“Do you think we mean to recreate a plague and infect the population with it? No wonder you think us monsters!”
“Who would volunteer? It kills half the people it touches.”
“More than half,” van de Graaf said. “Nearly all, in fact.”
“Well, then.”
“Don’t you see? That’s why we have to study him. To find out what makes him different. Why did he survive?”
“Can you swear it will be safe?”
“Of course not. Most assuredly it won’t be, not completely.”
“Then he’ll never let you study him, and no one will volunteer anyway.”
“Some might,” Marc said.
She looked at him, shocked.
“If it made me able to fly again. If Kri’s hypothesis is correct, it might do that. Then,” he said softly, “the regeneration might be worth it.”
“The whole point is that we don’t know how he can do what he does, or why — in fact we don’t even know all of what he can do. We need to study him.”
Laenea remained unsoothed.
“He’ll let us test him if you ask him to, Laenea,” Vasili said.
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“You are selfish,” Vasili said with contempt.
“That may be true,” Laenea said, sick of the accusation. “But what I am more than anything right now is angry.”
“Laenea,” Ramona said, “we must study him. If we can find more people like him —”
“Or create them,” Vasili said, earning himself a sharp look from Ramona.
“— we might develop the ability to communicate with ships in transit, or even directly between the inhabited worlds.”
“Ramona, I can see the potential, even weighed against the risks. But you’re going to have a hard time convincing Radu — if you can find him.”
“He has to come to us if he ever wants to go home,” Vasili said.
Laenea sighed. “He’d sacrifice that if he didn’t believe he could trust you.”
“He must cooperate with us,” Ramona said. “He’s the only source of information we have.”
“If you’ve got to study something, why don’t you study the virus? It might tell you all you need to know.”
“Your expedition was all too efficient,” van de Graaf said. “There’s no record of any subsequent case of plague.”
“You think it’s extinct, then?” No one was allowed on Twilight without being vaccinated, but the antibody was to surface proteins, not genetic material. If the organism had disappeared, no one could reconstruct it.
“Possibly. More likely it still exists, in whatever indigenous host it occupied before people landed on Twilight. Finding it might be difficult, though. Its source was never identified.”
What van de Graaf was telling her was that the most straightforward way of finding the virus would be to send unvaccinated people to the surface of Twilight and wait until they got sick.
“But you can’t…”
“We’d prefer not to,” van de Graaf said.
Marc listened to the conversation quietly, sipping tequila, conserving his strength. He had never been on the administrators’ deck before; it had not yet existed when he was, so briefly, a pilot. Marc knew real antiques from reproductions, and this room’s furnishings were real. Despite the glass wall looking out into the sea, the central fireplace seemed appropriate.
Kri continued to worry the subject of Radu Dracul’s whereabouts, but no one had even mentioned Orca and her brother. Marc was less inclined than the others to assume their departure was a whim, unconnected with Radu’s disappearance.
“Well,” Kri said, “security’s on it, and that’s all we can do for now.” She downed her drink. “We’d all better get some sleep, and start fresh in the morning.”
Marc rose slowly.
“I’ll bid you farewell till tomorrow,” he said. “I will rest better in my own bed.”
Laenea rose. “Let me walk you home,” she said. “You look tired.”
Marc could see Kri preparing to argue against Laenea’s leaving. He suspected Kri would insist that he stay here — which he definitely did not want to do — before she would permit Laenea to go out.
“No, no,” he said. “I’ll be quite all right. I just want to get home before I overtire myself.”
He clasped Laenea’s wrist, and she gripped his. The touch felt strange, but not unpleasant.
As soon as Marc left the administration deck, he opened a communications terminal. He had never acquired an internal communicator, fearing it might further confuse the insulted tissue of his brain. He signaled his analogue, which awakened quickly.
“Where are you?” it said. Its voice remained smooth and calm.
“I’m on my way home.”
“Why are you away from your home?”
“It was an emergency.”
“You should have let me go on duty.”
“I know,” Marc said. “I’m sorry. I forgot. Would you look out in the foyer and see if anyone’s there?”
“Of course.” After a barely perceptible pause, the analogue said, “No one at all.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.”
Marc left the terminal and hobbled homeward, deep in thought: If only he had turned on the analogue… If Radu Dracul had come to him for help, he had found nothing. Well, there was no changing what was past; the future would have to concern him now.
Marc suspected that Kathell Stafford had had good reason to speak via a voice synthesizer to a representative of the transit authority.
o0o
Orca surfaced, trod water, and contacted Harmony. She had to use a satellite to jump the communication over the mountains, but true speech adapted well to radio frequency, and no eavesdropper could decipher her family’s dialect.
Her mother answered.
Hello, chérie, she said, mixing true speech and French as their family sometimes did. Where are you?
Halfway home, Orca said. With Mark.
She added her brother’s true speech name.
Their mother laughed, understanding by the construction that Orca’s brother had adopted a surface name, and understanding the joke immediately. She liked to watch The Man from Atlantis, too.
The news reports are intriguing, chère petite fille, and the gossip even more. How much of it is true?
