Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (36 page)

The trimorphs and the visitor began a flashing, but silent interchange amongst themselves, and finally reached agreement. “Then we shall leave now,” the visitor said.

“Thank Sacras! Err … I mean, thank you for popping in on us.”

“Our congratulations.”

Six looked at the thundery expression on his wife’s face. “Yes. Well. Might be a bit premature.”

Diva gave him a look.

“Definitely a bit premature,” he corrected hastily, then watched as the morphics blinked out of existence one by one. There was a long and very awkward silence between the two people who were left standing on the ridge. Diva was shifting from one foot to the other, reminding Six of a thoroughbred horse which had been spooked by something and was poised to fly.

“So-o,” he went on, trying to make his voice sound casual and soothing, “that was fun, wasn’t it? I think we should go on over to the butte now, don’t you? Have a quick look around. Glad we won’t have to go down into the cave, though.”

Diva mumbled something unintelligible, still mortified, and still looking extremely unapproachable.

Six grinned to himself. He gave her a small nudge, and received an incredulous stare back. He gave her another nudge, this time rather stronger, and received a deep frown. Then he pushed her hard, tumbling her over into the sand. She lay back, her eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle as she glared at him. He danced on his feet.

“You’ll never catch me!” he taunted.

Her eyes turned slitty, and he laughed, putting his hands out and shaking them slightly, just as he had the first time they had ever met.

“Oooh! How scary!”

With something very like a growl, she leapt to her feet, and pounced in his direction, close on his heels as he took flight. Six ran as fast as he could, looking back at her with a fake expression of terror.

They flashed along the top of the ridge, and then Six began to leap from step to step up the risers, down one ridge, and up the next. They pounded along ridge after ridge until they were both breathless with the effort. Still they ran on further. At some stage the persecution turned into a race against each other, Diva determined not to let Six outrun her, and Six just as determined to prove he was faster than her. At last, after running for a long time, Six slid to a stop.

“Pax! I can’t go any further!” he told her, holding his sides and doubling over to try to get his breath. “I have to sit down.”

Diva was doubled over too. “You
can
run fast, no-name,” she acknowledged. “Though not as fast as me, of course.”

“Kind of you to say so, your ladleship,” he said. “I am prepared to concede defeat, on this occasion only. Allow me to escort you to your seat.” He waved her up the risers in front of him until he was almost at the top of the ridge. Then he pretended to brush down the ledge facing west for her.

“Modom! Your throne awaits.” He bowed elaborately around her until she finally laughed. She sat down on the ledge and he collapsed next to her. They looked out over Pictoria, over the hot red particulate sand, and across to the purple gas giant with its surrounding ring. There was a comfortable silence. The tension on Diva’s face had cleared with the physical exercise. They were too tired to want to talk much. Six knew how uncertain she must be feeling, so he simply sat down beside her.

“This feels strange,” she said quietly.

“We’ll get used to it.” He looked out at the view towards the centre of the galaxy, and felt his heart leap with happiness. “We can get used to anything.”

GRACE WAS WATCHING the distant avifauna when the visitor and the trimorph twins found her. One minute she was completely alone, and the next she seemed to be surrounded by tiny twittering spheres.

“What?” She got alarmed. “What’s the matter? What are you trying to tell me? Is Ledin all right? Diva? Six?”

The visitor stopped whirling. “It is Diva and Six. They were participating in the prelude to sex!”

“Participating in the …?” She looked confused. “… Oh! You mean they were kissing.” Her face illuminated in smiles. “Really? That is wonderful! At last!”

“They have told us to go away,” explained one of the twins. “We interrupted them. Now there isn’t going to be any sex.” It sounded most disappointed, and Grace giggled.

“Never mind. I expect there will be, at some stage, if they have started kissing each other.”

“That’s what I had been led to believe,” said the visitor bimorph. “At least, that is what Six explained last year. But he didn’t explain that it was a private occupation.” The visitor sounded quite peeved.

Grace grinned. “Well, it is. A very private … err … occupation.”

“We shouldn’t watch?”

“NO!” Then she moderated her tone. “No, you shouldn’t watch.”

The visitor scintillated. “I wanted to tell Arcan about it.”

“It is not something we talk about to other people.”

“I don’t understand why not. Is procreation not an important part of your lives?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then why wouldn’t you talk about it?”

A hunted expression began to cross Grace’s face. She looked around. “I … err … Sex is a very personal thing, Visitor.”

“It can’t be personal if you need two people, can it? And in any case, I don’t see why it should be. It must be because you are category 3 species. If you were category 2, of course, you would participate involuntarily, because all thoughts are instantaneously transmitted to all the other members of your species. It seems very odd not to talk about it at all. I am not in the least surprised that your species doesn’t live very long. Apart from making it most inconvenient for us, too.” A shadow of cross black ran through him. “How will we know that they have had sex?”

“You won’t. You’ll just have to assume they have.”

“Very unsatisfactory.” The twins began to flash at the visitor again; the morphics obviously agreed that the social customs of the transients left much to be desired. When they calmed down again, Grace told them about Hanna, and the purpose of their visit to Pictoria. She asked them if they would like to visit Hanna’s grave. The morphics fell silent, considering.

“I don’t think so, thank you very much,” said one of the twins. “Why would we want to visit old bones?”

Grace tried to explain that it would be to show their respect for Ledin, but wasn’t very successful.

