She met up with the escort five days out of the Regulus system, two squadrons no less. And with a Commodore on board the Nova Class flagship.
“Commodore Halliman reporting, ma’am, as escort for yourself and Niall Parollan,” was the initial message and there was the happily grinning Commodore, in full-dress uniform, on the bridge of the battle cruiser. He glanced around, expecting to see Helva’s brawn.
“I bring back the body of my scout, Niall Parollan, Commodore,” she said more calmly than she expected she could. The Helvana’s prayers were working?
“I hadn’t known…” The Commodore was patently shocked, and she could hear a murmur run around the bridge at such news. “My condolences and apologies. You have sustained a great loss. Was he a casualty of the Kolnari action?”
“Niall Parollan died quietly in his sleep. The diagnosis was total systems failure caused by extreme age,” she said. She went on before she’d be asked the time and place of death. Stasis provided no clues. “He requested the ceremonies due his rank and service, Commodore,” she went on, smiling inwardly at Niall’s idea of a reward for putting up with her for so many years.
“Only his just due, ma’am. We shall proceed with the arrangements immediately…if that is your wish.”
“It is,” she said with a gentle sigh. Actually, that program hadn’t been such a bad idea at all. It had given her time to become accustomed to the fact of Niall’s death. Death, Death, where is thy sting? Grave thy victory?
“Our deepest sympathies,” said the Commodore, and saluted with solemn precision. Behind him she saw others come smartly to attention and salute. “The NH-834 made inestimable contributions to the Service.”
“Niall was a paragon of partners,” she replied. “You’ll forgive me if I resume my silence.” She really didn’t mean to misrepresent any facet of her recent history, but there were certain details she intended to keep hidden in her head.
“Don’t think that’s going to get you off the hook of explaining the Kolnari defeat, my pet,” Niall said. He had been propping up a wall just beyond the view of the one screen she had activated to receive the Commodore’s call. “And will I have performed my part there in true heroic form?”
“What else? I’ll not have you go to your grave without every bit of honor due you. And you did perform your designated role on Ravel. You stayed out of sight.”
“Not entirely, evidently,” Niall said with a wicked grin, waggling a finger at her.
“If you mean that Helvana woman’s little surprise remark, forget that. A lucky guess, since she would have known I’d have to have had a brawn with me somewhere.”
“She knew me by name.”
“Maybe she can talk to the dead. And you are dead, you know. Can’t you stay down?”
“Why should I? Miss my own obsequies? How can you ask that of me?” He pressed one hand against his chest in dismay.
She laughed. “I should have known you’d pull a Tom Sawyer.”
He laughed, too. “Why not, since you have provided me the ability to watch? I’ve always wanted to hear what people thought of me.”
“You won’t hear any candor at your funeral. It’s not good manners to speak ill of the dead, you know. Besides which, I do NOT want Psych checking my synapses for fear I’ve blown a few by concocting your holo program.”
“No one will see me, my love, I assure you,” he said.
She had intended to delete the program totally, even the petabytes that had once stored it, when she reached Regulus Base. Now she changed her mind. He had the right to see the ceremony: all of it from the slow march with his bier, the atmosphere planes doing their wing-tipping salute, the volley of rifles, the whole nine yards of changeless requiem for the honored dead. This time, she was not mourning the sudden, unnecessary death of a beloved partner: she was celebrating the long and fruitful life of a dear friend whom she would also never forget.
When the burial detail came to collect the mortal husk, the stasis in the coffin replaced that in which she had held his body intact during her long journey home. Regulus officialdom turned out in force, from the Central Worlds’ current Administrative Chief with every one of his aides in formal-dress parade uniforms to the planetary Governor in her very elegant black dress and fashionable hat, to the parade of mixed armed services as well as whatever brawns were on the Base, and all the brawn trainees. The service was just long enough. A little longer and she’d have believed the fulsome eulogies about the man they mourned, who was sitting in the pilot’s chair and watching the entire show with the greatest of satisfaction. She’d remember that as the best part of the whole show.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the damned Horsehead Nebula we never did get to,” he exclaimed several times. As Helva was parked where her cabin could not be seen from those either on the ground or on the raised platform for the dignitaries, he could peer about, wisecracking and reminiscing as he chose.
