Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  ‘I’m from Temethu.’

  ‘That’s – north Roehmonde?’ Upwards of eight hundred miles north of Tathcaer, on the way to the Wall of the World.

  He turned halfway round in the jasin seat. A male, with wideset dark eyes, and an intricately-braided brown mane; if I’d known Roehmonde well enough, I could have told his telestre without asking, from the pattern of those braids.

  He said, ‘Don’t misunderstand me, t’an s’aranthi, I don’t even like the Melkathi telestres, and I most surely don’t trust Freeporters – if they trade with outlanders, what do they expect? – but since you s’aranthi brought land-wasters here, what else can I do but be here?’

  The skurrai shook its long-skulled head, feather-pelt glinting bronze; all four split pads searching for purchase. Then, as the jasin crested the slope into the Square, the brown-maned male turned back to guide us through the crowds that thronged the great open space.

  Getting down from the carriage at the Wellhouse steps, I overheard comments about s’aranthi. Anger, resentment … and more than that: a kind of massive dismissal. The stones of this city so old, that Citadel that crowns the crag there standing for two millennia; and the lives of these people built and rebuilt, like telestre-houses, structures of memory. No wonder offworlders seem so transient to them.

  Cassirur appeared as soon as I entered the Wellhouse gates. She led me past courtyard and fountains, away from the main dome, to an onion-domed building. I pushed through the bead-curtain, blinking at interior shadows.

  ‘She came to Ashiel at midday on the day that you left here,’ the red-maned Orthean woman said, walking through into inner rooms. Her green slit-backed robe was rumpled, travel-stained. At another curtained door, she stopped for a word with one of her ashiren.

  ‘Is she hurt? I can’t get any sense out of Hal.’

  The Earthspeaker Cassirur paused. Her eyes cleared, the bright pale green of sun on lapuur-fronds; she was a flame of colour against the brown brickwork of walls and ceiling and floor.

  ‘If you were from a telestre I would say to you: the Goddess gave you your twin in her, and she hers in you.’

  I stepped through into the small room. Light seeped in through a slot-window; the air was hot. There was a low couch-bed pushed up against the wall, and the Pacifican girl sat up as I entered, and put her feet down on the floor. They were lacerated, bloody; there were deep scratches on her bare arms and legs. She still wore a meshabi-robe, and her brown hair was braided in an approximation of the hiyek manner.

  ‘Where is he?’ she demanded.

  ‘Where’s who?’ And then I realized. I sat down on the edge of the couch-bed beside her. ‘You mean Sethri-safere?’

  ‘I mean his body.’

  ‘They took it up to the orbiter, I believe.’ It seemed crass to state that it was for an autopsy.

  ‘I want to see it.’

  ‘Pramila, I can understand that. I’ll arrange it, if I can. I’ll have to make other arrangements, too; you realize that? The Company will take disciplinary action –’

  ‘I don’t care about that.’

  She put her head in her hands, pushing her fingers through her filthy hair. So much tension in the line of her back: she was holding herself together by willpower alone. In that dim light I couldn’t see if she wept. When she straightened, her expression was stunned, despairing.

  ‘I don’t think I even care about what happens to Jadur and Charazir and Wyrrin-hael, and he would call that despicable … As for the Company, I –’ She gripped my arm. Her nails were bitten down bloody. We’re always warned not to get involved. Aren’t we? Ms Christie, I’m involved. His people are my people, it doesn’t matter what I said just now. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Can you take me to someone who can talk for the hiyeks?’ I asked. I would have bruises where her fingers tightened on my arm.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll try. I – it wasn’t easy to get away. There are things you ought to know.’ She blinked in the twilight. The heat was making her sweat; when she rubbed her face, it smeared the dust into pale streaks on her sallow skin.

  ‘Cassirur’s right. You were right, too,’ I admitted. ‘I could have done what you have. Perhaps I should have done.’

  ‘Yes.’ Not an ounce of regret in her voice. She let go of my arm, and wiped her hands across her face. ‘One thing the Company ought to know is the extent of the arms trade. We were able to bring in material from Thierry’s World too. I’ll give you details. Ms Christie, I’ll give you whatever you need to know. His people are my people, and I don’t care what I do, I’ll stop Kel Harantish and that woman –’

  ‘Calil?’

