“Darvell was a fluke.”
*Darvell was a mess,* corrected Munngralla. *Not your fault, though. We heard about how you took care of our problem there for us.* “I’m surprised anybody in Darplex is talking,” said Ari. He switched again to the Forest Speech—always better for talking about a good fight. *They got their noses pretty well bloodied that day, and I can’t imagine them wanting to brag about it.*
*News gets around. And the word from higher up is that the Quincunx is grateful.*
“What was I supposed to do? Leave the bastard alive so he could keep on using the Brotherhood’s name as bait for a Security trap?” Ari bared his teeth. *Come on—Ferrda taught me better than that.*
*Looks like he did,* said Munngralla. *And like I said, we’re grateful. If you’re ever in the sort of trouble that your buddies in uniform can’t help with, come to us.*
“I’ll keep you in mind,” Ari said. “Meanwhile … this is my last day here, so I came by to let you know I’m gone.”
Munngralla’s crest flared briefly in surprise. His local contacts must not have mentioned that Ari would be leaving quite so soon. *Somebody’s working fast,* he said. *The little Adept—is she going tomorrow, too?*
“No. She’s staying here.”
*Funny. I thought … never mind. You tell her, she isn’t Quincunx, but she’s not bad, for a thin-skin. She can call herself a friend of Munngralla’s any time she wants.*
“Right,” said Ari. “I’ll pass the word along.”
He stopped talking for a moment, to cover the sudden tightness in his throat. I’m supposed to be glad I’m leaving, he thought unhappily. I ought to hate this place, after everything that happened while I was here.
But his feelings had never answered to reason before, and they didn’t answer now. He’d been stationed on Nammerin during some of the most desperately unhappy months of his life, a time when not even the chance to strike out against a deserving target had been able to lift the weight from his spirit for very long. Nevertheless, Ari discovered, he was going to miss Nammerin. He’d lost, and found, too much on this world ever to forget it.
*Good hunting,* he said to Munngralla finally, the formal leavetaking of one Forest Lord to another.
*Good hunting to you on the star-trails, brother,* Munngralla replied. *And remember what I told you about asking for help.*
Ari didn’t see Llannat Hyfid until much later that evening. The Space Force contingent at the Medical Station had spent the earlier part of the day decorating the junior staff lounge with balloons and colored streamers. Now they had set up a rudimentary bar at a table in the rear, and were bidding a high-spirited farewell to Ari and the other departing officers. Tree Frog beer was very much in evidence as usual, in both the Export Dark and the Moonlight Pale varieties. Ari contented himself with a large tumbler of aqua vitae instead.
Drink in hand, he made his way through the crowd to the corner where the commanding officer of the Med Station was standing. The CO had brought along his pet sand snake to the party, wearing the creature in a series of loops around his shoulder like a bizarre piece of decorative braid. From time to time, the snake would dip its wedge-shaped head downward, put out a long, forked tongue to taste the CO’s beer, and then curl up again.
The CO himself appeared pensive and faintly melancholy, but Ari felt no particular worry on that account—such a look was the station commander’s usual expression. “Rosselin-Metadi,” he said as Ari approached. “We’ll miss you around here, you know.”
“I’ll miss working here,” Ari said honestly. The sand snake flowed down the CO’s arm, flicked its tongue lightly over the bright purple liquid in Ari’s glass, and then withdrew. Ari chuckled and drained the glass. “Shipboard duty is going to take some getting used to after this.”
“Shipboard duty is what the Space Force is all about,” the CO said. “Everything else is just the fancy trimmings.”
“That’s what my father says.”
“Trust him, Rosselin-Metadi. He’s usually right.”
“Yes, sir.” Ari looked down into his tumbler. Only a faint sheen of lavender remained on the thick glass at the bottom. “At least I’ll be able to put my blaster back into the arms locker where it belongs.”
The CO shook his head. “I’m afraid not. The authorization and the orders are part of your permanent file.”
