My truffled omelet was adequate, but I could have fixed one better than what the formulator had created. The Arleen was good, and I took another sip.
'Why do you value honesty so much, Tyndel, as if nothing else mattered?' Her piercing green eyes focused on me. 'You keep coming back to that. Yet people here don't lie. The system discourages it pretty effectively.'
'I haven't seen a Rykashan yet who lied - that I know of,' I pointed out. Yet you seem so much more honest and direct.' And I need that directness.
'The native demons grow up with it, and they learn to shield it in subtle ways. Subtlety comes harder if you aren't raised with it. When you're not attacking, Tyndel, you're much like them. Dorcha is like Rykasha.'
'Maybe the first Rykashans came from the same cultures.'
'Not according to the histories. It's more a question of power, I think. Dorcha is one of the more powerful mite nations, and has been for centuries. Rykasha is the only real nanite culture, and it's definitely powerful.'
'With interstellar ships and nanite weapons ... there's nothing else that comes close.' I thought about the segments of history I'd read on OE Station. 'Do we - I guess it's we - have all those weapons mentioned in the histories?'
'I don't know.' Cerrelle shrugged. 'The Patrol uses some - tractors and immobilizers. There must be others. The mites have laser cannon and all sorts of explosives, but they stay well away from Rykashan borders.' An almost impish smile crossed her lips. You avoided answering the honesty question. Why do you pursue it?'
I took another sip of Arleen, then found myself holding an empty mug, with nothing to retreat behind. 'I ... don't want to guess. When ... you say something, that's what you believe. I can agree or disagree, but I'm not guessing as to what you feel'
'You didn't have to come to Lyncol, you know?'
I thought about that for a moment. 'You didn't have to travel all the way to OE Station.'
'The Authority paid for it - and for my time.'
'But you chose to, didn't you?'
She nodded.
'Then ... I had to come to Lyncol - but I wanted to, as well.'
'I'm glad of that.'
I paused as I reconsidered her earlier words. 'The Authority - they paid? Pilots are that scarce?'
'They're not that scarce ... now, but most are nearly a century old, and there aren't that many new ones - one or two a year, at best.'
'Does anyone know why?'
Cerrelle shrugged. 'There are rumors - something connected to the Anomaly ...'
'Engee - the so-called god?'
'Whatever it is ... it may not be a god, but we've lost a few ships along routes that end near the Anomaly. The scientists keep working on it, but whatever they've found isn't common knowledge.'
I had to frown at that. 'Overspace isn't that congruent with real space-time.'
'The ships are missing. Three so far, and there's a deep-space colony of Believers set out there - they went the hard way... by photon drive. They run what amounts to a shuttle every few years.'
'There was one on the shuttle when I went to OE Station.
She said something about the fact that true Believers can't be adjusted.'
'They can be adjusted.' Cerrelle pushed her plate back just a touch. 'Anyone can be adjusted. But adjustment of Believers leads to various forms of insanity that aren't easily cured.'
'Oh ... so a Believer's faith is so deep that it resists Rykashan structures?'
'That's the simple answer, and mostly true.'
'But Dzin isn't that deep.'
'No.'
'Because Dzin is a way of life, rather than a faith per se?'
'Probably. I don't know, but I know it works that way.'
Cerrelle told the truth, but her words bothered me all the same. What was it about a Believer that might be different? All people believed something. Again, there was information missing or withheld, and I hadn't the faintest idea of what it might be, except in a general sense.
'Believers or not' - Cerrelle stretched and looked down at her empty plate - 'I have to work, and you have to go get back to learning to be a Web pilot.'
When we left the Overlook, we walked out the lane and up past the transient quarters where I'd stayed after fleeing Dorcha, back uphill toward the glider station.
Cerrelle stopped at the top of the steps. 'You can find your own way home. You're a big boy now.' She grinned.
'Thanks to you.' I grinned back.
She shook her head. You'd have figured it out. It might not even have taken as long.'
'I don't think so.' You would.'
I knew differently, but I wouldn't argue that point. You made it easier.'
'I doubt that. I'll always make your life harder, Tyndel. Don't you ever doubt that.'
Harder ... but better ... 'I've learned not to doubt your word.'
'Good.' The smile was better than a hug or a kiss, and I watched as she turned and hurried back downhill.
59
That which cannot be constructed cannot be annihilated.
Within a few weeks of my return to Runswi, the year turned. Why did the ancients turn the year in the dead of winter, and why had all cultures continued the pattern? None of the databases and libraries accessible through my console had any answers to those questions. Somehow, that confirmed for me that no culture is ever comfortable looking at some of the basic assumptions by which it operates.
I still linked with Cerrelle, but for us, links were short and less than satisfactory, perhaps because neither of us had grown up with the system or because we felt all too strongly the difference between visual representations and full-body reality.
My sessions with Andra had stretched out to every third day, and even Ileck seemed half satisfied with my efforts. I'd never imagined that I'd be sprinting across narrow beams, dodging fast-moving obstructions and objects with fifty kilograms on my back in pitch-darkness and not losing my balance ... but most of the time I avoided getting dumped into the shocking black water.
On that day after the year turn, Andra motioned for me to follow her to her work space or office, not the nanite briefing room or the console room. She sat behind a console, and I sat in a green cushioned chair, more comfortable than the briefing chair.
Her words were blunt. 'Ileck and I agree, Tyndel. You're ready for the next phase. It's also a big decision point for you.'
'Which is?'
'Some nanite-directed and -accomplished modifications to your nervous and sensory systems. Comparatively minor.'
Was anything that modified the nervous system minor? 'Minor?'
'Minor isn't quite the right word,' Andra clarified. 'The physical changes are modest, and not visible at all, but the impact isn't necessarily minor. Being a Web pilot takes incredible talents and training. You have to know that by now.'
'I've gotten some idea. Ileck keeps telling me that. He's always insisting that all the progress I've made is minimal compared to what I'll have to do.'
A smile broke Andra's stern visage. 'He's exaggerating in one way. Nothing else in the training will be as hard physically. It will be a great deal worse perceptually.' She cleared her throat as if preparing to deliver sobering news. 'The pilot is the ship. That means you need to be able to assimilate and react to outside stimuli instantly, including all the inputs from the ship's sensors and from other sources. Your nervous system's capacity has to be enlarged ...'