Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (52 page)

“If you are so good, then why don’t you do it yourself?”

Diva stepped one pace forwards. “That is what I was in the process of doing before you came steaming in here shouting at the top of your voice.”

“Oh, fine, then. Next time you disappear I will leave you to your own devices.”

“I would appreciate that. Now, pipe down, will you?”

Chuntering rather, Six subsided. Diva regarded him with a beady eye for a moment, looked over at the other two with unspoken instructions to be silent, and then turned her attention back to the small threads of light.

“We are happy to meet you,” she said in a ringing, aristocratic tone, inclining her head very slightly as a mark of respect. “We are visitors from far away. We mean you no harm.”

The threads seemed to blink in and out of existence for a second, and then they moved closer and closer together, until each thread touched the others. Still, they kept moving, and Six could see them weaving together, one inside the others, and then more and more joined in. Right in front of their eyes, the golden threads formed themselves into one large aura, until a complex pattern had been formed. At first, it seemed rather like the diamond aura which the canths had produced in the mindmerge, back on Pictoria, but then it continued growing, forming diamond after diamond in the air, and then each diamond took its place in a central star made of hundreds of diamond shapes built together to create a stellate form. It hung in front of them, blinding them slightly with the light it gave off.

Six moved closer to Diva, and gave her a dig with his elbow. “That is like the aura that canths made when they overcame the Dessites, remember?” He gave a silent whistle. “Only much, much more complex.”

“Shh! I know that, no-name!”

“Yes, but—”

“
Will
you shut up?”

Six was affronted. “I was only pointing something out.”

“Yes. I know that, too. Now, will you be quiet and let me get on with it?”

Six nodded. “Certainly my lady. Sorry to speak, your royal numbness. Allow me to remove myself from your exalted presence, your worshipfulness.” He walked backwards, tugging at an imaginary forelock as he did so.

Diva flashed a fulminating look at him, which he ignored.

“Excuse me for existing, ma’am. I will instantly cease to annoy you.”

Diva was unable to take any more. She spun around. “Just because we are married doesn’t give you the right to talk to me like that!” she shouted.

“Now see who’s raising their voice.” Six shook his head sadly. “What will the lost animas think? You are ruining their precious first contact.”

Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Hang the lost animas!” she snapped. “I am sick and tired of you making fun of me.”

“Me? Me? Why, Diva, whatever can you mean? As if a lowly Kwaidian could possibly make fun of a Coriolan meritocrat!”

There was a tiny movement from Tallen, who appeared to be enjoying the show. Both Diva and Six swiveled to glare at him in unison, and he spread his hands in apology.

Diva gave a deep sigh. “I am trying to make first contact, here, Kwaidian!”

Six shrugged. “I already made first contact, didn’t I? I said hello.”

She looked horrified. “That isn’t first contact!”

Six was glaring now. “I suppose we have to have a ceremony, do we? Have to speechify and posture?”

There was a ghastly silence. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Speechifying and posturing?” Diva’s voice was like crystals of ice, which seemed to shatter on the listening ears.

Six pulled a face. “All this meritocratic superiority.”

Diva began to shake. “At least we are not MORONS!”

“Oh, very educated!”

“You are unspeakable, Six. Leave me alone!”

“My pleasure. Enjoy your superior quality first contact, will you?” With that, Six turned away and stalked stiffly out of the grotto, leaving his wife white-faced and stationary in the middle of the large cavern, her face a picture.

Bennel and Tallen looked at each other, and then Bennel nodded towards the exit to the grotto. Tallen slipped silently away, following Six, and Bennel himself moved closer to Diva.

Diva was standing with her eyes closed, trying to control her emotions. It was a new experience for her. She was mortified to have got into an argument in front of other people, especially when she had been trying to establish first contact with a new species. She felt so ashamed of herself, and of Six, that her heart seemed to sink into her stomach. She licked her lips, and looked around her with unfocused eyes.

Bennel took pity on her. “You were saying,
Valhai
Diva...?”

She blinked. “I was? Err ... yes, of course I was. I ... I was assuring the Ammonites that we would do them no harm.” Slowly, her voice calmed down a little and she was able to continue speaking. All the same, she was aware of a trickle of shame running cold down the back of her spine, and a sensation of loss which made her stumble over her words. What had she done? What had just happened?

Bennel stopped in front of her. “We can wait,
Valha
i Diva. Perhaps you should go after First Six?”

“Go after him? Why in Sacras should I go after him? If anybody should apologize, it is Six.”

The trimorphs underwent a strange change of colour, and one of them spoke in her head. “Are you sure, Diva? Six seemed very angry. I have never seen him like that.”

She gave a ferocious frown. “I don’t care!”

Bennel treated her to a strange look. “I think you do.”

She was about to snap at him for his interference, but bit back the harsh words. He was only trying to help. “Well, I am not going after him.”

“The Ammonites can wait. They have been waiting for your arrival for thousands and thousands of years. A couple of hours will not make any difference. You need to talk to Six.”

Diva looked at Bennel, who inclined his own head encouragingly.

“Oh, very well,” she said shortly. “I’ll come back soon.”

The flickering shapes seemed to pulsate with light, and the twins shimmered.

