by Mary Gentle
‘Unless we come up with something concrete, the Company won’t have a future here. I didn’t bust a gut getting a team together just to look at some post-holocaust agricultural muck-heap – if it wasn’t for the chance there’s something real here –’
She broke off, and took the navigation-comlink seat, fitting her long legs in with some care. Shuttles are too cramped to quarrel in, we are all within each other’s space. She tapped desultorily at touch-controls. ‘Communications systems out again?’
David grunted, leaning over the console. ‘About sixty per cent of the time. As far as I can make out, it’s the background interference again.’
I said, ‘We always put it down to some quirk in the solar radiation here. It could be looked into, when you – when we – take time off from the commercial interests.’
‘If it weren’t for the commercial interests, PanOceania wouldn’t be on this world.’
David brushed fair hair back again. A slight, wiry man, with a smooth-skinned face, and folds of skin at the corner of dark eyes; I would have put him around eighteen, I knew him to be a decade older. He had that kind of sexual attractiveness that becomes plain in movement. When not angry, he can be both charming and amusing.
He touched the console, converting one of the screens to 3D-cartographic. ‘Carrick V.’
A globe formed, turning slowly. Figures superimposed over it: mass 0.93465 E-standard, gravity 0.9482745 E-s, atmosphere …
Travelling against the sun: a scatter of islands showed up, and then the slow revolution brought continents over the slope of the world.
‘You really think there’s something here?’ His voice lost its sharpness. ‘You know the odds against it?’
Northern and southern continents connected by an island archipelago, all but enclosing an equatorial sea.
Molly Rachel said, ‘There’s evidence, here. It’s not been possible to investigate fully all the worlds the Dispersal found –’
‘Wouldn’t be possible even if every woman, child, and man on Earth took a world each,’ I put in.
‘– why shouldn’t something be tucked away in a dirt-poor settlement on a post holocaust world? Why shouldn’t it be here?’
‘“It”?’ I queried.
David added, ‘And even then, it has to be something we haven’t found on half a hundred other worlds.’
Molly leaned forward, watching the map’s population-indicators fill in: round the shores of that Inner Sea, and further inland on the northern continent. She touched a key.
‘Desert Coast,’ she ordered; and then, ‘I don’t mean artifacts. That’s toy stuff. I mean some science based on a totally alien perception of the universe, something we couldn’t create on our own …’
‘And what d’you think you’ll do with it when – if – you find it?’ I asked.
The light from the screen shone on her blunt features, gleamed in her hair. I recognized a hard ambition in her.
‘Maybe there’s – I don’t know. Simultaneous communication, so we don’t have to spend days waiting for FTL-drones between worlds. Transgalactic stardrives, cures for mortality, who knows?’ She grinned. ‘Whatever it is, better we should have it than NuAsia or any of the other Companies!’
‘And you personally would settle for a fat promotion?’
‘Be ungrateful to refuse, right?’
In the screen, webs of lines shifted. A perfect illusion: the God’s-eye view of this world. It zoomed in to the southern continent, cutting out all but its northern coast, that strip of barely habitable land some few hundred miles long, bordering the Inner Sea … West to east, names came back: L’Dui and Lu’Nathe, Kasabaarde, Quarth, Psamnol, Reshebet. And here, on the hook of the easternmost peninsula, farthest from the trade-routes, Kel Harantish. The backwater settlement of a backwater world.
I said, ‘I’ve a feeling that Kel Harantish would have found something, if there was anything to find. They’re the only ones here that would go looking for it.’
Memories of that treasure-junkheap were plain in her face.
‘And just maybe they have found something. God, I wish I could get back in there with a full research team!’
Her intensity bothered me. It didn’t seem to worry David. But he’s Company, himself.
Molly sent the narrow-view north from the Desert Coast, over the representation of the Inner Sea, and even to scale it was long minutes before the sea gave way, first to the Eastern Isles and then to Lone Isle. And then, long moments after, to the coast of the northern continent.