For once what really happened is more exciting by half, Orca replied. I’ll explain when I get home. My crewmate may come to stay. Has he called?
No.
I don’t know where he is, Orca said. Or how he’s traveling. I told him to ask for us in the harbor at Victoria. He needs our help, mon-amie-maman. Are you feeling revolutionary? Is father?
Your father, always. Me? If necessary.
It may be. When my friend arrives — Orca sent a soundname for Radu; any diver or whale who heard it would recognize him immediately — he’s an offworlder, she added. He’s shy, and modest to several faults. His trouble isn’t of his own making.
We’ll make him welcome, youngling.
Thank you, maman-amie.
Shall I send the boat? You’ll be very late for the gathering, otherwise.
Orca sent a grimace, and her mother laughed again.
Send the plane, instead, maman? The misery won’t last so long.
I will, amie-fille, who loves to fly a ship from world to world, but not island to island.
o0o
The faint glow of the instrument panel gave the only light, the whisper of the noise-baffled propellers the only sound. Radu floated alone in silent darkness, waiting for the sky to lighten, looking forward to the dawn.
His eyelids drooped; he dozed. He jerked awake when his chin touched his chest. The night had retreated by a single shade of blue.
He tried to remember the last time he had slept real, undrugged sleep. He discounted both sleeping in transit (which seemed very much something other), and recovering from unconsciousness and hypothermia in the diver’s q
uarters. His last full night’s sleep was on Earthstation, when Orca shared his room and his bed. His time-sense automatically sorted through all his perceptions and told him how long ago that had been, subjectively, as well as in elapsed time on earth, an objective measurement. He laughed softly: if objective measurement even made sense anymore.
He could not stay awake till dawn. He turned on the autopilot, glad that it contained only navigational functions. Had it possessed cognition, the computer might answer radio calls and give their position away. Flying very low, the airship would avoid both navigational radar and small craft routes that might otherwise intersect their path.
He was so tired he had to check the autopilot settings four times to get an agreement on the course.
I’ll just nap for an hour, he thought, changing one of the passenger seats to its reclining position. An hour, and then I’ll be able to take over from the autopilot again.
He fell instantly and deeply asleep.
o0o
Laenea woke slowly and with great pleasure, luxuriating in the warmth of the bed and the silence and the quiet blue light of her room. She stretched her bare arms wide, feeling not even a twinge of pain, feeling as if nothing could ever hurt her again.
Flinging off the bedclothes, she rose and dressed without taking time for a shower. She was eager for whatever today would bring.
In the common room of the suite given over to the three pilots, Kristen van de Graaf and Ramona-Teresa sat sipping coffee.
“Good morning,” Laenea said, and poured coffee for herself.
“Good morning.” The doctor sounded tired.
Instead of replying to Laenea, Ramona put aside her cup, and rose. “It’s time for me to catch the ferry,” she said. Her small duffel bag lay beside the door.
“Where are you going?” Laenea asked.
“To see Miikala’s family. To tell them what happened.”
“Should… should I come with you?”
Ramona hesitated. “I think… I think perhaps someday they’ll be able to speak with you, Laenea. I think someday they’ll want to. But not now. Not yet.”
Laenea touched Ramona’s hand. “I understand,” she said. “Ramona, I’m so sorry —”
Ramona-Teresa embraced Laenea, hugging her tight. Then she pulled away, grabbed her duffel bag, and left.
Laenea took her coffee and sat down, wishing she could be more help to Ramona. She glanced across the room at Dr. van de Graaf, whose eyes were slightly bloodshot.
“Did you get any sleep at all?” Laenea asked.
“A little, on and off.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I’ve had other things on my mind. There’s still no trace of your friend.”
“He came back before,” Laenea said. She still believed he would return, though she wondered if he might be better off to stay away.
“I think he must have gone with the divers,” van de Graaf said. “If they’ve taken him in, and he refuses to leave voluntarily, it will be… awkward.”
Laenea knew as well as anyone how jealous the divers were of their sovereign territory. They fiercely protected their cousins from harassment, whether malicious or merely curious.
“I still think you should leave him alone for a while.”
Van de Graaf picked up a slice of toast, bit off one corner, and chewed it thoughtfully.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “He does get rather stubborn when he’s pressed far enough.”
Vasili Nikolaievich emerged from his room, hollow-eyed and haunted. Laenea wondered what to say to him. His envy and disappointment saddened her.
“Vaska —”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I know what to do.” His words were as intense as his gaze. He turned to van de Graaf. “I have to go to Ngthummulun. I have to find Atnaterta. He knew what was going to happen —”
He described Radu’s experience on Atna’s home world. Laenea listened without comment. She had flown with Atna. It was true that he was an excellent navigator. It was true that Ngthummulun had produced equally excellent pilots.
“If Atna can teach me what he did — how he knew what was going to happen to Radu —” Vasili’s words trailed off, as if he had not quite finished imagining what it was that he wanted from Atna. He stared at van de Graaf, anxious for her reaction. “Can’t you see —”
Laenea held back from saying what she thought. None of the pilots from Ngthummulun had perceived seventh, and none was as good a pilot as Vaska. Laenea herself, though she could do the one thing Vasili wished to be able to do, was not as fine a pilot as he.
