“How did you find these places?” I asked.
“Our forebears became acquainted with theirs. We have kept visiting these many years, bringing them rarities they desire in exchange for food and goods. They know us well by now.”
“If you trade with them, you must be able to bring physical objects back and forth.”
“Only what we can bemind,” he said. “We must know a thing’s true nature. Something we have used, or wrought, or tasted, or worn.”
“Do you ever discover new habitudes?”
“We know of many, but they must discover us. If they know us not, and care not, we cannot go there.”
That might explain a lack of contact with Twenty Planets worlds. Despite our many cultures, our educated classes share an overlay of scientific rationalism that discounts the reality of apparitions and spectres, as the wenders must appear to those who do not know them. But I might have an advantage over Torobe’s wenders, for even after fifty-eight years there must still be people who remember me. On all the planets I have been to, I must have left traces of myself in the minds of those I have known. But do I want to let myself become whatever they thought of me? Not on Orem, clearly; what about elsewhere?
It is a question I might have to answer soon. If escape by the wayport remains cut off, the wenders’ route might be the only alternative.
* * *
It did not take long for Mr. Gibb to become dissatisfied with the undramatic life in Torobe. “All they do is sit around and make things,” he grumbled. “That might be all right for the homey-crafty crowd, but there’s no big audience appeal in it. I wish they hunted.”
“Think more creatively,” Sara said. “The Choristers have made a fortune selling music and cuisine, and Malvern crafts were all the rage for a while. There must be something here you can feature.”
She soon regretted her advice. She was talking to Songta one morning when the old lady’s granddaughters came rushing in asking for their jingle dresses. “Hath someone had a baby?” Songta asked in surprise.
“Nay, the Gibb is leading a ceremony,” said Rillowa, the older one.
Sara could hear drumming from down the street. “I’d better check this out,” she said.
When she reached the meeting-cave, she found a crowd assembled. A flock of young girls was at the center, sporting dresses fringed with broken bits of chime-leaf that glinted in Gibb’s dazzling halogen lights. The dancers jingled and flashed at every move. Songta’s granddaughters pushed past Sara like a pair of mobile suncatchers to join their friends. Mr. Gibb was at the center of the action, directing a group of musicians and trying to line up the girls into proper formation for dancing. Sara saw Rinka, usually the most reticent of the elders, standing on the sidelines listening and smiling at the proceedings. “What’s going on?” Sara asked her.
“The Gibb is teaching the girls to be ‘photogenic,’” Rinka said.
“This isn’t something you normally do, then?”
She chuckled. “Nay, not this way.”
“I’ll put a stop to it,” Sara said, starting forward. Rinka laid a hand on her arm.
“Nay, what’s the harm? If this is what will interest thy people, and make them want to give us a home, then we are pleased to do it.”
“Is that what Gibb told you?”
“Aye. Is it a falsehood, think you?”
No, Sara thought glumly. It was no falsehood. Gibb knew exactly what he was doing. A colorful ceremony involving nubile girls in pretty costumes would capture eyes back home. If such a custom did not exist, then why not invent it?
Never before had she seen an intact society, untouched by outside influence, start to manufacture pieces of cultural expression for export. The Torobes were cheerfully making themselves over to suit market demands. It had happened blindingly fast.
She returned to base camp feeling glum. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said to Touli. “We’re polluting this culture beyond recognition. This is the most botched First Contact ever.”
* * *
Sara knew she ought to concentrate on devising a proper research protocol, but the thought of their marooned spacecraft intervened whenever she sat down. As soon as she could, she seized a moment when the others were all occupied, and went in search of Thora. “Let’s take a walk,” she said.
They set out on a path that led deeper into the cave. It was well marked at first, but soon they left all trace of settlement behind and came to a shadowy labyrinth of boulders and old lava flows. The small pocket of light formed by their lamps seemed to contract as if compressed by the silence. Darkness followed behind them, until Sara felt enveloped by it. Fairly certain they were out of earshot, she stopped and said quietly, “Moth let slip some things I thought it was better not to spread around, and I need to know whether you’ve heard them, too. She seemed to be saying that the wenders know a way to get to other places without passing through intervening space. She claimed to be somehow teleporting herself between the Escher and Torobe.”
Thora showed no disbelief; in fact, she was watching Sara intently. “Did you observe her doing it?” she asked.
“Not exactly. What I observed was that she was missing for a while, then returned with new information from Torobe.”
“And I observed that she was missing from Torobe, then returned with a headnet recorder she could only have gotten on the Escher.”
“Really? A headnet?”
“That, and a lot of news about all of you. This was some time ago, before you arrived.”
The time when Moth had been missing from the ship, Sara thought. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “So it’s true.”
Thora said, “Haven’t you wondered how they survive in this cave? Where do they get their clothing, and tools, and grains? They claim to get it all through trade, from the profits of transporting small, valuable goods from habitude to habitude.”
