I snorted and stood. 'You just want to throw me out into the snow.'
'That's Cerrelle.'
'You're doing it for her.'
Andra gave about a half head shake. 'No one with any brains ever does anything that Cerrelle would want to do herself.'
I hid a smile and left, heading for the transient quarters and a quick snack before marching back through the snow to the pool.
There, after putting me through the 'lighter' conditioning workout, Ileck did have something special for me - differentially weighted boots. So I plunged into the shocking black water more than a few more times before adjusting.
The snow had stopped by the time I walked up the steps to the foyer of the transient quarters, but my hair was frozen from the stiff wind blowing out of the north. If it kept up, the marshes would freeze before long, and that meant the beginning of true winter. Runswi seemed colder than Dorcha, even than Henvor, but not so cold as Lyncol, even though Runswi wasn't that much farther north. The mountains -the wind patterns?
Rather than go out through the snow and chill again, I went downstairs to the limited reformulator in the transients' quarters and had more Dorchan strip beef and Arleen. As I ate, looking out at the glittering white, even without sun, I reflected that snow changed things. I'd been far colder in an outside suit off OE Station, but less than ten centimeters of crystallized water, barely below its freezing point, had dissuaded me from walking four hundred meters to get a better meal - rather, a greater variety in meal selection -when I scarcely would have noticed the chill.
Genetic patterns? Still unchanged by all the nanite rebuilding within me?
After a second mug of Arleen, I walked back to my quarters, where I paced around the sitting room before my eyes turned to the screen. I needed to read more, but I wasn't sure I wanted to start that immediately. I sat down and touched the link studs, doubting that Cerrelle would answer.
The answerer image flashed on.
I waited for the brief words to leave a message, then spoke. 'This is Tyndel. You're probably not there, but I wanted you to know I was thinking about you—'
The answerer was replaced by Cerrelle - hair longer than the answerer's image of her, with slightly darker circles under her eyes. 'What do you want, Tyndel?'
You're actually home,' I said. 'I wanted to talk to you.'
'I usually don't answer. I don't like links, but I checked to make sure it was you. I wouldn't have interrupted the answerer otherwise.'
That was some progress. 'Thank you.'
Cerrelle made a gesture to brush off my words. 'What does Andra have you doing now?'
'Ship construction and specifications. It's interesting.'
'It should be. It's your neck.'
'I know.'
'Would you like to come here when you get a break? You will at the end of next week. I've arranged guest quarters for you - where you stayed before. You remember?'
Yes. I'd like that. I'll be there.'
'Good.' She smiled. 'I'll see you then.' The connection broke, proving again that Cerrelle did not like to converse on the link.
I turned toward the window and looked into the grayish white of evening snow, lit in places by lights and reflections of light. Was directness that important to me? In a woman?
The sardonic smile that settled on my face answered that. I might not like that honesty, but the nanites had either changed me or made me understand myself better, and I realized that I could not afford to be close to anyone who would encourage me to deceive myself, even through concern and sympathy.
I still didn't understand why. Maybe it was enough that I understood.
56
Significant images render insights beyond speech.
As I pulled myself out of the pool after the last sprint, still panting, I looked at the deep end of the pool. Now above the clear black water, above the tiles as dark as nielle, Ileck had set two beams spanning the water, one two meters above the surface, the other half a meter to one side, roughly a meter above the water.
Without waiting for my taskmaster to gesture, I pulled on the exercise singlesuit, the weighted pack, and the differentially weighted boots. The weight in the pack and the boots varied every day. I walked slowly toward Ileck.
He motioned toward the pedestal steps that held the uppermost beam, and I crossed the black composite deck to the steps and mounted. When the blackness dropped across the pool, both beams glimmered, the lower one more faintly than the upper.
'Stay on the upper - if you can,' Ileck ordered. 'You should be running the beam.'
I got three balanced quick steps in that first moment of silence before being struck with the music that called forth something like a charge of horses or ancient cavalry. With the music came the projection of glittering, silver-edged dark spears, each radiating chill.
One foot slipped, and I tried to catch myself, then let the momentum take me to the lower bar, where I managed another half dozen steps at a jogging pace before a wave of heat and cold organ music wiped me sideways and off the beam.
'Ooo .. .'I couldn't help the involuntary exclamation when I hit the water. The electroessence of that jolt froze me for an instant, and I barely managed to get my mouth closed before sinking below the surface. The blackness didn't vanish, and fire jolts made each movement torture. Somewhere above and within the water, a dirge rumbled, mournful and bewailing a death, mine if I didn't manage to drag boots and pack and self to the edge. I could have dropped the pack, but then I'd have to dive down eight meters and recover it.
How long it took to reach the side of the pool, I wasn't certain, but only when my hand touched the tiles did the darkness and the jolts stop.
You're not trying hard enough to stay on the beams,' Ileck announced. 'This is not a contest. It is not a game.'
I pulled myself out of the dark water, still shuddering from the hot-cold shocks it had delivered before Ileck had lifted the darkness.
He looked at me, disappointed once more.
Dripping water that looked clear as it puddled on the black composite deck, I studied my taskmaster, then asked, 'Will you answer a question for me?' I had to work to keep my jaw from shivering as I spoke.
'If I can.' Ileck offered a faint quirk of his lips that didn't approach a smile.
'Is there more to having the water jolt me than just conditioning me to avoid pain and stay on the beam?'
'Yes.'
I raised my eyebrows, then wiped the water off my forehead. 'What, might I ask?'
'To try to condition your body to the severity of failure.'
'Are you sure doing that won't just make me more nervous?'
'If it does, then you'll die in overspace anyway.'
I stood and dripped water for a time. 'You're using various nanite projections to create an illusion of reality here - but wouldn't it be easier just to use something like a nanite briefing spray to give me the entire vision of what you want? Why this way?'
Ileck frowned before he spoke. 'In overspace, you will receive sensory inputs. They'll actually be energy signals relayed from the ship's sensors, but you'll feel them as sensory. You'll react based on your training and your senses. Your mind will react one way, and if it's not conditioned properly your body will react another. A Web pilot can't afford that kind of internal conflict. Right now, that's all you should know.'
'You're conditioning my body and mind?'
'That's what we're working on.'
'You don't sound absolutely sure.' I pointed out.
'Nothing is certain until you make your first overspace insertion.' He coughed slightly and pointed to the beams. 'You need more work.'