She did, as she had done before and as it was expected of Helva, the ship who sings, let the heavens resound with the poignant strains of the service song of evening and requiem. But this time her tone was triumphant, and as her last note died away across the cemetery and all the bowed heads, she deleted Niall’s holographic program.
They left her alone until she had decided she’d had enough solitude. She ought to have held off deleting Niall a few days longer, but there was a time to end things, and his funeral had been it. Then she contacted Headquarters.
“This is the XH-834 requesting a new brawn,” she said, “and you’d better arrange a time for the Fleet to query me on that Ravel incident. I want it down on the records straight. I want a top priority message to the Marian Circle Cloister on Vega III that Ravel needs to have its warning satellite replaced. The Kolnari blew the old one out of space.”
“New brawn?” repeated the woman who had responded to her call. Her brain had gone into neutral at being unexpectedly contacted by the XH-834.
“Yes, a new brawn.” Helva then repeated her other requests. “Got them? Good. Please expedite. And, as soon as you’ve informed the brawn barracks of my availability, patch me over whatever missions are currently available for a brain ship with my experience.”
“Yes, indeed, XH-834, yes indeed.” There was a pause through which Helva heard only sharp excited words clipped off before she quite caught any of the agitated sentences. Surprise always gives you an advantage.
She laughed with pure vindictive satisfaction as the brawn barracks erupted with people hastily flinging on tunics or fixing their hair or adjusting buttons. The scene brought back fond memories as the young men and women, all determined to win this prize of prizes, raced to be first aboard her.
They had not quite reached the ramp when she suddenly became aware of a hazy object. The outlines were misty, but it was Niall Parollan, striding to her column, laying his cheek once more against the panel that covered her.
“Don’t give the next one any more grief than you gave me, will you, love?” He started to turn away, his outline noticeably fading. “And if you ever use that Sorg Prosthesis with anyone else but me, I’ll kill him! Got that?”
She thought she muttered something as she watched his image drift to the hull by the forward screen, not towards the airlock. Just as she heard the stampede of the brawns outside, he disappeared altogether with one last wave of a hand that seemed to flow into the metal of her ship-self.
“Permission to come aboard, ma’am?” a breathless voice asked.
THE WAY
Greg Bear
Eon (1985)
Eternity (1988)
Legacy (1995)
Once upon a very long extension, not precisely time nor any space we know, there existed an endless hollow thread of adventure and commerce called the Way, introduced in Eon. The Way, an artificial universe fifty kilometers in diameter and infinitely long, was created by the human inhabitants of an asteroid starship called Thistledown. They had become bored with their seemingly endless journey bet
ween the stars; the Way, with its potential of openings to other times and other universes, made reaching their destination unnecessary.
That the Way was destroyed (in Eternity) is known; that it never ends in any human space or time is less obvious.
Even before its creators completed their project, the Way was discovered and invaded by the very non-human Jarts, who sought to announce themselves to Deity, what they called Descendant Mind, by absorbing and understanding everything, everywhere. The Jarts nearly destroyed the Way’s creators, but were held at bay for a time, and for a price.
Yet there were stranger encounters. The plexus of universes is beyond the mind of any individual, human or Jart.
One traveler experienced more of this adventure than any other. His name was Olmy Ap Sennen. In his centuries of life, he lived to see himself become a living myth, be forgotten, rediscovered, and made myth again. So many stories have been told of Olmy that history and myth intertwine.
This story is set early in his life. Olmy has experienced only one reincarnation (Legacy). In fee for his memories, he has been rewarded with a longing to return to death everlasting.
