody here knows how. Somebody here is doing it right now.”
5
Jedda slept till nearly change of day, the hour zero, which has religious implications among those who are krys-believers, as Jedda was, though with her the way of krys was more of her upbringing and not a tradition that she practiced. She had no prayer tonight; her mouth came up empty, as the saying goes, though she and Himmer went on talking till nearly a tenth had passed. She told him some of the places she had lived while she was trading here, first as an agent for investors in Irion who wanted to purchase luxury textiles, then as an importer herself. This had required that she be registered for entry into Irion with the Erejhen government, though she had never known this until her third trip, when she had been called into one of the clerical centers in Evess because of a dispute with one of her Anin trading partners. Through some process she had never entirely understood, the government officials in the Erejhen bureaucracy underwent a religious training, and the cleric she had met had been most serene and kind. She had met Opit at the same place and had told him her situation and he was able to plead her case for her; he had spoken Erejhen, which fascinated her. Afterward she and Opit had become friends, and she had financed the final four years of his study of Anin culture and customs before he vanished.
To tell Himmer so much was dangerous, but she had a feeling she could trust him. He had told her something about his factor, a sign of trust on his part, since a Hormling does not mention the family in most contexts. Jedda herself was crèche-borne, raised in a communal subclave of Nadi, and had no real memory of clan or kinship. A child raised in a crèche was raised without such considerations, though Jedda was nurtured and treated kindly, and sometimes felt affection for some member of the commune or other. The crèche child, at least, kept the status of the parents, whether or not the parents were ever known to the child. Other kinds of births and childhoods, many of them, and for many reasons, were possible among the Hormling, and some of them were far more unpleasant.
Rare, to talk so much. Though with Himmer it came so naturally.
They lay down together when they had talked themselves out, and Jedda found herself liking the way this man made love more each time, big as his belly was, and shaggy as his arms were, though at the same time, her feelings for him remained detached. He was that rare man whom she could bear to touch. The enjoyment of physical pleasure had not always come easy to her, and men had always been a problem, for reasons she might have gone into therapy to learn, but which otherwise failed to interest her. Especially now. Sex had been a reason for anguish in her fifties but now that she was nearing seventy, past the first youth and into the second, as they say, she felt more mellow, more inclined to enjoy her own company than that of anyone else. More inclined to enjoy a night of talk, of the kind of intimacy permitted in a society where space had to be guarded as a precious commodity. All the more reason to enjoy Himmer, since he was comfortable and easy, and since the barriers were down, or seemed to be.
Through the night burned those strange lights over the city, and in the tenth before dawn came a pounding on the door that waked Jedda with a start. She sat up and gasped in fear, as if something were in the room watching her, but nothing was there.
The bed was empty; Himmer had gone back to his own rooms at some point while she was sleeping. She went to the door in her shift and answered it. One of the protocol staff, a thin short woman, stood in the doorway a bit unsteadily, clearly in need of sleep. But she was all business and stated that Tarma had asked all the delegates, including Jedda, to join her on the roof of the consulate to watch the Hormling troop convoy sail into the bay. Jedda was to dress and come right away. Jedda realized this was not a request and dressed in a hurry, scrubs underneath and coveralls with a belt and pouch at the waist. Sanders boots, very durable. Nearly as good as the Erejhen leather she coveted, illegal to export.
The escort took Jedda to the roof of the consulate building. Wind was blowing from the north, cold and sharp. Tarma had ordered a security bubble on the roof for protection from the weather, and Jedda stepped with relief inside the transparent shell and looked all around, at the sky, at the lighted towers, at the wide Bay of Anin beyond. She was glad to have some protection from the elements, since she had forgotten her coat. Food had been set out on tables, grainy breads and morning cha, local fruit and oat mush. She ate some of t
he fruit and saw the horizon was brightening. A long way across the water she fancied she could see the ships already.
She ran into Vitter at the table laid with beverages, hovering over it like a spider extending his long, thin arms downward for provender. He smiled in that unpleasant way and handed her a cup of tea. “You’ll like this,” he said. “They drink this in the mornings here in Evess.”