“I like Ledin, but we’d rather go and see him later, when he’s finished with all the old bones,” the visitor told her. “I think this tomb thing is something you should do alone. I don’t understand you 3b’s. It is acceptable to talk about dead people, but not about sex.” He shimmered. “You have some very illogical customs. It would be much healthier the other way round.”

The trimorphs twittered their agreement with him, and they all shimmered. “By the way,” one of the twins said, “Six and Diva told us to tell you they are on their way over to see you. We’ll come too – once the sun has begun to fall.” The morphics immediately disappeared.

Grace got up and began to wander back in the direction of the shuttle. She was smiling quietly to herself. In the end this journey of colour had turned out to be important for all of them. She wondered if the man who spoke to canths had known that it would be.

LEDIN CARRIED THE tools to the spot he had chosen. Before starting to drill the placement holes for the explosive, he checked out exactly what Hanna’s final resting place would see. The nearest butte, and the avifauna – he saw one particularly large avian take off just as he was watching. Three other buttes just visible as smudges on the horizon. The lines of the other ridges, parallel to this one, running north to south. The huge orb of the gas giant hanging overhead, purple-blue in the sky. And above all that, the massive orange-yellow sun which dominated the Pictoris system. The other stars in the system were not visible just at the moment, he saw. But the atmosphere was there; wisps of emerald green and blue against a slightly yellowish cloudless sky.

Ledin was satisfied. She would be at peace here. Who could not be? It was a special place, and she had been a very special person. The two were meant for each other.

He moved slowly, and took care with what he was doing. He was no expert in explosives, and he needed to get this right the first time. He had taken advice about placement, so he consulted his notes from time to time, until he was reasonably sure that he had followed instructions correctly. When he was satisfied, he primed the fuse, walked back to a safe distance, and pushed the button.

There was a crump of noise, and a shudder ran through the ground, reaching him after the flash of light. Then he saw the dust as particles rained down onto the steps of the ridge.

At last the dust cleared, and he was pleased to see that the result was perfect. The explosive had bored a nice alcove into the rock, just about big enough to take the casket, although it wouldn’t have to. He made his way back up the ridge, and brushed the loose fragments of rock out of the small cave until the floor of the recess was smooth rock. Then he looked about him. The signs of the explosion were everywhere. Ledin sighed. He certainly wasn’t going to leave his sister’s final resting place looking like that. He went back to the shuttle, and brought out a two-handled skip. The hard physical work of picking up the debris was somehow satisfying; the time it took him to remove all traces of the explosion appropriate. It gave him space to feel at one with the surrounding planet, to feel in his own bones how appropriate this planet was for Hanna. As he worked he found himself remembering all the little things about her. Her confiding smile as she shared her visions for them both, her unfailing blind trust in her elder brother, her inherent happiness – that inner radiance which had bubbled up to illuminate everything it touched. Not all the hardships they had suffered had been able to take that away from her. Even in death her face had seemed to transmit an ethereal brilliance.

Ledin carried the fragments of rock down the ridge; he had spotted a small area where the wind had broken one of the risers and some filling would be a positive thing. Each journey gave him the opportunity to remember something else about Hanna, to honour her memory, to allow her beautiful spirit back again into his heart. He had blocked her out for too long.

Finally he was satisfied with his efforts. The ridge was tidy, and the only sign of the explosion was the small hole in the step which was to be her final resting place. He went back to the shuttle, opened the casket, and tenderly carried its prized contents over to the recess in the rock. Placing the flag and its contents inside, he bowed his head, finally getting a chance to say goodbye to his sister. Then he fumbled inside his pocket, pulling out a thin floral circlet made of silver chain with beaten silver flowers. It lay sparkling for a moment on his palm, and he gave a smile.

“You should have been a princess,” he said, bending down to place the delicate coronet gently on top of the flag. “You always were to me, so I asked an artisan to make you this. I wish I could have seen it on you. You would have looked beautiful with this on your hair. —Although you couldn’t possibly look any more beautiful than I remember you. Rest peacefully, Hanna. I love you.”

He stood silently for a long moment; then he went back to the shuttle for the rexelene extruder. This was a complicated process, but he had been told that these portable extruders were fairly easy to use. All of the necessary parts were compressed into a hand-held unit, which was of very limited capacity, but quite light. It consisted of a three-component mix, which solidified almost immediately, allowing the closure of apertures of up to a few feet. He checked the instructions carefully and then began to close the alcove, beginning at the base, and waiting until each layer was solid before starting on the next. It took about 40 minutes before he was finished.

He sat back, and surveyed the finished product. It was good. The New Kwaide flag with its precious contents was visible, neatly folded over to hide what was inside. And the rexelene was clear, so the sunlight poured through it down onto the flag, lighting up the silver flowers on the slim chain crown. Ledin sat down, his back to the rock next to the rexelene, and smiled. He felt at rest with himself, very sad, but at the same time he was gradually aware that an enormous weight had lifted from his shoulders. He had, he realized, been blaming himself for years for the circumstances around Hanna’s death. But that guilt was dissipating with the rising sun of Pictoria, liberating him from years of self-blame. Hanna would rest safely here, he knew. He thought of the dark, dank Valley of the Skulls, where the sunlight never penetrated, and then looked across the beautiful landscape in front of him.

“No-one will take you away from your dream now, Hanna. You might be 30,000 light years from Kwaide, but this is the planet you saw, all those years ago. We brought you home.”

He sat silently, feeling at one both with the countryside and with his sister. He knew that it was time to move on, time to put the past behind him at last. He had to forgive himself for the past. He knew, as certainly as if she had told him, that Hanna would have.