There was a scraping sound behind them all, and Six’s voice made them all jump. “If you ever insult Valhai Diva again, Tallen, you shall have to answer to me.” Six finished pushing the small package in front of him, and then pulled himself out of the tunnel. “And if you are in good enough shape to waste energy verbally attacking people, you can come back with me to bring the rest of the supplies through before the winds come. We haven’t got much time. Here, Ledin. Here is the drip for Cimma.”
Ledin sprang to life, and bustled around, setting up the drip in Cimma’s arm. He was hesitant at first about putting a needle into a vein – his training had not really got that far, but Six had brought more lamp packs and the area around them was soon flooded with light.
The light showed Bennel, getting to his feet shakily; and Tallen, who was glaring at Six.
“I will help you, Valhai Six,” said Bennel.
Tallen turned up his lip. “As will I, you Coriolan sycophant.”
“Take that back, thief!”
“I will not—!” Tallen took the time to avert his head to be sick, and then continued as if nothing had happened, “—You are one of the palace employees, Bennel, a traitor to the ordinary people.”
“Oh please! As if I have to listen to a sapling like you! Spare me all the hot air, will you?”
“Sapling? Who are you calling a sapling? I will n—”
“Tallen! Enough!” Six wondered why he found the boy so exhausting. He understood the bravado and the resentment. Perhaps he himself was changing? “You can both help me, if you don’t mind. There are at least six journeys to make. Come on!”
Looking suspiciously at each other out of the corners of their eyes, the two Coriolans obeyed; Tallen sliding easily through the narrow entrance, and Bennel following with rather less dexterity, being much bulkier than the boy. Six brought up the rear, after exchanging a glance with Ledin and Grace, and raising his eyes heavenwards.
THEY WERE JUST in time. The wind arrived as Six was trying to thread himself for the last time into the tunnel, pushing the final small package of supplies before him. He felt the blast hit his legs, still poking out of the hole, and they were pushed with an immense and unstoppable force against the side of the tunnel. He bit back a cry, and shoved at the package in front of him desperately, pulling in his feet with all his muscles as quickly as he could. They had left that a bit fine.
Once back inside the tunnel, they found things were much better. Cimma had been moved to one side, where Grace was tending to her; the drip had been fastened to a spur of rock above them. Petra had at last started to come round, and was lying with her eyes open, though still unable to move without great pain. Ledin had made little piles of the stores, according to their use, and was in the process of selecting nutripacks and waterpacks for all of them.
“Here,” he said, passing one of each to Tallen and Bennel. “We need to get this inside us.” Then he handed one of each to Grace, placed two beside Petra, for when she was capable of drinking and eating, and then pulled off the top of a nutripack for himself. He tipped the contents back into his mouth. “Ahh! That is much better.”
Six tried his own nutripack after taking a long draught of water, and had to admit that Ledin was right. Even a nutripack could taste like a sweetfruit. He found he couldn’t remember when he had eaten last. His stomach was curling around the food like a Cesan catumba protecting her young. He took another gulp, and then another.
Grace had drunk some water, and was now attempting to get some nourishment inside her, when a tiny murmur made her put the nutripack hastily down again. Cimma was fighting her way out of the semicomatose state. Grace leant down to hug her.
“Grace? Is that you? Don’t worry about me; I am fine.” The Sellite woman moved her head from side to side, and opened and closed her mouth with some discomfort. Grace tore open a waterpack, and dribbled some of it inside the corner of her mother’s lips. Her mother gave a long and contented sigh, which turned into a sharp intake of breath as she tried to lift her head.
Grace made her lie down again, and explained what had happened. Then she turned a radiant smile to Ledin. “She is going to be all right!”
“We are all glad, Grace,” Six told her. “Make sure she stays just as she is, will you? We can’t do anything for the next twelve hours anyway, so it makes sense to stay here quietly and try to get our strength back.”
Grace nodded, and turned back to her mother, dampening a cloth from what was left of the waterpack, and using it to wipe Cimma’s forehead and face. She drew in a long breath and then exhaled slowly. They had been very lucky. Very lucky indeed.
Chapter 20
DIVA DOCKED THE shuttle on the New Independence, and hurried to the cargo bay without going through the detox showers. She was very worried about what she would find in the hold. The whole ship seemed to be empty and unresponsive. Her footsteps echoed along the metallic corridors.
At last she reached the hold where the canths should be. Even Diva paused for a moment here. Then she took a deep breath, and pushed the hold doors open.
The man who spoke to canths was squatting beside Cimma’s sorrel canth, which was lying on the deck on strewn straw, and panting. The rest of the equines, Diva saw, were standing and looking reasonably healthy.
The Xianthan turned to her, pleased to see her. “Diva! Is Cimma all right?”
“She was unconscious, last time I saw her. Ledin was looking after her. He said he was hopeful that she would pull through.”
“I thought she had died. Her canth has come very close to it.” He got heavily to his feet and walked up to Diva, holding up his hands to touch hers. “May the heavenly triangle protect you. I am very glad to see you.”