‘I want to get in touch with the Earth representative before we make another attempt here. There was something in his report about political negotiations in progress now, between the Desert Coast and the northern continent –’ She touched other keys, frowned. ‘Navigation back-up out as well?’
David said, ‘I’ve made contact, but not reliably. I wouldn’t advise night-flying without it. Not in an old model like the QKN-40.’
I think it’s standard practice these days for an orbital ship to broadcast a complex system of navigation aids over any non-tech world; it makes piloting a shuttle no more difficult than piloting a groundcar. It also means you don’t have the on-board equipment necessary to do without it.
The woman studied figures. ‘It’s much faster, but it’s a waste of fuel to go back up to the orbiter … If we stay on-world, we’ll have to do a night stop-over on one of those groups of islands. Dave, can you punch a transmission through and let the others know?’
‘I’ll get on to it now.’
I said, ‘I’d stay on-world, if it was me.’
‘Mmm. There’s something to be said for that, psychologically.’ She rested her chin on the heel of her hand, gazing at the screen.
I tried to see it just as that – lines and beads of light, neatly-scripted Sino-Anglic names, figures, latitudes …
‘I’ve notified them,’ David said.
‘Okay. Lynne, what’s the settlement the British government envoy will be in? Didn’t they change it from the original first contact?’
‘Northern continent.’ I indicated a point about midway along the coast of the Inner Sea, a river-port in temperate, fertile latitudes. ‘That was my original base, Tathcaer. The records say there’s been a move west along that coast, here, to Morvren Freeport.’
She nodded. ‘The government envoy, Clifford. From what he reports, over the last decade there have been considerable changes in the northern continental culture.’
No cold recitation of names can hide them: Tathcaer, the city where first I came to negotiate with the Hundred Thousand – with Dalzielle Kerys-Andrethe, and Haltern, and the Orhlandis woman. And Morvren Freeport, a city seen once, ten years ago, on the run for a murder I didn’t commit …
Changes. Reports are sketchy, don’t see what I would see. What changes? The Desert Coast is nothing to me, I hardly know it, but I know the Hundred Thousand telestres of the northern continent, I’ve been over them on foot or by riderbeast, honoured or hunted, I know the Ortheans of the Hundred Thousand –
Fierce impatience fired me. To have come so far, to be so close; no room now for other considerations, nothing now but urgency – how have you changed since I’ve been gone?
David began routine flight preparations. Molly flicked the screen back to exterior-view.
The winter sun’s dry heat gone, temperatures plummeted. The Coast’s rocky landscape glittered now, thickly furred with frost.
Once, in a room where alien sunlight shone upon the still surface of a well, an Orthean woman marked me with light and sacred water, for her Goddess. I thought it then either a charming irrelevance, or some obscure privilege. I know now it is neither. It is a responsibility. For all the years gone by, this alien world and I still have business with each other.
Luck held. Flying north and west across the Inner Sea, late afternoon of the next day brought the shuttle away from unbroken cloud-cover, into clear weather over the coast of the northern continent.
&nb
sp; Land shone grey and blue in the viewscreen, furred with a moss of forests; silver-thread rivers thirty-thousand feet below. Nothing showed it to be inhabited country. And yet every acre down there is accounted for, I thought. A great jigsaw of interlocking territories – the telestres that are (in human terms) estates, farms, communes, communities … And are in Orthean terms the heart and centre of kinship, and love of the Goddess’s earth. They have been so for two thousand years. What changes might there be?
‘I’ve got an intermittent signal,’ David Osaka reported. ‘Standard code. Must be a landing beacon – hell, we must be right on top of them!’
‘I thought this world was Restricted, no hi-tech?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. Ask your government’s envoy.’
Did I imagine an emphasis on your?
‘One has to be reasonable,’ Molly added. ‘Is it enough to bring us in, Dave?’
‘It’s as good as we’re going to get. Activate crash-straps.’
Linking the web across myself, I saw land swelling from a blue bowl to a misty plain, indistinguishable from the sea. The shuttle thrummed and lurched, losing height rapidly.
