Dushau tdt-1

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  He slowed, saying tightly, “I’ve got to get you out of here before you cause another incident.”

  Tired, fighting the gravity and the lighting, nerves shredded, she suddenly couldn’t cope. “If it bothers you that much, I’ll go move my things onto Terab’s ship!” She wrenched free and stalked away from him.

  He caught up with her near the walkthrough and pulled her to a stop. They were blocking traffic, and she was conscious of curious stares swiftly averted. In a hoarse whisper pitched just to her ears, he pled, “Don’t, Krinata. I only meant that I must protect those in Renewal here. We’re all under a lot of stress.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the theory that stress brings out the true person?”

  “That may be for humans. Not for Dushau.” He raked the indigo crowd around them with a glance. Krinata noticed the odor again as he escorted her through into Truth.

  As he hustled her along, she asked, “Does being human mean being socially unacceptable? Or is it just socially unacceptable to stand up to Grisnilter?”

  Staring straight ahead, he breathed grimly, “Sometimes being Dushau means being socially unacceptable!”

  Through his light touch on her arm, she noticed a faint tremor; not the same as when she’d come to him in the imperial antechamber, nor the suppressed fear she’d felt before. This was different.

  Curious, she let him steer her to his own cabin. When they were alone in the large living area, he motioned her to a seat. “Let me talk to this Oliat trainee, and then I’ll do what I can to explain. Don’t leave yet. Please.”

  He went into the tiled room, leaving the hatch slightly ajar. Under the sound of rushing water, she heard a swift conversation in modern Dushauni. What she caught of it sounded like a job interview crossed with a character probe. She listened, trying not to think that he might want nothing to do with her after what she’d said to Grisnilter. Her mother had always told her that her imagination and her temper would be the end of her.

  Through the fretting of her own thoughts, she heard Frey, the young Oliat trainee, answer a question, “Yes, I’ve heard all your reputation. Is it true?”

  “Yes,” answered Jindigar.

  “You’re one of the most experienced Oliat officers still working. You could not have survived so long, or still be welcomed by Thellarue, if you hadn’t learned to respect the power of Oliat—in all of its manifestations.”

  The word the youngster used for power had a half dozen other meanings Krinata had never quite grasped. She’d once thought “magic” might be one possible translation, but no glossary listed it. She’d never considered that an Oliat had power that had to be respected, the way one respected the power of a weapon. Yes, that was the connotation: the Oliat was a weapon to be respected. I wonder what Rantan would make of that idea?

  When Jindigar returned, dressed in a crisp white ship’s uniform, he shoved a low cushion up beside her couch and sat cross-legged in his whule-playing position. “I apologize. I should not have been so abrupt with you. Forgive?”

  He was so contrite, she said, “I have to apologize for what I said to Grisnilter.”

  “What exactly did you say?” He seemed wary.

  She told him, verbatim. His face was a study in flavors of amazement. “Krinata, why?”

  “I lost my temper. And I’m going to tell him so.”

  “Not soon, I’m afraid. Arlai just told me he’s had another episode. He’s not well, Krinata.”

  Arlai projected his simulacrum and apologized for interrupting. “I have those test results now, Jindigar. It’s definite. He won’t renew again, but he may have twenty or thirty years left. I’m sorry.”

  Jindigar put his face in his hands and dismissed Arlai.

  “Oh, Jindigar, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” An idea blossomed, and before she could think, she blurted, “He isn’t your father, is he?”

  He looked up startled. “No. Of course not. My father was designated King, remember? And he’s much younger than Grisnilter.” He sighed.

  “If he’s ill, why doesn’t he go home with the others? Perhaps there, they could find a way to trigger Renewal.”

  “Krinata, that ship carries dozens of Renewals, or those close enough to be affected by those in Renewal. Grisnilter would be every bit as difficult for them to deal with as you would. And there’s no point. There’s no cure for old age.”