  She stood up. Her balance was erratic, she swayed; and I stood up and took her elbow. She shook herself free. A young woman, barely able to stay on her feet; and she looked up at me with a face that blazed hatred.

  ‘She and those like her. Sethri may have made me part of his raiku, but that’s one thing I don’t have: that ingrained obedience to the Harantish Witchbreed!’ And the use of his name visibly hit her, she swallowed; all the Company’s training in detachment coming into play.

  ‘Will I find any group I can talk with at Rimnith or Keverilde?’

  Waiting for an answer, I felt an empathy almost painful. This young woman, exhausted and filthy and determined, pushing herself to go on, crippled by loss – I might be her, I thought. If I’d ever had the guts to follow my instincts. And I might suffer a loss like that. Still, for all that, is what I feel something like envy?

  ‘Stay away from Melkathi,’ she said at last. ‘Where are the other ships? If you can find them, there are some Anzhadi raiku there.’

  Blaize said, They would probably kill anyone you sent to talk with them in person. (And is he any safer, in the Freeport?)

  ‘Can you keep going for a while longer?’ I asked. ‘I’d intended to try contacting the hiyek ships myself, but there might be some chance of success if you’re there, and they know you. If you can come with me, it’ll count favourably on the Company report.’

  Pramila Ishida said, ‘Shit on the Company, and on all the Companies, and on all of us too. Yes, I’ll come with you.’

  As we left the small room, the Earthspeaker Cassirur halted me for a moment. She pushed a young black-maned ashiren forward. ‘Send the child with your messages, t’an Christie. I’ll be in the Citadel, The s’ans are coming to us now – we have to think of defence; of Melkathi, as well as Morvren Freeport.’

  That chilled me. I nodded and left her, following the young Pacifican woman out into the courtyards. She moved like an automaton through the morning sunlight, with Cassirur’s ashiren scurrying at her heels; and heads in the Square turning to stare as we came down the Wellhouse steps. Nothing to do but go back to Westhill-Ahrentine now. There were no skurrai-jasin to be seen; rather than attract a crowd, I shepherded Pramila and the child towards the nearest alley-entrance. We could walk down into the city.

  Sun reflected back from the upper storeys of telestre-houses, shadows shrinking down into the alleys as noon approached; for the moment I was cool. Above, a ribbon of sky was thick with a snowfall of days tars. Ortheans sat on steps, talking, or in the tunnel-entrances to inner courtyards. A hush made me tread quietly, footsteps in any case muffled by the dust; listening to the sounds of the city. The creaking axle of a skurrai-wagon, the soft pad of marhaz and rider … Cities are quiet on Orthe, so quiet you can hear people’s voices. And is it because I expect to hear it, but is there a new tone, a new edge, an urgency there?

  ‘I don’t mean quantity alone,’ Pramila Ishida said suddenly. ‘What we brought in – not just CAS hand-weapons. It’s all good Company equipment, seconded from Thierry and Parmiter. I – to tell you the truth, I’m not sure what we did bring in. Not all of it.’

  Does it surprise me to hear that? I thought. Knowing the multicorporates – no. Nothing wrong with some semiofficial arms trading, so long as you don’t get caught; and so long as you by no means allow your on-world staf
f to know what the fuck you’re doing –

  I swallowed down anger. ‘Give me what information you can.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was the last word she said between there and Westhill-Ahrentine: an hour’s hot walking, and the last mile or two by skurrai-jasin. Cassirur’s ashiren, whom I thought to be six or seven, got over its shyness, and chattered solemnly as it walked beside me, pointing out barred entrances and the names of telestre-houses. Orthean young seem hardly humanoid, all spider-fingers and curling mane. No, we are not like them; no, they are not like us: Pramila, how could you think it?

  But I know how.

  The courtyard of Westhill-Ahrentine still held table and couch-chairs and ochmir board, but no Haltern. I sent Pramila Ishida and the child on up the steps to the upper rooms. And then I walked over to the scrub-ziku, beneath which Tethmet Fenborn still sat: gold-green skin shining as if he had just come out of water.

  ‘Has there been word from the Tower?’

  That sleek dark head came up, and he fixed me with lustrous dark eyes. What on Ortheans are claw-nails are, on fenborn, indisputable claws: he pushed ochmir counters at random across the board.

