The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “Safer . . .” she whispered and her free hand moved on its own, gripping his shoulder hard.

  “Rool Tiazan,” she said after a moment. “He asked how you’d choose to die.”

  “He did,” Jela said briskly. “And if the tree and me are to liberate the good scholar’s math, publish it wholesale, and die in battle, I’d better not take too many naps.”

  She smiled slightly, and stepped back, taking her hand off his shoulder, slipping the other from between his palms. He watched her out of calm black eyes.

  “If it ain’t your intention to die on Landomist Port,” she said, turning to shut the locker door, “and see the tree broken and burned before you do, you’ll employ that agent to work your will, like I said you should.”

  Behind her, she heard Jela sigh.

  “It has to be a frontal attack,” he said patiently. “I don’t know how to employ the sort of agent you advise. And I don’t have time to train him.”

  Face to the locker, she closed her eyes, hearing again the tiny lady’s sharp voice listing out the terms of Jela’s service:

  You, the pilot and the ssussdriad will proceed to the world Landomist . . .

  Not her fight, dammit. She’d not sworn to any such madness.

  Pay your debts, baby, Garen ghost-whispered from the gone-away past. There ain’t no living with yourself, if you don’t.

  Deeps knew, she wouldn’t be living at all, were it not for Jela—and, truth told full, the tree, as well.

  Cantra sighed, very softly, opened her eyes and turned to face him.

  “Her,” she said, and met his eyes firm, giving a good imitation of woman with a sensible decision on deck. “I can get you in.”

  THREE

  Light Wing

  Doing the Math

  THE KLAXON SHRIEKED, and Tor An’s body responded before he was fully awake, snapping forward to the board—and snatched back by the webbing as the ship dropped out of transition with a shudder and a sob.

  He’d webbed into the chair before allowing himself to nod off—prudent for a pilot running solo, even in relatively pirate-free space.

  Prudence had saved him a bad knock—and another when the ship twisted again, as if protesting its sudden change of state.

  By then, he was well awake, and by exerting steady pressure against the restraints managed to gain his board, and get a closer look at the screens.

  The board was locked and live—standard for transition—and the main screen displayed a dense, unfamiliar starfield. Across the center of the display ran a bright blue legend: Transition aborted. Target coordinates unavailable.

  Tor An blinked, reached to the board, engaged shields, called up the last-filed transition string, and sat frowning at the cheery yellow coordinates that described the location of home. Feeling a fool, he activated the library, called for the Ringstars, and did a digit-by-digit comparison between the library’s coord set and those displayed in the nav screen.

  The numbers matched, which ought to have, he thought, made him feel better. After all, he hadn’t made a fumble-fingered entry error, or misremembered the coord set he’d been able to recite almost before he could pronounce his name.

  On the other hand, a ship sent into transition defined by a correct set of target coordinates ought not to exit transition until the conditions described by the coordinates were met.

  “Unless,” Tor An said to the empty tower, “the navigation brain has dead sectors, or a ship self-check determines a dangerous condition. Or pirates force you out early.”

  He glared at the screens, noting the lack of pirates. He slapped up the logs, but found no dangerous condition listed. Dead sectors in the nav brain—he sighed. There was only one way to determine if that were the case.

  Leaning to the board again, he set up a suite of diagnostics, punching the start key with perhaps a bit more force than was absolutely necessary. The board lights flickered; the screens blanked momentarily, then lit again, displaying the testing sequence and estimated time until completion.

  Tor An released the webbing and stood. There was one more thing that might usefully be done—and, considering the age of his ship, ought to be done. If the transvective stabilizers had developed a wobble, the ship might have spontaneously dropped out of transition. He rather thought that such an event would have been noted in the log, but it was an old ship, with quirks and crotchets, and certain sporadic incompatibilities between ship’s core and the logging function were a known glitch of its class.

  Two of his strides and he was across the tiny tower. He opened a storage hatch, pulled out a tool belt and slung it around his waist, snapping it as he headed for the door.