  Now she put her head in her hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was so ill. Jindigar, when I saw him heading for you, I thought he was going to start in on you right there in public. If he’d made you fumble that connection and accidentally kill Thirlein…”

  He plucked at his hands where traces of the adhesive from the costume still showed. “He probably was planning to start on me again.” He gazed at her, measuringly. “There was a woman, an old friend, near Renewal. She wanted me to go home with her. It hurt to say no, but I had to. Then I found out Grisnilter had put her up to it because she, like him, believes my association with so many Ephemerals is a sign of deep unbalance. Grisnilter saw me refuse Thellarue’s offer and I’m sure he figured I was ready to leave Oliat behind at last. He expected me to take her home and train as an Historian, show everyone I’ve finally come to my senses. But he’s a colleague of my mother, was her mate once, and so I have to be polite while he tries to do his duty to my family.”

  She was beginning to see dimensions of their situation she hadn’t considered. With a trace of resentment, she said, “If you’d told me that to begin with, I wouldn’t have —”

  He made an exasperated gesture. “Krinata, if I told you a tenth of what’s involved, it would take longer than you have to live. All of this happened while you were voting!”

  She’d already lost her temper once today, and she wasn’t going to again. But she had one more question. Jindigar had been increasingly emotionally unstable lately. The stress of their escapades plus Grisnilter could have caused it. But it could be something else. Bluntly, and without preamble, she asked, “When will you go into Renewal?”

  His wideset indigo eyes flicked aside. “I don’t know. It’s been eleven hundred and fourteen years since my last Renewal. That’s long, but not absurdly so at my age. If we can get that ship on its way, and I have time to calm down and get over all that’s happened, then it could be another fifty to a hundred years.” Wistfully, he added, “Or I could have gone with them and let it happen now.”

  “What you’re saying is that you’re planning to go through Renewal away from Dushaun.”

  He picked at the adhesive on his hands. “As it is, I’ve no choice. But, given our current situation, I probably won’t survive a hundred years and have to face it.”

  “Is that why you’re willing to take suicidal chances?” She thought of his original plan for dealing with the seeker craft, and Arlai’s reaction. Surely the Sentient understood Jindigar’s position better than Krinata did.

  His hands stilled as his eyes bored into hers. “Do you really think I’m taking suicidal chances?”

  She felt a terrible weight of responsibility fall upon her. She reviewed everything she’d seen him do.

  “Because if you do, Krinata, then I really must go home with them, despite everything.”

  She could see that he did not want to go home, but was suddenly afraid his reluctance was unsane. Dushau, she reminded herself, couldn’t survive eroded sanity. “Isn’t that the sort of question you should ask a fellow Dushau?”

  He wilted, as if facing a doom. “You may be right.”

  She was suddenly overcome with compassion. “No, I don’t think you’re really trying to kill yourself to avoid facing something unpleasant. I really believe your obligations are your true motives. In an Ephemeral, it would be considered perfectly sane to be totally dedicated to saving other people’s lives, even at risk of your own. And I’ve never read that cowardice was a Dushau trait.”

  His silence was broken by a vibrating thump. Jindigar eyed the direction of the Dushau ship. “They’re away. Arl
ai, did they take Thirlein?”

  “Yes. When she got her bearings, she was delighted. She’s looking forward to going home.” There was a wistfulness in his voice.

  “Are Frey and the other two new passengers aboard yet?”

  “Yes. Everyone is set. Inrinan asks permission to detime, and Terab says, ‘Good luck, and I’ll see you soon.’”

  “If it’s safe, give Inrinan permission, and tell them I hope they find a good planet.” He rose, as did Krinata.

  “Thellarue says, ‘Hurry home.’ They’ve detimed.”

  Jindigar instructed, “Tell Terab to wait. Krinata, will you stay with me? I’m not asking you to endanger yourself—”

  She felt the pressure of final decision once more, though her mind was made up to stay if he’d let her. But in the next moment, it all became academic.