  ‘Word goes back to Kasabaarde,’ he said.

  Irritated, I said, ‘In that case, you can pass on a message from me. Tell Ruric –’ and then I hesitated.

  ‘She is not the Orhlandis,’ Tethmet said.

  ‘I know … Tell her, if she has any influence over the Desert Coast Ortheans, she must use it. And if she has any influence over Kel Harantish, we need that even more. This has to stop before it goes too far.’

  At last, grudgingly, he inclined his head in agreement.

  ‘Lynne!’

  I looked up, and saw Doug Clifford at the upper-storey window. A shadow beside him resolved into a black Pacifican: Lutaya.

  ‘Okay,’ I called; and then spoke to the fenborn again. ‘You can tell her something else. Tell her the Company’s compromised. Tell her it’s difficult for us to act as neutral arbitrators now, though we will. Tell her, the Tower may be the nearest Orthe has to its own neutral arbitrator.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tethmet said.

  Tathcaer’s white sunlight shone down in dapples through the ziku, falling on his sleek black shaven mane, and on green-gold skin that shimmered into invisibility. The ochmir board lay abandoned, two-thirds of the minor hexagons covered with white counters: ferrorn, thurin, leremoc. How does a fenborn male come to know enough of this telestre game to beat Haltern n’ri n’suth Beth’ru-elen? The fenborn live long …

  ‘Shan’tai, will you stay, please?’ I asked. ‘I have something to ask of you. Not of the Hexenmeister, of you yourself.’

  He said, ‘I will stay.’

  The steps up to the first floor were steep, and the sun on my head was hot. I paused once, looking back at the fenborn male; and found him watching me. Then I went inside.

  Ravi Singh and Chandra Hainzell stood by the holotank in the first room, he looking bewildered, she deep in conversation with the WEBcaster Lutaya, and both turned towards me as I entered.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ I said; and pushed the bead-curtain of the second room’s arch aside. The place still had its air of abandoned decay, print-outs and microcorders scattered across the low tables. Haltern glanced up from a couch-chair by the open window. Pathrey Shanataru stood there, staring out over the harbour, and didn’t turn as I came in.

  And Doug was staring at Pramila Ishida with an expression so complex I despaired of interpretation.

  ‘Lynne. Are you calling Company Security, or shall I exercise my authority as envoy, and have this woman confined and deported?’

  ‘Now hold on just a minute –’

  The Pacifican girl put out a hand to the back of the couch-chair, steadying herself. I realized she was on the point of collapse. I gripped her elbow, pushing her over to the other couch-chair, and made her sit down. Then I took Doug a pace or two aside.

  ‘Yes, I’m notifying Security; no, she isn’t being deported – not until we know exactly what she authorized in the way of weapons trade. And I may need her for something else.’

  ‘She has to face what she’s done.’ Doug sighed, shook his head very slightly. ‘Lynne, I don’t understand you. Regulations aside, what that girl has done on Orthe – the damage caused through her actions – makes me furious. You, I imagined, I would have to restrain from being homicidal.’

  The small room was hot, close. Harsh bells began to ring outside in the city, the deliberate strokes of midday; drowning out the clatter of skurrai-jasin and the high voices of ashiren.

  ‘What she’s done is more than criminal … Douggie, I could have done it, in her position.’ I went on quickly: ‘What I want to do now is get an analysis of satellite-images of the fleet. Somewhere on those ships there are Anzhadi hiyek-Ortheans. And then I’m going to take the Ishida girl with me, and fly in, and try to make a contact.’

  When he said nothing, I snarled, ‘Somebody has to try it.’

  He turned his head momentarily, so that I saw his blind profile, looking over at Pathrey Shanataru; and then his gaze returned from the dark Orthean male to me.

  ‘It may be of little use to speak to the Desert Coast Ortheans. It’s the Harantish Witchbreed who have the influence now, and if you plan to make contact with any of them, I imagine you’ll find it worse than useless. Lynne, there is a point at which the danger outweighs the possible advantages.’

  ‘We’ve got maybe four days before that fleet can reach the Melkathi coast, and then we’ve got a full-scale invasion on our hands!’ I became aware of voices silenced in the outer room, and added more quietly, ‘I’m also planning to ask Tethmet to come with me, if he’ll consent to go. He is the Hexenmeister’s advisor, and that may just sow some doubt in Harantish minds.’