I felt new enthusiasm. Kel Harantish and that room without doors: I could put that behind me now. Let me get back on firm ground, with the Company administration and the government envoy. That’s a system I know how to work. I can do something there.
The shuttle levelled out, and then switched into hover-mode. I watched a sea too pale for Earth, and white stars in the daytime sky. For the first time since my return, I felt confidence.
The port irised open. A blast of cold air and rain rushed in. A break in the mist showed water, the estuary shore, and blue-grey mossgrass uprooted by the landing. We disembarked. Rain drizzled, warm and sparky, leaving a tang on the tongue. Clouds shifted, bright, echoing Carrick’s Star beyond. Wind drummed in the ears.
‘I’m not landing blind again,’ David swore.
‘We were coded to this area, but I don’t see –’ Molly Rachel turned her collar up against the drizzle. ‘– where … ah.’
Morvren Freeport is built upon islands, across the massive estuary of the Ai River. Walking round to the other side of the shuttle showed us a dock-shed, and ferry, and a figure who left that shelter and walked towards us. It was human, and I let him speak to the Pacifican woman, and then: ‘Douggie!’
We embraced, and then stood back to look at each other. I thought, How dare you look this young?
‘It must be, what, five years?’
‘Six,’ Douglas Clifford said. ‘I heard about Max. I’m sorry, Christie.’
I’ve never managed to answer that one satisfactorily. ‘So am r seems flippant, though it’s true; ‘thank you’ is no acknowledgement of grief.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’re looking well, Doug. Offworld agrees with you. And you’re the government’s –’
‘Peripatetic representative,’ he said, relishing every syllable. Douglas Clifford: a short, slightly-built man in his mid-fifties, with bright eyes and grizzled red hair; dapper even in these conditions. ‘I’ve got a six-world circuit, two months on each. It’s good to see you again. You should have come back to the Service to visit us.’
‘With this?’ I touched the PanOceania logo on my shoulder. ‘I’d have been as welcome as the plague.’
‘Can we get out of this weather?’ David Osaka protested.
‘I have quarters in the city.’ Clifford indicated a nearby island. When the shuttle was secured, we walked down to the water. Spongy mossgrass gave way to mud, and an uncertain footing, and the rain-haze quickly cleared. Across the narrow strip of water, I saw pale walls, long low buildings. Like shadows, tri-vaned sails of windmills stood locked and still.
I smiled at a memory. ‘Do you still have to pay to get in and out of the city?’
For answer, Clifford slid metal beads from a thong, handing them to an Orthean in the ferry-shed; a cloaked and hooded figure.
The ferry was a wooden platform with canvas stretched over wicker hoops: I walked uncertainly down the floating jetty and on to it, gripping the near rail. The two young people huddled under the canvas, Molly with her head ducked down; and after a word with the Orthean male, Clifford joined us. A cold day. I tried to place the season – Orventa Eleventhweek? Twelfthweek? Late winter, anyway.
‘How many Earth personnel on-world at the moment?’ Molly asked.
‘None, I think, not since the Richards brothers left. They had an archeological dig up in the Barrens,’ Clifford said.
‘We paid a visit to a Company archeological site on the way here – Kel Harantish.’
Douglas Clifford looked at her with a certain stillness. Yes, I thought. Circuit world or not, you know Orthe …
‘You went to Kel Harantish?’
‘That’s right.’
He let the challenge in her voice pass. Chains clanked as the wooden platform pulled away from the jetty. Choppy water tugged us seaward. I held the rail tightly, looking out across that level expanse of water; and it seemed odd, in that flat country, to look up at the Freeport’s walls.
David Osaka, glancing back at the small island we’d left, asked, ‘Is that the only available landing site?’
‘The locals are touchy about land. So yes,’ Clifford said, raising his voice over the sound of the sea. The fresh wind blew in his face and made him squint. He watched Molly, not the boy.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if your Earth-base is in the most advantageous position,’ she said. ‘The Desert Coast has more to offer.’
