Amid the Crowd of Stars
Page 29
“Are you sure? I couldn’t forgive myself if you were hurt because of what’s happened.”
Saoirse found herself smiling at that. She does care for me, even if it’s only as a friend. “Angus will be going out again next cycle, if the weather holds—and if the bluefins are bitin’, I’m sure he’ll be going over.”
Ichiko gave an audible sigh. “All right. Then if you happen to get to Dulcia again, keep your eyes and ears open and try to get a sense of the mood there. Let me know everything, whether you think it’s important or not. My AMI will pass that along to the captain, too. That would be helpful.”
“If Uncle Angus goes over, I’ll go with him.”
“And if you feel any threat, I want you to go to one of those clans you trust. You have to promise me to be very careful. But I should sign off now, Saoirse. It’s been a long and difficult day here. I’ll talk to you soon. Promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Ichiko, I’m so sorry that you lost your friend.”
In the com window, Ichiko nodded, then the screen collapsed into a bright snowfall of motes that vanished before they reached the top of her nightstand. Saoirse stood up from her bed.
“Uncle Angus!” she called as she left her room.
* * *
A reflective window appeared in the air in front of Ichiko. She stared at her face, grimacing. Her eyes were puffy, the whites pink and irritated from the tears that kept returning to her without warning. She went to the small bathroom in her quarters and splashed cold water on her face, though she doubted that would help much.
She took the lift up to the bridge, then down the corridor to the ready room. The doors opened well before she reached them, and she stepped inside. “It’s just us this time, Ichiko,” Luciano said, gesturing to a chair directly across the long table from him. His face was set in solemn and serious lines; he was rubbing his temples as if warding off a headache. Ichiko didn’t blame him; she thought she could feel a headache starting herself. “I’m so sorry about Lieutenant Bishara, Ichiko. Her final instructions said she wanted her cremains taken back to Earth and given to her family. We’ll honor that request. However, while Dr. Huang is confident that cremation will destroy any alien bacteria or viruses, the urn with her ashes will be sealed permanently against contamination. We’ll also have a shipboard ceremony before the cremation, which is scheduled for 21:00 today. Would you be willing to say something then?”
“Of course,” Ichiko answered, wondering why Luciano was talking so much and looking down more at his folded hands than at her. “What else is going on, Luciano?”
“The captain has sent an ultimatum to Minister Plunkett.” He was still speaking to his hands, then finally lifted his gaze to Ichiko. “As of now, she’s moving up our schedule. She’s already shut down the medical research on all of the Cani—sorry, the Lupusians—housed here. The shuttle to bring all of them back down to the planet is already prepped and will leave for First Base tomorrow—and it will also bring up the First Base personnel. And unless Plunkett orders Clan Lewis to immediately arrest your attackers within the next downworld cycle and charge them with murder as well as assault, including Plunkett’s own nephews, she intends for Odysseus to leave orbit within a ship-week.”
“Plunkett’s not going to do that, for several reasons, not the least of which is that he likes giving orders, not taking them.”
Luciano nodded. “I told her the same. We don’t have any real leverage with him or anyone here. They’ve survived here without us for centuries; they’ll figure they can continue to survive just as well once we’ve left.”
“Luciano, the one thing we’ve discovered here—the really important thing—is that we’re not alone in the universe. The arracht are potentially as intelligent as we are, maybe more so and certainly differently so, and we shouldn’t leave without learning more about them. Luciano, I need to go back downworld with that shuttle. Give me the chance to find out all I can before we have to leave.”
“That’s too dangerous with the current situation,” he answered. “Look what they did to Chava. You can’t take the risk.”
“I’d be on the archipelago, not in Dulcia. The Inish aren’t like Plunkett and the Mainlander clans. Shouldn’t this be my choice?”
“It shouldn’t be and it’s not,” Luciano answered.
“I understand, Captain,” Ichiko said aloud. “Save me that seat.”
“You let the captain listen to our conversation?” Ichiko asked Luciano, who shook his head.
“No. That’s something the captain has the ability to do through the AMI system. I can’t do the same; that ability’s above even my pay grade. You know that nagging sense that you’re about to experience a headache? We both had that—yeah, I saw you were feeling it, too. That’s one way you can tell. At least it has been since around the same time we started having issues with AMI system—before that no one could ever tell. My AMI is getting annoying, frankly.”
“You should have mine,” Ichiko told him. “But thanks for letting me know about the headachy feeling—that’s good to know even if I don’t like that she was eavesdropping on us. I’m going to be paranoid that the captain might be listening to everything I say.”
