“Not here.”
I put the blindfold back on, and Sara led me to the area set aside for refugees. There was a guard posted to keep out the curious, but she immediately let me in.
Refugee camps are squalid and depressing places no matter where they are. This one was no exception, but it was also pitch-black and very crowded. The smell was already foul, since none of them had ever seen a toilet and did not know how they worked; they had been improvising by using the bathtubs. Only recently had they discovered that faucets yielded water. Devaux had provided dry ration bars, but the Torobes had not intuited that the stacks of sealed boxes contained other sealed boxes that contained food. Children were crying from hunger within reach of them.
Despite all of it, the Torobes were stoic and cheerful, making the best of their situation, grateful to be back together again. They crowded around me, asking questions, which I answered as best I could.
They were unable to tell me if everyone was accounted for, since each family was in charge of assembling its own members. A few wenders were still absent but presumed safe. Still, it seemed that the great majority of the village had survived, just as we had on the Escher. It was added evidence for my theory that consciousness interacted with the fold rain.
I finally found where Hanna and her family were camped, and for the first time met Breel, the baby’s father. I could not see him, of course, but his quiet, aphoristic manner of speaking reminded me sharply of his father, Dagget.
“Is Dagget here?” I asked.
“Nay,” Breel said, “he left again to seek another habitude. Since our friends failed us, he is trying our enemies.”
“Will he be able to find you?”
“Oh, aye. Wherever Songta is, there will he come.”
My estimation of Songta went up, to think that she was the one who had been beminding him all these years. He would not be the man he was without her. It was one of those mysterious marriages where the partners co-create one another.
I asked Hanna if Moth were here, but she denied it. I became a little worried, not just for Moth, but for how I was going to return to the Ground without her. For it was clear that I needed to return, and soon.
When I left the camp, Lieutenant Devaux was outside, waiting for orders. I relayed to him some of the more pressing needs inside.
“Baby diapers?” he said, flummoxed. “I don’t think we have any in stock.”
“Improvise,” I told him.
Once again, Sara led me blindfolded to the place where Moth and I had felt the Ground. I was growing as tired as if a day or more had indeed passed, but I could not stop; nervous energy would have to sustain me.
Sara paused before leaving me this time, and said, “So it’s true. The instantaneous travel. That imbricator—”
“Will it work?”
“They’re testing it right now. Did you get it from Capella?”
“As far as I could tell.”
She hesitated, and I wished I could see her face. “What do you intend to do with the knowledge?” she asked.
“Save the Torobes,” I answered.
“That’s all?”
“I haven’t thought beyond that.”
As soon as Sara left and I stilled my mind, I felt a strong premonition that Moth was nearby. Did she want me to bemind her? No, I realized, she wanted to bemind me from the other side, to lead me through like a spirit familiar. I surrendered to her, and felt myself pulled like silk through a keyhole.
Once again the void was spangled with points of consciousness, numerous as stars, but I paid heed only to those where I saw my own reflection. I knew now why there were so many; people in the Twenty Planets had been hearing my name again, because of Orem, and those who had known me were thinking of me. I searched, and finally found one I wanted, someone capable of beminding me and trustworthy enough to do it well. I touched her, knowing she would feel it as a ghostly presence, hoping she would think of me.
As in a vision, I saw a dimly lit room, quiet except for the trickle of water and the flutelike call of a griever bird from the garden outside. An ancient woman was meditating on a mat before me. I never would have recognized her face, she had changed so much, but I knew who she was. “Bdiwa?” I said softly. Bdiwa Ral, the cousin who had taught me the discipline of apathi.
She opened her eyes slowly, and did not seem surprised to see me. “Thora,” she said. “I felt there was something I needed to do for you.”
I knelt before her and took her hand, as I had done when I was young. I felt a deep love for this tiny, frail woman, and sorrow for all the grief I must have given her. “I am glad you are still alive,” I said.
“We are a long-lived family,” she said. She had always included me, in defiance of the guardians of the lineage. She touched my cheek. “I knew that you would shake them up,” she said, and I saw the humor still shining in her eyes.
She moved to rise, and I helped her to her feet. She barely came to my shoulder, though once she had been taller than I. She walked slowly across the room and shoved aside the sliding screen between us and the garden. The sun was setting, and streaks of caramel light lay on the lawn, between the shadows of the huge old trees. It was a beautiful estate, with the cared-for look that only land that has been loved takes on.
“It is just the same,” I said.
She turned to look at me. “Why have you come?” She never questioned that I was there.
“I need your help.” I explained it all then—the refugees, their special needs, the danger they were in, the precious knowledge they carried. I had not even finished before she was nodding her assent.
“Of course,” she said. “What good is a place like this, if it can’t help those in need?”
I put my arms around her, something I never would have dared to do when I was young. She laughed. “Your nkida has less power over you than before,” she said.
“If so, it is because of these people of Torobe,” I said.
At my request she showed me to a private room, then left to speak with the estate manager. I settled down in silence and concentrated on Moth until she stood beside me. I took her to meet my cousin.
“You are about the same age Thora was when she first came to live with me,” Bdiwa said to her. This surprised me a little, but when I looked at Moth she did seem older than before. Then I realized that I had beminded her that way.