  Arlai interrupted Jindigar to announce, “I’ve lost touch with Terab. She has de—”

  A Shockwave rippled through Truth. Krinata fell into Jindigar, knocking him to the deck and sprawling on top of him

  A bank of viewscreens on one side of the room brightened to incandescence, and Krinata rolled into a ball to protect her eyes. She felt the soft nap of Jindigar’s skin as he rolled over, his body protecting hers as if he expected an explosion. Then he was on hands and knees, rising to charge out of the room, demanding, “What happened?”

  “Terab’s engines blew when she attempted to detune,” answered Arlai in his professional test-pilot-in-trouble voice. “Some of their pods are away, no lifeboats, though.”

  As Krinata reached the corridor hatch, looking both ways for sign of Jindigar, Trassle streaked by and she plastered herself against the bulkhead to avoid his sharp claw-hands. Then she followed him.

  She knew nothing about space rescue, was clumsy in null-grav, and, after her brief exposure in Arlai’s walkthrough tube, was a budding deep-space phobe. But she did know some passenger ships were designed to blow apart into airtight “pods” in a major accident. If the hatches sealed fast enough, and if another ship collected the ship fragments soon enough, it was possible some of the passengers might survive.

  She wasn’t going to let Jindigar go out there alone.

  TEN

  Lehiroh Wedding

  The landing bay was open to space. Krinata followed Jindigar into the airlock suit-room and snatched a suit from the rack. Hers had been abandoned on Intentional Act.

  ‘Krinata,” objected Jindigar, struggling into his own suit, “you can’t go out there! Even in the tube, you had difficulty.”

  “Never mind that. I’m going.”

  Arlai’s voice could be heard, terse and harried, from inside Jindigar’s helmet which lay at his feet. He picked up the helmet and said, “She’s not going!”

  But there was no reply. He shook the helmet in frustration, but there was no further word from Arlai. “I think Arlai’s reached his capacity fending off those chunks of spaceship while mounting the rescue and fighting to hold our position despite the turbulence from the explosion.”

  “Look, even Arlai said I’m needed,” she guessed. “So I’m going.” She stared perplexedly at a stubborn fitting.

  He plucked the suit off her shoulder, saying, “This isn’t adjusted for a human. Take suit number five. But you’ll have to do your own check. Arlai’s too busy. Remember what I taught you?”

  “Sure,” she said confidently, and struggled to recall the first time she’d suited up. It seemed years ago, but once started, she had no difficulty going through the checklist, matching it to one engraved on the wall behind the suit’s hook. She believed Arlai had hit critical load, for the lights and gravity didn’t change around her as she moved.

  Inside the suit wasn’t much better, but she was distracted fighting down memories of that instant of stark terror she’d felt in the transparent walkthrough tube. The one Arlai had used to connect the Dushau ship had been opaque. Now she was going to be floating free in bottomless space. She cursed her imagination and did her best to turn it off, focusing on what those poor people in the pods were going through. Her own plight faded to insignificance beside that.

  Krinata followed Jindigar, Trassle, and two Dushau who seemed to know what they were doing into the hard vacuum in the bay. Anchored with cables, she watched the experienced spacehands mounting lines and grapples on powered scooters.

  Arlai’s tractor beams had captured several of the pods. Other pods were receding from the center of the explosion. As she watched them tumble against the infinite backdrop of distant stars, which she tried to ignore, she saw several of the ship-sections had been torn in half, furnishings and bodies dribbling out into space. Others had been crushed. Scorched and melted debris floated everywhere.

  Her breath caught in her throat and she clenched down hard over her gorge. As soon as three scooters were ready, the two Dushau mounted together. Trassle and Jindigar took seats alone. Krinata mounted the saddle behind Jindigar.

  His voice came over the headset, tinny and small. “You should stay and help guide them in.”

  “Arlai can do that.” Already, it seemed all the scurries Arlai owned swarmed inside the open bays or on the hide of Truth, preparing to receive space junk, and wounded flesh. “Let me help,” she pled.

  “No use arguing with you!” he conceded, and kicked the scooter to life.

  It’s about time you noticed that.

  They swooped over the lip of the landing bay and targeted a pod, Arlai guiding them with intermittent and distracted attention, as if he were a juggler keeping too many objects in the air at once.