“—Though I don’t see why I should apologize. After all, it was Six who started the whole thing ...” As she walked away, back to the folds of the waterfall, she continued to mutter and grumble to herself.

Bennel gave another bow, this time in the direction of the diamond star of light, and then scurried after her.

DIVA CAME BACK out of the gloom and into the flat area where the statue was, beside the steps which snaked back up, up to where the canths would hopefully be waiting.

She found Six seated beside the pool between waterfalls, moodily throwing rocks into the water.

“What happened back there?” she asked, her voice still tight.

Six turned to stare at her. “Can’t you stop sounding as if you are demanding an explanation?”

She wrinkled her brow. “What do you mean?”

He threw another rock. “You always sound superior, Diva, that’s the problem. You still don’t believe we are equals.”

She was shocked. “I
do
!”

“No, you don’t. You believe you are better than everybody else.”

“That is not true.”

“You know it is.” He picked up a smaller stone and tossed it towards the water, this time making it skim across the pool, despite the froth which was the remnant of the previous waterfall. “You were born into a family which thought itself superior. You automatically believe it.”

“I so do not!”

Six gave a sigh. “I don’t think we can go on like this. It is ingrained in your psyche.”

“What is? I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“This was never going to work. I should have realized years ago. But I was so much in love with you, I never even thought about it.”

Diva started to pace up and down, getting progressively more upset. “I don’t know what you are going on about. I don’t think I am superior.”

He shrugged. “You can’t help it. That’s the way you were educated. Like Tartalus. You are cousins, after all.”

“Second cousins!”

“Whatever. You can never see that Tallen is as good as me, or Bennel as good as you. You put people on different levels.”

She stared. “People are on different levels!”

“No, they aren’t. People are all on the same level.” Then he thought for a while. “Except Tartalus ... and Atheron ... and Xenon ... and people like that. They belong to a whole other world.” He chucked another pebble at the waters in front of them. “It’s like the colours on Xiantha. The canth keeper doesn’t think he is better because he is a panchrome, does he?”

“N-no, I suppose not, but I don’t see ...” She stopped pacing, and sank down to the ground.

“He respects the ticket collector, and all the other Xianthans. You think Tallen and Bennel are beneath you.”

“I don’t!” But she sounded uncertain. Because there might be a tiny bit of truth in what Six was saying. Just a shred, perhaps. She thought about it, and dropped her head. It was hard to think of Bennel as a person, as a man with a wife and a family, and not just a bodyguard. It was even harder to respect a Namuri who had been a thief. She stirred uncomfortably.

Six pressed home his advantage. “What colour do you think Bennel is? Bichrome?”

Diva opened her eyes. “I hadn’t thought. No, I suppose he would be more. After all, he left Coriolis under his own steam to come to look for me, risking everything – even his own family. Oh ...!” She looked at him. “He would have gained much colour by doing that.”

Six nodded. “I think he must be an octochrome, at the least. Which is probably more than we are.”

She swallowed. “And Tallen?”

Six pursed his lips. “Maybe he hasn’t gained as much colour as Bennel, yet, but then he is still very young.”

Diva fell silent. At last she spoke. “What about me?”

“What do you feel you are? It is always about what colour you yourself feel yourself to be. You are a meritocrat – do you think all meritocrats are panchromes?”

Diva shook her head vigorously. “Definitely not. It isn’t what you are born as, is it? That is what Xianthan colour is all about.” Then she heard what she had just said, and was able to see what he had been trying to tell her. It wasn’t about birth. Well, she had known that anyway, hadn’t she?

“You aren’t exactly perfect yourself, you know!” she pointed out.

There was a very long pause, and Six sent several more rocks dancing across the pool. Then Diva gave a sigh and looked crossly around her.

“You think we both have a long way to travel to gain more colour.”

Six nodded. “I think so, yes. I think maybe we are somewhere in the middle of the scale at the moment, but that we need to move on.”

Diva raised an eyebrow. “No. You have probably gained colour in all sorts of ways that I haven’t. I may be the one who is behind.” She bit her lip as she looked down at the tumbling waters cascading into the pool. It was hard for her to accept that she was behind anybody in anything. “Bennel probably
does
have more colour than I do. After all, that is why the canth keeper wanted you and me to go on this journey together. He said that the journey of colour was to become equal in colour.” She frowned, not liking what she was saying at all.

Six said nothing, but managed to skim a flat pebble six times across the water.

“How come you have this innate ability to make me so cross, no-name?”

He shrugged, and threw another stone.

She watched it skitter across the water and the tautness in her shoulders began to relax. “I
don’t
think I am better than you.” She picked up her own stone, and tried to bounce it off the water. It was swallowed up with a resounding plop as soon as it touched the surface.

Six grinned. “Not at skimming, anyway.”

Diva frowned. “The stone was too big.”

Six’s smile widened. “So it was the stone’s fault? You
are
better than me?”

She ground her teeth. “Oh, shut up, Six. You are the very limit! You turn everything I say around! Can’t you just leave it alone?”

“Who is better at skimming?”

She spread her arms. “ALL RIGHT! You are! NOW can we get back to first contact?”

He jumped up. “Don’t know what took you so long.”