Instead, I followed Sanselle through the lock and into the hold.
The third waited. 'This bay first.'
My eyes were colder than the space beyond the ship's hulls, and the junior ship officer looked away from me quickly.
Sanselle began unwebbing the bay, then eased a cubical container about a half meter square toward me. 'Careful -more mass than it looks like.'
My hands and arms recoiled at the seemingly inexorable inertia. I glanced at the description stenciled on the side of the small and heavy cubical container: 'Section two (b), for-mulator analysis microflakes.' The words slid off my mind, and I forced myself to concentrate on them. Why were such microflakes so important? Or was any cargo more important than the life of a maintenance technician?
Sanselle followed with a matching cube. All in all, the first bay contained two dozen of the identically labeled cubes.
When we had finished, the third gestured toward the next bay, avoiding my eyes.
The second bay held oblong containers with the appellation: 'High pressure microvessels [Spec. A-4c].'
More cargo bays and more not totally comprehensible labels followed, until we reached the fifth or sixth bay.
'Aerostat frame assemblies' - I murmured the words as I eased the three-meter-long container toward the cargo sled.
Sanselle helped ease it under a flexible web, and we went back for more.
Filling the rest of the hold were thin sheets of material roughly a meter square, webbed into sets of ten, so light
I could move three bundles easily. Those were labeled: 'Insulation, High-Temp [Spec. 5-XXX].'
Aerostat frames, high-temperature insulation, high-pressure microvessels, special formulator microflakes - and none of it could be built or created around Omega Eridani? So special that it required diverting a particular needle ship?
'What's the matter?' Sanselle studied me. 'Besides the obvious.'
'The obvious,' I said. 'Nothing changes that.'
'There's more ...'
'All this cargo.' From what I knew, the cargo didn't make sense, but in the mood I was in, I didn't want to ask anyone. I had questions, questions I should have thought about months or years earlier, except I hadn't cared.
'Not much different from what we've been unloading all along. Heavier, and more of it, that's all.' Sanselle shrugged. 'Don't want to take all shift, either.'
I agreed with that, but I hadn't wanted to touch anything on the Hook, not once I'd reached the cargo lock.
After a deep breath, I forced myself back toward the Hook's lock - and the few containers remaining, trying to ignore the questions seething through me.
Why did the Rykasha have three orbit stations off Omega Eridani? That answer came from within me easily. One outer system main station and two planetary stations minimize interstellar transit power requirements and maximize needle ship cargo efficiency. In short, send one needle ship to the system, and let the locals unload it on their time.
What did nanite formulators have to do with planoforming? And why did they need special equipment shipped interstellar distances rather than build from plans in-system?
And why did it have to be Fersonne?
There wasn't any real answer, just as there hadn't been for Foerga's death. Or I couldn't find an answer. Not for me.
I eased the sled's webbing around the last container.
An image of Gerbriik, monitoring our actions, appeared between us. 'Don't unload the sled. Just tie it down in lock one. The cargo boat from Alaric will be here in thirty hours, and there's nothing else inbound.'
'Yes, ser.'
I followed the sled to lock one, then helped Sanselle anchor it in place.
'We're done,' Sanselle finally announced. You'd better get some sleep. We're going to be working shorthanded for a good while.'
I hadn't even thought about that.
As I made my way back toward my cube for a very short rest - I wasn't likely to sleep - I thought about needle ship cargos and death. What was in the cargo that was so special? Or were certain types of planoforming equipment so complex that they could only be created and built on earth? So complex that Fersonne's death meant almost nothing? Meant nothing personal to anyone but me, and perhaps Sanselle ... and maybe Gerbriik.
The ancient economists would have theorized that death would have meant more in Rykashan society - because there were fewer people and because those people lived longer. And they would have been wrong. Except for the occasional great person or hero, or tragedy, death has always been personal, affecting one individual and the handful of people who cared about that dead individual. The rest of society went on, and that had been true as far back as the ancient pyramids and great walls, and remained true, and would doubtless remain so into the far future.
Death had two meanings - the loss of resources to society and the personal grief of the few who cared. Fersonne's value was less than that of one cargo, and this time, I was one of the few who cared, and I wanted there to be some meaning behind
Fersonne's death ... and there wasn't Unless you create that meaning ... unless you do ...
As I tossed in the sleeping net, another thought drifted through my fevered reveries. We all need meaning... and it's different for each of us, but what gives meaning to society?
Dzin gave meaning to Dorcha ... Toze to Klama ... what provided a dream or a meaning to the Rykashans? Did they have one?
I lay in the darkness in my sleeping net for what seemed like a long time, too many questions yet unanswered, too many feelings churning.
41
Pride is a dim lamp on a dark road.
Over the next standard week, I kept asking questions about death, and about what mattered, but the answers never changed. Death was personal, and society went on.
I did figure out an answer to one question: What would give Fersonne's death some meaning? It was a very small answer, but it was the best I could do. So I finally swallowed and went to Gerbriik at the end of my last shift for that day. He looked up from the main maintenance console with eyes as dark-rimmed as mine or Sanselle's.
'Ser?'
'Yes, Tyndel? I can't change the shifts. I know you're being worked too hard, but with Fersonne's death ...'
'It's not about that, ser.'
'I'm sorry about Fersonne. I am. I know you two were close.' His face was impassive, the eyes blank, waiting. 'There's something else, ser ...'
Gerbriik raised his eyebrows. 'You're beginning to understand?'
I hated the faint tone of pity, but my feelings weren't important this time. As a former Dzin master, I should have found it easy to keep my feelings out of things. I never had, and that might have been why I'd been sent to Hybra. Might have been? Yes, ser. If it is possible, I'd like to request training as a Web pilot.'
'If it's not?'
'Then I keep working here. Doing as well as I can. Until my obligation is complete.' What other choice did I have?
'Whether they accept you - that's up to the authorities in Runswi.' He nodded. 'I thought you might. I'll send the request with the next ship.'
'Thank you, sen'
'I am sorry about Fersonne.' He nodded and looked back down at the console. 'I am, more than you know ...' The last words weren't really for me. That I knew.
I glided back to the transverse shaft and down to my cube. I didn't even try to sleep ... or read. I lay there, in darkness that wasn't black enough to shut out everything that swirled around me, hoping that I'd found one solution, hoping I wasn't deceiving myself.