The Galaxy Game

by Karen Lord

  ‘I have something for you.’ He held out the small rock from Sadira.

  Dllenahkh frowned in curiosity but extended an open palm. Rafi placed it carefully in his hand and explained. ‘I was part of the test run to Sadira.’

  Dllenahkh’s expression did not change. His eyelids fluttered briefly, not blinking away tears but perhaps trying to dispel a moment of dizziness. He curved his hand a little more to hold the rock securely and examined it.

  ‘A pilot who was with me gave it to me,’ Rafi clarified, not wanting to appear blasé about carrying away what would be a highly precious stone to any Sadiri. ‘It’s safe – it came from the reclaimed area.’

  Dllenahkh stopped examining the stone and raised his eyes to Rafi. ‘Reclaimed area?’

  Rafi froze with his mouth open as his breath caught in panic. Don’t tell, Teruyai had said. Was it meant to be a secret? He thought the pilots would tell every single Sadiri they met. A calmer inner voice said it was more likely that they were waiting to see whether the Ainya scientists were capable of expanding their efforts to something more significant than a hundred-metre circle of decontaminated rubble.

  ‘Is the transit to Sadira restricted?’

  ‘I don’t understand—’

  ‘Can anyone go?’ Dllenahkh rephrased, his voice still patient but with a growing edge.

  Rafi blinked nervously. ‘I’ll ask.’

  *

  Rafi spoke to the Patrona, who spoke to Revered Bezhtan. What the academic thought of the request was never said, though her frightened face spoke volumes, but she agreed quickly enough and insisted on accompanying Dllenahkh through the transit and into Sadira. They descended from the Wall with the now-traditional silence that was expected of a Sadira transit, and Dllenahkh, not at all fazed by the journey, began a slow walk around the dome, unknowingly mirroring what most new Sadiri visitors did – test the gravity with a stamp, scan the landscape for any sign of familiarity.

  ‘So, how did this happen?’ he asked. His voice was too level. He pre-emptively kept his hands away from each other, knowing their tendency to unconsciously react to stress even when the rest of his body forgot what to do. He paid attention to her words, in spite of realising within minutes that she was answering him as if he had asked why not how.

  ‘The conclusion of an old grudge, I’m afraid. The weapon was sent by our ancestors long before the Galactic War. There were legends about it, but no one believed it could have survived and remained on target for millennia. When the disaster happened and the Academes proved it with their research, we took responsibility.’

  She paused and spoke more directly. ‘As for how we got here, that was the other part of our research. There was a one-way transit from Sadira to Ain, used to banish criminals. We still say “dumping down the well” to refer to getting rid of trash or someone undesirable. We found a way not only to reopen old transits but also to restore two-way function. A lot of Ainya were stranded when Ain was cut off, but a few of us knew there was another option. We worked with Academe contacts in Ntshune to establish a biodome on Sadira around the transit site, and then we reopened the transit to Ain.’

  Dllenahkh nodded, listening patiently. ‘And how did you manage to secure Ain?’

  ‘A trick of perception which confuses navigation, nothing more. That’s why the transits still work. We expected full retaliation but there was another fear.’ She paused and breathed heavily. ‘Two of my colleagues were kidnapped and killed. They were tortured to give up information on how to make a weapon that could sterilise the biosphere. No one has that information, so of course they died. They weren’t the only ones. Our planetary authority decided it was better to withdraw from the galaxy completely.’

  ‘I can see the wisdom in that,’ he replied noncommittally.

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, disconcerted by his extreme self-control, then said hesitantly, ‘Let me show you something.’

  She brought him to a fenced area in the biodome. He looked at the uncovered ground and saw a modest monument, a granite block laid flat and low like a giant’s tombstone. The words were in Galactic Standard, Ainya script and contemporary Sadiri type. It was the motto of the planet Ain, a motto for those seeking new lives, repurposed for a world being pulled back from the brink of death.

  THERE WAS AN END. HERE IS A BEGINNING.

