by Karen Lord
She said nothing, waiting for him to explain further. His expression was serious, but she kept her face and her feelings guarded.
‘If Rafi comes back from Stage One, the Lyceum will be the least of his problems. He needs to be somewhere else, somewhere off-planet. I know people on Punartam.’
‘Thank you for your suggestion,’ she said with only a touch of sarcasm. ‘I know people on Punartam, too. The problem is how to get him there. First-flight quarantine is expensive and lengthy, and that ticket he has won’t take him much further. And we can’t help. We can risk our homestead credit for local travel, but beyond orbit is another thing.’
‘I can take care of that.’
She laughed. ‘You have galactic credit?’
‘Yes. I do. I owe Rafi, and someone owes me. It’s enough to get us both to Punartam.’
At last she remembered. Ntenman was the boy who went with Rafi for a vacation in the forest uplands, paid for with her credit, no less. Murky motives or no, the boy had a very Ntshune sense of obligation.
Dllenahkh came into view. His face was unreadable but Delarua could feel what was beneath the surface – he was exhausted. All at once she despaired. How could she find time to worry about Rafi and fret over Nasiha when she also had to hold her husband together so that he could hold the settlement together? She reined herself in quickly before her bleakness could touch him. One thing at a time.
‘Let’s go home,’ she told him.
Ntenman stood awkwardly in place as she took Dllenahkh’s arm and they began to walk away. She looked back at the boy, surprised at his sudden shyness. ‘You, too.’
*
Ntenman ended up staying for more than one day. Delarua was fascinated at how quickly he became part of the homestead. He remembered everyone’s name and face after a single meeting, and they remembered him, for he charmed, flattered and flirted his way through the homestead’s small population.
‘He’s a baby con-man,’ Delarua said to Dllenahkh with a mixture of disdain and admiration. ‘He’s like Ioan without the nasty mind-coercion.’
She was making small talk for the sake of distraction. They were in the office she had shared with Nasiha, cleaning it out thoroughly – files, specimens, souvenirs and personal effects. Should the Consul send anyone to search for clues to Nasiha’s location, they would find only bare walls, scant furniture and empty cabinets.
‘He reminds me of you,’ her husband said, and was startled when she swiftly smacked his arm. ‘But Grace, he does. He likes people and he likes to be liked. He’s nowhere near Ioan’s level.’
‘You’re being duped already,’ Delarua warned him. ‘Can’t you see how he’s building networks and notching up credit? In a little while, he could get away with anything, and if you tried to get one of the homesteaders to go against him they’d protest that he’s such a great guy and there must be some mistake.’
‘Yes, I do understand,’ Dllenahkh said. ‘That’s how I feel about you.’
‘That’s not a compliment,’ Delarua protested.
‘Neither is it an insult. It is simply the way you do things. Do you distrust this boy?’
There was a good question. ‘I don’t know. I need someone to look out for Rafi, and right now that can’t be me . . . not with everything that’s happening.’
‘Maria . . .?’ he asked delicately.
She simply shook her head.
‘Freyda?’
‘Ah . . . if Freyda ends up on Punartam, I don’t want to be involved. Not with how Lanuri’s taking things.’
Lanuri had become unusually possessive, convinced that if Freyda left the homestead, she would be kidnapped, coerced or otherwise taken by the megalomaniacs who were running New Sadira.
‘Where is Nasiha?’ Delarua fretted aloud.
‘That is something I do not think we are meant to know, but I do believe she is safe – or at least safer than she would be on New Sadira.’
Delarua said nothing. Tarik, always quiet but now almost silent, had remained in Tlaxce City for a few days to ‘put certain things in order’. She did not press, allowing him secrecy and space for grieving, but she felt useless and helpless.
‘I believe that we cannot make any impact at the individual level unless we create systemic change,’ Dllenahkh said forcefully.
Delarua sighed. There was more behind the words, as usual. She knew he was angry and tired, facing a task he knew had to be done but wishing someone else would do it.