  SOME WHILE LATER, he was back in the pilot’s chair, gnawing on a high-calorie bar and scrolling through the diagnostic reports, not as pleased as he might be by the unbroken lines of “normal function.” At the end of the file, he sat back, the bar forgotten in his hand.

  The stabilizers had checked out. The synchronization unit—which he knew for a glitchy, temperamental piece of work—had tested perfectly sound. Everything that could be tested, had tested normal, except for one thing.

  Normally functioning ships do not spontaneously fall out of transition and report the—correctly entered!—target coordinates as “unavailable.”

  “Well,” he said aloud, “it’s obviously a fabric-of-space problem.”

  “Fabric-of-space problem” was Alkia in-clan for “a thing which has happened, but which cannot be explained.” There being a limited number of such events in life, the phrase was a joke—or a sarcastic jibe from an elder to a junior suspected of being too lazy to do a thorough check.

  But he had done a thorough check, for all the good he’d gained.

  “Check again,” he told himself, a trifle impatiently, “or trust the data.”

  Chewing his lower lip, he glanced down, frowned at the bar in his hand and tossed it into the recycling drawer. Then, he engaged the webbing, brought the board up, woke the nav brain and fed it the coordinates for the Ringstars.

  “Enough nonsense,” he said to his ship. “Let us go home.”

  He initiated transition.

  CANTRA POURED THE LAST of the tea into her mug, started a new pot brewing, and wandered back into that part of the lodgings which was in the fond thought of the landlord the parlor. Right now, it was a workroom, with twin tables piled high with the building blocks of a dozen or more parallel-running projects, hers and his.

  Her projects were in holding orbit at the moment, waiting an all-clear from the portmaster, played for this once-only showing by M. Jela, who was emoting equal parts stubborn and grim as he sat hunched over his toys. A warmer bowl containing dinner—or might-be breakfast—sat at his elbow, the noodles dry, the tasty and nutritious sauce long baked off. He’d been paying sporadic attention to his mug, so she’d set herself to keeping it full with hot, sweet, and fresh.

  Cantra sipped tea and sighed. The man did, she conceded, have a point. If the info could be pinched from afar, then it was beyond foolish to risk the ship’s company by going in after it. It happened she believed—based on past study, say—that the Towers of Landomist kept their brains well-shielded, and Osabei moreso than most. She’d given him everything she knew on the subject, which was, once she’d put her memory to it, not inconsiderable. And she’d pointed out the logic behind imprisoning Liad dea’Syl in Osabei, on the slim chance he hadn’t figured it out for himself.

  Still, he’d wanted to check it for himself, and so he was—using an interesting combination of military grade and Dark Market gizmos. Cantra supposed she ought to be grateful for his caution. Herself, she was finding the inexorable passage of time an unwelcome irritant.

  She sat down in the chair she’d lately been calling home, and put her feet up on one of the rare clear spots of her table. Crossing her ankles, she glanced at the tree, sitting in a fancy artwork pot over in the corner, under the special light Jela’d rigged for it—and then at the clock. Not long now. She si
pped her tea and watched Jela, which was a deal more scenic than staring at the wall, and waited.

  Her tea was gone by the time the clock finally gave out with its tootling little on-the-local-hour song, and Jela sighed, rolled his shoulders and leaned back in his chair, his eyes lingering on the spyware.

  “Luck?” she asked, though by the look of it, learning-by-doing had only gained what she’d told him in the first place.

  He sighed again, and finally met her eyes, his tired and tending toward bleak.

  “We go in,” he said.

  HE RAISED TELMAIR.

  He raised Kant.

  He raised Porshel and Braz, Jiniwerk, and Oryel.

  He dug deep into the library, and unrolled star charts across the tower floor, weighting the corners with spanners. When he had identified the coordinates for a sphere of six waystops inside the influence of the Ringstars, he fed those into the nav-brain, webbed himself into the pilot’s chair, initiated transition, and waited, his face tight, his back rigid.