Greg Bear
THE WAY OF ALL GHOSTS
A Myth from Thistledown
by Greg Bear
For William Hope Hodgson
1
“Probabilities fluctuated wildly, but always passed through zero, and gate openers, their equipment, and all associated personnel within a few hundred meters of the gate, were swallowed by a null that can only be described in terms of mathematics. It became difficult to remember that they had ever existed; records of their histories were corrupted or altered, even though they lay millions of kilometers from the incident. We had tapped into the geometric blood of the gods. But we knew we had to continue. We were compelled.”
Testimony of Master Gate Opener Ry Ornis, Secret Hearings Conducted by the Infinite Hexamon Nexus, “On the Advisability of Opening Gates into Chaos and Order”
The ghost of his last lover found Olmy Ap Sennen in the oldest columbarium of Alexandria, within the second chamber of Thistledown.
Olmy stood in the middle of the hall, surrounded by stacked tiers of hundreds of small golden spheres. The spheres were urns, most of them containing only a sample of ashes. They rose to the glassed-in ceiling, held within columns of gentle yellow suspension fields. He reached out to touch a blank silver plate at the base of one column. The names of the dead appeared as if suddenly engraved, one after another.
He removed his hand when the names reached Ilmo, Paul Yan. This is where the soldiers from his childhood neighborhood were honored; in this column, five names, all familiar to him from days in school, all killed in a single skirmish with the Jarts near 3 ex 9, three billion kilometers down the Way. All had been obliterated without trace. These urns were empty.
He did not know the details. He did not need to. These dead had served Thistledown as faithfully as Olmy, but they would never return.
Olmy had spent seventy-three years stranded on the planet Lamarckia, in the service of the Hexamon, cut off from Thistledown and the Way that stretched beyond the asteroid’s seventh chamber. On Lamarckia, he had raised children, loved and buried wives…lived a long and memorable life in primitive conditions on an extraordinary world. His rescue and return to the Way, converted within days from an old and dying man to a fresh-bodied youth, had been a shock worse than the return of any real and ancient ghost.
Axis City, slung on the singularity that occupied the geodesic center of the Way, had been completed during those tumultuous years before Olmy’s rescue and resurrection. It had moved four hundred thousand kilometers “north,” down the Way, far from the seventh chamber cap. Within the Geshel precincts of Axis City, the mental patterns of many who died were now transferred to City Memory, a technological afterlife not very different from the ancient dream of heaven. Using similar technology, temporary partial personalities could be created to help an individual multi-task. These were sometimes called ghosts. Olmy had heard of partials, sent to do the bidding of their originals, with most of their mental faculties duplicated, but limited power to make decisions. He had never actually met one, however.
The ghost appeared just to his right and announced its nature by flickering slightly, growing translucent, then briefly turning into a negative. This display lasted only a few seconds. After, the simulacrum seemed perfectly solid and real. Olmy jumped, disoriented, then surveyed the ghost’s features. He shook his head and smiled wryly.
“It will give my original joy to find you well,” the partial said. “You seem lost, Ser Olmy.”
Olmy did not quite know what form of speech to use with the partial. Should he address it with respect due to the original, a corprep and a woman of influence…The last woman he had tried to be in love with…Or as he might address a servant?
“I come here often. Old acquaintances.”
The image looked concerned. “Poor Olmy. Still don’t belong anywhere?”
Olmy ignored this. He looked for the ghost’s source. It was projected from a fist-sized flier hovering several meters away.
“I’m here on behalf of my original, corporeal representative Neya Taur Rinn. You realize…I am not her?”
“I’m not ignorant,” Olmy said sharply, finding himself once more at a disadvantage with this woman.
The ghost fixed her gaze on him. The image, of course, was not actually doing the seeing. “The Presiding Minister of the Way, Yanosh Ap Kesler, instructed me to find you. My original was reluctant. I hope you understand.”
