Shaking myself mentally, I had to smile. In a way, it mattered little. Engee was whatever it was. Then I caught myself. That ... that is the difference! Dzin taught one to discover and be aware of what was. The Rykashans sought to advance and improve, but not necessarily to become fully aware. Dzin-instinctively, to me, outside of my personal curiosity, it didn't matter what engee was, but I had a responsibility to become aware of what he/she/it might be had I ever the chance.
I opened the triple hatch and gestured for Seriley to follow me toward the bays that held the cargo sleds. There I stopped. 'Based on the specifications, these are larger than any used in the earth orbit stations, but they stay down here. There's the smaller sled that can fit in the transverse shafts and doesn't require the heavy guides that these three do.' I kept walking. 'We do all ESAs from the lowest level. The passenger locks are on the level above, but we only use them for receiving, and there are emergency locks higher on every upper level.'
'That's standard in all stations. The lowest level is the most heavily braced.'
I almost asked if she'd studied them all before I realized that I already knew it myself. I just hadn't looked. Or remembered? That was the trouble with nanite-carried information. After a time, you didn't - or I didn't - know what you knew or didn't know.
Since no ships were docked or off-loading, I took her to the middle personnel lock. We pulled on outside suits and soft helmets, checked the supporting fields, checked each other. Remembering Fersonne, I checked the pressures on both broomsticks a second time before I pressed the evacuation stud.
Momentary swirls of minute ice crystals flew, then the chill followed. We slipped through the bars of light thrown by the glow strips and out past the lock dampers. Seriley didn't have to be reminded to clip her tether.
When first I swam out from the light of the lock, again, the rampart that was the station reared upward and outward like a wall of the ancients. The featureless expanse stretched endlessly toward the starry pinlights that cut the niellen blackness like tiny knives. Somewhere, if my visions and dreams were accurate, behind all those stars lay arcs of golden-red fire that burst from a spiral of stars ... somehow linked to the mysterious engee.
If they weren't ... then I was the delusional one. I eased the faintest puff of gas to the broomstick. Then I turned on the stick's seat and gestured. 'We replaced the dampers on the cargo locks about fifteen standard months ago. Gerbriik thinks they'll be good for another five years.'
'They only last two years or so on the earth orbit stations.'
'Higher traffic,' I pointed out. 'Much higher,' she added.
I gestured toward the brightest star in the sky, a pin-disc. 'There's Omega. You can't even see discs of Conan or Alaric from here. Dust density's higher than normal. They put the station farther out, well beyond the VeeTee range.'
'The hull's pitted already. Earth orbit stations are smoother.' She laughed. 'But we're hit with more junk.'
'Remnants from history?'
'Some of that. Also the comet belts are more erratic and denser. Something to do with the placement of gas giants in the earth system.'
We slid past the end cargo lock, past the personnel lock, and around toward the back side of the station, the dark side where the coolant fins from the fusactors melded into the darkness of space, not even lit by the photons from distant Omega.
Every station has a dark side. So does every life, even that of a demon, and I was a demon, no matter how long I had resisted accepting that.
44
Your concern alone is the action of duty, not the judgment of that duty.
From the depths to my left, to the massed pipe organ sounds of a march orchestrated by an ancient Baroque composer, gallop cavalry troops of rectangles - bright blue - arrayed in rows not quite symmetrical. Underneath the music is the weight of something - something massive, and yet being flung swiftly - and behind the rectangles and their accompaniment come the words. Even the mighty are limited ...
That's a tautological paradox,' my mind replies, concentrating as I am on avoiding the deadly rectangles that threaten me/us. True mightiness would have no limits.'
Any being within a universe is limited by that universe. Any ordered action in any universe results in a total increase in disorder.
I have no answer, swooping to my right, maintaining the gradient I need, knowing that to flee downward will allow the rectangles to pierce and bury us/me.
Even gathering and creating information is an ordered action, and as such, there is no way even a god can create more information than is destroyed through the creation process. Golden-red starfire punctuates the words.
'Then how can any being increase knowledge?'
By linking two universes, by using the energy from a collapsing high-entropy antimatter universe to power the creation of order within this universe.
'That would take more than a god.' I dismissed the thought and concentrated on the white/black warmth of the beacon ahead, mustering my last energy to control the descent that would bring us back to Sol from the greenness of Thesalle, that greenness I pondered, as had who knew how many scientists ... and all without an answer.
45
All beings have gods to worship: not all gods respect those who offer worship.
The end of my third year on OE Station was rapidly approaching. Seriley was pleasant enough, but I missed Fersonne. I even missed Cerrelle.
One shift break, Sanselle, Seriley, and I sat restrained by sticktites in the canteen, finishing meals of great diversity. The way the schedules rotated, the three of us seldom ate at once. The odor of Dhurr spiceroll drowned out the mild basilic flavor of my chicken creamed truffles and whatever Seriley had been eating.
'How long will you be here, do you think?' Sanselle asked me.
'I don't know. Another three months, another eight years. I haven't heard.'
'What about you?' The sandy blonde turned to Seriley.
'I'm here for five. Six if I want, if I can take it.' The muscular woman shrugged.
'You'll wear out the exercise area by then.'
I could understand that, lax as I had been. The nanites helped, especially on the cellular level, but we'd all been briefed on the fact that after two years we'd need nearly six months of intensive physical reconditioning to regain full gravity well ability, more as the years off-planet built up.
'I don't want to lose too much muscle tone.' Seriley sipped something from a bottle, then asked Sanselle. 'How long for you?'
'I've been here four years - this time - and I need another two.'
The slightest frown crossed Seriley's face.
Sanselle massaged the back of her neck with her right hand. 'I'm one of those suicidal risk-taking free rock climbers. I've got a place in the White Peaks, do some work for the ecology restoration folks. Working here is for rescue and medical rehab.'
'Have you ever needed it?' asked Seriley.
'That's why I'm back. Got careless on a trip to the Old Rockies. Took a flitter to get me out - and two years of spinal rebuilding.'
I held in the wince, taking a last mouthful of the truffles.
You're going back there again,' said Seriley.
'Of course.' Sanselle laughed. 'Next time, I won't be so careless.'
'Why do you do it?'