  The ship accepted its office. Tor An sighed, his muscles melting toward relief—

  And Light Wing twisted, klaxons blaring as she fell into real space, alarms lighting the board, and across the main screen, the bright blue legend:

  Transition aborted. Target coordinates unavailable.

  He was a conscientious boy, and he had been taught well. Ignoring the ice in his belly, the chilly sweat on his face, he re-checked the charts, made sure of his numbers, and initiated transition for the second time.

  And for a second time, his ship transitioned, and almost immediately returned to normal space.

  Transition aborted. Target coordinates unavailable.

  He shut down the board, made sure of his shields, deliberately unwebbed and stood. It had, he told himself, been some time since he had eaten—how long a time, he was not prepared to say with any certainty, save that he had been awake for longer.

  “Pilot error,” he said to the empty tower. “I am taking myself off-duty for a meal, a shower and a nap. Barring ship’s need, I will return in five ship hours and perform the exercise again from the top.”

  He was a lad of his word, and had been raised to know the value of discipline. There was no ship’s emergency to disturb him and he returned to the tower visibly refreshed, had there been any to see, in just under five ship hours.

  Once at his station, he again carefully examined the star maps, acquiring six coordinate strings defining a sphere of ports that lay within the boundary space of the Ringstars.

  Rising, he went to his chair, webbed in, entered the coords, double-checked them—and initiated transition.

  Light Wing leapt, stuttered—fell.

  Transition aborted, read the message across the main screen. Target coordinates unavailable.

  CANTRA WOKE as she’d set herself to do, since it was important to be up and well about her business before Jela, who never that she’d noticed slept more than four hours together, did the same.

  Despite that the “up” side of the equation was as crucial as the “awake,” she stayed a bit longer just where she was, curled slightly on her left side, her back snuggled against Jela’s wide and reassuring chest. His arm was draped companionably over her waist, her hand tucked into the relaxed curl of his fist. He slept quiet, did Jela, and solid, which the Deeps knew he had a right. The work he’d put in over the last few days, cutting his four hours of sleep down to two, or, in some cases, so she suspected, none—it was a wonder he could stand, much less share a long and satisfying pleasure as they’d just enjoyed. The last of too few.

  She sighed softly, and shifted, slow and languorous, a well-satisfied woman readjusting position in her sleep. Jela shifted in turn, reflexively withdrawing his arm. Freed, she waited three heartbeats, listening to his quiet, unhurried breathing. When she was certain he hadn’t woke, she eased out of bed and ghosted away.

  THE LIGHT IN the main room was hard and non-adjustable; the work tables tidier than they’d been in a while. Jela’s held a couple sets of data tiles, frames, and some bits of esoteric tinyware the particulars of which she hadn’t troubled to ask after. Her table—was clear, excepting a notebook and a pen. Picking up the pen, she wrote, briefly, tore the sheet out of the book and placed it prominently at Jela’s table. Her last instruction to her co-pilot. She wished that it could have been something more easeful—but there wasn’t any use lying to Jela. Not now.

  Last duty done, she turned toward the third room that made the sum of their lodgings: A small, chilly niche about the size of the guest cabin on Dancer. More than big enough for a death.

  Something green fluttered at the edge of her vision, which would be Jela’s damn’ tree—or her ally the ssussdriad, soon to be neither. The flutter came again, stronger, and she knew perfectly well there was neither draft nor vent where it was placed.

  Sighing, she turned and walked down the room to where it sat under the special-spectrum spotlight Jela’d rigged for it. The change in lighting’d done it good, if the number and size of the pods hanging from its scrawny branches were any measure.

  The dance of leaves became more agitated as she approached, and a particular branch began to visibly bend under the weight of its pod. Cantra considered it sardonically.

  “Going-away present?” she asked, her voice harsh in her own ears.

