by Sharon Lee
Engine power was minimal, and life support also; the shields were in tatters. The dorsal side showed a long, deep score, like that delivered from an energy cannon. That the hull had not taken worse damage—that was something to wonder at. Still, her readings indicated life support and other services low past the point of danger.
It was, the operator acknowledged, a ship in dire trouble, yet it held air, it held together, and it had come under its own power into the space at Tinsori Light. All those things recommended it, and the operator felt a cautious thrill of anticipation.
If the ship were fit to be repaired—but that was for the Light to decide.
If the pilot lived—her duty fell there.
The operator shivered, in mingled anticipation and fear.
They’d taken bad hits, him and his ship, and unless they raised a repair yard or a friendly station soon, there was no saying that they’d either one survive.
He’d come to in Jump with emergency bells going off and a blood-smeared board lit yellow and red. It took determination, and a couple of rest periods with his forehead pressed against the board while pain shuddered through him, and his sluggish heartbeat filled his ears—but he pulled the damage reports.
Whatever had hit them as they entered Jump had been—should have been—enough to finish them. The main engine was out; the hull was scored, and there was a slow leak somewhere; life support was ranging critical and running off impulse power, along with the lights and screens.
In short, he was a pilot in distress and with a limited number of choices available to him.
One—he could manually end Jump and hope Lantis held together, that they would manifest in a friendlier portion of space than the port they had just quit, and within hailing distance of, if not an ally, at least a neutral party.
Two—he could ride Jump out to its natural conclusion. Normal re-entry would be kinder to his ship’s injuries. His own injuries . . .
He looked down at his sticky hands, the Jump pilot’s ring covered with gore, and allowed himself to form the thought . . .
I am not going to survive this.
Oh, he could—probably—crawl across the cabin and get himself into the autodoc. But under emergency power, the ‘doc would only stabilize him, and place him into a kindly sleep until such time as ship conditions improved.
He may have blacked out again, just there. Certainly it was possible. What roused him was . . . was.
Ah.
Lantis had exited Jump. They were . . . someplace.
Gasping, he leaned toward the board, squinting at screens grown nearly too dark to see.
The coords meant nothing to him. He remembered—he remembered hitting the auto-coords. But the auto-coords were for Korval safe spots—the ship yard, the Rock; quiet places located in odd corners of space, such as might be discovered by Scouts and pilots mad for knowing what was there? Auto-coords had taken stock of Lantis as injured and hurt as she was, and, measured through some prior delm-and-pilot’s priorities, cast them together through limitless space to one particularly appropriate destination, to one last hope.
He looked again at screens and arrival data. The coords still meant nothing to him, though their absolute anonymity to a pilot of his experience and understanding gave him to believe that pursuit was now the least of his problems.
The space outside his screens was a place of pink and blue dusts pirouetting against a void in which stars were a distant promise.
If there was a friend of Korval in this place, it would, he thought, be good if they arrived . . . soon.
As if his thought had called the action, an interior screen came to life. Someone was accessing the ship’s public files.
Hope bloomed, so painful and sudden that he realized he had, indeed, given up himself and his ship. There was someone out there—perhaps a friend. Someone who cared enough that it did them the honor of wanting to know who they were.
Jen Sin reached to the board, teeth gritted against the pain, and did pilot’s duty, waking the scans and the screens, directing the comp to pull what files might be on offer at the address helpfully provided by their interrogator.
He found the visual as the files scrolled onto the screen—stared at both in disbelief, wondering if everything, from his waking at Jump-end to this moment, were nothing other than the final mad dreams of a dying mind.
A station rose out of the dust, like no station he had ever seen, all crags, sharp edges, and cliffs. There were no visible docking bays, nor any outrigger yards. From the center of the uncompromising angularity of it, rose a tower; white light pulsed from its apex in a rhythm of six-three-two.
On the screen, the information: Welcome to Tinsori Light, Repairs and Lodging.
He touched the query button, but no further information was forthcoming.
An alert trilled, and Jen Sin blinked at the stats screen even as he felt the beam lock around Lantis.
For good or for ill, friend or foe, Tinsori Light was towing them in.
The pilot had queried the Light.
The pilot was alive.
The operator rose, hands automatically smoothing her robe. Once, she thought, she must have had a robe that wrinkled, showed wear, became stained. This garment she wore now, here, in this role—this robe was never mussed or rumpled. Always, it was fresh, no matter how long she wore it, or how much time had elapsed.
But the pilot—alive. She stared at the screen, as if she could see through the damaged hull, into the piloting tower, to the one sitting conn. Was the pilot wounded? she wondered. It seemed likely, with the ship bearing such injuries.
Wounded or whole, there were protocols to be followed, to ensure the pilot’s safety, and her own. The Light would have its sample—that she could not prevent. Though, if the pilot were wounded, she thought suddenly, that might go easier; there would be no resistance to entering the unit.
The Light was not always careful of life. That the pilot might be frail would not weigh with it. It was hers to shield the pilot, to follow the protocols, and to insert herself between the Light and the pilot, should it come to be necessary.