  “This one first,” said Arlai. “It’s losing pressure.”

  They clanked onto a piece of ship’s hull, Jindigar expertly catching a bossing with his towline, totally ignoring Krinata. There was a long, complex exchange with Arlai as Jindigar seated three more towlines, then the Dushau was back on the scooter, perfunctorily checking Krinata’s seat belt, saying, “We’re going to give a towing burn now, then go to the next one while this one drifts in.”

  Without apparent effort, Jindigar aligned their scooter’s heavy-duty engines, and at Arlai’s count, gave it maximum thrust. She could hardly see any change, but Arlai was satisfied, briskly dispatching them to the next fragment.

  Krinata caught sight of Ephemeral Truth, her first glimpse of it from space. Since they were in deep space, not orbiting a sun, spotlights were aimed at the places where scooters worked, and dimmer running lights adorned the sleek, flat shape with its streamlined bulges and open cargo bays. The Allegiancy didn’t build spaceships for beauty anymore. She had to blink away a tear, understanding why Jindigar’s voice always held a note of affection when he called Truth an antique.

  On their next pod, Jindigar admitted he could use help, and showed her how to place the towlines. And on the following one, he had her hold the scooter steady while he circled the pod looking for an unbroken bossing. The free-fall flights between fragments increased as they all receded from the center of the explosion. At last, they came to a large pod Arlai said held at least one living human.

  “Krinata, think you can seat these lines while I anchor the big ones?”

  ‘No problem,” she said, trying to sound competent. She’d kept the fear at bay by concentrating on learning the job, not allowing her eyes to stray from objects immediately in front of her: her panel of indicators, Truth itself, the nearby pod, or the back of Jindigar’s suit during the long flights between pods. People’s lives depended on her not losing her nerve or making mistakes through haste. In her old job, thousands of lives had depended on her decisions about the safety of a planet. In that respect, this really wasn’t all that different. It just happened faster. And she’d always told herself she had what it took to cope with life or death emergencies. She was going to be a colonist after all.

  They both dismounted, and Jindigar fussed with the scooter’s

  controls until he was sure it would stay put. Then he fired his suit

  tthruster to take him off to th
e edge of the pod. She took the smaller lines and nudged herself onto the surface of the pod, searching for intact bossings. She found the one she needed and anchored and tested her line. The second line was no more difficult. At least there are no imperial troops shooting at us.

  What she’d faced in the last few weeks made the current job seem like a performance in a nice, safe gym. Feeling cramped, she stretched, arching her back, and caught sight of the canopy of stars. With no ship or ship’s fragment in sight, it was a bottomless well beneath/around/within her. She gasped. Spellbound, she forgot about safety lines and towlines, for she saw a multibranched lightning tree etch itself between stars. She saw planets energized to life by that primordial lightning. Beyond the edge of perception, she heard the soul-vibrating hum made by the stars orbiting galaxy-center, pushing then-way through the void, dragging planets and clouds of charged particles with them.

  Each star created a note of a different pitch, each orbiting planet added a note to that pitch to make a chord of transcendent beauty.

  And it was beauty that drew her. Annoyed with being held back, she pulled her boots free of the pod’s skin and pushed off, falling into starry nothingness, suddenly wanting to engulf it all within her body.

  Her very identity dissolved, and she knew only eternities of time and the infinity of space. The meaning of the tangible beyond the real seemed self-evident; she felt she could reach out to touch God.

  Wisdom beckoned, tantalizing, just beyond the limits of knowledge, and she knew in a moment she’d understand all. She freed herself of all restrictions and pursued perfection that was the purpose of life itself.

  “Krinata?” It was a tiny voice, easily ignored.

  “Krinata! Krinata!” The louder noises washed through her meaninglessly. She fled into the beyond.

  “She’s slipped her line!”

  “You’ll never catch her, Jindigar. You don’t have enough burn-time in your tank.”

  Meaningless noise. Beyond, truth called seductively.

  Anger-fraught curses in a familiar indigo voice. “I knew better than to allow an epistemological loose in space.”