  ‘You must talk with Pathrey –’ Doug broke off as Mehmet Lutaya came through from the outer room.

  ‘I’ve got the records set up, Representative. Not just Ariadne. Some from Trismegistus, and Anansi.’ Lutaya blinked long eyes, waiting.

  ‘We’ll come through.’

  Haltern rose unsteadily from the couch-chair by the window. He rested almost all of his weight on the silver-topped hanelys cane as he walked to stand beside me. The hooded reptilian eyes blinked, lazily; and he smiled that old, sly smile.

  ‘Don’t deny an old man the chance of seeing this, S’aranth-te. To know how these otherworlds of yours see us, that would be fascinating.’ He paused, directing his thin voice at the WEBcaster. ‘To know if they see us as requiring a – what is your term for it? A “Protected Status”. That, also, will be fascinating.’

  And if they don’t see it that way, you’ll be only too pleased to say whatever’s necessary to make them see it – Hal, you don’t change. For which small mercy, I suppose we must be grateful.

  We crowded round the holotank in the next room. Pathrey Shanataru followed us, and Pramila Ishida also, looking as though she could barely stand up. Is this wise? I wondered. Douggie gave me a very quizzical glance. But if there’s government and Company here, I thought, aware of Ravi and Chandra and the rest of the Commercial staff; if there’s takshiriye and Harantish Witchbreed and WEB-casters, what difference can one more make? If I had my way, I’d have hiyek-Ortheans here too.

  ‘This is one of mine,’ Lutaya said, activating the holotank; and for a moment there was an expression of diffidence on that self-confident face: not so oblivious to comment as I’d assumed. ‘For Home Worlds consumption. Summary-update.’

  The holotank filled with darkness. In the depths, star-fields took shape and gleamed; and the viewpoint shifted smoothly to a crescent of white and blue:

  ‘Carrick V, called by its intelligent hominid species Orthe, might have remained merely another backwater world on the borders between the Heart Stars and the Home Stars, if not for one thing – its past, Orthe is littered with the ruins of a vast and ancient alien hi-technology civilization, and with the devastation left by the war t
hat destroyed that civilization, two millennia before humankind achieved spaceflight.’

  Beside me, Douggie said softly, ‘Oh dear …’

  ‘It’s a matter of presentation,’ I said, wincing.

  The holo-image dissolved into an aerial view of the Desert Coast canal system, that in turn faded to a long-distance shot of mesa-like white walls – Kel Harantish.

  ‘Six months ago, Orthe became more than a backwater planet of interest only to anthropologists and academics. Six months ago, relics of Witchbreed technology were discovered – artifacts that are still functional. The PanOceania multicorporate moved in a commerce-and-research team.’

  The Desert Coast city was abruptly replaced by another image: a wide, island-studded estuary, sky dimmed by smoke, the buildings on the nearest island furiously burning. A metal-sailed jath-rai tacked across the channel, image clear enough to see the rails lined with armed men and women.

  ‘Six months later, this is the result.’

  ‘I protest,’ Pramila Ishida said. She was leaning both hands on the rim of the holotank, supporting herself; and then she caught my gaze, and frowned as if she puzzled herself. ‘That is … I don’t hold a brief for the Company, not any more, but it isn’t that simple.’

  ‘It’s a summary. Other ’casts have gone out,’ Lutaya said, as his own image appeared in the ’tank. In shot with him, against a background of the Freeport estuary and the distant Rasrhe-y-Meluur, stood Cory Mendez.

  ‘Commander Mendez, you’re in charge of the Security force that PanOceania has brought here to Orthe. Can you comment on this second use of armed force against the local population – the second use of force within three weeks?’

  ‘In both cases, a small use of force was authorized, not against the local population, but in terms of a warning, against property. Harbour structures, in the main.’

  Try to look at it as an outsider, I thought; seeing Cory’s lined, capable face. Is she plausible? Is she right?

  ‘Commander Mendez, the most reliable estimates for casualty figures on the southern continent are: 6 dead at Reshebet, 3 dead at Nadrasiir, 24 dead at Pazramir –’