“Damn,” said Ari without thinking. He felt his face reddening slightly, but pushed on. “I’m sorry, sir … but I’m going to be heading up the medical department on RSF Fezrisond. How am I supposed to do that if I’m carrying a piece of hardware that makes me look like Black Brok, the Terror of the Spaceways?”
“Force of personality?” the CO suggested mildly. “You’ll do fine, Rosselin-Metadi. I wouldn’t worry.”
Ari was silent for a moment, warmed by the unexpected compliment. He looked about the room and noticed that Llannat Hyfid had joined the party while he and the CO were talking. Tonight, for some reason, she’d chosen to wear the formal black tunic and trousers of a full Adept. The silver-and-ebony staff she’d carried away from Darvell shone with a soft luster against the dark cloth.
She’s never worn formal blacks around here before, Ari thought, frowning. He wasn’t certain what she’d meant to show by her choice of clothing, but he found it disquieting.
“Excuse me,” he said to the CO. “I have to talk to Mistress Hyfid.”
He made his way to the bar to fill his glass with more of the purple aqua vitae, then went over and joined Llannat.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Any excuse for a celebration,” she said. “But good-bye parties aren’t exactly my favorite.”
“Mine either. At least this one looks like it’s going to behave itself and not turn into a free-spacer’s wake.”
“Don’t tempt fate by talking. The night is still young.”
“I thought Adepts didn’t believe in fate and luck and things like that.”
“We don’t. But the universe has patterns, and currents that flow through it … and the farewell bash my shipmates gave me before I went off to the Retreat was a real classic.”
“The weather got a trifle drunk out?”
“More than just a trifle. I still had a hangover when I got to Galcen.”
“You?” Ari shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve never even seen you get a little bit looped.”
“That was a long time ago,” Llannat said. “It helped me turn off the voices I was hearing inside my skull. Not the safest way in the world to do it, but the best I could manage on my own.”
She gave him a crooked smile. “Believe me, Ari, I needed to learn everything the Adepts could teach me.”
A good enough explanation of why the Guild has her loyalty now, he thought. Maybe that’s why she wore her blacks tonight.
He wrenched his mind back to the matter at hand. “I have to tell you something. But not in here. Too many people listening. Will you take a walk with me outside?”
Her face brightened—a change that always reminded him of sunlight breaking through clouds. “Of course.”
Outside the converted storage dome that served as a staff lounge, the medical service compound was quiet and dark. A light mist was falling, making the protective force-dome glow a faint pink overhead. Ari walked along beside Llannat, enjoying for a little while the simple pleasure of her company. She had an interior calm that he had always envied; now, as often happened, it seemed to flow into him from her presence.
He sighed. “I’m going to miss all of this.”
“Nammerin, you mean?”
Not exactly, he thought. But … “Yes.”
“I—we’ll miss you, too.” She halted, and Ari perforce had to stop with her. “You said you had something to tell me.”
“A message,” he said. “From Munngralla.”
“Munngralla.” Her voice was expressionless; in the darkness he couldn’t see her face. “What does he have to say?”
“That you’re
not Quincunx—”
She snorted. “Not much chance of that.”
“—but you’re not bad, for a thin-skin.”
“Such flattery. I don’t think I can stand it.”
“He also says that you can call yourself a friend of Mungralla’s any time you want.”
“Now, that’s more useful. Having someone like Munngralla owe you a favor is like having money in the bank.” She paused again. “Is that all?”
“Most of it.” He clenched his fists, grateful that the night hid his features as well as hers. “I’ll miss you, too, Llannat. It’s so easy to lose touch with people, in the service—everybody is always moving on. I don’t want that to happen again this time.”
“It will,” she said. “It always does. The friends I had when I left for the Retreat stopped writing to me before the year was out.”
