The hands set her down on a small platform hardly large enough for one person to perch on; immediately ahead of her she saw a familiar pulsing cloud. She plunged through it and emerged into another tincan; she stepped over the raised sill and found herself standing in something that was part corridor, part atrium, part multiplex chamber five hundred meters long, perhaps a hundred wide, whose ceiling was so high overhead it was lost in the dimness peculiar to the light in this ship. Quale flashed past her, swung round, his eyes on the tube exit. He waited for one minute, two. Aslan moved away a few steps, turned to watch, a cold knot forming in her stomach as the seconds slid past and Parnalee didn’t appear. Quale checked the chron set in a ring he wore on his thumb, then he swung to face Elmas Ofka. “All right,” he said, “is this some idea of yours?”
Elmas Ofka glared at him, her suspicion matching his. “Or yours?”
Xalloor poked her elbow into Churri’s ribs; from the corner of her mouth, she shot at him, “Do your stuff, poet, or we’re gonna have a war right now.” She caught hold of Aslan’s arm. “Hush,” she whispered, “anything you say just makes things worse. She been primed not to believe you.”
“Hanifa,” Churri said, his voice making a minor magic of the word; she switched her glare to him, softening it automatically as she realized who was speaking. “Just one thing, make of it what you want. It was Parnalee’s choice, coming last. None of ours. Looks like he had plans he wasn’t telling anyone.”
She thought that over, clamped her mouth so tightly her lips disappeared; no more talking, that was the message. Let’s get on with this, that was the other message as she swung round and faced the great bronze doors that sealed off the bridge.
Quale glanced at his chron again. “Take cover,” he said. His voice was low, but pitched to carry. “Ten minutes before Adelaar opens her up for us.”
The grand Atrium had an angular egg shape with exits like liver spots spattered through every sector, ramps and handrails focused on what was now the floor, sealed-hatch storerooms, undedicated alcoves with no barriers at their portals, small rooms, large rooms, the few she could see into apparently as empty as the greater area, holes, nooks, recesses, stalls, coves, pockets, a hundred different receptacles breaking the smoothness of the metal walls. Aslan followed Churri and Xalloor into a small closet area with empty shelves and bins lining the walls; Karrel Goza and Lirrit Ofka crowded in with them; guarding Elmas Ofka was their first duty and their desire and staying close to the Outsiders was part of it. Aslan hid a smile. Duty didn’t dampen their excitement, their impatience to get on with taking the ship. She edged away from them and stood a step back from the entrance and to one side so the darkling air and the wall shielded her from observation; like all the other doorways she’d encountered in the ship, the sill was raised shin high, perfect tripping height, was that the purpose? Two of Jamber Fausse’s band looked in but decided this closet was already too crowded; from the sound of their voices, they went to ground in the next nook that’d hold them. Elmas Ofka, Jamber Fausse and the rest of his band chose yet other waiting places. Quale vanished somewhere and the Aurranger Rau transformed himself into a ripple in the dimness and went flickering about, nosing into whatever took his interest, unlocking hatches, poking into bins and drawers, going a short distance down some corridors, running up ramps to check out others. After she discovered how to estimate where he was, she watched the band of light and let her mind drift where it wanted to go, sliding contentedly through level upon level of metaphor and symbol. She’d read about the Raus and their talents and she’d heard a dozen tales about Pels and his pranks (though she’d discounted those, knowing the tellers too well to credit their accuracy); watching him at work was endlessly fascinating. She’d thought of him earlier as a sort of benevolent demon in the bowels of this malevolent beast of a ship, as a magister’s familiar, Quale being the magician/master; she’d been playing games with image and word, but her imaginings were beginning to seem more accurate than she’d suspected. She checked the Ridaar. No need to slip in a new flake, not yet.
