Gundhalinu watched, searching the inland darkness for a sign of the starport that lay in hibernation there, its systems dreaming of peace for another eighty-odd years. While he watched, new lights blossomed suddenly against the darkness: The starport answered, rudely awakened but responding to their commands. “Will the natives know we’re coming?” someone said behind him. The spot of brightness grew as if he were watching a signal fire, a beacon lit to mark their landing place, the location-point of their new home … announcing their arrival to the city of Carbuncle, from which it was very visible.
“They will now,” he murmured. Although it would hardly be a surprise, at least to their Queen. He wondered fleetingly what Moon had told her people—if she had told them anything, warned them, prepared them. Not, he supposed, that it would matter much one way or the other, in the end….
More displays began to appear, overlapping the image with readouts and simulations.
“Starport systems are intact, Commander,” Tabaranne reported. “The landing grids are powering up according to schedule. We can begin sending down shuttles after another pass.” Unlike the coin-disc ships of the old technology, which were individually small and made the transit to Tiamat in groups, the Ilmarlnen was too massive, and its hull too fragile, for a planetary landing. It would remain in orbit until their arrival was secured, and then begin its return trip to Kharemough, to come back again with the first group of civilians, who would begin the process of turning Carbuncle once again into an interstellar port of call.
“Do you still want to make the trip down using the traditional hologramic displays, Commander?” Tabaranne asked him.
Gundhalinu nodded, staring at the images of Tiamat on the screen. Remembering how he had stood with Moon Dawntreader in the hills above the city, watching as the Prime Minister and the Assembly made their descent from the starry heavens like gods, in a flaming cascade of hologramic imagery. Their magic fires had told him that he had returned from the wilderness to civilization in time for the Final Departure; that he had not come too late, that he was really free to leave Tiamat and never come back … the thing he had believed he wanted more than life itself, until it was too late to change his mind.
The hologramic show had been a hollow display, as empty of real magic as the Hegemonic Assembly had been empty of real power. But he had been blind to that subtle irony, as awe and wonder transformed the face of the beloved stranger beside him; as Moon Dawntreader watched them fall like stars. All he had seen was their promise—of freedom, of safety, of a return to the life he’d believed he had lost forever. A life he had regained, by a miracle, because of her.
If she was watching—and he was certain she would be, now—she would see that same display, and perhaps remember that night, and all it had meant to them both…. “Yes,” he said at last, remembering to give an answer. “Yes, I want the full display. There won’t ever be another night like this one.”
Moon Dawntreader stood alone in her study at the peak of the city, sleepless now since word had reached her that the starport had come back to life. She stared out at its brilliant beacon astonishing the night, unable to look away; knowing that it was only a matter of time until she looked both the future and the past in the face….
She turned away at last as her husband entered the room behind her. It had been a long time since he—or anyone else—had sought her out here. This had always been her private space, separate from the meeting rooms and audience halls down below. She had never made it forbidden ground, as Arienrhod had, but as the years passed she had found herself alone here more and more, inviolate, isolated; not even certain why, but only certain that she had no one else to blame for it.
She met Sparks’s gaze, feeling relief fill her as he broke her silence the smile that began to fill her face fade as she saw the look on his own face.
“Are you still awake?” he murmured, asking the obvious, as if he suddenly didn’t know what to say to her.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She answered with the obvious, because there was nothing else that she could bring herself to say.
He hesitated for a moment, before he crossed the stretch of time-worn rug that had once been as white as new-fallen snow, to stand beside her and look out at the starport glowing like a buried sun half a kilometer inland. He did not put his arms around her, or even touch her. She suddenly wished that he would; but she did not ask him to. “So they’ve really come,” he said.
She nodded, folding her arms around herself, clutching her elbows tightly because she wanted to tremble, feeling something break loose and spin away inside her, leaving her sick with nameless fear. Oh, Lady, she murmured silently, a plea but not a prayer.
“And he’s come with them,” Sparks said.
“I suppose so,” she whispered, helplessly noncommittal. “What does he want?” Sparks asked, still softly. He turned to face her, to face the unspoken truths within the truth they knew. She was surprised that this had not happened before, even while she knew why it had not.
“I told you,” she said numbly. “He feels responsible for the return of the Hegemony. He wants to help us.”
“And what else does he want?” Sparks’s eyes darkened. She felt him pushing her, felt the pain inside the pressure; knew that it was hurting him as much as it was hurting her.
“He’s become a sibyl,” she said, hoping that after all this time he would understand what that meant, about a willingness to put the needs of others before oneself. But she saw his mouth tighten, and realized that after all this time it still meant only one thing, to him: She had become a sibyl, when he could not. She had chosen it over his love. And now even this stranger, who had once tried to take her from him, had become a sibyl too. “He’s become a sibyl,” she went on, hopelessly, insistently. “That means he understands now that … there are things which are more important than … individual feelings.”
“More important than his loyalty to his own kind?” Sparks asked bluntly, asking her for the truth; asking her—
“Yes,” she said, meeting his eyes.
He looked away from her, ojt at the glowing, waiting starport. “There’s one more question I have to ask you—” He kept his eyes averted; she watched his profile, seeing his throat work as he tried, and tried again, to speak it. He looked back at her, his eyes as green as emeralds, shining, too full, and the question went unasked.
She reached out to him; put her arms around him, holding on, pressing her face against his shoulder as she felt his arms go around her almost reluctantly. And his unspoken question went unanswered, as they stood locked in an embrace; holding each other like lovers at a crossroad, unable to speak a farewell.
At last she turned slowly inside the circle of his arms, to look out again at the night. She lifted her hand suddenly, pointing. “Look.”
Sparks followed her gaze; seeing what she saw, and knowing as well as she did what it meant. Stars were falling out of the sky … hologramic stars, their perfectly controlled trajectories crossing and recrossing, to form one stunning congruence and then another as they fell to earth. She had seen this sight only once before, and that time she had had no idea what they were, what they stood for, what they meant to her world. Then, it had been the sign that the offworlders’ days on Tiamat were numbered. Now they were a sign that its future days here would be numberless, unending. And what of her own future—? She clung to her husband’s arms; a woman caught in an invisible storm, afraid of being swept away.