Fragrant, a hint of tang, like berry. A darker, more sinuous flavor beneath. She had tasted this before and found herself looking at Vitter curiously. “How do you know so much about this place if you’ve never traveled in Irion?”
He shrugged. “I study.” She surveyed the bubble, the few others who had arrived, Melda and Kurn, a couple of people from the consulate staff. A murmur rippled through the few and Jedda turned to the bay again and this time, on the horizon, she saw the gray shapes of the Hormling fleet, on the sea and in the air.
Vitter was watching, too. His eyes suddenly fierce, their look of rheumy preoccupation all fled. “I had hoped this was some fantasy I was having, I suppose. As if I were trapped in a bad stat simulation.”
Jedda simply watched. The ghostly towers that had hovered over the city had begun to waver, and she felt herself wavering as well. The fleet moved quickly closer, growing as she watched, and now she could see the airships discharge tiny specks that would be Hormling warplanes.
A long time ago, early in the history of the Hormling on Senal, a fleet like this had come to Nadi, her home city, and killed nearly everyone there. She had heard the story when she was a girl in the crèche, and had read it in poems when she was studying the evolution of Alenke and the three hundred dialects. Eerie to think of that story standing on a roof over this stone city, this city that had stone walls as its only visible defense, where every street led to a canal and every canal to the bay. Wide open to invasion.
Vitter’s silky voice brought her back to the rooftop. “Have you had a chance to think about our talk? About what I told you?”
She looked him in the eye. Nervous, since the bubble wasn’t very large. “Yes.”
“I’d like to speak with you more, in private, whenever Tarma lets us go. If you could arrange to leave at the same time as me, though without appearing to.”
The lack of a stat was making him bold. She stepped past him with her cup of tea.
Tarma and Himmer arrived when the sky was already lightening over the eastern bay. By then, one could see the number of ships, stretching out as far as Jedda could see, surrounding the island in the center of the bay.
As the sun rose, the lights of the ghost towers vanished and Tarma remarked, “Well, so much for the little light show.” Turning to the consul, “Did you bring the list of ships, Fimmin? I want to count them off.”
No one else had much to say. The ships moved serenely across the water, making a stately progress, and in the air overhead fighter craft appeared, flew close to shore, dived over the rooftops of the city, and wheeled away, formation after formation. Jedda had never seen warplanes so close. Wicked, sharp-winged, bristling with teeth, piloted by Hansonist sentients who had sacrificed the life of the body. The eerie shriek of the jets was meant to frighten, she supposed.
When the ships drew close, Jedda found herself almost awestruck. Eight battle cruisers slicing through the water, four airships sailing above them, warplanes wheeling this way and that. Troops on hover-carriers floated on air cushions around the island. Almost at the horizon one could see the Ocean Commander vessel, a ship so large it could not be brought close ashore, from which this whole operation was directed.
On the rooftop the Hormling watched in silence. Even Tarma held still. The incoming battleships had sailed past the island and were preparing to encircle the Evess harbor, dozens and dozens of ships on the sea and in the air, the fleets maneuvering smartly, when Jedda heard a soft “Oh” behind her, and looked at Melda, who was pointing up at the sky.
Over the bay, far out, and from above the clouds came spinning and plunging one of the warplanes, and spiraled into the waves. It struck the bay but there was no splash at all, as though the water simply swallowed it.
Far out to sea was falling another, and then another.
A murmur in the bubble, Himmer looking Jedda in the eye, face flushed, Tarma gripping the arms of her seat and staring fixedly into the bay.
“Look at the ships,” Fimmin pointed, and he meant the airships overhead, nowhere near land yet, and sinking out of the clouds. The front end of one of them plunged downward and the huge gas balloon broke apart.
