“Yes, we most certainly do!” the colonel exclaimed.
“Positively persecuted,” Fassin said.
“Hmm. They are different again, of course. But even within the limits of the naturally evolved, the manifold rates at which time is appreciated are, some would argue, collectively the single most telling distinction that might be made between species and species-types.”
The speaker was an ancient Sage called Jundriance. Dweller seniority nomenclature stretched to twenty-nine separate categories, starting with child and ending, no less than two billion years later (usually much more) at Child. In between came the short-lived Adolescent and Youth stages, the rather longer Adult stage with its three sub-divisions, then Prime, with four subdivisions, Cuspian with three and then, if the Dweller had survived to that age (one and a quarter million years, minimum) and was judged fit by his peers, Sagehood, which then repeated all the subdivisions of the Adulthood, Prime and Cuspian stages. So, technically, Jundriance was a Sage-prime-chice. He was forty-three million years old, had shrunk to only six metres in diameter — while his carapace had darkened and taken on the hazy patina of Dweller middle age — had already lost most of his limbs and he was in charge of what was left of the house and associated libraries of the presumed deceased Cuspian-choal Valseir.
The view from the house was motionless and unchanging at normal time, a hazy vista of deep brown and purple veils of gas within a great placid vertical cylinder of darkness that was the final echo of the great storm that the house had once swung about like a tiny planet around a great, cold sun. In appearance the house-library complex itself was a collection of thirty-two spheres, each seventy metres or so in diameter, many girdled by equatorial balconies, so that the construction looked like some improbably bunched gathering of ringed planets. The bubble house hung, very slowly sinking, in that great calm of thick gas, deep down in the dark, hot depths only a few tens of kilometres above the region where the atmosphere began to behave more like a liquid than a gas.
“This is his house, then, yes?” the colonel had asked when they’d first seen it from the foredeck of the Poaflias.
Fassin had looked around, using sonosense and magnetic to search for the section of the derelict CloudTunnel that the house had once been anchored to, but couldn’t find it anywhere nearby. He’d already checked the Poaflias’s charts. The stretch of CloudTunnel no longer showed up on the local holo maps, implying that it had either drifted much further away — which was unlikely — or had fallen into the depths.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, looks like it.”
They’d had to turn the Poaflias around and return to Munueyn. Sholish, badly injured, had been taken to hospital. The surgeons had given him an even chance of surviving. He’d heal best left in a drug coma for the next few hundred days. There was nothing more they could do.
Y’sul could have taken on any number of Youths and Adolescents eager to take his crippled servant’s place, but he’d turned them all down — a decision he’d regretted just a day or so later once they’d set out again, when he’d realised he had nobody to shout at.
They’d avoided challenges, other ships and mines of all sorts, finally making the journey in ten days. The Sage Jundriance was attended by a couple of burly Prime servants, Nuern and Livilido, each dressed in fussily ornate and ill-fitting academic robes. They were sufficiently senior to have servants of their own; a half-dozen highly reticent Adults who looked like identical sextuplets. They were big on scurrying but almost autistically shy.
The senior of the two elder servants, Nuern — a mouean to Livilido’s one-rank-more-junior suhrl — had welcomed them, allocated rooms and informed them that his master was engaged in the task of cataloguing the remaining works in the libraries — as Y’sul had warned, a significant proportion of the contents had been given away since Valseir’s accident. Probably only the remoteness of the house had prevented more scholars showing up to pick over the remains. Jundriance was, however, in slow-time, so if they wanted to speak to him they would have to slow to his thought-pace. Fassin and the colonel had agreed. Y’sul had announced he was having none of this and took the Poaflias on a cruise to explore the local volume and see what there might be to hunt.
“Your duty should be to wait for us,” the colonel had informed him.
“Duty?” Y’sul had said, as though hearing the word for the first time.
They had a half-day or so, at least, while Jundriance was informed by a message on his read-screen that he had visitors. If he would see them immediately, they could go in before dark. Otherwise it could be some long time…
“Colonel,” Fassin had said, “we will have to go into slowdown for some time. Y’sul might be as well amusing himself nearby -’ Fassin had turned to look at Y’sul to emphasise the word “- as mooching about this place for who knows how long.”
· He’ll get into trouble.
· Probably. So, better trouble close to home, or trouble further away?
Hatherence had made a rumbling noise and had told Y’sul, “There is a war on.”
“I’ve checked the nets!” Y’sul had protested. “It’s kilo-klicks away!”
“Really?” Nuern had said, perking. “Has it started? The master doesn’t allow connections in the house. We hear nothing.”
“Began a dozen days ago,” Y’sul had told the servant. “We’ve been in the thick of it already. Barely avoided a smart mine on the way here. My servant got himself injured, may die.”
“A smart mine? Near here?”
“You are right to be concerned, my friend,” Y’sul had said solemnly. “The presence of such ordnance hereabouts is another — the real — reason why I’ll take my ship on patrol around you.”
“And your servant, injured. How terrible.”
“I know. War is. Other than that, elsewhere in the hostilities, barely a spineful of deaths so far. Couple of Dreadnoughts crippled on each side. Far too early to tell who’s winning. I’ll keep a fringe cocked, let you know what’s happening.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
· You’re right, Hatherence had signal-whispered to Fassin as this exchange was taking place. — Let’s just let him go.
· You can signal the ship from your esuit while still in slowdown?
— Yes.
— Okay.
“You will stay nearby?” Fassin had asked Y’sul. “You won’t let the Poaflias venture too far out?”
“Of course! I swear! And I shall ask our two fine fellows here to extend you every courtesy on my behalf!”
They were to be seen at once. Nuern had shown them into one of the outer library pods. The library had a roof of diamond leaf looking directly upwards into the vermilion-dark sky. Jundriance was settled into a dent-desk near the centre of the near-spherical room, facing a read-screen. Around him, the walls were lined with shelves, some so widely spaced that they might have doubled as bunk space for humans, others so small that a child’s finger might have struggled to fit. Mostly these held books, of some sort. Spindle-secured carousels tensioned between the walls and between the floor and a network of struts above held hundreds of other types of storage devices and systems: swave crystals, holoshard, picospool and a dozen more obscure.
They’d joined Jundriance at his desk, floating through the thick atmosphere to his side. Nuern had swung dent-seats into place and they’d both clamped onto one, Hatherence positioning herself with Fassin between her and the Sage. Jundriance, of course, gave no sign of having noticed them.