42
When facts are combined into an assemblage of verifiables, their illusion becomes reality.
Sanselle and I had just finished unloading the Hay Needle's cargo and getting it stored in the transshipment bay. She was guiding the cargo sled back to its storage bay.
I glided beside her, wiping my forehead with the back of my forearm, then stifling a yawn.
'Tired?' she asked.
'Aren't you?'
'I've adjusted.' She laughed. 'No reading. No exercise except maintenance. Just work and sleep. Time passes.'
'That's really not true.' I raised my eyebrows, then smiled.
'No ... but it feels that way sometimes.'
Even as I understood the feelings, I wasn't sure I'd adjusted even that well. Both on-shift and off-shift were lonely, and after two years plus on the station, with nearly eight to go, they would probably get more lonely. At that moment, Gerbriik favored us with his image.
'The maintenance bay, as soon as you're free,' he said before his visage faded.
'Yes, ser.'
We looked at each other.
'Replacement for Fersonne,' suggested Sanselle.
'If it is, they didn't waste much time.' It had been ten standard months, and with overspace dilation - far better than photondrive slowboat but far from instantaneous - that meant that if Gerbriik had a replacement they'd sent someone by return ship.
Sanselle handed me the control box. 'You can stow it'
I took the controls and edged the sled into the bay. After two years, I could do it as well as she did.
'Do that well, Tyndel.'
'Thank you.'
Then we went up the shaft and along the upper mid-level corridor to the maintenance bay. Gerbriik had a muscular black-haired woman beside him, bigger than any of the three of us. 'This is Seriley. She's the new maintenance tech. She spent a year already on earth orbit station, waiting for an outspace billet.' He gestured toward Sanselle, then me. 'The sandy-haired one is Sanselle. She's the head tech. The brown-haired fellow is Tyndel. They're both glad to see you. So am I.'
Seriley smiled more than politely, but not effusively. 'It's good to meet you.'
'We are glad to see you,' Sanselle replied.
I smiled and nodded. Seriley didn't seem all that pleased to be on OE Station, for all that Gerbriik had said.
'After I finish showing her around, Seriley will work with one or the other of you until she knows all the duties,' Gerbriik concluded with a vague smile.
'I'm looking forward to it,' added the muscular new tech. 'I really am.'
Looking forward to what? I gave a last smile.
'You hungry?' asked Sanselle as we left the maintenance bay.
'Yes.'
In the canteen, Sanselle had the formulator prepare another of the spicy Dhurr dishes - a type of fish packed with chilies and then deep-fried and covered with a plum sauce. I had a truffle cream beef with steamed almond beans.
'You like the bland stuff, don't you?' she asked.
'I don't find it that bland, but you burned out your taste buds and olefactors with those chilies years ago.'
That got a grin from her. 'Used to think you were so stiff, Tyndel.' She brushed back the short-cut straw-colored hair.
'I am.'
'Not so much. Quiet.' She paused for a mouthful of the chilied fish. 'Wondered what I'd have to talk about if no one knew the things I grew up with.'
'Work. After a time, you share that.' That was what had happened. The longer we had worked together, the more common experiences we had, and the more to talk over. I missed talking things over with Fersonne. That loss made me even more aware of how much I missed the quiet evenings with Foerga. In a way, I even missed Cerrelle, even if I couldn't quite say why ... except she'd traveled out to OE Station, and it hadn't been just to recruit a pilot. I'd not seen a lot of things, but I'd been so numb ... how much had I missed?
'Some things, about you, no one will understand. We didn't live as mites. Some things about us, they'll take you years to understand, Tyndel.'
'I can see that.' I could - at last.
'You'll understand them. Won't feel them. That's why they'll make you a Web jockey.'
I was afraid I understood what Sanselle said all too well, even if I could not have articulated the logical basis for her words. I'd heard nothing about my request, and doubtless wouldn't, not for a while. Considering my request, even for Rykashans, apparently took longer. It might take eight years, although I doubted that from what I had seen on OE Station.
Sanselle was right, and I knew it. I didn't know enough about Rykashan culture, and parts of it I'd never feel. Like what hopes drive Rykashans or what dreams hold Rykasha together? Or those dreams that even Rykashans do not realize they dream?
Later, I stretched out in the sleeping net, yawning. Some things were beginning to make sense. Seriley had been waiting to get an outspace billet. If they were so rare, why had they thrown me into one so quickly? Why were the stations so meagerly staffed? With fusactor power and food and oxygen replicators they could easily support more people. How could they repair a complex needle ship at OE Station but have to ship certain fabricated equipment across long interstellar distances? Why could they act as though I were valuable, and yet replace Fersonne without even a tear or a sigh, except from Sanselle and me?
I was all too afraid I did understand, and I still wasn't sure I wanted to.
I finally closed my eyes.
43
A shadow in darkness reveals more than it conceals.
'You can give Seriley her outside orientation,' Gerbriik told me, barely gliding back from the maintenance console, his eyes half glazed as he remained partly intermeshed with some part of the station. 'She's been outside off earth orbit station.
So it's more of a familiarization with the differences.'
Between us, Seriley nodded, her short and shining hair bobbing.
The maintenance officer's eyes glazed over fully. Taking that as a dismissal, I looked at the muscular new tech. 'We might as well start.'
'That's fine with me.'
I eased out of the maintenance bay and started along the corridor. She caught up without being flustered or even looking hurried.
At the top of transverse shaft number four, the black-haired Seriley looked at me. 'You're not like the others.'
'No.' I shrugged, starting down the shaft.
'Are you an outie?' She kept up with me.
'No. I've never set foot on one of the colony planets.'
'You will. Gerbriik says you're going to be a Web jockey.'
'I don't know,' I admitted. 'They asked. I refused. They sent me here. I reconsidered. Now they're considering.' I braked at the bottom of the shaft, reaching for the handhold beside the hatch.
The black eyes softened. 'You must be a convert - one of the mites who got infected with an old nanovirus.'
'It happened. Not quite like that. What about you?'
'I used to be a Follower. Or I thought I was. I know better now. Delusional break, that's all it was, but I didn't want to spend the rest of the next sixty years repaying the treatment.' Her words were even, but the pain behind the words said I shouldn't ask more.
I didn't. Were all of us who were furcated across the Web misintegrals of one sort or another? From religious delusionals to obsessed perfectionists? But what was it about engee that inspired such delusional faith? Was engee real? Some sort of ancient relic venerated by the unbalanced? An alien intelligence?