Diva touched his fingertips with hers. “May Almagest go with you,” she replied politely. “Are the other canths all right?”
He gave a brilliant smile. “Indeed, yes. They know that they have achieved something most important, and are now resting mentally.”
Diva looked around her. They were all standing rather lethargically, heads down towards the straw, but not touching it. They did indeed appear to have switched themselves off from the outside world.
“We owe them a huge debt,” she told him.
“No. Such things as passed here today belong to the ancients. They were forged aeons ago in the past, long before our respective races were born. What happened today belongs to the lost animas of Xiantha, to the old ones. We were merely lucky spectators, able to throw our ineffectual and puny weight on the side of the colour. We are irrelevant to such things. We cannot aspire to owing a debt to the lost animas of Xiantha, they are so far above us as to make that statement presumptuous.”
Diva blinked. She was not used to people calling her presumptuous. Then she looked at it from his point of view. For the Xianthans, the lost animas of Xiantha were virtually gods. Of course he would be rather offended by her comment! She felt cross with herself. She really ought to think things over more before she spoke.
“You are right,” she inclined her head slightly. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I could atone for my mistake by taking you down to Pictoria in the morning? I have to go down to pick up the others. Hopefully Cimma will be feeling better by then.”
The man who spoke to canths went still. “I would be able to step onto the home planet of the lost animas?” A shiver ran all the way down his spine, and little bumps of pleasure appeared along his skin. His eyes grew wide. “Do you mean that? I would be allowed to visit their birth place?”
Diva nodded. “If you like. If Cimma is all right we could even go for a short walk. Although I don’t think there would be time to go down into the caverns.”
“No, indeed. That is of no consequence. But to be able to see the birth planet of the animas would be the ultimate colour,” he said reverently. “That would be the culmination of all our lifetimes. I would be honoured beyond measure.”
Personally Diva felt that he was going a bit too far with all the hyperbole, but s
he had learnt her lesson, and kept her face open and interested. They certainly had reason to thank the man who spoke to canths, she realized. If he hadn’t insisted on bringing the canths, the Dessites would probably be controlling the whole of the Ammonite Galaxy. So she nodded, and then went to fetch some nutripacks. On investigation, she found that the Xianthan had not eaten or drunk anything since she had left, and her own strength was sagging from lack of sustenance too. They sat quietly in the straw, giving their own bodies time to recuperate, watching the canths in silence.
THE NEXT MORNING Diva helped the man who spoke to canths into the shuttle with misgivings. He was chattering with expectation, and definitely not in the calm state which was usually a requirement for space travelers.
“—So you needn’t worry about the canths,” he was saying. “I have made absolutely sure that they are comfortable. They will have no energy for any further effort for quite some days yet. And the sorrel canth is much better, so that bodes well for Cimma, I believe. Ah! Look! That, then, is Pictoria. The patterns across the surface are fascinating, are they not?—”
Diva tuned him out. She was happy to be offering something he clearly valued so much, but as she executed the preflight check list her mind was on other things.
She brought the shuttle into land next to the other one, and switched the engines off. The Xianthan was beside himself with excitement, shifting from one leg to the other, and already waiting by the hatch.
Diva opened it and invited the man who spoke to canths to step outside. He paused, as if uncertain of his worthiness of such an honour, and then accepted with a deep bow. As he took his first breath of air of Pictoria, as he saw the ridges close to for the first time, his face illuminated, and he fell to his knees to touch the ground with his forehead, hands splayed out as if giving the whole planet the characteristic binary system salutation. Then he scrambled to his feet and stood, gazing around him with a blissful face held up to the sun.
Diva made her way past him, trying not to disturb his reverie. She walked across the distance to the other shuttle, to see if the others were already there. She thought she could pick out two figures waiting by the hatch.
“Bet you had a decent night’s sleep,” came the bitter voice of Tallen. “Bet you didn’t have to lie on cold stone all night. Sure took care of yourself, didn’t you?”
Diva fixed him with a look. “Why do you hate me so much?”
The Coriolan thief gave a snort of derision. “Why do you think, Meritocrat? Where were you while my sister and I were starving? Floating around in your Mesteta wine bath, were you? Practising the martial arts with a golden sword, were we? Having sweetfruits on silver platters?”
Diva was about to tell him vehemently that she had been a prisoner on Valhai when they were growing up, but then she realized that she was guilty of all the things he was accusing her of. Maybe she hadn’t been there when Tallen and Petra had begun their career as thieves, but she had been living the life of luxury in the palace when they were small. She certainly couldn’t claim to be different. And these two outcasts had no idea that she was currently fighting to put things right. They probably wouldn’t care. Why should they? Again, she would have done better to keep her mouth firmly shut. She gave a sigh. “Where are the others?”
Petra indicated the butte. “They are trying to get Cimma through the tunnel. They told us to wait here.”
“Very well. There are two shuttles now, so perhaps each of you could keep an eye on one? I will take the man who spoke to canths, and we will see if we can help.”
“Whatever.” Tallen treated her to a challenging look, his jaw clenched. For the second time Diva saw something of Six in him, and the realization made her feel displaced, as if she were on the wrong side of a battle. She shook her head slightly to make the feeling disappear, and then went back to her shuttle to pick up the Xianthan.