We spoke for some time of arrangements and needs, but soon we had to break off. “I will return,” I told Bdiwa, “but now I need to go fetch my friends. Moth has to stay here.” I turned to Moth. “I will tell Hanna to seek you out, all right?” She agreed, looking slightly homesick, but resolute. Just as I must have looked, all those years ago.
I took Moth back to the private room that would soon be filling with guests, and there I left her. This time I did not seek out Sara’s consciousness-point, but went straight to Hanna, who beminded me as faithfully as she had done once before. I told her the news that there was a new home waiting for them. It would be unlike their old home, I warned, and require some adjustments, but the neighbors would be friendly and there would be no fold rain. The news spread quickly through the crowd of refugees.
Before Hanna left, I told her that if I did not come to her in her new home within a day, she should tell Moth to come help me through. Still, I am hopeful that this time I can manage to touch the Ground on my own, for I have some other business to transact. This time when I enter that strange state of nowhere-being, I am not going to ignore the call from Orem. I am going to return there, and tell them to have courage in their own power.
When I attempt to go, I will leave this diary behind on the Escher. If someone should find it, you will know where I have gone. I have a new purpose now, with the people of Torobe. I intend to stay with them, and learn from them, and help them ease into their new life. I will try to protect them from the outside world. Good-bye to all my friends on the Escher. Do not be concerned for me. I will be all right.
* * *
Sara decided to wait along with the engineers, die-hard astrophysicists, and other essential personnel. Eight hours before the evacuation deadline, she broke the seal into the refugee center to see if there was anyone who would need to go by wayport. The area was soiled and littered, but deserted. How many people might have been there, she could not guess. None, for all she could prove. It could all be a giant hoax perpetrated by one insane Vind.
She went to report to Atlabatlow that the refugee problem was solved. As she walked the familiar halls, the ship already seemed deserted. It was odd how homelike the Escher had come to seem in such a short time, and odder that she could actually regret leaving it.
Even the security forces were thinning out, she found when she reached their headquarters. No one stopped her from going straight to Atlabatlow’s office and leaning against the doorframe. She found him frowning at a screen that showed the evacuation list. When she reported her news, he nodded tensely. “Emissary Lassiter? Where is she?”
Sara held up the small recorder she had found, left in a prominent spot in the refugee center. “If you believe her diary, she’s already on Vindahar. At any rate, she’s not here.”
“Gone?” he said sharply. “Again?”
Sara shrugged. “She’s a hard person to keep nailed down.”
“We’ll search for her. You need to evacuate,” he said. “I am putting your name on the list.” He consulted his screen. “Be at the wayport at 10:15:05.”
“What about you?” Sara asked. “Are you going down with the ship?”
“No one is going down,” he said. “If you see your physicist friends, tell them to consult their tablets for their mandatory departure times. Their request to stay is denied.”
Sara shook her head at the fanatical devotion to knowledge that must have motivated that request. “What about the engines?” she said. “Can we save the ship, at least?”
“The automated system will start the engines the moment everyone is out. Whether that will save the ship or blow it up, I can’t say. That’s not my responsibility.”
Sara was silent for a few beats, and at last he looked up to see what she wanted. “Colonel,” she said, “we were lucky to have you, in the end.”
She couldn’t interpret the expression on his face. It wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a frown either.
She had some time before her appointment with the wayport, and there was no packing to do because no baggage was allowed, so she went to see David. He was alone in the clinic, tidying up as if for the next doctor to arrive.
“Ready to see Capella Two again?” she asked.
He gave a shrug that expressed more than the usual world-weariness. She realized that he was actually reluctant to leave.
“There’s not much for me to go back to,” he said at last. “I don’t know whether my employers will think I’m a genius or a fool.”
From the way he said “employers,” Sara realized that he wasn’t speaking of Epco. A revelation struck her, and she said, “David—you were the enemy agent? You were the one sent to sabotage Lassiter?”
He didn’t answer at first. But when he looked at her, he saw that pretense was futile. “To sabotage the whole expedition, if I could,” he said.
“Mission accomplished,” she said sourly.
“I barely had to lift a finger,” David said. “All I did was stop her meds, and all hell broke loose. For a while there, I thought I was a genius. But now I’m not so sure. I just have this funny premonition that somehow, the expedition might succeed in spite of all that went wrong.”
Sara thought about that as she walked through empty halls to her rendezvous with the wayport. She had learned to trust premonitions in her time here. But a lot was still riding on what Thora Lassiter decided to do with her discovery—whether she would conceal it to protect the Torobes, or reveal it for the good of all humanity.
In a few minutes—and fifty-eight years—Sara would find out one way or another. She would either arrive back to a Capella that would remember the Iris Expedition as a historic failure, or a Capella transformed by the knowledge that Thora had brought back. Would she open her eyes next onto a world where there were not Twenty Planets, but a thousand?
“It’ll be interesting,” she said to herself as the technician waved her into the translation chamber.
about the author
CAROLYN IVES GILMAN is a Nebula and Hugo Award–nominated writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her novels include Halfway Human and the two-volume novel Isles of the Forsaken and Ison of the Isles. Her short fiction appears in many Best of the Year collections and has been translated into seven languages. She lives in Washington, D.C., and works for the National Museum of the American Indian. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DARK ORBIT
Copyright © 2015 by Carolyn Ives Gilman
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Thom Tenery
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3629-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-2769-1 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466827691
First Edition: July 2015
Dark Orbit Page 29