She looked again to her screens, at the progress of the ship toward the service bay.
Should she, she wondered suddenly, contact this pilot? If she was injured, she might want reassurance, and to know that assistance was to hand.
The operator studied the screens; the lines of the ship being towed into the repair bay.
She sighed.
It was like a design she knew. The Light obviously considered it like enough that repairs could be made. But languages were not so easy as ships.
In the end, the operator tucked her hands into the sleeves of her robe, watching until the ship entered the repair bay.
Blackness ebbed.
He observed its fading from a point somewhat distant, his interest at once engaged and detached. First the edges thinned, black fogging into gray, the fog continuing to boil away until quite suddenly it froze into a crystalline mosaic, the whole glowing with a light so chill he shivered at his distant point of observation.
In that moment, he became aware of himself once more; aware that he was alive, healed, perhaps returned to perfect health.
The chill light sharpened, and from it came . . . nothing so gross as a whisper. A suggestion.
A choice.
He had been returned to optimal functioning; to perfect health. But there existed opportunity. He might become more perfect. His abilities might be enhanced beyond the arbitrary limits set upon him by mortal flesh. He might be made stronger, faster; he might sculpt the minds of others, turn enemies to allies with a thought; bend events to favor him—all this, and more.
If he wished.
The decision-point was here and now: Remain mortally perfect, and perfectly limited. Or embrace greatness, and be more than ever he had—
A sharp snap, and the complaint of pneumatic hinges shattered the crystal clarity of the voice. Warm air scented with ginger wafted over naked skin.
>
Jen Sin yos’Phelium opened his eyes. Above him, a smooth hood, very like to an autodoc’s hood. To his left, a wall, supporting those hinges. To his right, the edge of the pad he lay upon, and a space—dull metal walls, dull metal floor, and, nearby, a metal chair, with what was perhaps a robe draped across its back and seat.
He took a deep and careful breath, tears rising to his eyes at the sweet, painless function of his lungs. He tasted ginger on the back of his tongue—knowing it for a stimulant. She’d gotten him to the ’doc after all.
That thought gave pause. He closed his eyes again, taxing his memory.
There had been a woman—had he dreamed this? A woman with a pale pointed face, her black eyes large and up-slanted, and a hood pulled up to hide her hair. She had picked him up—surely, that was a true memory! Picked him up, murmuring in some soft, guttural tongue that was almost—almost—one that he knew . . .
And there, a key phrase or sound, a match in a part of his memory he was sure was as new as his health.
“Do you wish to sleep, a better bed awaits you,” a voice commented. The voice of his rescuer. Now that his brain was clear, he understood her perfectly well, though she spoke neither Liaden nor Trade, nor the Yxtrang language, either, though closer to that tongue than the other two. Sleep-learned or not, it was a language his Scout-learning marveled at even as he heard it.
He opened his eyes and beheld her, standing quite in plain sight next to the chair. Wordlessly, she lifted the robe, shook it, and held it wide between two long, elegant hands.
“My thanks.” He rolled off of the mat, expecting the shock of cold metal against his soles; pleased to find that the floor was warmed. The robe, he took from her hands and slipped on, sealing the front, and leaving the hood to hang behind.
That done, he bowed, deeply, giving all honor to one who had saved his life.
“I am Jen Sin yos’Phelium Clan Korval,” he said. “My name is yours, to use at need.”
“There is scarcely any need of names here,” his companion said, coolly amused. “Keep yours; it will profit you more.”
“Will it?” He straightened and looked at her.
She was taller than he, the starry robe hiding the shape of her. Her face was as he remembered, pointed, pale, and solemn; the hood was cast back, revealing tumbled curls of some color between yellow and white. Relieved of the burden of his garment, she had tucked her hands into the sleeves of her robe.
“I wonder if I may know your name,” he said.
“It is possible that you may know it,” she answered. “If you do, you might tell it me. It would be pleasant to hear, and to remember from time to time, though as I said, there is little use for such things as names, here.”
He cast her a sharp glance, but she seemed serious, and there was the language interface; this near-Yxtrang tongue had an ambiguous question protocol.
That being so, he moved a shoulder in regret.
“I have said the thing badly,” he admitted. “What I had wished was to learn your name, or what you are called by your comrades, or yourself.”
“Oh.” It seemed that she was disappointed, and he was, foolishly, regretful, that he had no name to bestow upon her. “I am the Keeper of the Light at Tinsori. Others before you have chosen to address me as Keeper. It is enough of a name, I suppose.”
He bowed gently. “Light Keeper, I am in your debt.”
“I do my duty. There is no occasion for debt.”
“And yet, I place a value upon my life. That you return it to me—that is not without value. My ship—”
She raised a hand. “Your ship is under repair. Our facilities here are . . . old, and perhaps non-standard. However, with some small modification, your ship can be brought back to functionality. The Light proceeds with that work.”
“Is there an estimate for completion?” he asked.
She frowned. “No.”
That made him uneasy, but he merely inclined his head. “It is true that such damage as Lantis sustained might require some time to repair. I regret that I must ask—”
“Ask what you might,” she interrupted, brusquely. “I am not so accustomed to company that I will naturally realize what you wish to know.”
