So I tried to run the beams again.
I failed twice before I made it. So severe were the shocks from the water, the second time, that when I pulled myself out of the pool, I lay in a heap for several minutes and shuddered. I didn't fall the third time.
Nor the fourth, but I staggered a lot, and had to slow down to get across the beam.
When the blackness lifted, Ileck was standing less than two meters from me, looking down on me, as he always did. 'Andra is right. You need a break. Take four days.' The tall bronzed man turned and walked away.
How many other people in Runswi were doing anything close to the physical exertions he was demanding of me? Or was it because I could do better?
Was he right - that I wasn't trying hard enough?
Probably ... if you're being honest with yourself.
I pulled off the heavy boots and set them on the drying rack, then the soaked singlesuit, thinking as I did. Honesty ... honesty is hard for you, Tyndel. I nodded. That was why I could talk to Aleyaisha but why I wanted Cerrelle. In a squeeze, Aleyaisha would be sympathetic, would comfort me ... and let me lie to myself. Cerrelle might be sympathetic again ... if I ate enough sour eel, but she wouldn't hesitate to let me know if I were headed down the path of self-deception.
But did I want a keeper?
No ... that wasn't it. It was knowing that she wanted the honesty, enough to be direct and honest, that made me want to be honest. Fersonne had shown me that...
Somehow, the hot shower wasn't as comforting as usual.
57
To forget the snows of yesterday is to deny the first flower of spring.
I thought I might sleep late before I left for Lyncol on the first day of the only multiday break I'd had in years. I didn't. I woke early while the sky was dark and cleaned up as it turned lead-gray under heavy clouds that promised more snow.
After a light breakfast downstairs, and after packing a small duffel in hand, I was ready to leave Runswi. Where was the glider station? I could only recall that it had been below ground, about four flights down. While I couldn't remember anything else, I did remember the map I'd gotten when I'd returned. I pulled it out from the drawer under the console and was pleased to see that the glider station was marked clearly - not more than a hundred meters from my quarters, underneath one of the research buildings.
As I looked at the map, I realized again that Runswi, unlike Lyncol, was really not a city or a town or a community. From what the map revealed and what I'd experienced, it was a laborium devoted to science and transport - and one that would have been a dream to the iconraisers of Henvor, had Runswi not been created by demons. Laborium or workplace of the demons, mental truffling wasn't getting me to Lyncol.
I lifted the duffel and left, walking through a gray morning raw as much as cold until I reached the stone archway that had to hold the steps down to the subterranean glider station. The steps were polished stone, polished so they glittered, yet not at all slippery to my boots. Beyond the last flight of steps was a squarish console, ten meters from the platform beyond. I frowned, trying to recall what to do. Cerrelle had done it all before. So I stepped up and tried what worked with the links - tapped in my name and code on the small screen.
This transit is 1 unit. Your free credit balance is 513 units. The words appeared on the screen. I managed not to shake my head. I knew that certain services were deducted from whatever balance I might have, but I really had no idea exactly how far that balance might go.
I stood looking at the empty space where the glider would appear for about ten minutes, until I could feel a slight breeze, and then a wave of air, just before the glider popped through the silvered arc at the western end of the platform. The arched silver cover slid back, revealing what looked to be twenty dual seats, in matched sets, two seats facing two.
Ten people left the glider, but I was the only one waiting. So I took a west-facing seat and waited. A man in a maroon suit scurried down the last of the steps, jabbed at the console, and hurried to seat himself in the four-set in front of me. Less than five minutes later, the covered glider slid into the silvery gray tunnel, and according to my internal timekeepers, something like fifteen standard minutes later I was standing on the stone-walled platform in Lyncol. A man in blue nodded as he stepped into the glider, and so did a woman in the dark green of a Web pilot. She added with a smile, 'Good luck.'
'Thank you.'
I stood for a moment, just surveying the glider station, something I hadn't done when I'd left Lyncol with Cerrelle. Then, I hadn't been listening or looking at much of anything. Unlike the glider station in Runswi, with its single platform, the one in Lyncol had a half dozen platforms, each linked by arched polished granite steps and walkways over the open induction tubes where the gliders were boarded and exited. Every stone glistened, so smooth-polished I could not help wonder if the Rykashan character harbored lithoidolatry. Then, the perfect woods that melded with the stones suggested silvalolatry.
My eyes flicked across the names of the nearest platforms -Elena, Runswi, Berta, Montral, Calgra. Except for confirming names from my basic Rykashan geographic indoctrination, none of them except Elena meant anything. Like all of the glider stations I'd been in, the one in Lyncol was four flights of stairs down, but I wasn't even breathing hard when I stepped outside into a late morning grayed over with heavy clouds from which drifted fat flakes of snow.
Lyncol had snow on the ground, piled nearly a meter deep, except for the cleared stone path that led, as I recalled, down a gentle hill to the transit quarters. I hoped I was headed where I was meant to be.
My breath puffed white in the cold air - drier and more invigorating than the damp chill of Runswi - and I was smiling as I hurried toward the wood-and-stone structure set within the huge and ancient pines. Once inside the foyer, I glanced around until I spotted an open door.
The broad-faced young man in grays looked up from his console. 'Greens - you must be Tyndel, the Web pilot candidate. Cerrelle said you'd be here today.' He stood, towering almost half a meter above me. 'Since you're a pilot candidate, you get the quarters for a half. That's seven units for the three days.'
'Do you need me to input anything?' Seven units meant the quarters went for five units a day, since the Rykashans never charged less than a unit for anything and rounded fractional transactions down, unlike the traders or usurers of Mettersfel.
'If you would ...' He bent forward and tapped something on the keyboard.
I entered my name and personal code, then straightened.
'That should take care of it. You've been here before, Cerrelle said. So you probably know where everything is. If you don't, let me know. I'm Aximander.' His smile was both shy and deferential, surprising to me given his size and obvious strength.
'I will. Thank you.'
Your rooms are on the top left. I'll show you.' He led the way out of his office and went up the steps gracefully, if two at a time. With his size, two at a time was easier.
'Are these all right?' asked Aximander after opening the door. 'I reserved the ones with the view of the pines and the mountains.'
The quarters were somewhat smaller than those in Runswi, and felt older, even if they were spotless. I walked to the window of the sitting/console room. The tops of the rocky peaks to the west were lost in the low clouds, but they'd been there before, and I was certain they hadn't disappeared. 'This is fine.' I smiled, enjoying the fact that I actually had a choice, limited as it was.