“A little paranoia’s a good instinct in an officer. Too bad you’re not one. For that matter, I’m having the same problem with my AMI that you have with yours: the connection’s always live, and I can’t turn her off.” He held up his hand and displayed the glowing tip of his ring finger, smiling momentarily before shaking his head. “I still wish you wouldn’t go down there, Ichiko.”
“I want to. I feel I have to.”
“Because of that young woman on the archipelago?”
Yes. That’s one reason. “Not just for Saoirse, no. The Inish culture’s unique here on Canis Lupus. They’re not like the Mainlanders and as for their relationship with the arracht . . . There’s so much we don’t yet know, and I’m convinced that we should.”
Luciano’s fingers prowled his chin. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?” Ichiko shook her head mutely. “You’re not going down until tomorrow morning,” he continued. “I’m off duty once the ceremony for Lieutenant Chava is over. Maybe we could spend some time together? It’s been awhile.”
His gaze softened. The lines around the corners of his mouth deepened slightly as he gave her a tight-lipped half-smile.
“I know, and that’s been largely my fault, I know.”
An eyebrow lifted as he tilted his head. His hands were again folded together on the table. “But?”
Ichiko caught her upper lip in her teeth, thinking of how she wanted to phrase this.
“Maybe when I’m back on the ship and we’ve broken orbit for home. Right now . . . I’m sorry, Luciano, but everything’s just so emotionally fragile and delicate. Chava dying, and . . .” She didn’t finish the thought.
She thought he might have nodded; it was difficult to tell. “Yeah. Maybe then.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood. He brushed at the arm of his uniform. “And right now, there’s a lot going on for me, also. I should get
to that. See you at 21:00.”
With that, he walked to the door and stepped through as it yawned open. She watched until the door shut again before she let out the breath she’d been holding.
* * *
“Saoirse?”
She heard her name called through the com earpiece she was wearing. She reached up to touch it. “I’m in Dulcia, Ichiko, in Murphy’s. I was going to call yeh to tell yeh. Things aren’t good here. Not good at all.”
She looked at Angus and Liam, both of them sitting across the table from her in Murphy’s Alehouse, which was loud with townsfolk talking, much of it angry and bitter. She mouthed “Ichiko” to her companions, pointing to her ear before getting up from the table. Taking her pint with her, she went toward the open front porch of the tavern. “Not good?” Ichiko was saying as she wound her way among the tables. “What do you mean? Are you sure you’re safe there, Saoirse?” The worry in the woman’s voice was palpable.
There was no one else on the porch. The sky was a sullen gray, and a cool wind was turning the harbor into a froth of whitecaps and tossing sprays of rain at the town. She stayed close to the alehouse under the wooden roof of the porch. “I’m safe enough, I think,” she said to the air, looking up to the clouds as if her gaze could pierce the gloom and she could see the Terran ship somewhere far above. “Though, honestly, our friendliness with the Terrans hasn’t exactly helped the Inish reputation. But I’m not sure yeh’d be safe a’tall. Yer captain’s insistence that the Mainlanders who assaulted yeh and Chava must face charges hasn’t been well-received. The Plunketts are all screaming about how they’ll refuse to cooperate, and Clan Lewis has already released those they took into custody after the attack. I went into Plunkett’s Pub earlier. Alone—Uncle Angus thought he and Liam should best stay away after the fight the last time they were in Dulcia. There was an ugly, half-drunk crowd gathered inside in a terrifically sour mood. They were making noises about fighting back if yer people tried to come down and do Clan Lewis’ job and there were some talkin’ about taking back First Base as our own again. That’s not the worst of it. Minister Plunkett showed everyone the com-unit yer captain had given him, then he had his nephew smash it with a sledgehammer, saying that ‘No feckin’ Terran’s ever going to tell me what I can or can’t do.’ Everyone cheered at that. I decided to leave right afterward since it was obvious a few people thought I might be spying on ’em—which I suppose I was.”
There was a pause before Ichiko spoke in her ear again, long enough that Saoirse started to wonder if the connection had been lost.
“You should know that I’m currently on a shuttle heading for First Base. We’re returning all the Lupusian volunteers we had on Odysseus.”
“Oh.” Saoirse let the word hang in the air to be blown away toward the sea. The implications of what Ichiko had said were obvious even if she wanted to ignore them.
“I’ll be taking them on an armed flitter from First Base to Dulcia,” Ichiko continued. “And I have the captain’s permission to continue on from there to Great Inish for a few days. There are things I want . . . that I need to do there. I certainly want to meet with Kekeki again. I’ve been thinking about what she said to me and what happened to Chava. Why don’t I pick you up?”