“You mean other cave-colonies like this one?”
Thora first shook her head, then corrected herself. “There may be some; I don’t know. But if anyone were raising maize or smelting metal on Iris, surely we would have detected it.”
Dropping her voice very low, Sara said, “You think they are traveling to other planets?”
Thora seemed reluctant to answer. She turned and shone her flashlight over the rocks behind them, as if to be sure that they were truly alone.
Sara guessed at what she was thinking. “Listen,” she whispered, “if this is true, it’s a fabulously valuable discovery. It would change everything. Epco will argue it’s too valuable for a handful of preindustrial natives to own, and cultural patrimony laws don’t apply. I’d go even further. I think it’s too valuable for Epco to own. It belongs to all of humanity.”
Thora looked deeply troubled, and Sara felt a moment of misgiving about having voiced betrayal of their employer. But that was not what Thora was thinking. “I don’t want the Torobes to be harmed,” she said. “If the outside world starts thinking they have something valuable, they’re going to get harmed, whether it is true or not.”
“You think it might not be true?” Sara asked.
“I think it might not be simple. The first question is, why can they do it? Maybe blindness is necessary. Maybe this place is the key. I already know it’s not an easy skill to learn. There are drawbacks and dangers to their method of travel, and limits to where they can go. Wending is a partnership between the traveler and a person at the destination, and both may need to have a knack. There is an entire body of traditional knowledge about it, precepts that warn about misuse. The thought of it being commercialized … it’s not just abhorrent. It could be very dangerous.”
“So … you think it’s something the Magisterium ought to handle?” Sara said.
She wasn’t prepared for the vehemence with which Thora said, “No! No, if you knew them as well as I do, you would not suggest that.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Nothing yet,” Thora said. She gr
asped Sara’s arm tensely. “Give me time to find out more, Sara. Don’t let it out. Please.”
Sara made a motion to zipper her mouth. But she said, “We may be running out of time. If the Torobes know a way out…”
“I don’t know if it’s possible for us to use their method safely; probably not, or we would have discovered it long ago. But I need to find out.”
Far back on the path to the village, a light was approaching. “Someone’s following us,” Sara said. “Better get back.”
They had gone far enough into the cave that Sara was actually grateful to have a beacon to guide them back; without it, all directions seemed the same. It turned out to be Atlabatlow, of course; he gave Sara a gorgon stare as they met, but refrained from lecturing. Sara never got to use the impish retort she had prepared.
* * *
Atlabatlow and Touli had finished setting up a string of communication relays to the outside, and the monitors were sending a steady stream of readings back to the questship. “Anything interesting?” Sara asked Touli, but he shook his head.
“Not so far,” he said. “Not even a fold shower, much less a rain.”
They also had a radio link now, and Atlabatlow was constantly talking to his officers on the ship. Sara was busy with her own work and paid little attention to him till one day when she was washing her laundry in the hot spring, and his voice from just behind her back made her start. “Go fetch Lassiter,” he said.
“Damn!” she said, turning around. “Don’t sneak up on me that way.” She took in his expression, hard and tense. “What is it?”
“There is an emergency on the ship. We need to get back.”
She sat back on her heels. “What kind of emergency?”
“I can’t tell.”
She was about to say, can’t, or won’t? when she decided she would find out sooner if she didn’t provoke him. Drying her hands on her coveralls, she rose slowly.
“Please hurry,” he said, and set off to round up Gibb and Touli himself.
When they were all assembled, Atlabatlow said, “We are leaving immediately. Pack up everything you need to take back. Inform anyone here who needs to know. Leave the monitors in place. We will reassemble in fifteen minutes promptly.”
Quietly, Thora said, “If you leave me a lamp and batteries, along with the radio, it will be all I need to continue my research.”
“No,” the colonel said in his command voice. “We cannot leave anyone here.”
“My work is essential,” Thora said. Sara could tell she was deeply alarmed, but her surface was unruffled.
“My orders are to ensure your safety, Emissary,” Atlabatlow said. “I cannot leave you behind.”
“Can you guarantee I will be safer on the ship?”
“I have control over the situation on the ship. Here, there is no control.”
“Listen,” Sara spoke up. “It’s my job here to represent Epco’s scientific mission. I say she stays.”
The look Atlabatlow gave her was so ferocious she took an inadvertent step back, even though there was space between them. He bit off his words one by one. “It is my job to keep you all alive. There is no mission if you are dead.”
Sara quickly recovered her scrappiness. “I don’t see anyone dying here,” she said, “unlike on the ship.”
“You are out of line,” he snapped. “If I have to arrest you, I will.”
“Oh, that will look good on Gibb’s recording,” she said sarcastically.
“Stop!” Thora intervened. “I will go.” She turned to Sara, who was about to protest. “I can perform my next experiment from there. It will be all right. Just give me time to speak to Dagget.”
