“No!” The word exploded out of her. “Not the ocean. Never.” She drew her hand across her mouth, a quick nervous gesture, straightened her back with a jerk and stared at him, almost daring him to come out with something equally impossible.
“So, send her into the sun.
She thought that over. “How? Wouldn’t someone have to stay with her? Only two minutes ago I read that the shipBrain is programmed to save her if all aboard are killed; if you aim her at the sun and leave her, she’ll break away before she reaches it. And what happens then, do we have a runaway killing machine hitting back at the ones that tried to kill her?”
“Adelaar? That’s your field.”
Adelaar ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it down where the wind outside the shelter had teased it into spikes. “While I was inside the interface, I set a trap into the groundlink; it hasn’t been found and it won’t be. Since then I’ve been using odd moments to explore the shipBrain through it. That Brain is big, it’s powerful, and oh my, it’s dumb. It’s old. We’ve learned considerable since that ship was built. Some of us. I kept away from the defense areas, but I don’t expect trouble when I go after them, though I’d rather handle that up there. Working through a tap is too… um… limiting. As soon as we lift off… hmm, that’s something we haven’t arranged yet, Hanifa. Where do you want us to pick up you and your people? I think it’s best we come to you, rather than you to us. It’ll be easier and faster.”
Aslan looked from her mother’s intent face to Elmas Ofka; one expression mirrored the other; it was like a glimpse into the future, maybe a year or two after this night. Read the changes, where the world goes when the Outside wanders in.
“I can’t say without knowing a lot more about who’s coming and what the Council thinks. Perhaps you could supply some way of communicating that the Huvved couldn’t tap into? If so, we can settle arrangements without having to find time for another meeting.”
Quale tapped on the table. Both women started, swung round to face him. “I’ve got some handcoms in the skip,” he said, “they’re linked to the satellites I inserted when we got here, should have no trouble bridging the distance between our Base and yours.” He turned his head. “Pels, bring in a couple of those handsets, will you?”
“Wait,” Elmas Ofka said.
“Hang on a minute, Pels, huh?”
“When we talked before, you needed to know where to find locations inside cities. I didn’t forget that, I brought you a small gift,” she glanced past him, met Aslan’s ironic gaze, “another small gift to help you with that problem. Har cousin, take the Hunter down to the boats and bring back our passenger.”
Aslan watched the chunky isya valve out after Pels. What’s going on here, she thought, there wasn’t anything about this in the report she made or in any of the hours of records I plowed through. She rubbed at her eyes, remembering with regret the watersac she’d left hanging on the yizzy pole. Her mouth was dry and she was wrung out, sleepy, her head ached. She wasn’t interested in these games Adelaar and Elmas were playing with each other, she’d left home years ago to get the smell of greed off her skin. She gazed at the back of Quale’s head; his hair brushed his collar, black, soft, fine, curling a little; she wanted to touch it, let it bend over her fingers. Damn, oh damn.
The valve hummed. Pels came in; his black lips were curled into an odd grin, his ears were standing straight up and twitching a little. He was humming, she could hear a rumbling brumbrum as he trotted to the table, dumped the comsets onto the memplas and swung around to watch the exit.
Harli Tanggаr ducked through, stepped to her place beside the valve as the man following her straightened and looked around.
Parnalee, Aslan thought, good god, what’s she think she’s doing? How’d she get hold of him?
“Parnalee Tanmairo Proggerd,” Elmas Ofka said. “In the course of his work, he has visited most of the cities of the Littorals. When he joined us two days ago, I saw him as the answer to your need.”
Maybe, Aslan thought, but that’s not the whole story. What are you up to, Dalliss? Smiling, urbane, wearing his public face, Parnalee walked to the table, touched hands with Quale. He wants this, she thought, why? He looked over his shoulder at her and she saw the beast in his black eyes, hungry beast promising her silently what he’d promised in words. Undercut me and you’re dead. She shivered and made up her mind she was going to be very very sure she was never alone with him any time anywhere.
Quale got to his feet. “That’s it, then. Call us when you’re ready, Hanifa. You want to leave first, or shall we?”
Elmas Ofka closed the lid on the case, snapped the latches home. “We’ll go. Don’t get yourself killed.”
X
1. About ten days after the meeting on Gerbek.
Karrel Goza in Ayla gul Inci: Waiting for the Lift-Off
Karrel Goza forked slimy rotten leaves from the second stage vat into a tiltcart. The stench that eddied around him crept through his stained overall and nestled against his skin, oozed through the overage filter on his mask. The stink was the least of his problems, the mist that stank would open ulcers in his skin and rot his lungs if he stayed in it long enough. The Huvved Kabrik who owned this shed had the patronage of the Fehdaz and the manager was under orders to squeeze the last thread of use from the gear. And more, if he could get away with it. The manager before him had been fired for being too easy on the workers; she was local, some of her employees were cousins and affiliates, others belonged to the Families of friends and associates. Herk’s crony didn’t make that mistake twice. The new manager came from a Guneywhiyker Daz, he had no family in Inci, no pressures on him to look to the safety of the workers. Karrel Goza didn’t bother complaining; it wouldn’t do any good and there were a hundred more desperate and thus more docile workers to take his place. He had too many small accidents, had called in sick too often in his need to cover absences when he was flying for Elmas Ofka, he was growing more marginal a worker as the weeks passed, a complaint was all the manager needed to boot him out. His Family was one of the poorer septs, small business folk living on the edge of failing, clerks and such; they needed twice what their earners were pulling in to pay the fees and taxes and all that Herk was squeezing from folk like them. A few years ago his pilot’s pay tithed had brought them comfort and a degree of security they’d seldom known. He’d sponsored and paid Guildbond (Pilot) for his cousin Geres Duvvar, he’d sponsored and paid Guildbond (Skilled Trades) for three score other cousins, sisters, brothers, affiliates. That was finished now. Drive, talent and a large dose of luck gave him a chance at a profession not usually open to boys from his class. Bondfees in the Pilot’s Guild were far too great for a Family with the income his had; even stretching they couldn’t afford such an expense, nor could they afford to tie up so much coin so long in a single member. When he was a middler near the end of his schooling, he earned his first coin flying soarwings on the Garrip sands in the semiformal races sponsored by a coalition of merchants and Sea Farmers. The purses were big, the entry fees small; he and an uncle who was a carpenter built his wingframe and an aunt who was a weaver made the fabric cover. He’d found his talent the moment he got his first kite up and when he was old enough to enter the races he made it pay. Time after time he won. There was danger in this racing; fliers crashed-misread aircurrents, were crowded offlift, showed bad judgment in their turns or were victims of sabotage. Men and women came from a dozen Dazzes to watch and wager on the fliers, there was a great deal of money floating about and the temptation to goose the odds was strong and seldom resisted. Orska Falyan of Sirgыn-Falyan was a devotee of those contests; he began betting on the agile boy who seemed to feel the air with every sweaty inch of naked skin, who slid again and again from traps meant to break him; he was elated when the boy continued to win, sometimes by huge leads. The old man more or less adopted Karrel Goza; he sponsored him to the Pilot’s Guild, paid his Guildbond, and when he gained his pilot’s rating, hired him on at Sirgыn Bol. Orska Falyan continued to take an interest in Karrel Goza, had him teach some Sirgыn and Falyan youngers how to soar, left the boy a small legacy when he died ten years later.