Not yet, anyway, she thought.
Dr. van de Graaf stroked her eyebrow with the tip of one finger. “It’s worth checking,” she said.
Neither her expression nor her tone revealed whether she believed Vasili’s idea to be reasonable, or whether she simply had no more heart than Laenea for crushing out his dream. She put aside her toast and said, “I assume you’re both ready to do some more exploring.”
Laenea stood and put down her cup so quickly that some of the coffee splashed out onto the table.
“I am,” Laenea said. “When do we leave?”
“Not quite yet,” van de Graaf said.
Laenea took one step toward her, hands outspread in supplication, ready to argue against a delay of weeks or even days.
Van de Graaf smiled. “Finish your breakfast, first.”
o0o
When Radu woke he thought, groggily, did I sleep? It was nearly dawn, the sky was midnight blue, and now it’s no lighter.
Perhaps he had merely dozed for a moment, then awakened again. He thought about his time sense.
It was night again, not night still. He had slept the whole day; he was approaching his destination.
Victoria was a stolid, beautifully tended, rather fussy old city. The last streaks of scarlet sunset faded into the ocean. Lights flicked on here and there, illuminating windows in the ivy-covered stone of the Empress Hotel and picking out the cabins of rows of sailboats moored along the piers. Flowerbeds covered the banks of the harbor. In the dusk, the colors dimmed to white and shades of gray.
Radu nosed the airship toward the landing field by the ferry dock. It was plainly marked on the chart, plainly marked against the land by several sets of concentric circles, worn into the grass by the landing wheels of different sized airships, one set circumscribing each mooring mast.
Landing a blimp solo was even more difficult than launching it. He would have to descend upwind of the mast and let the wind push the ship into position. That carried the risk of ramming the mast and puncturing the envelope. But it was his only choice. Unless the air was completely still — and it was not; he could tell from the way the blimp handled and from the ripples across the dark water — then trying to drag the ship against the wind would be sheer stupidity.
A shadowy silhouette ran across the field toward him as his craft neared the ground. Radu tensed, ready to take off again. Perhaps Kathell had failed to deceive the administrators; perhaps she had even turned him in. He found her character incomprehensible, how seriously she took her word a mystery.
Radu had left the radio off, so, for all he knew, whatever agency controlled the city’s airspace might well have been ordering him all afternoon to give up and come down.
The airship dropped low enough for Radu to see that the woman running toward him, far from being dressed in the uniform of a security guard or the severe suit of an executive, wore raggy cutoffs and a tank top. She paced the airship. Radu opened the window and leaned out.
“Come down till I can reach the ladder!” she yelled. “Be ready to drop some ballast and take off again.”
“Who are you?”
She raised her hand, fingers spread. Light from one of the field’s floodlamps turned the thin membranes of her swimming webs pink and gold.
Radu dipped the airship sharply down and reached across to open the door. The diver grabbed the ladder and swung herself in
to the gondola. As it sank, and the landing wheel bounced against the grass, Radu dumped sixty kilos of ballast and gunned the engines. Lighter now than before the diver came aboard, the ship took off at a steep angle.
The diver scrambled up the tilted floor and slid into the forward passenger seat.
“Well,” she said, looking him up and down, “you’re definitely the person Orca sent me to meet. You can call me Wolf. What’s your name?”
“Radu Dracul,” he said. “Didn’t Orca tell you who I was?”
“Yes,” Wolf said. “And a great deal more. She gave you a true name that’s a description of you. One would have to be blind and deaf not to recognize you after hearing it.”
“What is it?” Radu asked.
“I can’t say it out of water. It would just sound like cacophony, anyway. That was the idea, over the radio, if she’d used your surface name it would have been obvious who we were talking about even if no one not a diver could understand the whole conversation.”
“Oh,” Radu said. “Thank you for meeting me.”
“Head north,” Wolf said. “We’ll be at Harmony by midnight.”
He did as she said. As they passed over a tremendous domed Victorian building, strings of white light bulbs lit up, outlining it completely. Its walls vanished into darkness and it became a phantom carnival structure.
“What is that?” Radu asked.
Wolf chuckled at his reaction. “The Parliament building,” she said.
“Why do they do that to it?”
“For tradition. For the tourists. Just for fun, I guess. They’ve been doing it for more than a hundred years.”
The blimp sailed over the Parliament building, then north. Victoria fell behind them. The lights of small towns dotted the coast, and ground cars on the highway spread tiny moving fans of illumination before them. In the Strait, a pale navigational beacon flashed strobically, streaking the water with its beam. Reflected by its own sails, chased by its phosphorescent wake, a ferryboat glistened like an elongated carousel.
“Did Orca tell you why I’ve come to you?”
“No,” Wolf said. “She said you needed help.”
“That’s certainly true,” Radu said. “I wouldn’t have involved her, or you, but she was already involved, and I couldn’t see any alternative.”
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