THE MAN WHO spoke to canths was still where she had left him, communing with nature and muttering delightedly to himself.
“I have to go as far as the butte,” she told him. “Would you like to come along?”
“Most certainly.” He fell happily into step beside her.
As they made their way up and down and along the ridges he marveled at everything he saw. The tiered steps, worn smooth into the rock by millions of years of wind erosion. The bright electric green wisps of cloud, mixed with tenuous blue ones, the yellowish tinge to the background sky. The purple gas giant looming over them, hanging enormous above their heads. He was so ecstatic about what was overhead, that he tripped several times, and would have fallen had Diva not been at hand to steady him. He thanked her profusely each time, but was unable to pay more attention to where he was putting his feet, so in the end she kept a hand under his elbow, just in case. He didn’t appear to notice.
When they reached the butte he was in raptures. The golden formations smoothed out of the rock fascinated him, and he saw meaning in all the shapes. The bright reddish rock seemed to him to hold more colour than he had ever seen before. The towering butte, with its convoluted erosion patterns and shapes, was a masterpiece of nature.
Diva left him outside the tunnel, and crept through the narrow passageway. On the other side she found the others, anxiously clustered around the exit to the rocky butte.
“Cimma hasn’t the strength to get through the tunnel,” Ledin explained. “Grace won’t leave her, and I won’t leave Grace. Six has gone to the cavern to see if he can find any of the morphics – he thought they might be able to help – and Bennel insisted on going with him.”
“Is Cimma awake?” Diva went over to give Grace a hug. The Sellite girl gave her a weary smile back.
“Oh, yes. She came to shortly after you left last night. Once we got a drip on her she seemed to be much better. But she just has no energy left. She hasn’t the strength to pull herself through the tunnel, and it is too narrow and too full of bends to either push or pull her through.”
Diva bit her lip. “Okay. We need to get her some additional strength from somewhere.”
“That is what Six thought. That’s why he went down into the cavern. He set off shortly after daybreak, as soon as we realized what the problem was. The two Coriolan youngsters went to the shuttle to wait for you.”
“Yes. I saw them. So Six thought that the twins could help? I don’t quite see how.”
“Nor us. But there is nothing else we could do, and Six wanted to check that the morphics were all right in any case. He thought they might be able to come up with a solution.”
“I have the man who spoke to canths with me, on the outer wall. I will go back and we will try to hook up with Six.”
Ledin nodded. “Fine. Take care, Diva, we are not sure if all the amorphs and avifauna are quite back to normal after the occupation of their minds. You can’t assume that they won’t attack. At the very least, they will be most confused.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry. The ones we saw yesterday had no desire at all to come anywhere near us. But I will be careful.”
“We still have plenty of time before it gets dark.”
“Yes. But …” There was no need to continue. If Cimma couldn’t make her way through the tunnel, things could get very complicated. She needed proper medical attention, and she wasn’t getting it in this dank stone passage. It wasn’t very likely that she would grow stronger in here. Defeated, Diva turned around and began to pull herself back through the tunnel again.
She picked up the canth keeper, and showed him the way to the pothole which led to the first cavern they had discovered. Bennel was waiting there, at the top of the chasm, a worried expression on his face. “Valhai Six has been gone for hours,” he told her.
“Was he going all the way down? That does take a long time.”
“Well, no. He said he thought it would be sufficient to go down the first shaft, and that the morphics would be able to hear him shout from there, down to the lake. But I have heard nothing so far.”
The man who spo
ke to canths was peering down into the depths, delighted to be so close to the ortholiquid. “I can see some movement,” he told them. “But it is not … ahh! That must be an avifauna!” He ducked back as a large avian hauled itself up the last few metres of sheer rock and emerged into the sunlight. They all took a prudent position behind the rocks until it had left the area. It must have been aware of their presence, but seemed undisturbed.
Once it had disappeared in the direction of the butte, they moved warily back to the edge of the shaft which led down to the cavern. There was nothing to see.
“I will go down,” announced the Xianthan grandly.
“NO!” Then Diva tried to moderate her tone. “That is … I am sure that will not be necessary. Six knows that we are in a hurry, and will not go further down than is strictly necessary. He has probably had to slide down the shale incline to get himself heard down in the cavern. We will wait.” She had the distinct impression that if the Xianthan did get down to the floor of the cavern, they would never see him again.
But he was staring at her with gentle reproof. “I would never, ever, do anything which would lose colour,” he told her. She wondered if he had been able to read her thoughts, as he went on, “—And suicide loses much, much colour.”
She nodded. “I am sorry.”
“There is no need to be. Your conclusions were a natural outcome of the circumstances.”
“Err … Can you always read thoughts?”
“No. But on this occasion yours were written across your forehead.”
“Oh.”
“Sometimes your face shows more than perhaps you would wish.”
She gave a rueful smile. “I’ll have to bear that in mind.”
“You have great faith in Six.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I do.”
“Does he know this?”
Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 Page 25
