He smiled, shaking his head. “I don’t pretend to know. I am a technocrat, not a philosopher. The interpretation is not up to me, thank the gods. Whether it’s finished or not is up to Moon.”
Moon stiffened. “You mean — there is a way I can go back to Tiamat?”
“Yes, I think there is. Elsevier will take you, if you still want to go.”
“But you said—”
“KR, it isn’t possible!”
“If you leave immediately and use the adaptors I’ll provide, you’ll get through the Gate safely, and before Tiamat is cut off for good.”
“But we don’t have an astrogator.” Elsevier leaned forward. “Cress isn’t strong enough.”
“You have an astrogator.” His gaze moved.
Moon stopped breathing as all their eyes reached her at once. “No!”
“No, KR,” Elsevier said, frowning. “You can’t ask her to endure that again! She couldn’t if she wanted to.”
“She can — if she wants to enough.” Aspundh touched his trefoil. “I can help you, Moon; you won’t have to go through it unprepared this time. If you want your old life back, and your power as a sibyl, you can — you must — do this thing. We can’t face down all our night fears; but you must face this one, or you’ll never believe in yourself again. You’ll never use the precious gift you carry; you’ll never be anything at all.” The sharp voice stung her. He folded his hands, resting them on the table.
Moon shut her eyes, and the blackness swallowed her whole. But it isn’t finished yet. I was meant to be something more! And he was meant to be with me. He can’t be lost, he wouldn’t forget me; it isn’t finished… Sparks ’s face burned away the darkness like a rising sun. It was true, she had to do this; and if she did she would know that she had the strength to solve any problem. She opened her eyes, rubbed her trembling arms to still them. “I have to try.” She saw the half-formed grief in Elsevier’s deep-blue eyes — and the half-formed fear. “Elsie, it means everything to me. I won’t fail you.”
“Of course you won’t, dear.” A single nod, a ghost of smile. “All right, we’ll do it. But KR—” she glanced up. “How will we back again without her get?”
His own smile twitched with secret guilt. “With false papers, which I shall also provide. In the chaos of the final departure on Tiamat, you’ll never noticed be, I’m sure, even — Silky.”
“Why, KR, you secret sinner.” She laughed weakly.
“I don’t it amusing consider.” His face did not. “If I teach this girl all that a sibyl should know and then send her back to Tiamat, I will an act of treason be committing. But in doing this I obey a higher law than even the Hegemony’s.”
“Forgive me.” She nodded, chastened. “What about our ship?”
“It will a fitting monument in space to my late brother’s impossible — dreams be. I told you that you’d never for anything want, El sevier. Do this thing, and you’ll never again need to smuggle.”
“Thank you.” A spark of rebellion showed in her eyes. “We were planning to retire, anyway, if this last trip hadn’t such an utter disaster been. This gives us one more opportunity our wares to — deliver, after all.”
Aspundh frowned briefly.
Cress unfolded his legs with leaden effort as the others began to stir. Looking at him, Moon found him looking at her; his glance hurried on, caught at Elsevier like an orphan’s hand. He grinned, badly. “I guess this is good-bye, then, Elsie?”
Moon stood up, helped him to his feet while the realization registered around the table. “Cress—”
“Consider this my payment on the debt we owe you, young mistress.” He shrugged.
Elsevier turned to Aspundh, but Moon saw his face tighten with refusal even before the question formed. “It won’t be hard for him another ship to find; astrogators are highly in demand in your-trade, I’m sure.”
“There are smugglers and smugglers, KR,” Elsevier said.
“You mean they might not all a ship with a man blacklisted for murder want to share?” Aspundh’s expression turned to iron.
Moon let go of Cress’s sleeve.
Cress flushed. “Self-defense! It’s in the record, self-defense.”
“A drugged-up passenger challenged him to a duel, KR. The man would him have killed. But the rules don’t any exceptions make… Really, do you imagine that I’d a ship with a murderer share?”
“I can’t even why you married my brother imagine.” Aspundh sighed in defeat. “All right, Elsevier; though you press my promise to you near the breaking point. I suppose I a shipping line somewhere own that can an astrogator take on.”
“You mean that? Oh, gods—” Cress laughed, swaying like a reed. “Thank you, old mas— citizen! You won’t sorry be.” He glanced at Elsevier, a long, shining glance full of gratitude.
“I hope not,” Aspundh said; he moved past Cress to Moon’s side. “And you won’t me sorry make either, will you?”
In his eyes she saw the grim reflection of what her failure would mean, not to herself alone, but to the others. “No,” firmly.
He nodded. “Then stay with me for the next few days, while the ship is readied, and let me you all a sibyl should know teach.”
“All right.” She touched her throat.
“KR, must she—”
“It’s for her own good, Elsevier — and for yours — that I her here keep.” He lifted his head slightly.
“Yes… of course.” Elsevier smiled. “You’re quite right, of course. Moon, I—” She patted Moon’s hand, looked away again. “Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Never mind.” She went on toward the door, not looking back to see Moon’s outstretched hand. Silky followed her wordlessly.
“Well,” Cress grinned, half at her, half at his feet. “Good luck to you, young mistress. “You could be Queen.” I’ll tell them I knew you when.” He kept her gaze at last. “I hope you find him. Goodbye.” He backed away, turned and went out after the others. Moon watched the empty doorway silently, but it remained empty.
Moon sat alone in the garden swing, giving it momentum with the motion of her foot. Overhead the night sky sang, a hundred separate choirs of color transfiguring into one. Moon rested her head on the pillows, listening with her eyes. If she closed them she could hear another music: the sweet complexities of a Kharemoughi art song drifting out through the open doors onto the patio, the counterpoint of insects chirping in the shrubs, the shrill and guttural cries of the strange menagerie of creatures that wandered the garden paths.
She had spent this day like the ones before it, practicing the exercises that disciplined her mind and body, watching the information tapes that KR Aspundh gave to her, learning all that was known to the Hegemony about what sibyls were, and did, and meant to the people of their worlds. The sibyls of this world attended a formal school, where they were sheltered and protected while they learned to control their trances — as she had learned, more uncertainly, from Clavally and Danaquil Lu on a lonely island under the sky.
But besides the rigorous basic discipline, Aspundh and the other sibyls of the Hegemony learned about the complex network of which they were a part, the vast reach of the Old Empire’s technological counter spell against the falling darkness. They understood that the Nothing Place lay in the heart of a machine somewhere on a world not even a sibyl could name; and the knowledge gave them the strength to endure its terrifying absence, which had nearly destroyed her with her own fear.
They learned the real nature of their power: the capacity not only to ease the day-to-day burdens of life, but to actually better it; to contribute to the social and technological growth of their world more profoundly than even the greatest genius — because they had access to the accumulated genius of all human history… if only their people had the wisdom, and the willingness, to make use of that knowledge.