  Dllenahkh tried to calm his initial reaction, which was pure rage. He could sense that Revered Bezhtan meant well, he believed that the stone and the inscription had been chosen with all kindness and sincerity and care, but to see the motto of Ain stamped on the dead soil of Sadira looked like conquest rather than apology.

  Solicitous but unperceptive, Bezhtan waited for him to collect himself, no doubt assuming grief was the cause of his sudden tension.

  ‘The restoration of Sadira is the first and foremost project Ain approved when it was discovered that the transit not only worked but worked more swiftly than other methods of transportation,’ she explained softly. ‘We shall continue this work quietly, but of course we welcome the input of the Interplanetary Science Council—’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  Her mouth stayed open, stopped before she could utter another of the platitudes on her list. ‘Hundreds of years rather than thousands but . . . not in your lifetime or mine.’

  ‘Ah.’ It was an acknowledgement, an exhalation. It sounded like sorrow and letting go. Dllenahkh took the stone Rafi had given him and examined it for a brief moment, then laid it carefully on the ground below the monument. ‘I should go,’ he said, with both wistfulness and warning. I should go, before I do something I will regret, see something that will haunt me further, speak the wrong words at the wrong time.

  ‘As you wish,’ she said, her voice betraying that she was almost in tears.

  She had not asked for forgiveness. She had merely asked him to bear witness that restitution had begun. He pushed his fury down and away from his lips and tongue and said, ‘We will discuss this in the next Council meeting. Assistance with this new beginning would be beneficial to all involved.’

  She nodded. He turned away and walked back to the transit point. Thus concluded the first informal yet significant rapprochement between Sadiri and Ainya.

  *

  Months later, when he had finished meditating on the feelings stirred up by his brief return to Sadira, he took the occasion of a long walk on the beach to confide in Delarua, telling her everything the Ainya academic had revealed.

  ‘She kept some information from me, I believe,’ he concluded. ‘There is only one thing that could make a biohazard weapon so swift and so potent, and it is the same thing that would allow a mere navigational trick to confuse modern ships. I think you can guess . . .’

  It took her only a few minutes. ‘Time,’ she said. ‘Time is what turns a technique for gradual bioforming into an explosive, extreme and irreversible change or a long detour into a sudden, inexplicable jump. You’re saying the Ainya have learned to manipulate time?’

  Before he answered, he looked around at the sky, the sea and the land’s horizon to reassure himself of their emptiness. Cygnians had become very accustomed to constant surveillance of one kind or another, but when Sadira-on-Cygnus was granted control of its own airspace, he began to study how to seek out private, unwatched areas. Until Tirtha-level telepathy was achieved throughout the settlement, such spaces would always be needed.

  ‘Learned, or rediscovered. I cannot be sure of it, but I know she did not dare tell me all that she knew.’

  Delarua gave a soft, cynical laugh. ‘Remember when I convinced you that it was the Caretakers? Now there is nothing I have seen in this galaxy that cannot match what we once thought only the Caretakers could do.’

  ‘And yet,’ Dllenahkh said soothingly, ‘we have met a Caretaker, or something like them. A failure of attribution does not always mean a failure of existence.’

  ‘I wish we were less powerful and more wise,’ Delarua said sorrowfully. ‘That
is the real reason for the Caretaker myth, isn’t it? Hoping someone will step in and stop us when we get out of hand.’

  Dllenahkh thought of the wastelands of Sadira. ‘I understand that hope.’

  *

  There were now three ways to get to Cygnus Beta. The usual way was by mindship or Zhinuvian transport to the orbital station, then shuttle to the surface. For Sadira-on-Cygnus, it was more common to use the port at Grand Bay, but the passenger modules and mindships were smaller and the numbers permitted to travel this route were few. Finally, there was the transit located on the fringes of Tlaxce Province near the boundary of the Fa-Ne Provinces. It was still experimental but certified as stable. A few courageous people spent the extra credits to travel more quickly for urgent business, but otherwise it was mainly used by seasoned couriers carrying communications and other forms of microcargo.

  As much as he liked his job, Rafi thought of the transit as too much like work, and Grand Bay was closest to his second home, so he took the extra time and a long sleep to travel via mindship.