‘But how,’ he continued, ‘can we control change amid chaos? The Zhinuvians charge more and more for transportation and communication, the Ntshune have taken over the galactic institutions but do only the bare minimum, and on Punartam, studies and research proliferate in the Academes, but no answers are forthcoming.’
She let him talk. It was not a time for solutions, but for venting and comforting.
‘I have a meeting this evening,’ he grumbled. ‘They expect me to say yes. Edrasde will remain as Chief Councillor, and the new title may be Governor . . . or Guardian . . . but I think we will start with Governor.’
Delarua felt her pulse beat thickly in her throat. Governor meant provincial ambitions. Guardian was a planetary title, suitable for a second-tier bioformed planet needing a few more generations to fully mature.
He sensed her anxiety. ‘Do not be concerned. There are many involved, all with enough expertise for me to be merely a figurehead if I wish. But I do worry. I worry that history will associate my name with the greatest mistake of our era.’
‘Well,’ Delarua said at last, her voice squeaking a bit from tension, ‘ask Naraldi. With all the other timelines he’s seen, he probably knows about that, too.’
He stared, then relaxed and smiled. ‘An excellent suggestion. I could do much worse than to listen to Naraldi’s advice.’
*
Serendipity did not expect to both envy and pity Ivaliheni, but she did. At first, even in the midst of the community’s turmoil and the anxiety of Rafi’s absence, she found bliss in the flow of straight mindtalk, like guzzling from a goblet of heady wine after months of being forced to sip water from a faulty straw. It made pausing for verbal speech even harder to take, and Ivali would pause and talk to her husband, Thalen. A sweetly smiling young Sadiri, he mostly kept his head down and concentrated on what he could sense of their silent conversation, like a man keen to absorb a foreign language but still too shy to risk the embarrassment of speaking up and exposing the flaws in his communication. Ivali was not so shy; when she spoke to him, half her words were in Cygnian Standard and half in halting Sadiri.
Ivaliheni, telepath of Tirtha, was happy, comfortable and completely at home, even in a place where she was forced to limit herself in order for others to communicate with her. Serendipity buried her incredulity beneath several layers of courtesy. Ivali gave her a glance and a blink that said the effort was discernible, but adequate.
One thing Serendipity still shared with Ivaliheni was mixed feelings about the profoundly communal life of Tirtha, where familiarity could bring both comfort and contempt. Ivali showed off the small dwelling that was hers and Thalen’s, and her pride in their privacy and possession was evident. Serendipity showed but a touch of jealousy, enough to compliment Ivali for her choices, and hid her resentment at her own poor choices even further below the incredulity. It was ironic, given all her efforts at dissembling, that Thalen was the one to suggest that the two take a drive out to Grand Bay so they could spend some time with each other. But perhaps not ironic – Serendipity sensed the edge of the swift, subtle flash of gratitude Ivali sent to her husband and felt slightly ashamed that in her quickness to judge Thalen’s telepathy, she had underestimated his intuition.
‘This place suits you,’ she admitted aloud as they started off in Ivali’s car.
Ivali looked at her. ‘I take it that the Lyceum did not suit you?’
A neat mental bundle of exasperation, disgust, disappointment and mild horror was all Serendipity needed to communica
te her judgement on the Lyceum.
And the boy? Ivali wanted to know.
Blankness was no refuge from insight. Silence did not preserve secrets. It was Serendipity’s turn to be the object of pity and she did not like it, especially when that pity was so encompassing and general and concerned about her failings rather than the specific situation she was facing.
The old car hitched and sighed, adjusting itself as the road began the descent to sea level. The burden of Ivali’s pity lifted as they gladly allowed themselves to be distracted by what lay ahead. Serendipity had heard about the pilots and their ships and the place they had made their own, but descriptions and holos could not do justice to her first view of Grand Bay. A sprinkling of solar roofs speckled the landscape’s dusty browns and greens like bright confetti. The white sand of the coastline was a silver ribbon holding back the ocean. Long piers segmented the water and connected shallow to deep, and small craft of all kinds clustered along the piers and dotted the spaces in-between. The darker, more distant blues of the sea were quiet and empty.