“To give a Scout permission to ask questions is generous beyond sense,” he said, attempting lightness. “Immediately, I take advantage, and ask if there is a pinbeam unit on-station.”
She tipped her head, and he saw the glint of what might have been drops of crystal in the tumble of her curls.
“There is not,” she said.
That was disappointing, but not necessarily fatal.
“I then ask—may I gain access to my ship, which has such a unit? If I may draw power from the station, the message might be sent.” He added, as gently as he might, “I mean only to let my delm know that I am well. This is no ploy to call enemies down upon you.”
She laughed at that, which was as startling as it was engaging. No sooner had the sound faded then he wanted her to laugh again.
“To call enemies down on Tinsori Light! That has been done. It did not go well for them.” She slipped her hands out of her sleeves and smoothed the front of her robe.
“Look you, Jen Sin yos’Phelium Clan Korval—messages do not travel outward from Tinsori Light; and in all the time that has elapsed since our founding, no message has ever reached us from elsewhere. The space . . . does not behave as normal space must do. Worse, even the attempted transmission of such a message might disturb the balances that keep us here and now. I cannot allow it. The Light, I fear, will also not allow it.”
He took that as his answer, for now, and assayed another question.
“May I know where my clothes are? There was something . . . dear in my jacket, and I would not see it lost.”
“I have placed your possessions in your quarters,” she said. “Do you want to go there now?”
His quarters, was it? And no time estimated for the completion of repairs, nor access to a pinbeam. It began to seem as if he were a prisoner, more than a customer, but until he knew more of this place, he dare not do anything but bow his head and murmur.
“I would very much like to see my quarters, thank you.”
He had expected standard station accommodations—which was to say, slightly smaller than his quarters aboard Lantis. Instead, he was shown to a room very nearly the size of the apartment he so seldom rested in, at Jelaza Kazone. The metal walls had been softened with hangings, and the floor had been spread with rugs. Pillows and coverlets in bright colors covered the bed. There was a screen mounted in such a way that it could be easily seen from the bed, and a small carved chest on which the contents of his pockets had been scrupulously placed.
Leaving his host by the door, Jen Sin approached the chest—cantra pieces and lesser coins; a flip-knife of Scout issue; his snub-nosed hideaway; a leather-rolled tool kit; and the green-wrapped packet, its ribbons and seals undisturbed, though displaying a few distressing stains upon its surface.
“The leathers are being repaired,” she said in her abrupt way. “There are robes a-plenty.”
“I thank you,” he murmured and turned, holding up his hand. “I had been wearing a ring . . .”
“Yes.” She tucked her hands into her sleeves and came like a wraith across the rug-strewn floor. She was well within kin-space when she finally stopped her advance, and he using all a Scout’s discipline to stay easy where he stood.
She slipped her right hand out of her sleeve and extended it, fingers curled. He held out his hand, and felt the cold heaviness of it strike his palm. A downward glance told him it was his own ring, sparkling as if it were new-made.
“I cleaned it,” she said.
“And I thank you for that kindness as well,” he said sincerely, remembering the gore-encrusted stones. “A third time, I am in your debt.”
“No,” she said.
“But I stand at a disadvantage,” he protested. “Is there nothing that I might do for you, to balance us?”
The black eyes lifted to his face.
“I wonder,” she said slowly, “if you play cards.”
The deck had been strange to him; the game stranger, though he had the rules to a hundred card games committed to memory.
The Light Keeper played with an intensity that was somewhat alarming, and when they paused the play for a meal—the most basic of yeast-based rations—she ate with that same intensity, as one starved for sensation.
After the meal, he pronounced himself weary—which fell short of being a complete falsehood—and she obligingly led him back to his room, standing aside while he entered, the door closing behind him.
Panic took him in the instant he heard the door seal, and he spun, threw himself at the blank wall—and all but stumbled out into the hallway and the Keeper’s arms.
She frowned.
“Are you not tired, after all?”
“I had wanted to see if it opened for me,” he said. “The door.”
“That’s wise,” she answered gravely, and left him there, vanishing ’round the corner of the hall.
He stood for perhaps two dozen heartbeats after she was gone, feeling foolish. Then he turned and re-entered his room.
They fell into a schedule of sorts. The Light Keeper had duties that held her at odd hours, during which time Jen Sin partook of the station’s library. When the Light Keeper’s duty permitted, they walked together, she showing him somewhat of the station.
It was a strange place, the station, and it seemed that he and the Light Keeper were the only persons who walked its halls. He inquired after other travelers, traders, or those in need, but his guide only said that there was very little traffic in the space about Tinsori.
Moreover, the station contained such amusements as were strange to him. One room she led him to simulated planetary weather, so that they were rained upon, dried by a warm wind and then snowed on. The Light Keeper laughed, and spun, shaking her crystal-beaded curls, her robe flaring out to show naked long toes and trim pale ankles.
Jen Sin caught her arm and pulled her out into the warmer hall.