  After the usual family visits at the Dllenahkh homestead, Tlaxce City and Tlaxce Lake, he went to visit Ntenman at his father’s estate. Ntenman was out again, but Syanrimwenil was there and happy to see him. At first Rafi was worried that she had not fully recovered from that rushed transit escaping Punartam, but she assured him that was not the case.

  ‘I am enjoying full retirement, Rafi,’ she declared.

  Rafi looked at her, looked around and could not disagree. They were sitting on the patio of her cottage at the corner of the estate, surrounded by well-kept gardens and blessed with a beautiful view beyond. Ntenman’s father had made sure of her comforts. Rafi asked her if she missed Punartam at all and she gave him a vigorous negative.

  ‘Cygnus Beta is a fascinating world. So much to see! Everyone and everything from all over the galaxy is here! Besides, you Cygnians have surprised us. Cygnus Beta may have been primarily a refuge for Terrans, but for the rest of us it was . . . what is that expression . . . “in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”? Many one-eyed Ntshune came to Cygnus Beta because it was better than staying home to be pitied or overlooked. And now their descendants come to us to show us a new way of seeing. It is very fitting.’

  ‘What do you mean? Being a nexus isn’t new. I’ve been trained by people who are much better at it than I am.’

  ‘Oh, Rafihaneki, I was not referring to you!’ Syanri said, smiling broadly at his coyly casual compliment. ‘Have you not heard of the marvellous things happening in Oleha Province? You should know – your friend Serendipity hails from there. There is a team, a sister and brother, who have discovered how to transit from one place to another on the same planet. That has never been done, not even in the era before the Galactic War. They are the offspring of a Sadiri pilot and a Cygnian teacher. They appeared one day out of thin air, floating on the pool at the Tirtha monastery. It is difficult to startle the monks, but they managed it!’

  ‘Floating?’ asked Rafi, trying to picture it.

  ‘Their ship is a wooden floor. They say the woman never leaves it, but her brother is devoted to her and makes sure she has everything she needs. She is the brains of the team, by all accounts. It will take years of research to understand how she is able to pilot transitless with only two simple human minds in tandem.’

  Rafi frowned, trying to unearth a memory.

  ‘Perhaps you know them. The brother’s name is Silvan? Silyan? Oh, ignore me. Here I am, acting as if you should know everyone on Cygnus Beta.’

  ‘Actually,’ Rafi said, his voice a little strained, ‘I do know him. And so do you. I told you about him, how I . . . influenced him once.’

  Syanri became very serious. ‘Rafi, you must meet with him and apologise. Let him know you have had better guidance since then.’

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ Rafi replied neutrally, thinking of the cap and the nightmares and the strictures of the Lyceum.

  ‘Now – tell me more about Terra.’

  He laughed and told her what he could. Several Cygnians specialising in biotech, including Dr Freyda Mar, had swelled the ranks of Dr Daniyel’s small team, taking up residence with Zhinuvians, Sadiri pilots and Ntshune in the dome below the ice of Antarctica.

  As he spoke, he remembered how philosophical Lanuri had been about Freyda’s absence. ‘She has the spirit of a pilot,’ he said. ‘I must let her go for a while.’ At first he thought it was meant poetically, but then his aunt explained that genetic research had in fact traced Freyda’s taSadiri roots to a pilot lineage. He was not sure how seriously he was meant to take that.

  ‘Whatever happened to the Interplanetary Science Council?’ Syanri enquired.

  ‘Fragmented,’ Rafi replied, a diplomatic term for so many of the defections from New Sadira. ‘Most of it is on New Sadira, but those who were at the Academes are now on Ntshune, focusing their attention on the restoration of Sadira.’

  ‘Ah, how sad, and yet how fitting. Did you not have a friend who—?’

  Rafi cut her off, the pain of Nasiha’s memory still poignant. ‘Yes, Tarik. He has relocated to Masuf Lagoon, as far away from the New Sadira Consulate as possible.’ Rafi did not mention his suspicion that Tarik asked each pilot who passed through the lagoon about his wife’s whereabouts. He hoped Tarik would hear something about her, someday.