‘You won’t see much more than a glimpse of them during the day,’ Ivali warned, smiling at her friend’s awe and anticipation.
Them being the mindships, obviously. Serendipity did not hide her disappointment.
‘We can go to a quieter part of the bay where there’s a better chance of seeing them,’ Ivali offered in consolation.
The main road for Grand Bay ran parallel to the coastline. Serendipity was struck by how much more a capital Grand Bay appeared to be than Newbridge. Newbridge was for the bureaucrats and their necessary interactions with Cygnian Central Government. Grand Bay was the cultural and commercial heart of the Sadiri settlement. Pilots brought news and cargo; needed information, supplies and shelter – and Grand Bay took what they had to offer and provided them with what they wanted. The layout was neat in a typically thoughtful Sadiri way, but the tents, prefab structures and half-finished buildings revealed how quickly and organically development had surged, outstripping mere bureaucratic planning with the urgency of immediate necessity. One popular style was the dome, and when they passed one under construction, it was easy to see why. A mould was set on a prepared base, inflated to the required size and sprayed with quick-set permarock. The mould could be dismantled after twenty-four hours, leaving a dome ready for use. Left unpainted and unplastered, like raw limestone, the permarock might later be enhanced with geometric patterns of solar sheeting and weatherproofed with clear spackle to match the other domes of Grand Bay.
When Serendipity complimented the dome design, Ivali only laughed and said, ‘Wait. You will soon see.’
The beach changed from sand to rock and from level to sharply sloping, and finally cliffs marked the end of the curve of the bay. A set of domes clung to that last curl of coastline, some on land, some on solid piles in the water, all connected by covered walkways. Ivali parked the car in a field on the landward side of the road and they crossed over to a stone pathway that led down to the complex. Serendipity sensed and recognised the peaceful hum of a contemplative community, very like Tirtha, and yet not quite like. The ordinary might have noted no difference, but to a telepath, this was a very quiet place. Conversations were few, and what communication she could detect was more at the level of polite greeting than intense discussion.
Ivali skirted the main buildings and led her down a long walkway towards the farthest sea-based dome. She almost ran, tugging Serendipity’s hand and pulling her through the doorway, across a floor made of thick, smoky glass in a mosaic of blues and up to the wide-open windows on the far side. She spoke aloud in her excitement. ‘It’s the perfect lookout point!’
Serendipity tried to glance at the gorgeous colours of the floor as she was hustled past but was soon captivated by the promised view, even more stunning than their first sight of Grand Bay from the hilltop. She did not have long to enjoy it.
‘It is also a perfect place to meditate – usually.’
Ivali and Serendipity turned with the swiftness of fear and forgotten dignity. The voice was familiar. The aged face of the black-robed woman seated on the floor near the entrance was familiar. She had never been known to insist on any other form of address than her own simple name, and yet somehow when people spoke it, they felt an irresistible urge to add a bow, a lowering of the eyes or at the very least a respectful lean.
‘Zhera,’ the two young women said, their voices hushed and their heads bowed.
The Sadiri elder stood slowly and advanced on them with graceful yet menacing power in her step. ‘Ivaliheni. You were not at the Council Hall for the latest debates.’
Ivaliheni flinched resentfully, appearing seconds from saying, Neither were you, then clearly thought better of it. ‘No, Zhera,’ she said politely. ‘But I have heard from those who were. I know what is happening.’
‘Do you?’ Zhera enquired enigmatically. She turned her hard gaze on Serendipity. ‘Child – I remember you. Have you now decided to settle for a Sadiri husband? Or are you ready to return to a life of monastic discipline?’
Serendipity was too confused and mortified to answer.
Zhera made a noise that might have been amusement or disdain or both. She turned her back on them and returned to her position near the door. Folding her legs under her, she sat back on her ankles and stared grimly at the glass floor.