  A picture formed inside her head: Water sparkling beneath her, the shadow of a great beast flashing over the waves. She felt a bone-deep ache in her shoulders, an emptiness in her belly, and still she labored on, sinking toward the water, each stroke an agony . . . And there, ahead—the cliffs, the trees, the others! She made a mighty effort, but the tips of her wings cut water on the downstroke, and she knew the cliffs were beyond her—

  From the dancers along the cliff sides came a large, dark dragon, his flight powerful and swift. He flew above and past her, spun on a wing and dove, slipping between her and the water, bearing her up, up the side of the cliffs and into the crown of a tree. A pod-heavy branch rose as the songs of welcome filled her ears and she gratefully took the gift thus offered . . .

  Cantra blinked; the image faded. “Promises,” she said, voice cracking, “promises are dangerous things. You dasn’t give one unless you’re sure to keep it. No living with yourself any other way.” The branch bent sharply, insistently. She held out a hand with a sigh. “Have it your way, then. But don’t say I never told you.” The pod hit her palm solidly and her fingers curled over it.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  SHE LOCKED THE DOOR behind her, then set her shoulders against it, eyes closed.

  “You told the man you’d back him,” she said aloud, and shivered in the chill air.

  The fact was, for all her bold words, she might not be able to back him. Oh, she remembered the lessons, fair enough, though it would perhaps have eased things for an unpracticed and unwilling aelantaza were any of the particular mix of psychotropics used in the final prep stage of an assignment on hand. Still, the wisdom was that the thing could be done by trance alone. The drug was helpful, but by no means necessary. For the first part of the operation.

  The second part—the resurrection, should there be one . . . Well, she’d never heard other than the drug was needed and necessary for that part of it. Not to say the company of a taler, which she didn’t have either. Once in a chance, so the story went, an aelantaza might come home so burnt-brained and desperate that the drug didn’t make no nevermind. It wasn’t any use even bringing a taler near such a one. The best thing to do then, in the estimation of the Directors, who weren’t known for wasting resources, was to break the burnt-brain’s neck before they up and hurt somebody they shouldn’t.

  Sort of like Pliny’d done.

  Cantra sighed. She didn’t want to die, though she was looking at doing just that. But maybe, she thought, her throat tight—maybe she wouldn’t die. All she had to do was play diversion for a month or less, Common. Maybe there would be enough of herself left at the end the assignment
to spontaneously regenerate—

  Or maybe not.

  It ain’t, she said to herself, the weight of the tree’s gift heavy in her fist, like you never done it before. You weren’t born to the Rim nor to the life Garen taught you. Whoever you were before, you came to be someone else—something other. This’ll be just the same.

  The Rimmer pilot was no more real than the daughter Garen’d thought her to be. The person who rose up out of the remains of the pilot’s psyche would be no more nor less real than both.

  There was a scent in the cabin; she hadn’t noticed it before. A pleasant scent, green and minty and . . . comforting. Cantra opened her eyes, raised her fist, opened her fingers and considered the pod on her palm.

  No doubt the aroma emanated from it; and it grew more enticing by the moment. She remembered her previous tastes of the tree’s fruit, and found her mouth watering.

  Well, it can’t hurt, she thought; and, if she were honest with herself, it might help with the local courage levels.

  She put finger to pod, wondering how best to crack it, lacking Jela’s strong hand or Rool Tiazan’s more . . . unusual . . . abilities, but to her surprise it fell apart at her lightest touch, releasing an even more tempting aroma.

  The taste was better than she recalled—tart and spicy. Sighing, she ate the second piece, muscles relaxing as her body warmed. By the time she had finished all of the pieces and carefully slipped the rind into the waste unit, she felt calm and centered. That was good; she was past the jitters now and down to cases.

  Opening the drawer of the bedside table, she withdrew a wide bracelet set with several gem-topped buttons. This, she snapped ‘round her wrist, adjusting it until it was snug and showed no disposition to slip.

  That done, she lay down on the narrow bed and pulled a blanket over her nakedness, closed her eyes, regulated her breathing, and called to mind those exercises which would eventually pitch her into the trance. She had prepared as well as she could: memories, behaviors, preferences, and history would be released and assimilated as soon as her mind came to the change level.