  Epilogue

  ‘Did he?’ Rafi asked softly.

  The traveller known as Narua stirred from his contemplative daze as the workroom lights gradually brightened. He nodded slowly. ‘What little we know of her, we know because of him.’

  ‘I have not seen Tarik in years,’ Rafi said regretfully. ‘There is always something happening, and being able to travel freely doesn’t always mean having time or justification to do so.’

  ‘I know,’ Narua said, accepting the small apology. He unfastened his bracelet and began to slowly finger his way along the charms, pressing each one gently as if in ritual. ‘No one blames you, Patron. Let me show you something.’

  Rafi smiled and leaned forward in curiosity when Narua lingered over a particular charm and then, at last, unhooked it from the rest. ‘I wondered about that one. It’s Lyceum make. Master Silyan’s work?’

  Narua confirmed it with a brief nod. ‘Made for me when I was still called Kiratsiha, but there’s nothing here I would keep from you. Look at the last entry. I think he would want you to see it.’

  *

  What does it feel like?

  Falling or flying, it was all the same. The only change was the tilt of the Wall, and the Wall was nothing but a frame for the human mind to hold the universe. Master Silyan was a practical man who believed no more in destiny and determinism than in Caretakers and Lady Luck, but he acknowledged the jubilant song in his spirit, his heart and his blood, and counted it proof that his pilot genes were happy to be flitting through space and time. And Galia, his anchor as always, said nothing, but her mind was a hum of satisfaction, her feet stood firm and steady on the floor she had crafted, and where her body would rarely twitch a finger, her expanded self devised greater and more complicated falls and flights, skimming and skipping the surface of their world like a flat stone tossed with playful skill. Her favourite stops were Masuf Lagoon and Tirtha, where she was revered by pilots and monastics and given quiet but ungrudging admiration by Sadiri elders, many themselves former monastics and almost-pilots.

  The freedom of their new life was so intoxicating that it was weeks before Silyan thought to contact the Lyceum and tender his resignation. He was shocked to discover that Galia was continuing to record classes and assess students, but after brief reflection he realised that she had never interacted with students in person and so nothing had changed.

  He was also surprised and worried that there was no reaction to their disappearance, but Zhera, chief among the Sadiri elders at Tirtha, scoffed at his concern. ‘Why should the Cygnian government involve itself in affairs it cannot understand, far less control? Tirtha and Sadira
-on-Cygnus have their own laws and social order. They know that we neither produce nor accept psi-renegades here and they do not challenge us.’

  Silyan imagined a future where the Lyceum and its dubious approach could become obsolete, swept under the rug of history as the aberration of a primitive culture unable to comprehend and nurture the abilities of truly civilised humans. The thought was bitter-sweet, especially when he considered Rafi and others who had not been helped by the Lyceum’s crude methods and his own participation in that process. He told no one, but his work was driven by a deep-seated desire for atonement.

  Galia, of course, knew his thoughts but she did not share his sensitive conscience. As always, her sole motivation was the beauty and mystery of the mathematics that made and moved the universe. Silyan came to realise that she saw him as the anchor, the one who was connected to quotidian life while she stayed immersed, wholly or in part, in the invisible existence that held more of truth and reality than the illusions of the senses. Ironically, that was precisely his reason for thinking of her as anchor. He had lost trust in the importance of the everyday long ago.

  How do you do it?

  And there was another common question. What was that ‘it’? The rare transit from place to place on a single planet? The unique bond between brother and sister that gave them the critical mass of consciousness the universe required for access to its back roads and secret ways? Perhaps they were the same thing, but he was at a loss to explain either.

  One day he met a man who asked that old question in a way that demanded an answer – if not immediately, then at least as soon as he was capable. He was a Sadiri, but not a pilot, and a semi-recluse whose origins were carefully protected by the pilots at the Masuf Hostel. Silyan found himself as intrigued by Tarik as Tarik was by him and Galia. Brief exchanges over food in the dining hall became longer discussions during walks, and then one day some threshold of trust or risk was reached and Tarik invited Silyan to see where he lived. Galia, as usual, remained with her familiar floor and did not come with them.