Time to change herself once more.
THIRTY-THREE
MAGNUS & THE WORLD, 5575 AD
Seeker learned that the obsidian-eyed woman had a name, which he rendered as Maree Delgasso in flux-speech. She was a Pilot, one able to voyage among the stars (though Ideas regarding golden space were not yet decipherable), descendant of a line of Pilots that stretched back some one hundred and twenty generations.
Pilots had existed for longer than there had been people on the World; and yet it seemed they had common ancestry, soft-fleshed people like the folk whom the Pilots bore as passengers in their magnificent living vessels.
The Pilots lived according to a code called the Tri-Fold Way, and were amused, as they explored the World, at the three sexes and three-way symmetry of ‘native’ species, such as flying tri-blades . . . and at the failure of silver-skinned people, including Seekers, to deduce that their own ancestry was different, that the legend of the Ark had necessarily contained some truth.
But the Pilots’ philosophy, which impelled them towards peacefulness, apparently had a tragic origin.
**It came from healing, from the aftermath of war. Of so much death.**
The flux, though representing Maree’s words, emanated from the ring on her finger, mediated by a near-invisible mist. She was fascinated by the Ideas that Seeker-once-Harij captured, snagging them from the air. It made her eager to leave Magnus, and return the nine Seekers and Zirkana to the World.
**Not just to get you home, but to investigate this wonderful air. Some kind of airborne ferrimagnetic colloid, perhaps . . .**
Her musings had the flavour of some of those old Ideas, captured by wandering Seekers.
Other Pilots descended in bubbles to enter and commune with the old vessel that had taken the Seekers and Zirkana here. Finally, a pair of huge ships moved in overhead – Seeker was fascinated at their living forms, the way they could stretch and twist – and reached down with gentle tendrils to embrace the older vessel.
Gently, gently they lifted her from the sands, carried her up into the black star-powdered sky, and disappeared as Seeker-once-Harij watched.
**What happened to them?**
**They entered the golden ocean, my friend. A void where we can fly fast, and take her to a city where she can heal, that old ship.**
**And fly her again?**
Something shifted in Maree’s black-on-black eyes.
**Her Pilot is long dead. When she is well, she will simply slip away, as all ships do when they are bereft. Where they go, we do not know, and must never ask. **
**Your people are so strange.**
Maree reached out and touched the back of his hand.
**Your silver skin is strange also. That old ship transformed you, your ancestors, when she crashed upon the World.**
**She crashed?**
**And was broken, but healed as best she could. Your world was not hospitable.**
So much to combine with other Ideas, so much for the Seekers to share with the World.
**But for now, Seeker, it is time for us to take you home. Do you trust us?**
Zirkana came walking, her skin shining purest silver, absolutely radiant.
**This is so wonderful. Wait until Starij and the rest get to meet them!**
Seeker took Zirkana’s hands in his, and turned back to Maree.
**We trust you. Can you find the way?**
**The old ship gave us the location**
They called everyone together, getting ready for the return. Before they rose to her ship, Maree had a question for Seeker-once-Harij:
**You’re known as Seekers. Does it ever stop? Will returning like this mean the end of your careers?**
But Seeker-once-Harij had his arm around Zirkana, and his smile was serene as he cast his reply.
**I have already found what I Sought.**
Maree looked at them both, and smiled.
Then she summoned transport bubbles to carry them aloft to her waiting ship.
THIRTY-FOUR
MU-SPACE, 2606 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)
Commodore Max Gould was not a well man, in Pavel’s estimation. Ever since the attack or breakdown or whatever it was – no one was forthcoming with the medical history of the intelligence service’s director – Max had spent fewer hours in the Admiralty and more time by himself. The Admiralty Council had surprised Pavel by making his own position permanent, so that he was officially the deputy director; and Max had compounded that by handing over much of the running of the service, including some of the most strategically important and sensitive operations.
Now, in a gold-appointed lounge in Max’s apartments, they lounged back on flowcouches, Pavel and Max, sipping daistral and looking physically relaxed. The operations they discussed were serious, however.
‘Shireen Singh worked well on her last two assignments,’ Pavel told Max, ‘so I made her team leader on Coolth. There’s no news on tracking down the leak, though.’
Someone had betrayed shipping routes and times to the Zajinets – two Pilots had died – and analysis suggested that one or other of their common destinations was likely to be the location of the leak, most likely Coolth, a world of ice and oceans, with only a few town-sized research stations inhabited by humans.
‘I’m sure you’ll sort it out.’ Max’s tone suggested this was trivia, beneath his notice.
‘So I’m considering a decoy op,’ said Pavel. ‘With Jed Goran as the decoy, which is why I mentioned it.’
Jed was now Clara’s husband, security-vetted but not trained, increasingly involved in Admiralty work.
‘Clara’s a great asset.’
And never mind Jed’s safety, Pavel noted.
‘Agreed, Max. I won’t do anything to jeopardise her . . . well-being. Her concentration.’
‘Tell me more about the last Council session. I mean their attitudes and so on, not the specifics.’
‘Zajac and Whitwell’ – in private with Max, Pavel did not use the men’s ranks – ‘are behaving in character. Bluster and belligerence from one, cool logic from the other.’
‘No need to ask which is which.’ Max gestured, ordering a fresh daistral, which his couch extruded. He broke the cup off the narrow tendril, and took a sip. ‘Not bad. And the split among the others?’
‘Fifty-fifty, if we’re talking Zajac versus Whitwell. Get them to agree on a given matter, and you’ll have unanimous support around the table.’
‘And have they seen this?’ Max gestured a holovolume into view. ‘A sighting from mu-space, close to a sheaf of insertion points suitable for transit to Molsin.’
Pavel examined the ambiguous readings: a fast-moving ship, corkscrewing through an extreme geodesic, blurring surveillance either through desperate urgency or considered daring.
‘It’s not a Zajinet.’
That was the primary purpose of such set-ups: looking for Zajinet ships approaching realspace worlds from mu-space.
‘The analysts think,’ said Max, ‘that the Pilot might be Holland. Guy Holland.’
It took Pavel a second to recall the name.
‘Shit.’
‘Agreed.’
Holland was the Pilot who had carried Rick Mbuli, once Roger Blackstone’s college friend and more latterly an Anomalous component, to Vachss Station in orbit around Vijaya. And had subsequently escaped to Siganth, followed by Roger, who came back reporting that Siganth was now a hellworld with an Anomaly of its own – or an extended part of the same Anomaly as Fulgor: no one had yet decided for sure.