“You aren’t leaving me behind that easily, I’m afraid,” he told her. “I’m not a very good letter writer, and I hate making voice-message chips. But I won’t let that stop me.”
“It’s going to be harder than you think.”
Something had changed in her voice, reminding him suddenly that Adepts didn’t see the past and the future in the same way as ordinary people did, and the difference shook him.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “How is it going to be harder than I think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I hear myself saying these things, and I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about. But there’s trouble coming—we knew that a long time ago, back before we went to Darvell. And it’s going to be bad.”
She sounded frightened, which scared him. He’d seen Llannat Hyfid face down a Magelord without flinching, and leap over a wall into hostile territory without turning a hair. He didn’t like to think about what she might find frightening.
“I thought that Darvell was the bad trouble that was coming,” he said. “You mean there’s more?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t worry,” he told her—a futile exhortation, but still one he couldn’t help making. “As long as I’m still alive, you’ll hear from me. It may take a while sometimes, but don’t give up.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”
She reached out and touched his chest lightly with the tips of her fingers. It was the faintest of contacts, and yet he seemed to feel it warming him all the way through the stiff cloth of his uniform tunic. He could hear her breathing, too, fast and slightly uneven.
“Ari—” she began.
Before she could finish, the door of the staff lounge opened and disgorged Bors Keotkyra. The junior officer lost no time in hurrying across the compound toward them.
“Hey, Ari! You’ve got to come back inside right now. They’re about to start making the speeches, and you don’t want to miss your engraved holocube with a picture of the main gate of the Medical Station in it.”
Llannat’s hand fell away, and Ari heard her sigh. “I suppose he doesn’t,” the Adept said. “Go on back in, Ari—I need to get to my room and grab some sleep before tomorrow morning anyhow.”
Llannat Hyfid awoke early the next morning, well before breakfast. Ari would be leaving the Medical Station right about now, and she had duty starting in a little over three hours. She didn’t have the time to say good-bye to Ari at the spaceport and then make her way back to base. But she had been charged by Master Ransome with watching over Ari Rosselin-Metadi as long as he was on Nammerin, and she would stay with him until the shuttle lifted for orbit.
She lay with her eyes closed, clearing the distracting thoughts from her mind. Going out of the body had its dangers, and back at the Retreat the students had always worked with a teacher or practiced in pairs—“one to walk and one to watch,” as the saying went. But an Adept in the field might not have the luxury of a companion, so the apprentices had learned the basic techniques for working alone as well.
“Find a safe place where you won’t be disturbed.” She remembered the way Owen Rosselin-Metadi’s voice had echoed slightly off the cool stone walls of the practice room. “Lie down if you can—if you’re able to get a mattress or a pallet under you, that’s even better. Then, when you’re ready, stand up and walk away from yourself.”
She’d had a difficult time of it at first. No matter how hard she tried, she and her body had remained obstinately and indissolubly one. Again, memory brought her the sound of Owen’s voice, this time asking a question: How long have you fought against doing this by accident?”
“Years,” she had said without thinking, and was surprised to realize that it was the truth. “It was the first thing to start happening to me. I used to feel myself coming apart like that, and it scared me out of my wits. What happens if I can’t get back?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Owen had said. “Breaking completely away from your body is harder to do than you think. And while you’re practicing, I’ll be keeping watch for you.”
Reassured as much by his presence as by his words, Llannat had gradually learned how to do on purpose what she had resisted for so long. Now, in her darkened room in the BOQ, she let her corporeal and noncorporeal selves drift apart. She looked down for a moment at the Llannat who lay on the bunk as if sleeping, then passed out of the room through the unopened door.
The Med Station bus was hovering on its nullgravs at the main gate. Unseen and insubstantial, she entered the vehicle. Ari was already there, sitting with his eyes shut in a seat close to the rear window. Several more people from the Med Station boarded the bus. A bell sounded, the door slid shut, and the bus floated smoothly away from the main gate.