Where she stood she could see the entrance to the Bridge, an oval like the rest of the doorways but larger. Much larger. The door was laminated bronze with an antique patina and the Imperatorial sigil in onyx calligraphy on a silver shield. Impressive, but they had its key and that key was her mother, Adelaar sitting out in the tug, playing her nay-saying tunes through the tap. At the proper time, she’d send a command bouncing through the satellite, down to the mainBrain and up again through the slavelink into the shipBrain. Open the door. And the door would open.
She could hear the ship breathing, the hushed whirr of fans that pushed the cleansed and constantly renewed air through the web of conduits; she could hear clicks and creaks and feel a subliminal hum through the soles of her sandals. A mite in the gut of an immense indifferent beast. She moved closer to the door and saw the invisible turn visible, pip-pop unroll the curtain, shape the beast from shade to solid, magic hardening into mundane. Pels kurk Orso, graduate engineer and living toy. She watched the flow of his broad black hands as he used a silent sign talk to argue with Quale. I wonder what that’s about? The exchange ended. Pels shrugged, rippled out again and went back to his snooping. Quale crossed the chamber at a rapid trot, stopped beside one of the exits.
Two guards came sauntering along the corridor attached to that exit, chatting as they walked; their voices came ahead of them, announcing them before they appeared. A hard nervous hand on Aslan’s arm pulled her away from the door. Karrel Goza dropped to a crouch, his pellet rifle ready. The guards, a pair of Tassalgans, appeared and turned away from the Bridge, started to turn back as they realized what they’d seen-Swardheld Quale standing there, a stranger in the ship. Before they completed the turn, their faces went slack and they dropped into a heap, one falling on the other.
Quale replaced his stunner, checked his thumbring. “Time,” he said.
Lirrit Ofka moved swiftly past Karrel, ran to join Elmas Ofka; Karrel Goza looked at Aslan, Churri, Xalloor. “Go,” he said. “I’ll follow.”
Xalloor moved with her awkward dancer’s grace past Aslan, muttering as she went, “There’s hardly enough trust around here to gild a snort.”
Pels was momentarily visible, solid, focused on the great bronze door, his chunky body quivering with an eagerness as great as that she saw in the Hordar who had a much bigger stake in the outcome. He must have done things like this a thousand times before; that didn’t seem to matter. Like me, Aslan thought, how I get when I step out on a new world.
The door snapped open.
A wave of change passed over Pels, erased him. The ripple in the air moved swiftly ahead of Quale as he ran onto the Bridge, his stunner humming softly. T’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, Aslan heard as she hung back, waiting for this bit to end, it wasn’t her idea of a good time. T’krak’k’k, t’rak’k’k. That had to be pellet guns. She looked at Xalloor, grimaced. The dancer lit up with one of her flash-grins, let the babies play, she mouthed. Fffft, ffft’t’t’t, fffft, isya darters. Poison, she thought. Some babies. When they stepped over the sill, half the Bridge crew were collapsed at their stations, dead or stunned, the rest were standing or sitting, staring with dull incredulity at what-is-impossible.
The Huvved Captain sat in a swivelchair that was raised higher than the rest and out in the middle of the chamber where the occupant could see everything taking place at the various stations, a massive kingseat, squatly powerful, with lights like jewels on the boxy arms, sensor pads useless as jewels because Adelaar had managed a minor coup and put through a demand-command that tied up most of the input available to the shipBrain, a move made necessary because this noble Captain knew all about defending himself from rebelling crews, though he had only the most rudimentary idea of the other powers under his hands. He was tall and firmly muscled with a patina of softness beginning to blur the clean outlines of his body. His face was plucked and painted into a dainty mask, his straight fair hair was plaited with gold and silver wire, arranged into loops and swirls until it was more like a minor sculpture than something that grew on a man’s head. He wore a yoss silk tunic and trousers, both dyed a lustrous black and over them a sleeveless robe woven in one piece by one of Tairanna’s premier weavers, a tapestry in black and silver with touches of aquamarine and olive, a heavy, extravagantly beautiful creation. Muscles bulged beside his mouth and his long silver nails were pressed so hard against the chair arm that several of them had cut through the padding and two had broken off near the quick.