Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (63 page)

“Women!” he said, lifting his shoulders in a gesture universally understood by the rest of the male species in the binary system.

Diva tossed her head, but then her eyes met Six’s and they both began to smile. Neither of them seemed to want to look away.

“Your canths are recovering,” Bennel told the
canth keeper, in answer to his worried question. “There is extensive lung damage, because they had to breathe in so much sulphurous air, but I have done exactly as you ordered, and they do seem to be progressing.”

The man who spoke to canths stretched to look out of his bedroom window, in the direction of the corrals. “I am hoping that a period of complete rest will enable them to repair some of the lost tissue. Of course, they will never be the same creatures they were before the journey to Kintara, but I think they may be able to live out the rest of your days in peace.”

“We had arranged to go to the Emerald Lake for a few days,” said Diva. “We were going to take Raven there. But I will contact the man who contrives children and ask for her to be brought here.”

The man who spoke to canths looked pained. “Please don’t alter your arrangements on my behalf. I would not wish to lose colour.”

Six shook his head. “We would rather stay with you. We can help with our canths, too.”

They both went to their canths. Diva was shocked at the state of them. Both of the equines were covered with scars; their hides were patched where their hair had been burnt away; and deep boils had formed in their skin where small pieces of volcanic tephra had seared the flesh. They must have lost a substantial proportion of their body weight in the mad dash, too, for their ribs were showing clearly under coats which had been dulled by their experiences near the supermassive black hole.

She stroked the neck of the seal brown canth, which dipped its head in appreciation. “You were magnificent,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

The canth tossed its head, then blew air out of its long nose and looked in the direction of the clover hay which Bennel had hung from the nearest Eletheian tree. Some things were more important than thanks.

Six watched as the two canths made their way slowly across to a patch of soft sand, bent their legs under them to sink down onto the yellow mantle and roll luxuriously over and over, and then stagger to their feet again to stretch their long necks and begin to crop contentedly at the hay net. It was as if they had gone back in time, and none of the last few weeks had taken place. In fact, he had to stop himself turning around to look for Grace, who had been with them last time they had visited here.

They were still there when the magsled arrived from the donor headquarters. A carer got gingerly down, with a small figure strapped to her in a sort of papoose. She walked over to Diva, unstrapped the harness from her own body, and strapped it to Diva, who was looking more alarmed than when she had faced an army of sycophants in the battle for New Kwaide.

“What ... what am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Just carry the baby with you. She will become accustomed to your body rhythms, to the way you move, the way your heart beats and the way you smell. It will help her to adjust more quickly when we bring her to you permanently in a few weeks. Please make sure
Valhai
Six bonds with her too.”

Diva gazed down at the small being. The child was staring at the new face above her with crossed eyes. “Hello, baby!” she tried, tentatively. “I am ... I am your mother.” Her eyes met Six’s across the small being wrapped close to her chest, and widened with the realization that she was a mother. Despite having 154,832 children, this was the first that she had held in her arms. Diva stared at Six, a flood of unexpected emotion flowing over her.

Six reached forwards to curl one finger around Raven’s little hand. “I bonded with her the first time I saw her. Welcome, Raven. We will take you to meet some canths in a moment.”

They introduced the tiny girl to the man who spoke to canths, and to Bennel, who looked down at the dark-haired child with a tinge of regret.

“She reminds me of my own daughter, Quenna, who is six now. I ... I was not able to be with her as much as I would have liked when she was a baby.”

Diva smiled. “Would you like to hold Raven?”

Bennel’s face shone. “May I?”

He took the small bundle carefully, and jiggled her about, in the manner of a man accustomed to babies. The little girl gurgled, clearly loving it. Bennel gave a wide smile. “She is a beautiful baby,” he said politely.

Diva fastened the harness around her again, and gave a nod. “She will be the next leader of Coriolis.”

Six gave a snort. “Then I hope somebody has got rid of Tartalus first!”

Diva stared down at Raven’s small, but passionate eyes. “She will be more than a match for anyone!”

“Like her mother!”

Diva found herself staring, unsure if that was a compliment or not.

“What? —Well, you are one of the best fighters I have ever seen,” he said defensively. “If she inherits your strength with a sword, she will be someone to be reckoned with!”

Bennel inclined his head. “May the heavenly apex make it so!”

Diva was disconcerted. This being-a-mother thing was new to her, and she wasn’t quite sure that it suited her. Then she found her attention dragged down again to Raven’s tight little face and knew that she could get used to it very easily.

THE FIRST PERSON Grace saw on the space station above Kwaide was Tartalus. She walked out of the New Independence, where Arcan had transported her, and straight into a group of travelers who were walking to the next docking port.

Tartalus was accompanied by Ledin, who was walking stiffly by his side, and by both Six’s sisters, who were chattering to the Coriolan as if they were old friends. The acolytes who had accompanied him brought up the rear. As Tartalus walked past her Grace felt a flare of dislike race through her whole being.

Diva’s cousin lifted his dark eyes in her direction as the group walked past her, and Grace saw a momentary gleam of triumph inside their depths. Although both Samaliya and Jalana ignored her presence, she knew that they had noticed her and were deliberately pretending they hadn’t.