Olmy folded his hands behind his back as the partial picted a series of ID symbols: Office of the Presiding Minister, Hexamon Nexus Office of Way Defense, Office of Way Maintenance. Quite a stack of bureaucracies, Olmy thought, Way Maintenance currently being perhaps the most powerful and arrogant of them all.
“What does Yanosh want with me?” he asked bluntly.
The ghost lifted her hands and pointed her index finger into her palm, tapping with each point. “You supported him in his bid to become Presiding Minister of the Seventh Chamber and the Way. You’ve become a symbol for the advance of Geshel interests.”
“Against my will,” Olmy said. Yanosh, a fervent progressive and Geshel, had sent Olmy to Lamarckia—and had also brought him back and arranged for his new body. Olmy for his own part had never known quite which camp he belonged to: conservative Naderites, grimly opposed to the extraordinary advances of the last century, or the enthusiastically progressive Geshels.
Neya Taur Rinn’s people were Geshels of an ancient radical faction, among the first to move into Axis City. “Ser Kesler has won reelection as presiding minister of the Way and now also serves as mayor of three precincts in Axis City.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Of course. The Presiding Minister extends his greetings and hopes you are agreeable.”
“I am very agreeable,” Olmy said mildly. “I stay out of politics and disagree with nobody. I can’t pay back Yanosh for all he has done—but then, I have rendered him due service as well.” He did not like being baited—and could not understand why Yanosh would send Neya to fetch him. The Presiding Minister knew enough about Olmy’s private life—probably too much. “Yanosh knows I’ve put myself on permanent leave.” Olmy could not restrain himself. “Pardon me for boldness, but I’m curious. How do you feel? Do you actually think you are Neya Taur Rinn?”
The partial smiled. “I am a high-level partial given subordinate authority by my original,” it said. She said…Olmy decided he would not cut such fine distinctions.
“Yes, but what does it feel like?” he asked.
“At least you’re still alive enough to be curious,” the partial said.
“Your original regarded my curiosity as a kind of perversity,” Olmy said.
“A morbid curiosity,” the partial returned, clearly uncomfortable. “I couldn’t stand maintaining a relationship with a man who wanted to be dead.”
“You rod
e my fame until I bored you,” Olmy rejoined, then regretted the words. He used old training to damp his sharper emotions.
“To answer your question, I feel everything my original would feel. And my original would hate to see you here. What do you feel like, Ser Olmy?” The ghost’s arm swung out to take in the urns, the columbarium. “Coming here, walking among the dead, that’s pretty melodramatic.”
That a ghost could remember their time together, could carry tales of this meeting to her original, to a woman he had admired with all that he had left of his heart, both irritated and intrigued him. “You were attracted to me because of my history.”
“I was attracted to you because of your strength,” she said. “It hurt me that you were so intent on living in your memories.”
“I clung to you.”
“And to nobody else…”
“I don’t come here often,” Olmy said. He shook his hands out by his side and stepped back. “All my finest memories are on a world I can never go back to. Real loves…real life. Not like Thistledown now.” He squinted at the image. The image’s focus was precise; still, there was something false about it, a glossiness, a prim neatness unlike Neya. “You didn’t help.”
The partial’s expression softened. “I don’t take the blame entirely, but your distress doesn’t please me. My original.”
“I didn’t say I was in distress. I feel a curious peace in fact. Why did Yanosh send you? Why did you agree to come?”
The ghost reached out to him. Her hand passed through his arm. She apologized for this breach of etiquette. “For your sake, to get you involved, and for the sake of my original, please, at least speak to our staff. The Presiding Minister needs you to join an expedition.” She seemed to consider for a moment, then screw up her courage. “There’s trouble at the Redoubt.”
Olmy felt a sting of shock at the mention of that name. The conversation had suddenly become more than a little risky. He shook his head vigorously. “I do not acknowledge even knowing of such a place,” he said.
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