The battle cruisers had begun to drift at odd angles and it soon became evident that they had lost power. “They’ll run aground,” someone murmured, and Tarma’s eyes flew to the speaker, but then one of the consular staff made a strange sound and Tarma and all of the rest looked over the rooftops again, to the bay where the cruisers had begun to ride low in the water, something weighing them deeper and deeper. The first of them began to take water over its bow, then the next. The troop carriers lost their air cushions and sank as well, and distant bodies hurled themselves off those decks into the bay and sank and never once came up. Appalling, how quickly it was over. Thirty-two seacraft, four airships carrying three hundred warplanes, visible in the light of dawn, approaching the city serene in their collective power, and then, one by one, sinking, falling, and vanishing beneath the water, and not one body struggled up to the surface to fight to live, not one piece of debris floated out of the wreck of a single one of those immense warships, nothing at all remained except the placid surface of the bay, a windy morning in Irion. Nothing to explain this, it simply happened, the machines stopped and sank and the soldiers and sailors and pilots sank and there was nothing left but the bay and the sky.
A shout was going up in the streets outside the compound, and bodies lined the docks and wharves as far as Jedda could see. The people of Evess had stood all night, some of them, near the ghost lights, and they had watched the huge ships come so confidently close, had heard the shrieking jets, and had watched the ships sink, the jets dive headlong into the water. The people were singing; that was the sound Jedda heard. They were singing some song, or some dozens of songs, watching the place where these contraptions had vanished.
They had known what was coming. They were not surprised.
One ship was spared. Easy to guess the reason. Far out to sea, the Ocean Commander still floated on the water. Soon one could see that it was growing smaller, and it faded from sight altogether, never sinking below the horizon but simply dwindling to a small point, vanishing.
Tarma sat for a long while in complete shock, motionless, and stared at the water as if what she had seen should now be rewound and played over again to some better conclusion. She had no way of grasping what had happened, but eventually even she understood that the battle group was nowhere to be found, that no infantry groups were coming ashore. But when it hit her what she had witnessed, when the debacle was complete, she hissed that she was to be taken indoors, and four of the consular staff lifted her chair and carried her into the building below.
Himmer mopped his sweaty brow and sank onto a couch.
No one was weeping. No one was making a sound. Fear was the only energy Jedda could feel coming from any direction. Till she saw Vitter.
Across the bubble, looking almost spectral in the dawn light, he caught Jedda’s eye for a moment, then headed down the steps out of the bubble. After a moment, saying nothing to anyone, Jedda followed.
6
Vitter led her to a garden between the Hormling-built structure and their quarters. He walked coolly forward without any indication he was anticipating company, and she walked into the building, ignoring him, before finding a side exit to enter the garden from that direction. Dew covered the ground, a green plant called fas, fragrant as if freshly mowed.
Vitter found her when she stopped to smell the ka-flower, nearly closed since the morning sun was almost over the garden wall. A scent so rich it made her head spin, and she w
ondered if the stories Brun had told were true, that there were places in Irion where the scent of the moonflower became so strong it sent a person into days of dreams. She was standing, getting her breath, and realized he was there.
“I’m glad you came quickly,” he said.
“I wanted to get away from there, believe me.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
He looked at her skeptically. “We have urgent concerns at the moment, if we want to live.”
“You think we’re in danger? From the Erejhen?”
He was more pale and clammy than on the causeway in Montajhena, looking down at the sweep of the gorge. His thin hair was plastered damply to his skull. A wave of palpable fear swept him. “No, not from them.”
Past the garden she saw detachments of consular security officers running to the wall of the compound. Vitter was watching beside her.
She was dumbfounded, understanding something was happening very quickly around her; she needed to grasp what it was. She found herself leaning into the moonflower, trying to catch the last of the scent. His hand on her shoulder brought her back. “Jedda,” he said, “think quickly. Do you have any trading contacts who can help you and me disappear?”
Suddenly the garden was surrounded by commotion and security officers were running and shouting.
“It can’t be done,” she said. “None of the Anin will give us shelter. Not after this. I don’t have a trading mission approved, I’m only authorized to be here because of the delegation.”
“What do you need?”
“Approved trading papers. Forgeries won’t work, the Prin always catch them.”
“I’ll get papers for you,” he said, “real ones. From my ministry office here. Can you quickly think of some legitimate merchandise that you could be trading?”
“Are you serious?”
“Jedda, at any moment we are going to be confined inside the compound by our own people. No one here is going to get out of this.”
