And yet in all this time he had learned almost nothing about Reede Kullervo the human being, as opposed to the scientist. When Kullervo had arrived, Gundhalinu had found himself drawn to the other man with an unexpected intensity. His reaction had surprised him, until he thought about it. He realized then that his life had come to resemble the hermetically sealed world of the Project in which he spent all his time. Kullervo was someone to whom he could actually talk as an equal, after so long in this place where he had little in common with anyone. On top of that, Kullervo was unique, with a mind full of brilliant fireworks. He had wanted almost painfully to become friends with the man.
But Kullervo had rebuffed all his attempts at friendship, or even at personal conversation. Finally Gundhalinu had accepted the obvious, and let it drop. He had never been inclined to force intimacy on strangers; and he had realized eventually that Reede’s reluctance to meet him halfway was not personal, but instead somehow oddly defensive. Observing Kullervo, witnessing his unpredictable moods and dysfunctional manners, Gundhalinu had realized that the man had problems, which he probably preferred to keep to himself.
He had pushed aside his disappointment, told himself that it didn’t matter, they didn’t need to be friends to be colleagues. As long as their relationship was focused strictly on research, they communicated flawlessly; they had worked for weeks now in near perfect harmony. But after all this time Kullervo was still an enigma, a cipher, a bizarre mass of contradictions that reminded Gundhalinu every day of the fine line between genius and insanity.
Standing here in Kullervo’s office, Gundhalinu remembered with sudden vividness the day of their first triumph as a team, over a fortnight ago. Adrift in the null-gravity chamber, side by side, they had tried yet another recombinant of their key, the encoder that would unlock the molecular structure of the damaged technovirus in the minuscule sample lying somewhere at the heart of the incredibly massive, complex, and expensive array of equipment and processors below them— that would make the stardrive plasma controllable, biddable, sane… . They had waited, as they had waited before, side by side but solitary, while the subtle, probing fingers of their fields performed analyses of surpassing delicacy. Waiting for the words that would change history—or send them out of the chamber again, defeated, back to their programs and imagers …
We have confirmation. The words had echoed the readouts flashing across his vision inside his helmet. Kullervo’s cry of triumph had cut through the monotonal message; the figure beside him, semi-human inside its protective suit and stabilizer fields, jigged in a footloose, impossible dance. “—did it this time, BZ! We fucking did it!” The words became intelligible as Kullervo reached through Gundhalinu’s field to catch him in an awkward embrace. “I told you—! Laugh, yell, you overcivilized son of a bitch—we did it!”
He laughed, as belief caught him up at last; he shouted, inarticulate with elation. And then he lunged after Kullervo, who had started down into the depths as if he intended to fetch the sample out of the core with his bare hands. “Reede—!” He had come up under the other man, slammed him to a halt. “Wait for the servos, damn it. They’ll bring it up as fast as you could… . You may be bloody brilliant, but the fields will still fry your brilliant brain like an egg.” He put his hands on Kullervo’s shoulders, holding him in place, their merged stabilizer fields glowing golden around them like a misbegotten halo.
Kullervo stared at him, the dazed astonishment on his face slowly replaced by something more recognizable, and yet equally strange. “Ilmarinen—” he murmured.
“No,” Gundhalinu said, shaking Kullervo slightly, unnerved. “It’s me… . Reede?”
Reede blinked at him, shaking his head independently now. “I know,” he snapped, brushing off the contact of Gundhalinu’s hand.
“Why did you call me Ilmarinen?” Gundhalinu asked softly, curiosity forcing the question out of him against his better judgment.
Kullervo shrugged, “Some of my … associates have been known to call me ‘the new Vanamoinen.’ I guess that makes you Ilmarinen… . Bad joke.” His gaze broke, and he shook his head, still looking away as the cylindrical servo appeared out of the depths, bringing the now-obedient, quiescent milligram of stardrive with it.
Gundhalinu watched it come, breathless with anticipation. Kullervo hung motionless beside him. And then, with slow, almost deliberate grace, Kullervo turned a somersault in the air… .
“Ananke!” Kullervo’s voice in realtime pulled Gundhalinu back into the present.
“Yes, Dr. Kullervo.” The voice of the Ondinean student who was his lab assistant materialized out of the air.
“Find Niburu for me. Tell him I want to see him. We have our clearance.”
“That’s great, Doctor! Right away—”
Kullervo turned back to face Gundhalinu. “When can we leave for Fire Lake?”
“Tomorrow,” Gundhalinu said, hardly believing the answer himself. “I requisitioned everything we’ll need weeks ago.” They had perfected the viral program that effectively stabilized the stardrive plasma; they had tested it successfully. The obvious next step was to make the journey to Fire Lake itself, where a vast semisentient sea of stardrive material waited for them to answer its need, to make order out of its chaos… . Gundhalinu looked toward the doorway, remembering the touch of its tormented mind, remembering the hot breath of madness, and the chill of winter snow.
“About goddamn time,” Kullervo muttered, oblivious. “You’d think somebody around here besides us would want to see this thing work!”
Gundhalinu glanced back at him. “There are plenty who have been aching for this moment as long as I have, believe me,” he said. But not aching like I have…. “You met some of them back in Foursgate, at the Survey Hall.” He had taken Kullervo to a special meeting of his local cabal a few weeks back, when he had known that the breakthrough in their research was imminent. Kullervo had been quiet, oddly subdued, during the meeting; even though it had been clear from his responses that he must be at a fairly high level within the inner circles of Survey. “Unfortunately the ones with any vision are all still back in Foursgate. And we are here—out where the bureaucracy is its own reason for existence. The greatest scientific breakthrough in a thousand years becomes nothing but a glitch in the program, to them. They’re expecting us in the departure screening area this afternoon for the final certification of our itinerary and proposed goals.”
Reede made a rude noise. “Pearls before swine,” he muttered. He shut down his terminal with an abrupt gesture, turning back to face Gundhalinu. “Let’s get it over with, then.” He peered through the doorway into the larger lab space. “Where’s Niburu?” he snapped.
Looking past him, Gundhalinu saw Ananke glance up from whatever he had been studying. “Coming up, Doctor.” He nodded. “He’ll meet you at the usual place out front.”
“You’re coming too,” Kullervo said. “We all have to go.” The boy stood up, looking vaguely surprised, or maybe apprehensive. He was not wearing his pet slung at his chest, for once. Gundhalinu glanced around the room, until he found the quoll sitting placidly in a box underneath the desk. He shook his head, imagining the kind of stares that pair must have attracted on Kharemough. He looked back at Kullervo again.