To her surprise, her own husband also ignored her, and so she made her way to the bridge, where she could wait for him to finish his duties.

When he joined her there, he was apologetic. “I didn’t want to have to present you to them all. It would have meant you had to shake their hands and would have delayed their departure. I couldn’t wait to get rid of them.”

“Never mind, at least they have gone now.”

Ledin scratched his forehead. “I wish it were that easy. Haven’t you heard?”

“What?”

“Coriolis and Old Kwaide have reached an agreement to establish formal diplomatic relations. The president of New Kwaide was unable to stop it. Tartalus is to be the next ambassador to Kwaide. He will be based in Benefice.”

Grace’s face fell. “I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I. He won’t live there permanently, of course, but he will be traveling through the space station frequently, so I will be seeing quite a lot of him.”

“Not much fun.”

“No.” Ledin looked rueful. “And it will cause a lot of bother. That man is turning into a real nuisance.”

“Lucky you are here, then.”

He gave a sigh. “I suppose it is. Are you staying over?”

“Yes. I have to go to Coriolis tomorrow, to find out how much they expect in exchange for the loss of their heavy-duty shuttle. Then I will come back here in the evening.”

“Good. Tartalus and his cronies will be gone by then.”

LEDIN WAS UNPREPARED for the whirlwind presence of Arcan only three days after they had all left Valhai. The orthogel entity appeared in front of him as he was overseeing the overhaul of one of the shuttles of the New Independence.

“Arcan,” he acknowledged. “You are back early. I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

“The morphics tell me that they can now lead us to the three planets they have found which may be the ones we are looking for. They have checked out all the sites we gave them, and there are only three possibilities within the parameters. They are confident that they have found the right planets.” Arcan scintillated. “Which means that I can bring the others back here – as soon as you are ready, of course.”

“Err ... I can probably get everything done by the end of today,” said Ledin, “but not before that. Grace will give me a hand as soon as she gets back from Mesteta.”

Arcan nodded. “That will be fine. I will tell the others to be ready in a few hours’ time.”

“All right.” Ledin looked distracted. “I hope I have thought of everything we might need.”

“I am sure you have.”

Ledin rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and it looked as if he wouldn’t get much rest. He pulled a face at the other Kwaidians on duty. “We need to get this finished as fast as we can.”

His fellow-workers nodded. They would do their very best for the orthogel entity. They owed him that much. There was a general bustling amongst the staff of the Kwaide Orbital Station as they hurried to meet the new deadline.

Ledin looked around at the station. He missed it when he was away, yet now it was progressively more and more difficult to come back to. When he was here he was keenly aware that he had seen too many new places in the universe, witnessed too many new things. In a sense, he felt as though his life didn’t belong to him anymore; it belonged to Arcan, to Grace, and to the canths and the morphics. And now that Tartalus was getting a foothold on Kwaide, he felt even less inclined to run the space station. Yet he was one of the few people who knew exactly what Tartalus was capable of, and that might be important, one day. He had gradually come to realize that he would probably have to turn down the Ambassadorship which he had just been offered, however much he was tempted to take it.

He tried to shake off the feeling of discomfort, but it was impossible. He found himself frowning. Perhaps he was just too tired.

He worked as steadily as he could and was reasonably pleased with the results. All of the systems of both the space trader and the shuttles had been overhauled, and there were enough supplies for a voyage of several weeks. He had asked that as many mask packs and bodywraps as could be spared be placed both in the New Independence and in the two shuttles, and had stocked all three with nutripacks and waterpacks.

He walked over to one of the exit hatches leading outside onto the hull of the space station. It was the one he had used on the original space station, when Grace had fooled her brother into thinking the whole station had been destroyed. He wondered if he would ever be able to look down at unimpeded views of his home planet again.

Arcan reappeared in front of him, and Ledin immediately snapped out of his reverie. The orthogel entity flashed a deep orange colour, and then looked at the hatch curiously. “Is there a fault with this piece of machinery?”

Ledin explained about how he had been wondering if they would ever be able to see his planet again unimpeded by rexelene visors.

“That is easy,” said Arcan, and Ledin found that he was sitting perched on the outside plating of the space station, surrounded by an almost invisible bubble of orthogel, and able to examine the whole of the galaxy laid out in front of him. At the same time, Grace appeared, almost falling as she stumbled on one of the large rivets which held the station together. She looked around her, open-eyed.

“What on Sac—?”

“I hear you like to see the view from outside,” said Arcan, obviously pleased with himself. “I can’t think why.”

Grace sat down gingerly on one of the reinforcing ribs, fearing it might be too cold, and would permanently freeze her clothes to the metal. Then she saw that the bubble encompassed them totally, and also insulated them from the cold. “It is pretty,” she said.

“It is bleak.”

“Arcan! Bleak? You can see the whole galaxy, teeming with stars.”

“What is so special about the stars?”

Grace choked. “What is—? Why, everything! How can you not see that?”

“Stars are simply large fires. They have no soul, cannot think.”

“Yes, but they give life to everything.”

“How many stars are there in the galaxy?”