But among the tumbled waters of dark panic she found the memory of another blackness, more utter, more absolute than any she would ever know — the black heart of the Transfer. The Transfer . this was like the Transfer. She clung to that anchor, felt the solid weight of familiarity slow the spiraling of her fear. She centered her concentration on the disciplined rhythms of mind and body that kept the narrow thread of her awareness tied to reality . slowly she settled into enduring.
She opened her eyes again, saw that the stars were still outside; rolled her head to look over at the wall of blinking lights and dials beside her own seat. She did not try to touch them. She became aware of Elsevier’s voice, strained, almost inaudible, and the alien’s responses; one was as unintelligible to her as the other.
“…Checking. No tracking alerts going out yet. Hope that they hadn’t re layers… by the time they call it in we may clear… Are the shields green?”
Silky responded, in unintelligible alien speech.
“I hope it too… but stay ready to shift power.”
(Response.)
“Affirmative, we’re damped. They look for inbound runners, anyway . they don’t look behind them enough… I pray they don’t.”
(Response.)
A weak chuckle. “Of course… Time elapsed?”
Moon closed her eyes again, comforted, letting the words go on by. They were flying, somehow, in this metal-bound cabin; but it was nothing like her flight with Ngenet. She wondered why, and how, wondered dimly whether this was anything like being on an off worlder starship… Her eyes came open suddenly. “Elsevier!”
“Yes… Are you all right, Moon?”
“What are we doing?… Where are we going?” She gasped for air.
“We’re leaving… Time elapsed?”
(Response.)
“Out of the well!” A squeezed laugh of triumph. “Cutting energy . we’d better save what we’ve got left for rendezvous.”
The pressure vise dissipated around her, as abruptly as it had come. Moon stretched her arms in release. With the crushing weight gone from her body, she felt as though she had no substance at all, rising like a bubble through the waters of the sea… rising from the padded couch against the restraining straps. She looked down at herself wildly, clutched the straps with her hands.
“Ohh, Silky. I’m getting too old for this. This is no way for a civilized person to make a living.”
(Response.)
“Of course it’s been the principle of the thing! You don’t think I would have carried on TJ’s work just for money? And certainly not for the thrill of it.” She tsked. “But there won’t be any more trips, anyway. We won’t make a brass cawie from this one, we’ve still got all the goods on board… Ah, poor Miroe! The gods know what’s become of him.” There was the sound of a catch releasing; Moon saw Elsevier’s silvery head begin to rise up past the seat back. “But we never shall, now.” Elsevier turned to look back at her. “Moon, are you—”
“Don’t be afraid!” Moon raised wondering eyes. “It’s the Lady’s presence. The room is full of the Sea, that’s why we’re floating… It’s a miracle.”
Elsevier smiled at her, a little sadly. “No, my dear — only the absence of one. We’re beyond the reach of your goddess, beyond the grasp of your world. There’s simply no gravity this far out to hold you down. Come forward and see what I mean.”
Moon unstrapped uncertainly, and pushed herself up. Elsevier lunged and caught her by the leg before she crashed into the cone that hung, like the one that protected Cress, above her own couch. “Gently!” Elsevier drew her forward to the window and pointed down. Below them lay the curve of Tiamat’s sphere, a foam-flecked swell of translucent blue breaking against the wall of stars.
In her heart she had known what she would find; but as she drifted to the window, the vision surpassed anything she had imagined, and she could only breathe, “Beautiful… beautiful…” She pressed her hands against the cold transparency.
“Wait until you pass through the Black Gate, and see what lies on the other side.”
“Oh, yes…” A dark seed of doubt sprouted in her mind. She pulled her eyes away, turning her head. “The Black Gate? But that’s how the off worlders go to other worlds…” She looked back and out, at her entire world that had seemed so immense and so varied lying below her feet like a blue glass fishing float. “No… no, I can’t go through the Gate with you. I have to go to Carbuncle. I have to find Sparks .” She pushed firmly away from the window, caught herself on the back of Silky’s seat. “Will you take me back down, now? Can you, would you put me — ashore at the star port
“Take you back down?” A frown creased the space between Elsevier’s blue-violet eyes; she pressed her hands against her lips. “Oh, Moon, my dear… I was afraid that you hadn’t understood. You see, we can’t take you back down. They’ll track us, and we’re low on charge besides — there’s no way we can go back now. I’m afraid that when I told you about the Gate I wasn’t offering you a choice.”
12
“You’re the owner of this vehicle?” Jerusha stood beside the hovercraft on the quay, her breath frosting in the frigid night air. She frowned her bad humor at the big man who leaned against it with the same false self-possession the tech runners in the bar had displayed. Gundhalinu stood beside her, rising and settling on his heels with barely controlled frustration.
“I am, as I plainly have every right to be.” His voice was like crunching gravel. The man gestured abruptly at his face; the light was poor, but he was obviously an off worlder — from D’doille, she guessed, or maybe Number Four. “Have you come all the way from Carbuncle just to give me a parking ticket, Inspector?”
Jerusha grimaced, using her irritation to disguise her discomfort. She kept her arms crossed tightly against her heavy coat, nursing the one that the girl in the bar had struck with a mug. Her right forearm was a white-hot star, burning furiously at the center of her body’s shivering universe; the pain nauseated her, only the intensity of her anger kept her mind clear. An old woman and a handful of misfits had made an ass of her, and eating at her was the suspicion that it was because shed wanted them to. Damn it, her place was to enforce the law, not rearrange it to suit herself! And at least this one hadn’t gotten away. “No, Citizen Ngenet, we’ve come to accuse you of attempting to buy embargoed goods.”
His face was the picture of resentful surprise. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to just once see one of them put up his hands and say, “I admit it.”“
“I’d like to know on what evidence you’re making the accusation. You’re not going to find—”
“I know we won’t. You didn’t have time to make the deal. But you were seen in the presence of one of the off worlders who escaped us.”
“What are you talking about?”
She could almost believe that he didn’t know. “Female, age roughly seventeen standard years, pale hair and skin.”
“She’s no smuggler!” Ngenet pushed away from his craft, glaring.
“She was with them when we went to make the arrest,” Gundhalinu said. “She struck the inspector, she ran with the rest.”
“She’s a Summer from the Windwards, her name is Moon Dawntreader. I gave her a ride, and I left her at the inn because—” He broke off, Jerusha wondered what he was afraid to say. “She wouldn’t know anything about it.”