Ari slept, or seemed to sleep, most of the way into Namport, opening his eyes just as they passed through the gates of the shuttle field. Still bodiless, Llannat followed him from the bus to the main building. Inside the building, flatscreens full of arrival and departure information covered most of the available wall space. Ari checked the display on one of them and nodded with satisfaction, then found a chair and sat down.
Almost half an hour later, the speaker system crackled and blared out, “Shuttle to RSF Corisydron, outward bound from Nammerin to the Infabede sector, now boarding.”
Ari stood, stretched, and walked out onto the shuttle field. Llannat followed, seeing but unseen, all the way into the shuttlecraft itself. Ari shoved his carrybag into a storage compartment and claimed a seat.
Llannat heard the premonitory rumble of the shuttle-craft’s engines warming up and knew it was time for her to go. It wasn’t a good idea to leave planetary orbit while walking out-of-body; only the most skilled of Adepts could work at that much distance from the physical self.
“It’s all metaphor,” Owen had said. “Once you’re out of the body, place and time don’t really exist. But the human mind can only take so much metaphor without breaking. So don’t go off-planet, don’t cut the cord that ties you to your body, and don’t start wandering around in time. Those are all good ways to get lost and never come back.”
She gave an insubstantial sigh. Then, even though she knew Ari could not see or hear her, she put out a hand and touched him on the shoulder as he sat waiting for the lift-off.
“Take care of yourself, Ari, please,” she said. “There’s no one else who can do it anymore.”
Klea Santreny looked down at the man asleep in her bed. She’d cleaned the blood and dirt off him and put bandages and sprain-tape on all his visible injuries, but she still wasn’t sure that she’d done enough.
It’s been a night and a day, she thought. If he doesn’t wake up by himself real soon, I’m going to have to do something drastic, like drop him out back by the garbage cans and then tip off Security that he’s there. They’ll take him to a medic as soon as they pick him up.
Over in the kitchen nook, the oven beeped to remind her that the brick of marsh-eels had finished thawing. She left the bedside and retrieved the eels, now spread out on the plate like a tangled skein of thick knitting yarn. The greens were alr
eady stewing on the cooktop; she tilted the eels and their broth into the pot and gave the soup a stir. A cloud of steam billowed up from the bubbling liquid, filling her nose with the rich unfolding scents of warm greens and cooking eelflesh.
She’d always been a good cook—“a good cook and a hard worker,” that’s what her father had said the summer after her mother had died, and she’d seen all her brothers nodding agreement. That was when she knew she was never going to get away from the farm, not to go to upper school in Two Rivers like she and Mamma had planned, not even to marry into some other family. Dadda was stingy, too stingy to hire help when he had a daughter old enough to cook and mend and clean, and her brothers were just the same and more of them, so she’d looked down at her lap to hide her face and said, “Thank you, Dadda,” and the next morning before light she’d hitched a ride with a water-grain hauler bound for Namport and never gone back.
And this is where it ends up, she thought. Some choice. Wearing myself down bit by bit in a backwater farmhouse, or turning up dead some morning in a portside alley.
“Don’t blind yourself,” said the stranger’s voice from the bed across the room. “If you keep telling yourself that those are your only choices, then those are the only choices that you’ll ever make.”
By now she wasn’t surprised to find that the young man could listen to her thoughts. Turning, she saw that he was sitting up in her bed, the sheets wrinkled around his hips. He was still pale, with dark smudges under his hazel eyes, but his expression was alert enough to make her uncomfortable.
“So you’re awake,” she said.
“It seems that I am.” He glanced around the apartment. “At the risk of sounding like something out of a holovid script—where am I?”
“My place,” she said. “I brought you here. You’d been beaten up or something, and you looked like you needed help.”
“Thank you.”
“Is that all you’re going to say about it?” she asked. “What the hell happened to you, and why was I dreaming about you the night before? And who are you, anyway?”
Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Page 9
