Clouders were part of the Cincturia, the collection of beings, species, machine strains and intelligent detritus that existed -generally — between stellar systems and didn’t fit into any other neat category (so they weren’t the deep-space cometarians called the Eclipta, they weren’t drifting examples of the Brown Dwarf Communitals known as the Plena, and they weren’t the real exotics, the Non-Baryonic Penumbrae, the thirteen-way-folded Dimensionates or the Flux-dwelling Quantarchs).
Valseir’s friend Leisicrofe was a scholar of the Cincturia. The research trip he was making was a field trip, visiting actual examples of Cincturia — Clouders, Sailpods, Smatter, Toilers and the rest — throughout the galaxy. He had come to visit Hoestruem because it was one of the few Clouders anywhere near a worm-hole portal. Only it wasn’t a wormhole or a portal that anybody in the Mercatoria or the rest of what called itself the Civilised Galaxy knew anything about.
The star Aopoleyin was only a dozen light days away. The Clouder Hoestruem — much larger than the stellar system as measured to its outermost planet — was passing partly through the outer reaches of the system, intent (if that was not too loaded a word) on its slow migration to some far-distant part of the great lens. The Dweller Leisicrofe was somewhere here, in his own small craft, or at least had been. The Velpin set out to look for him.
“How long were we really under?” Fassin asked Quercer Janath. They were floating in the Velpin’s control space, watching the scanners chatter through their sweeps, searching for anything that might be a ship. The progress was slow. The Dwellers had long had an agreement with the Clouders that meant their ships made very slow speed when moving through one. Clouders were resilient, but their individual filaments, the wispy bands and channels of tenuous gas that formed their sensory apparatus and nervous systems, were surpassing delicate, and a ship the size of the Velpin had to move slowly and carefully amongst the strands of Clouder substance to avoid causing damage. The Velpin was broadcasting a signal hail looping a request for Leisicrofe to get in touch, though Quercer Janath was not optimistic this would raise their quarry; these academics were notorious for turning off their comms.
The truetwin looked genuinely puzzled. The double-creature shook itself, rustling the shiny crinkles of the mirror-finish coveralls. “How long were you under what?”
“How long were we really unconscious?” Fassin asked.
“Some days.”
“And then some more days.”
“Seriously,” Fassin said.
“And what’s this ‘we’?” Y’sul protested. “I wasn’t unconscious!”
“There.”
“You see?”
“Your friend disagrees.”
“Some days, you said,” Fassin quoted.
“Some days?” Y’sul said. “Some days? We weren’t unconscious for some days, any days, a single day!” He paused. “Were we?”
“The process takes some time, requires forbearance,” the truetwin Dweller said. “Sleep is best. No distractions.”
“How could we possibly keep you amused?”
“And then there’s the security aspect.”
“Of course.”
“I was only briefly drowsy!” Y’sul exclaimed. “I shut my eyes for a moment, in contemplation, no more!”
“About twenty-six days.”
“We were unconscious for twenty-six days?” Fassin asked. “Standard.”
“Roughly.”
“What?” Y’sul bellowed. “You mean we were kept unconscious?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“In a manner of speaking!” a plainly furious Y’sul roared. “What we said.”
“And what manner of speaking would that be, you kidnapping piratical wretches?”
“The manner of speaking complete truth.”
“You mean you drugged or zapped us unconscious?” Y’sul fairly howled.
“Yes. Very boring otherwise.”
“How dare you?” Y’sul shrieked.
“Plus it’s part of the terms for using the tube.”
“Conditions of Passage,” the left side of Quercer Janath intoned.
The other side of the truetwin made a whistling noise.
“Oh, yes! Those Conditions of Passage; they’ll get you every time.”
“Can’t be helpful with them.”
“Can’t use the tube without “em.”
“Don’t — What? — You — Condi — !” Y’sul spluttered.
“Ah,” Fassin said, signalling to Y’sul to let him speak. “Yes. I’d like to ask you some questions about, ah, tube travel, if you don’t mind.”
“Absolutely.”
“Ask away.”
“Make the questions good, though; the answers may well be baloney.”
“…Never heard anything so disgraceful in all my…’ Y’sul was muttering, drifting over to a set of medium-range scanner holo tanks and tapping them as though this would aid the locating of Leisicrofe’s ship.
Fassin had known they’d been under for more than an hour or two. His own physiology, and the amount of cleaning-up and housekeeping the shock-gel and gillfluid had had to do had told him that. Finding out that it had been twenty-six days left him more relieved than anything else. Certainly losing that amount of time when you hadn’t been expecting to and hadn’t been warned about it was disconcerting and left one feeling sort of retrospectively vulnerable (and would it be the same on any way back?) but at least they hadn’t said a year, or twenty-six years. Fate alone knew what had happened in Ulubis during that time — and of course, with all his gascraft’s systems switched off, Fassin had no way of checking whether this really was the amount of time they had spent unconscious — but it looked like at least one small part of the Dweller List legend was true. There were secret wormholes. There was one, for sure, and Fassin thought it unlikely in the extreme that the one between Ulubis and Aopoleyin was the only one. It was well worth losing a couple of dozen days to find that out.
Fassin felt himself try to draw a breath inside the little gascraft. “We did come through a wormhole?” he asked.
“Excellent first question! Easily answerable in every sense! Yes.”
“We did. Though we call them Cannula.”
“Where is the Ulubis end — the Nasqueron end — of the worm-hole, the Cannula? Where is the Adjutage?” Fassin asked.
“Ah! He knows the terminology.”
“Most impressive.”
“And a very good question in one sense.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Phenomenally hopeless in another.”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Security.”
“Sure you understand.”
“Of course I understand,” Fassin said. Getting a straight answer to that one would have been too good to be true. “How long has the wormhole existed?” he asked.
The truetwin was quiet for a moment, then said,
“Don’t know.”
“For sure. Billions of years, probably.”
“Possibly.”
“How many others are there like it?” Fassin asked. “Imean wormholes; Cannula?”
“Ditto.”
“Ditto?”
“Ditto as in — again — don’t know.”
“No idea.”
“Well, some.”
“All right, some idea. But can’t tell. Conditions of Passage again.”
“Drat those Conditions of Passage.”
“Oh yes, drat.”
“Are there any other wormholes from Ulubis — from anywhere near Ulubis system, say within its Oort radius — to anywhere else?”
“Another good question. Can’t tell you.”
“More than our travelcaptaincy’s worth.”
“This one, to Aopoleyin; does it link up with a Mercatoria wormhole? Does one of their wormholes have a portal, an Adjutage, here too?”
“No.”
“Agree. Straight answer. What a relief. No.”
“And from here, from Aopoleyin,” Fassin said. “Are there other wormholes?”
Silence again for a moment. Then, “Seems silly, but can’t tell you.”
“Like anybody’s going to have just one stupid tube to this place.”