Dad. Did you really want me to know this?
Her name was Lianna Kaufmann, and he remembered being smitten with her at the Academy . . . except that he, Roger Blackstone, had never attended the Academy. Those were Dad’s memories.
In his mind Lianna was the same age that he was now; but in reality, the woman sitting across from him in the interview chamber had greying hair, and her face showed the lines of hard decisions made. It made him think of Leeja, now living on Vachss Station: he had not even tried to contact her. But events had moved quickly.
‘This is important news,’ said Lianna as Roger concluded his report. ‘You’ve done well.’
‘Thank you.’
He was careful not to use her first name, this being their first meeting in reality.
Havelock seemed thoughtful. ‘I agree, it was good work. You understand why it was decided to send you in particular.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Roger, wondering what the issue was.
‘The Vachss Station judicial hearing was not public.’ Lianna was frowning. ‘But some important events took place there. Even if the recordings don’t go public – I’m afraid your name is destined to become well known on Vijaya.’
‘Crap,’ said Roger.
‘Well, precisely,’ said Havelock. ‘You said previously your success would depend on remaining unknown, but this time it’s worked out differently. Not an entirely secret victory.’
So much for subterfuge and infiltration.
‘Since the Göthewelt raid,’ Havelock went on, ‘there have been seven more Zajinet attacks in realspace. With Labyrinth on a war footing, you and your classmates are likely to be operational immediately on completion of training. The nature of those operations is . . . malleable.’
Meaning not what they had been trained for.
‘Understood, sir.’
But it was Lianna’s words, at the conclusion of the meeting, that would stay with him.
‘Your father would be proud,’ she told him. ‘Very proud.’
In return, he could have told her how much Dad had been in love with her when they were young, and how hurt he had been by her dismissal when she believed him to be Shipless; but some thoughts are best kept hidden for ever.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE WORLD, 5575 AD
When the potential for flight among the worlds was discovered, the possibility of sailing the heaven-void, they cast for more Seekers to join them, and seven came. Alongside Seeker-once-Harij and Seeker-once-captive, they should be enough to respond to flux-queries from within the vessel – or so they believed.
Zirkana’s thoughts were entirely different.
**It cannot fly.**
The excavation had completely uncovered the ancient vessel, which looked . . . younger. Newer. Vast and lustrous, dark green banded with white. It seemed capable of holding hundreds, perhaps a thousand sleeping people stacked in bunks, as the ancient legend said.
**In dreams through golden space they fled/Till xeno demons cut them dead.**
There was more to the old verse but, even among Seekers, few bothered with it; for it was clearly allegory and filled with indecipherable allusion: for one thing, space was most obviously black. In the absence of other Ideas from that period, the references made little sense today.
What had surprised the two hundred workers as they dug sand, brushed hardened clumps from the uncovered ship, and polished every part, was that the underlying metal – if it was metaclass="underline" its properties were odd – had failed to deteriorate despite being buried for so long, a great many generations.
And after a time, as they had approached the end of the cleaning, the ship had begun to hum, a soft low fluxcast that lightened every heart, made every person smile and wonder. That included Zirkana; but unlike the others, she broke away to spend time worrying, because the intent had arisen among the group without discussion: if the ship could fly, the Seekers wanted to try her out. They thought of the ship as female, for no reason they could decipher.
Zirkana was afraid for Seeker-once-Harij.
**Let the others try it, if they must.**
In their alcove within the dormitory caverns, when day was beginning outside and everyone else was asleep, she would hold him very tight. But they both knew that the urge to Seek was as strong as love and that to set them in opposition could only bring pain.
On the final night before the attempt, travellers arrived, twenty in number, from a settlement within a distant mountain. What they brought was a gift, a chunk of virgin dreamlode, its crystal free of contained flux. It was both a celebration of the project’s triumph and a potential tool for the Seekers intending to fly the vessel.
Then the night came when all was ready, and there was no reason to delay, except perhaps for the breaking of one woman’s heart. With over two hundred people gathered for a noble purpose and sharing a dream, an individual’s fears were irrelevant. Zirkana kept her thoughts wrapped tightly in herself.
No one could know.
Seeker-once-Harij lost sight of Zirkana during the speeches by Starij and Kolarin, the leaders of the dig, when the combined flux of two hundred volunteer workers heterodyned into a blazing cheer. They were standing close together and the effect was awe-inspiring, so that the nine assembled Seekers could only stand at the base of the newly constructed ramp, letting the flux sink in.
Then it was time to climb to the opening that had appeared in the hull five nights before, revealing a chamber in which decay had not occurred. Emotions whirling, the Seekers entered and waited. After a moment, as they had known it would, the opening flowed shut.
Amazing! They were aboard a sky vessel on the verge of—
**Zirkana? How are you here?**
She rose from the floor where she had been curled up, holding her flux inside herself.
**The ship allowed me in.**
There was no time for Seeker-once-Harij to remonstrate with or hug her, because the other Seekers were focused on the dreamlode crystal – Seeker-once-captive was holding it against his chest – combining their thoughts to create a clean command.
Except that it would be request more than order, to such a wondrous ship as this.
**Rise, good vessel. Please rise.**
The floor and walls shivered as the air grew warm. It came to the conjoined Seekers that the ship was very old, and they were asking a great deal. People grow feeble, so it stood to reason that a living ship would—
A massive force slammed into them.
There was time to deal with bleeding noses while the ordeal lasted, time for their skins to lose the mottling of emotion and return to polished silver equilibrium. Finally, the ship’s trembling lessened, and they felt themselves sinking.
Surely descending to the dig. There had been time for nothing more.
Finally, they felt the sensation of slowing descent, of settling in place; and everybody smiled.
The wall flowed open as before, and a strong draught swept through the chamber.
**The air feels oddly—**
Suddenly all communication with the other Seekers was gone. Only Zirkana’s and Seeker-once-Harij’s thoughts whirled together, pulsing and urgent.
**Physical contact. Keep hold. It’s as if the air is dead to flux.**
**Yes. You’re right.**
Maintaining his grasp on Zirkana’s hand, Seeker-once-Harij clasped the nearest Seeker’s shoulder; and after a momentary disorientation, that Seeker in turn grabbed two others. Soon they were communicating, panic over.
**We can breathe the air.**
**It sustains life, but not flux. How can that be?**