Toller gazed at his brother for a moment, puzzled and saddened by the hint of malice in his tone. Lain had asked him the same question some time ago, and now it seemed he was bringing up the subject of Fera for no other reason than that it had always been a sore point with Gesalla. Was it possible that Lain was jealous of his “little brother” having earned a place on the proving flight, the greatest scientific experiment of the age?
“Fera soon got bored with life in the Peel and went back into the city to live,” Toller said. “I presume she is in good circumstances — I hope she is — but I haven’t tried to find out. Why do you ask?”
“Ummm… Idle curiosity.”
“Well, if your curiosity extends as far as my term in the army I can assure you that the word ‘play’ is highly inappropriate. I…”
“Be quiet, you two,” Gesalla said, placing a hand on each man’s arm. “The ceremony begins.”
Toller fell silent in a fresh confusion of emotions as the burial party arrived from the direction of the house. In his will Glo had stated his preference for the shortest and simplest ceremony that could be accorded a Kolcorronian aristocrat. His cortege consisted only of Lord Prelate Balountar, followed by four dark-robed suffragens bearing the cylindrical block of white gypsum in which Glo’s body had already been encased. Balountar, with head thrust forward and black vestments draping a bony figure, resembled a raven as he slow-marched to the circular hole which had been bored into the bedrock of the cemetery.
He intoned a short prayer, consigning Lord Glo’s discarded shell to the parent body of the planet for reabsorption, and calling for his spirit to be given a safe passage to Overland, followed by a fortuitous rebirth and a long and prosperous life on the sister world.
Toller was troubled by guilt as he watched the lowering of the cylinder and the sealing of the hole with cement poured from a decorated urn. He wanted to be torn by sadness and grief on parting with Glo for ever, but his wayward consciousness was dominated by the fact that Gesalla — who had never touched him before — had allowed her hand to remain resting on his arm. Did it signal a change in her attitude towards him, or was it incidental to some twist in her relationship with Lain, who in turn had been acting strangely? And underlying everything else in Toller’s mind was the pounding realisation that he was soon to ascend so far into the sky’s blue dome that he would pass beyond the reach of even the most powerful telescopes.
He was relieved, therefore, when the brief ceremony drew to a close and the knots of mourners — most of them blood relatives — began to disperse.
“I must return to the base now,” he said. “There are many things yet to be.…” He left the sentence unfinished as he noticed that the Lord Prelate had separated himself from his entourage and was approaching the trio. Assuming that Balountar’s business had to be with Lain, Toller took a discreet step backwards. He was surprised when Balountar came straight to him, close-set eyes intent and furious, and flicked him on the chest with loosely dangling fingers.
“I remember you,” he said, “Maraquine! You’re the one who laid hands on me in the Rainbow Hall, before the King.” He flicked Toller again, clearly intending the gesture to be offensive.
“Well, now that you have evened the score,” Toller said easily, “may I be of service to you, my lord?”
“Yes, you can rid yourself of that uniform — it is an offence to the Church in general and to me in particular.”
“In what way does it offend?”
“In every way! The very colour symbolises the heavens, does it not? It flaunts your intention to defile the High Path, does it not? Even though your evil ambition will be thwarted, Maraquine, those blue rags are an affront to every right-thinking citizen of this country.”
“I wear this uniform in the service of Kolcorron, my lord. Any objections you have to that should be presented directly to the King. Or to Prince Leddravohr.”
“Huh!” Balountar stared venomously for a moment, his face working with frustrated rage. “You won’t get away with it, you know. Even though the likes of you and your brother turn your backs on the Church, in all your sophistry and arrogance, you will learn to your cost that the people will stand for just so much. You’ll see! The great blasphemy, the great evil, will not go unpunished.” He spun and strode away to the cemetery gate, where the four suffragens were waiting.
Toller watched him depart and turned to the others with raised eyebrows. “The Lord Prelate appears to be unhappy.”
“There was a time when you would have crushed his hand for doing that.” Lain imitated Balountar’s gesture, flicking limp fingers against Toller’s chest. “Do you no longer see red so easily?”
“Perhaps I have seen too much red.”
“Oh, yes. How could I have forgotten?” The mockery in Lain’s voice was now unmistakable. “This is your new role, isn’t it? The man who has drunk too deeply from the cup of experience.”
“Lain, I have no inkling of what I have done to earn your displeasure, and even though I’m saddened by it I have no time now to enquire into the matter.” Toller nodded to his brother and bowed to Gesalla, whose concerned gaze was switching between the two. He was about to leave when Lain, eyes deepening with tears, abruptly spread his arms in an embrace which brought his brother and wife together.
“Don’t take any foolish risks up there in the sky, little brother,” Lain whispered. “It’s your family duty to come back safely, so that when the time of the migration arrives we can all fly to Overland together. I won’t entrust Gesalla to any but the very best pilot. Do you understand?”
Toller nodded, not attempting to speak. The feel of Gesalla’s gracile body against his own was asexual, as it had to be, but there was a rightness to it, and with his brother completing the psychic circuit there was a sense of comfort and healing, of vital energies being augmented rather than dissipated.
When Toller broke free of the embrace he felt light and strong, fully capable of soaring to another world.
Chapter 15
“We, have sunwriter reports from as far away as fifty miles upwind,” said Vato Armduran, the S.E.S. chief engineer. “The look-outs say there is very little ptertha activity — so you should be all right on that score — but the wind speed is rather higher than I would have wished.”
“If we wait for perfect conditions we’ll never go.” Toller shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the blue-white dome of the sky. Wisps of high cloud had overpainted the brighter stars without screening them from view, and the broad crescent of illumination on Overland’s disk established the time as mid-foreday.
“I suppose that’s true, but you’re going to have trouble with false lift when you clear the enclosure. You’ll need to watch out for it.”
Toller grinned. “Isn’t it a little late for lessons in aerodynamics?”
“It’s all very well for you — I’m the one who’s going to have to do all the explaining if you kill yourself,” Armduran said drily. He was a spiky haired man whose flattened nose and sword-scarred chin gave him something of the appearance of a retired soldier, but his practical engineering genius had led to his personal appointment by Prince Chakkell. Toller liked him for his caustic humour and lack of condescension towards less gifted subordinates.
“For your sake, I’ll try not to get killed.” Toller had to raise his voice to overcome the noise in the enclosure. Members of the inflation crew were busily cranking a large fan whose gears and wooden blades emitted a continuous clacking sound as they forced unheated air into the skyship’s balloon, which had been laid out downwind of the gondola. They were creating a cavity within the envelope so that hot gas from the power crystal burner could later be introduced without it having to impinge directly on the lightweight material. The technique had been developed to avoid burn damage, especially to the base panels around the balloon mouth. Overseers were bellowing orders to the men who were holding up the sides of the gradually swelling balloon and paying out attachment lines.