Serendipity and Ivali exchanged a glance and began to walk quietly to the door. They might have escaped, except Serendipity’s downcast eyes saw a strange shadow shifting below the semi-opaque glass. She halted, unsure of her vision, but other senses took over and she saw more clearly. There was a mindship below the dome. A fan of tendrils extended from the main mass of the creature into the waters below them. Each tendril traced a line of subtle electricity that cut golden through the blues of water and glass. She found herself yearning for a touch of that electricity.
Zhera raised her eyes and gave Serendipity a considering look. ‘What do you see, child? Look closely.’
Unfazed by Ivali’s bewilderment, Serendipity knelt and pressed her face to a pale blue segment of the glass mosaic. The sea below moved sluggishly, as if thickly matted with weed and moss, but she realised it was not weed but a multitude of the mindship’s fine, strong tendrils. More startling was the human shape that drifted in the midst of those tendrils. Serendipity stared closely. It was a pilot. Long dark hair streamed in the water, so tangled with the mindship’s net that they moved as one in the tide. The pilot’s silvery suit was so badly torn that patches and strips fluttered in the current. It was possible to see, even through the thick glass, that the pilot was a woman.
‘Who is she?’ Serendipity whispered against the cool glass. ‘What happened to her?’
She did not ask if the pilot was dead. She could tell that she was not, even though she could not explain how she knew.
‘We know who she is. Her name is Yhala and she was last stationed on New Sadira. As for what happened, that we do not know. We hope she will be able to answer for herself some day. For now, we can only wait and hope that her ship is up to the task of healing her. It is a risk, a matter of legend, for a mindship to take over and restore the body of a pilot. But I believe you have witnessed a precedent for this in your own community?’
Of course. The elders of Tirtha had shown Councillor Dllenahkh how to extend the boundaries of self and heal the woman who would become his wife. Serendipity straightened slowly, sat back and thought.
Zhera began to speak, the habitual command in her voice tempered by sadness. ‘I remember what it was like on New Sadira. We tried so many things to move past the point of crisis. Desperate planning. Strong structures. The illusion of certainty. Kind lies. But eventually we became ruthless and ranked people by their usefulness and their degree of compliance. These are not helpful criteria for an old woman like myself, so I chose to take my chances with the new settlement on Cygnus Beta. I did wonder what would happen to the ones whose lack of compliance outweighed their usefulness. We hav
e heard some tales from the second wave of refugees now on Punartam. This, however, is an example come directly home to chasten us for our inaction.’
She stood wearily. ‘Ivaliheni, try to attend the Council meetings, especially during these strange, changing times. Listen to the contemplatives as well as the goodwives. Inaction will cost us dearly, and ignorance even more so. Serendipity . . .’ She trailed off for a moment, puzzled, pondering. ‘Think about your place in this community, either here or at Tirtha. I will be in both places from time to time, and I can advise if you will listen.’
Serendipity stood beside Ivali and watched the venerable elder depart. A random realisation came to her. She had not given any thought to Rafi for over an hour. She looked down at her feet, still seeing and sensing the floating pilot, tangled in the nerves of a mindship, perhaps temporarily, perhaps for ever. She wondered what it felt like.
*
Three days gone, and I knew it was time to go. Three fruitful days – enough time to share a laugh and a drink, to help lift or move something, to fetch and to carry. To listen, chat a little about next to nothing and listen again. Do you think that spy-talk was a joke? Well, maybe it was, but I know how to get information.
I found out about Tarik and learned that his child was rarely taken outdoors. Excessive caution from a man who had just lost his wife, literally lost, no euphemism for death or bond-breaking? Or something more? No time to find out, so I filed it away.
I learned, from Serendipity of all people, much more about the pilots in Grand Bay, their ships spawning in deep ocean and the taSadiri who would try their luck, to see if they had the right smell or spark or sizzle to capture the attention of a mindship beyond the span of a single lick. She said she was going to stay and try to find out more about them, maybe swim with a mindship one day and see what could happen. Restless Serendipity, constantly seeking a new attachment. At least I knew I would never have been enough for her; scarcely a minute’s worth of novelty, me.
