'Now ... remember the red button?'
'Yes.'
'That's reverse thrust. You push that in until it stops, and the dial controls the thrust from the front of the broomstick instead of the back.'
Very simple - and very easy to get in trouble. I could feel that even more hanging in the darkness beneath the wall that was the station.
'Try to stop yourself.'
I punched the red button, then repeated the movement with the dial. I could tell I'd overdone it because I found myself headed backward past Fersonne toward the station. Another correction found me moving back away from the station, if at a slower rate. That required a smaller brake. That led to yet another micro puff of gas ...
Despite the chill that seeped in from outside the suit, I was sweating by the time I hung motionless beside the other maintenance tech.
'Not so easy as it looks.' She laughed gently. 'Like a few other things in null gravity.'
I blushed in the privacy of my helmet.
Fersonne did something to the panel in front of her. 'You're slaved back to me now.'
My broomstick's being slaved to hers made me feel helpless rather than relieved. The station loomed over us like a dull dark gray wall, its edges fuzzed where composite met the darkness of space and the pinlights of stars. Logic said that without atmosphere the station should stand out clearly. Logic was wrong.
My fingers began to feel cold, and I flexed them.
'Better show you what you need to see.' Fersonne guided us along the lower level past the three large cargo locks. 'Three cargo locks are all we have, but we could use the personnel locks if we needed them. Or the emergency locks on the upper levels.'
'The locks all look the same, and both locals and needles use the same locks. But the local ships are built differently.'
Their holds were larger, for one thing. I could have ransacked my internal database that still didn't seem fully integrated, though more and more often I was finding I knew things without really knowing where I had obtained the knowledge.
'Gerbriik says it's easier on the station. Local ships are built bigger and not nearly so tough as a needle ship. They need the dampers to protect them. The needle ships are tougher than the station - to survive the Web. So we need the dampers to protect us.'
Every reference to needle ships confirmed my feeling about the dangers involved. I nodded within my helmet.
Fersonne eased the broomsticks 'up' toward the higher levels of the station. I felt like a hummingbird in the dusk and beside the great precipice of Deep Lake, the one that dropped into the depths that held the eels.
Deep Lake ... Foerga ... such a short time ago, even as lives go, and yet so far away. My eyes burned, and I could do nothing, not in an outside suit and a helmet. That distant yet unforgotten loss coupled with guilt to silence me once more, for Fersonne guided her broomstick less than three meters from me, Fersonne, who had also given without demanding. Fersonne, who had suffered more than I knew, who would never have the chance to be a needle jockey or to return to earth except as a submenial. Yet she had given, asking nothing, hoping for human comfort and little else.
I felt as though I had given nothing, demanded without words, accepted without gratitude, and understood giving not at all.
In the silence, in the star-splotched darkness, I swallowed wordlessly, ignoring the cold dampness on my cheeks, the dampness with the bite of forming ice crystals, almost welcoming that bitter chill.
35
There is no 'truth, 'for the very term requires both conformity with physically verifiable reality and adherence to the underlying belief system of the 'truth-seeker.' Belief systems, by definition, place faith in the unknowable above factual verification, while facts stand independent of faith.
I should have been getting some sleep, but I was restless, and turned in my sleeping net, still reading a Rykashan history of the postcollapse period and the building of Rykasha. I didn't know how much to take figuratively and how much as literal truth.
Clunnnk! Someone pounded on my hatch.
I clicked off the small screen, far less satisfying than the honest paper and cloth of a real book - not that I had seen such since I had left Hybra - and turned in the darkness toward the hatch to my cube. Who sought me? If Gerbriik had needed me to help Sanselle and Fersonne unload the needle ship that had been scheduled to dock during my off-swing, he would have used my beltcomm to alert me. His image would have been glowering over my shoulder in the dimness of my cube.
'Yes?'
There was no answer, and I slipped out of the net, half clad, and flicked myself toward the hatch. Thrap! 'I'm coming.'
A half-familiar face appeared as I eased open the hatch. Her hair was red and short, the face and body thin, and the eyes green and as piercing as ever. I blinked, just hanging in space in the open hatch.
'Hello.' Cerrelle's voice was soft.
I just floated there, speechless.
'Aren't you going to welcome me?' she asked.
'Ah ... I wasn't exactly expecting you.'
'You're wondering why you should.'
'I didn't say that...' What could I say?
'I've stepped out of my life for a year to check on you. You were always saying that no one cared. I'm here, Tyndel.' A faint smile, warm but uncertain - or something - appeared and vanished. She had ship boots on, and her foot braced to hold her in place in the corridor, showing a certain competence in null gravity.
You came all this way because you ... why? I didn't think you cared, except to make sure I became a productive member of Rykashan society.' As I finished the words, I wished I hadn't ever uttered them.
'I do care,' Cerrelle said. 'I cared enough to treat you as an adult. I cared enough to tell you what is instead of offering you comfort through falsehoods and inaccuracy. You respected your poor Foerga for her honesty, and you need honesty, and yet you rejected it when I offered it. I cared enough to travel light-years and then some to see how you are faring.' Her lips tightened momentarily.
I could feel the numbness encase me, and I didn't even know why. 'Is it part of your duties as guide?'
Cerrelle's face blanked for a moment, even as she met my eyes, not flinching, not attacking. Somehow, she reminded me of Fersonne, though they looked not at all similar. That bothered me, too. Was I creating partial replicas of Foerga out of all women?
'Would it matter? You wanted Rykasha to care about you. Not me.'
There was something there, something I knew was there but couldn't find.
'I told you that I cared, that it wasn't Rykasha's job to care.' She paused. 'And I'm here. How are you doing?'
'I'm fine.' Why had she come all the way to OE Station? It made no sense ... unless she did care, but no individual could afford that. So ... someone had sent her. I could feel myself tightening inside.
'You've been here a year and a half - personal objective time. Are you willing to try training again? Or are you ready for eight more years on OE Station?'
I knew she wanted me to go back, to accept training as a needle jockey. But I couldn't. Not with a whole society pushing the idea. I just couldn't. I looked at her, trying to be honest. 'I can't.'
Hanging there in the middle of the corridor outside the hatch to my cube, she smiled sadly, a sadness that faded into melancholy, then pity. 'I'll see you in eight years . . .' After a moment, she added, 'You have a lot of thinking to do, Tyndel. I hope you do it. Do you really think that just because you see things as they are that means you have to accept them as unchanging? Or unchangeable?'