‘That depends on what you’re looking for. The Hundred Thousand is the largest political entity –’
‘I’m looking for Witchbreed technology. Not agricultural societies in cultural decay. I need somewhere for my research team to set up a base – I’ve got to get the demographic people down soon, and the basic equipment.’
Wind whipped hair, drove cold spray into cloth. The ferry platform shuddered as it was winched into the quayside; I saw the turnpike-winch was powered by squat reptilian quadrupeds, copper-coloured beasts with cropped horns. Skurrai. The sour smell of their dung was overpowering.
‘If I may say so, this world is still nominally under the guidance of the British government. Restrictions are still in force as regards the importing of technology.’
She watched Clifford, and there was no compromise in her expression. ‘I have authorization for what I’m doing. You can rely on the Company’s being responsible –’
‘Of course,’ he said mildly. I winced.
‘I need results,’ she said. ‘I need them fast, if I’m to get the funding to stay here – and I need to stay, because I’m certain there’s something here for the Company. More likely on the Desert Coast, but possibly here. So if you’ll set up a meeting for Lynne and me with the local T’An or T’An Suthai-Telestre or whoever –’
He said, ‘There is no T’An Suthai-Telestre. Nor is there a T’An of Morvren Freeport.’
‘There isn’t what?’ I demanded loudly.
The platform grated against some steps, and I followed David up to the quay, treading somewhat unsteadily; then I swung round on Doug, as we stood among deserted, canvas-covered bales of cargo.
‘Douggie, what the hell are you talking about?’
‘The telestres don’t have a central authority now. Or local leaders. It’s a little difficult to explain. The system of administration has been in abeyance for some years.’
‘Cultural decay,’ the Pacifican woman repeated.
I thought, Christ, you’ve been quiet enough about that in your reports. And I guess her kind of comment is the reason why.
The rain passed, and every moment the other Freeport islands grew more distinct: Northfast, Little Morvren, Southernmost. Daystars made brilliant points of light in a silk-blue sky. One sound underlay all conversation: the ceaseless beat of the waves, driving back sand into the estuary. There was a smell of rotting vegetation, siir and hanelys that, having died upriver, was no
w swept down on rain-fed winter floods.
I thought of that small, pale-maned Orthean woman, Dalzielle Kerys-Andrethe: T’An Suthai-Telestre in the white city of Tathcaer. If those days are gone … what could have caused it?
Not cultural decay. Orthe is never so simple to comprehend.
I heard David Osaka’s sharp exclamation, and looked up to find him staring south across the estuary. He said, ‘That …?’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is the Rasrhe-y-Meluur.’
Chill wind made my eyes water, squinting south across the islands and multiple channels of the Ai river estuary. And there, six or seven miles away on the last outcrop of the mainland …
The winter air is pearl-blue and grey, so close in colour that the massive chiruzeth structure hardly shows against the sky. A great spire, or pylon, its sides reflecting silver light; so vast that the passing clouds cast shadows on its surface. I had forgotten the sheer size of it, greater than PanOceania’s hiveblocks back on Earth.
It is a hollow ruin. A chiruzeth shell.
The simplicity of its line is broken once only, where a thin bridge-structure juts out, soaring straight across the Inner Sea to where (dimly visible in haze) there is another spire, and then another …
One should see it so. I was grateful to the cloud-cover, because for some odd reason I hadn’t wanted to look down on this from the air. Bridging the waters on which its shadow falls, this that was once both highway and air-hung city of the Golden Witchbreed …
And once, on a sailing ship, I travelled beside it for the full length of the Archipelago, from Morvren across the Inner Sea to Kasabaarde – two hundred miles and more. Just to look was to feel the sheer weight, the massiveness of these ruins.
‘The satellites picked that up on low-orbit.’ Molly sounded stunned.
‘That was the level of technology here,’ I said, still looking at that shell. ‘Five, maybe ten thousand years of it.’
As if by common consent, we turned away. Paradoxical as it may seem, the Rasrhe-y-Meluur is somehow too big to be seen. The mind rejects it.
Molly Rachel, as she turned to the first buildings of the Freeport, said, ‘Isn’t it tragic that these people should have lost all that?’
