'That's why you're here,' he pointed out, scraping a knee on the side of the corridor and rebounding awkwardly, stopping himself with a hand - a dangerous move in null gee. 'To raise and answer questions like that. We're only talking about a dozen worlds, or less, and all are Vee-type - highly unlikely to develop any kind of life for billions of years, if ever.' The man laughed. 'We won't be around then, one way or another.'
Their voices faded, even from my enhanced hearing. Neither had so much as looked in my direction, but their words in passing had raised more than a few questions. Where exactly was engee ... where the rules of physics didn't exactly apply? How could they casually raise the types of questions I had raised and not be sent off to some outplanet station?
I half laughed, realizing as the question crossed my mind that we were all on the same outplanet station in the middle of nowhere - except they could leave and I couldn't, not for another eight years or so. The only gravity I'd feel would be in the exercise centrifuge, and in my dreams.
I looked down at the half-unloaded small sled, then shrugged. Where would I go? Back to the stone demon traps of Dorcha? Or the faithfully fanatic Shraddans of Hybra? I smiled wryly at my own rhetorical questions.
33
Life is merely a succession of appearances.
Gerbriik gave me a curt nod as I finished reassembling the SARM. 'You do that well, Dzin master. You could have been a maintenance officer ... or a needle jockey. If you'd shown more common sense. You still could be. You wouldn't have to sweat and grub between decks. You wouldn't have to fight inertia unloading needle ship cargos.'
Yes, ser. That's probably true, ser.' Infrequent as it was, unloading needle ships was more interesting than such duties as pushing SARMs between decks or carting supplies from one point in the station to another or accomplishing low-level repairs here and there. Most years, according to the station records, OE Station saw about one interstellar ship every third or fourth objective station month, if that.
'At the very least, you could be a junior engineer out there putting the Costigan back together.'
I'd seen the engineering types using lock number one, but I didn't feel like responding directly. I nodded.
'Or reloading stuff to the local vacuum boats.' Gerbriik offered a wide, yet sneering, smile.
'Yes, ser.' I replaced the last of the SARM cover clips, then eased the unit toward its stowage bin. Far more frequent were the local ships from planets two and three - Alaric and Conan, respectively, named after some ancient figures no one had ever heard of - there wasn't even anything in the station's library base on the origin of the names.
'If every mite you knew is going to die before you finish your duty here, you might as well be doing something that challenges you, Dzin master. Or do you intend to delude yourself for the rest of a long and boring life?'
I ignored Gerbriik's overstating of the time dilation. 'Ser, I have not found life boring.' Hard, unfair, difficult, but not boring. At times, it was hard to believe that close to four years had elapsed on earth, or would have if I had started back at that moment. Overspace detoured the limits of real-space, near-light travel, but there was still a time dilation effect. There was also the space-time curve effect. While I hadn't bothered to explore all of that mass of data, one of the last that Andra had pumped into me in Runswi, I understood the general effect without much effort. Time was relative to mass and the curvature and the closeness of overspace to real space. That meant objective time flows differed slightly in different parts of the Galaxy or universe. Not a lot in most locales, but measurably. Black holes, singularities - there time differed much more.
Like much of what the Rykashans thought important, I wasn't sure it was. To get from one part of the Galaxy to another required travel. The dilation from needle ship travel was so much greater than other factors that locale time flow differences were insignificant by comparison.
'For a Rykashan, you're young. The boredom will come.'
He laughed mockingly. 'Perhaps your outmoded Dzin will keep it at bay.'
Dzin outmoded? What did nanotechnology have to do with outmoding Dzin? Or Toze? Or any belief system? Except Dzin wasn't a belief system. I frowned, realizing that was what I'd been trying to put into words. There was a difference between using Dzin and accepting the Dorchan history of Dzin.
'Tyndel ... don't you understand yet?' Gerbriik's voice had turned softer. 'Dzin was designed to restrict human aspirations and human accomplishments. That's why it's outmoded. It's a mite crutch, and you're not a mite anymore.'
'No.' Even Gerbriik didn't understand. Dzin wasn't the problem. It was a tool, and could be misused, like any tool. The problem was that I wasn't a demon in heart and spirit, either, and I didn't know what I was except that being a demon in body had taken everything I had been. I could recall two children kissing in the shadow of the cataclypt of Dyanar, walking the ancient stones of Henvor, holding Foerga in her workshop beside the heat of her furnace, even trimming the hedge by the walk in the brume of late fall. All that had been taken, and I had no dreams. Then, did any demon? If so, what?
'Why don't you study the schematics for the sleds?' suggested the maintenance officer. 'When Fersonne leaves, you'll have to help Sanselle with them.' He turned fluidly in midair and glided back to his console.
When Fersonne leaves ... Logic told me she would. Dzin told me I'd accept it. And I felt that, even if it were years, she'd be gone before I ever really knew her.
34
The ancients sought their gods in temples, in worldly goods, in the technology they created, and lastly in the stars. They found neither gods nor enlightenment in the materials of the universe, nor will any wise soul find aught in such but the reflection of sorrow.
Fersonne pointed to the oversized coverall, helmet, and boots floating beside her in the maintenance bay. Behind them were a green cylinder and some other items I couldn't see behind the silvered and bulky coverall. 'This is the outside suit. It's like a breather and coveralls, but heavier,' Fersonne said. 'We don't even try to have someone use it until they've been on station more than a year.'
'Because of the null grav adaptation?'
'Mostly.' Fersonne's smile was warm. 'Gerbriik also likes to see how maintenance types do. Never did put Nathum in one.'
'Would have lost him and the suit,' added Gerbriik from the other side of the maintenance bay. 'Too much explaining, then, and too much work for the rest of us.'
I had to wonder why the suits were necessary. Theoretically, from what I had studied, a nanite-based unit could have held atmospheric pressure around anyone without the suit at all.
'You're wondering why you need the suit?' asked Gerbriik. Yes, ser.'
'Heat. Mostly. Also, the suit form confines the nanites to a barrier area. That reduces the power needs. Besides, how could you do anything out there?'
The answer to that question took me a moment - before I realized what the long-faced maintenance officer meant, and I flushed, realizing once again I'd already known the answer from my experience with the Costigan. Nanites could hold an atmospheric field around someone, but they wouldn't do much for heat loss - especially if you had to use tools or touch something. I'd breathe for about as long as it took to take the few breaths before I froze solid.