When it was over, when the promises were made, the rings exchanged, and the bride kissed, Edeard went up to his friends. His voice and longtalk filled the square.
'When Rah brought us out of the chaos to this place the city accepted us. When Rah allowed his most faithful friends and followers to become District Masters the city did not object, for he chose wisely. Down the centuries, the family Diroal slipped away from the ideals that were sworn at the beginning, and today is a result of that. None of us wish to defy Rah's constitution, least of all me; so I now publicly ask this city to accept the appointment of the new joint District Master and Mistress of Sampalok.
'Edeard! Kanseen hissed furiously.
The Waterwalker gestured, and the ground beneath the pile of expensive detritus turned fluid again. Everything left from the demise of Bise's mansion was sucked down below the surface amid a harsh gurgling sound. The crowd drew a sharp breath of excitement.
'Walk to the middle, Edeard said quietly as the city substance hardened again.
Macsen took his wife's hand, and urged her out into the big open space. Both of them radiated nerves as their soggy boots squelched on the ground, watched by over a thousand people in the square, and many times that number by farsight.
'The new Master and Mistress of Sampalok, Edeard announced. 'And their new mansion.
The surface began to ripple around Macsen and Kanseen. She jumped in apprehension and he hugged her tight — which gathered more than a little appreciation from their audience.
Six long dark lines firmed up on the ground around them, as if some architect was using the area to sketch an enormous hexagon. Smaller lines multiplied inside them, revealing the outlines of various rooms and cloisters. Then all the lines began to bulge up into ridges.
A radiantly happy Kanseen glanced across the empty space to Edeard. 'How long is this going to take?
'A little while. It's always quicker and easier to tear things down than it is to build them back up again.
'So? A week?
Edeard gave the tiny ridges a doubtful look. After five minutes they were nearly two inches high. Below them the city was ponderously rearranging its vast complicated network of channels and ducts to feed and support the new structure he'd hurriedly drafted. A building with proper stairs. Finally! 'Perhaps I'd better get you a tent as your wedding present.
Justine: Year Three
You couldn't dream in suspension. Everyone knew that. And yet…
Justine recalled those two wondrous lazy days with Kazimir so clearly. It had been the most fabulous doomed love affair the universe had ever known. She'd been vacationing on Far Away, a brattish rich girl celebrating her latest rejuvenation on what was then the Commonwealth's most outre planet. The grand finale had been a hyperglider flight over Mount Herculaneum. It had been an insane thrill ride. Flying the tiny plane through a phenomenally aggressive storm gave her the speed to soar out of the atmosphere and curve over the summit of the huge volcano. Despite all the odds, she'd managed it; gliding down to land in a small clearing on the other side.
Luck, chance, fate, or a particularly wicked god had placed Kazimir on the ground beside the clearing as the hyperglider bumped and jolted to a halt. He was seventeen, born into the Guardians of Selfhood which Bradley Johansson had formed to protect humanity from the Starflyer. An upbringing that had left him utterly devoted to his cause yet at the same time innocent of the universe at large. He never really stood a chance against a woman two hundred years his senior whose newly youthful body was fizzing with adolescent hormones. Not that he put up a lot of resistance.
It took the tourist company's recovery crew two days to drive round Herculaneum and pick up all the glider pilots. Two days spent eating the gourmet food from the glider's store, sleeping, talking, and making love. Two days alone together. Then she went back to her world and he to his. All she had left was the sweetest memory of her entire life.
That really should have been the end of it. But years later the Guardians of Selfhood gave Kazimir an assignment on Earth, and he risked everything to see her again. His reward was to be betrayed. By her. She thought she was doing the right thing informing the security services. But it was he who had the truth of it, the Starflyer was real and extracted revenge. Kazimir had been assassinated by one of its agents, and in twelve hundred years Justine had never forgiven herself. Not even the son she'd borne him and named after him had helped ease the pain.
So now her dreams granted her those two days again. She looked into his worshipful face once more as he was seduced and taught the miracle their bodies could achieve together. She knew what it was like to be held in his arms again. She laughed with him in the glade on the hillside where the bright sunlight shone out of Far Away's gorgeous sapphire sky. Caught him giving her longing glances across the bonfire they lit outside the tent at night. Watched him sleeping. Talked to him about her life. Listened to his stories of growing up in the mountains and deserts in fear of the great enemy.
Two days that showed her what a paradise her life could have been if she'd just had the strength to cast off her own conventions. Two days that made her weep with joy simply because they existed. Two days that stretched on and on and on… granted by a dream that was impossible to have. Because you couldn't dream in suspension.
Night closed in and she lost him. The bonfire must have gone out, leaving her world claustrophobically dark. The air was dryer that it had been on the mountainside.
Lights resolved in the darkness. Strange colourful constellations that her drowsy mind slowly began to comprehend. Exoimage medical icons told her she was recovering.
'Oh shit, she groaned. The medical chamber lid peeled back, and she looked round the Silverbird's cabin again. It had just been a dream. She sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. 'Status? she asked the smartcore. A fresh level of exoimage icons and displays sprang up.
She'd been in suspension for three years; the target star was about a lightyear away. And the Silverbird was decelerating hard. Something was approaching.
'Holy crap, she muttered as the sensors swept across the visitor. It was big — mountain sized. That was just the core. It was surrounded by weird sheets of gossamer matter that fluctuated like a gas.
A Skylord with its vacuum wings fully extended.
Justine showered and ordered up a decent meal as the Silverbird and the Skylord rendezvoused. It took the best part of a day, but they were finally sliding through space a thousand miles apart. With the sensors able to penetrate the haze of the vacuum wings, the Skylord was the same as Inigo's dreams had shown them. A long ovoid but not solid, it was as if vast sheets of crystalline fabric had been folded into a Calabi-Yau manifold topology, with looping curves intersecting each other in eye-twisting complexity. The warped surfaces shimmered with long diffraction patterns that always flowed inward. She could never be certain if the structure itself was stable or constantly fluctuating there was so much surface movement.
Settling back on the longest couch in the cabin's repertoire she let her mind reach for the immense creature. It glowed on the edge of her farsight, a glow not dissimilar to the gaiafield. Tenuous and full of emotion.
'Hello, she said.
'You are most welcome, the Skylord said.