Saoirse felt as if the sky had lightened. She grinned, staring out at the harbor and the Pale Woman eternally pointing on the headlands beyond. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “I’ll tell Angus and Liam to go on and head back on their own. With the wind now, they should reach Great Inish even before we do.”
“Good,” Ichiko answered. “We’re about to enter the atmosphere, so I have to end this. I should be there in, oh, maybe two and a half bells from now. Three at the most. I’ll put the flitter down on the quay.”
“I’ll be there waiting. And Ichiko, if yer coming here, yeh must be careful. If Plunkett knows yer bringing back the clan volunteers yeh had, he may have set another trap for yeh.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise. See you then, Saoirse.” A click in her ear, a burst of static, and Ichiko was gone. Saoirse touched the earpiece to silence it.
She stared out for several minutes to the whitecaps in the harbor and the boats heading out to fish. When she’d finished her pint, she headed back in to talk to Angus and Liam.
* * *
Kekeki had sometimes wondered what the humans would think of an arracht conversation. Certainly, it was nothing like the manner in which any of the people of the archipelago communicated with each other, nor the way the Terrans communicated when they used their voices. So slow, their way of talking. So ponderous and fraught with potential misunderstandings, as Kekeki knew all too well . . .
No, an arracht conversation more resembled the way the intelligence in the skyship talked to its own units: the AMI, as the Terrans called them. That was an intricate dance with every component playing its assigned part, sometimes alone and sometimes in a chorus with others.
That the arracht could understand, at least since the syna—which the eki called “plotch”—had escaped its confinement in the ship, becoming a parasite living within the ship intelligence. The syna were slowly changing the ship the way they had changed the Inish and long ago changed the arracht themselves. Subtly. Creating linkages and allowing communication.
Producing a new, unique panspermia.
Kekeki could—like all the arracht—faintly hear the ship-syna, a distant background conversation whispering to them, telling them what it learned. That syna-voice was dark and languid, not like the voices of the arracht which were bright and glimmering in Kekeki’s head.
The syna-voices from the ship were like successive waves crashing and foaming on the rocky shingle of a distant shore, sighing as they expired and the sibilant variations within the waves transformed into words.
= . . . the not-yet-changed ones on the ship. . .
= . . . the not-yet-changed one called Ichiko . . .
= . . . will return to their own world soon . . .
= . . . thinks of staying . . .
= . . . but the ship-creature is aware . . .
= . . . we will go with them since . . .
= . . . and allowing itself to become changed . . .
= . . . and will warn others not-yet-changed . . . =
= . . . they’re not aware of our presence . . . =
= . . . yet it is frightened of doing that . . . =
Kekeki, as Speaker to the Four-Limb Land Walkers, absorbed the words, as did the other Advisers: Keksyn, the Speaker to the Syna; Kekarra, the Speaker to the Arracht; Keknomi, the Speaker to the Six-Limb Land Walkers; Kekfinna, the Speaker to the Deep Swimmers; all the myriad keks for all the species the syna had connected together in the Great Cluster, the Jishtal.
=The sky-eki will take the syna to their own world,= Kekeki thought to the other arracht. =This is unlike anything that’s been done before. But will it be good for the Jishtal?=
Their voices danced in her head.
=It’s dangerous. We fear it.=
=How can we know if it is good or ill, dangerous, beneficial, or simply neutral?=
=The syna do what they do. The choice isn’t ours, after all.=
=We will wait, and we will learn.=
That final sentiment was taken up by the other keks as well as by the arracht who were listening to their conversation, becoming a chorus that drowned out any single voice. A sense of eagerness and anticipation filled them all, and finally Kekeki joined with them as well.
=We will wait, and we will learn.=
Myself I Must Remake
THIS WAS SOMETHING MACHIKO had never done before. She wasn’t quite certain why she did it now. It didn’t violate ship protocol, but it did call into question the trust that Ichiko had placed in her.
But she was Machiko, Ichiko’s okaa-san, her mother. Or, at least, that was how she now perceived herself, and mothers had duties
that went beyond regulations and programming.
She could sense the confusion in the commander’s hesitation at her call through the AMI channel. “Ichiko?” she heard him say.
He switched to mind-speech rather than vocalization. AMI decided that meant he was on the bridge or somewhere in public and didn’t want anyone to overhear the conversation. She knew, of course, that Commander Mercado’s AMI was listening to them, though it remained silent.
There was another hesitation before the commander answered. Machiko thought she heard a faint snicker from the commander’s AMI in the web of background AMI voices.