In the end, Atlabatlow consented to give Thora some extra time, and Sara had to swallow the unsatisfying feeling that she had lost a round. She was forced to admit to herself that sparring with the colonel had become a kind of exhilarating, dangerous sport. The hint of sexual overtones only made it more interesting.
When word spread that they were leaving, a small crowd of villagers gathered to say farewell. They were less inconsolable than Sara had expected; in fact, they acted as if no one were going very far. “We are well pleased that we have friends in thy habitude now,” Songta said. “Perhaps we can visit thee anon.”
Sara had expected Moth to pester them to take her back, but after Thora had a private conversation with her, the girl said not a word. As the explorers hoisted their packs, the Torobes did not wave; they broke out in song. On the long climb up the steps to the cave passage, Sara trudged in time with the music.
After such a long time in dim lighting, they all fumbled for their dark goggles when they emerged into daylight. On taking in the scene, Sara discovered that Atlabatlow had ordered the shuttle to move closer to the cave mouth; it now waited in a clearing formed by its own landing just below the hill on which they stood. Glad not to have to retrace their long hike through the forest, they all hurried down to the vehicle and piled inside.
With Torobe behind them, Sara began to worry about what sort of emergency could have prompted Security to call them back so suddenly. All the while they strapped in and took off, Atlabatlow was carrying on a tense, low-toned conversation with someone, but he volunteered no information.
It was not until they were in orbit and approaching the questship that they realized how profound the emergency was. “Oh my God,” Sara said, her eyes on the monitor that showed the view ahead. The long spindle of the questship had been rearranged. Irregular appendages now jutted out from the spine, and the working areas of the ship, once evenly distributed, were now clumped at one end. It was impossible that the ship could still be functioning, that anyone inside it could still be alive.
chapter twelve
They returned to a different ship than they had left.
The interior layout had been thoroughly scrambled. Whole rooms had been relocated, rotated, or stretched into new shapes. Walls now intersected hallways, doors appeared in ceilings, areas that once had been adjacent were now separate. But strangest of all, the hull had not been breached and the life-support systems were rerouted but functioning—not well, but sufficiently well that no one had suffocated or frozen to death. The lights flickered and buzzed, but were mostly on.
As soon as the landing party disembarked from the shuttle, Atlabatlow left to take charge of his security team. Sara and Thora had no idea where their quarters were anymore, so they both went with Touli to find the Descriptive Sciences Department. In the halls, search teams were still patrolling for people who had been trapped in rooms that now lacked accessible doors; there were places where holes had been knocked in walls and ceilings to rescue people. They came across a large, arched doorway leading into the refectory, which had previously been accessible only through a closet. “Well, that’s an improvement, at least,” Sara said. When they glanced inside, they saw a posse of physicists camped around what seemed to be the only functioning coffeemaker. The scientists looked up from an intense argument when Sara, Touli, and Thora approached.
“What the hell happened here?” Sara said.
“You tell us,” Magister Sarcodan replied. “And while you’re doing that, you can tell us why we’re not all dead.”
Sara settled down at the table. “I take it you don’t have an explanation.”
“Hell, we don’t even have a theory,” Sarcodan said.
“It’s a fascinating geometric puzzle, though,” Emile Begoya said. “How such a complex shape as the questship could be refolded and yet not lose integrity.”
“You said ‘refolded’?” Sara said alertly.
“Yes. It’s as if dimensionality itself underwent a reorganization, like an origami puzzle, and the Escher happened to be in the way. I take it you observed nothing similar on the planet?”
“No,” Sara said, “but we heard a lot about folding. I think you may have been lucky this time. We’d better not count on it in future.”
“I concur,” Emile said. “In fact, I can’t explai
n our survival this time.”
“Consciousness,” Thora said suddenly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Have you considered the role consciousness may have played in keeping the ship intact? All the minds on board, convinced that they were in a ship that fit together as a whole, beminding it back into existence.”
“You can join the physics mystics club,” Sarcodan said. “But that doesn’t explain how it happened before.”
“Before?” Sara said. “You mean…”
“I mean before any of us arrived. Obviously, the ship was not designed the way we found it. There were no practical-joker architects playing tricks on us. The ship was refolded even before any minds were on board.”
“There was an artificial intelligence,” Thora pointed out. “The operating computer. Its machine consciousness may have been enough to maintain the ship’s structural integrity. It had an understanding of the ship systems, because it was designed to monitor them.”
“Sounds as plausible as anything I can think of,” Touli muttered.
“Well, maybe if we all join hands and believe hard enough, we can wish a functioning wayport into existence,” Sarcodan said sardonically.
“I take it there’s no joy on that front?” Sara said.
Sarcodan shook his head. “Let’s just say we hope you found some welcoming natives, because that’s quickly becoming our only option.”
The three from the landing party exchanged a look. Sara couldn’t bear to break the news to them. She rose and said briskly, “Well, gotta go. Can anyone tell me where the clinic is now?”
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