Carlyle felt strange—glad to be home, but not quite feeling at home. He kept a sharp lookout for his friends; he saw a few faces he thought he recognized but no one he knew. Does anyone recognize me? he wondered.
They first went to the main lobby and secured quarters, which they visited long enough to have their possessions stowed and the riff-bud cultures set up near a sunny window. Then Carlyle, anxious to check after his ship and his friends, urged Cephean to come along with him. The cynthian agreed, leaving the riff-buds but bringing Idi and Odi. They went back to the same lobby and into the subsection handling crew and ship assignments.
A Guildswoman waved him over to her niche. "I have my own ship,
Spillix
, to check in," he said, "and then I want to check on some friends of mine, to see if they're in port." He beamed at Cephean, who seemed bored by all the talking. The woman nodded and communicated at a touch with the Jarvis Spacing Authority. She recorded the pertinent flight information and credit exchange, based upon Carlyle's "lease-command" with a percentage recorded back to Garsoom's Haven. She asked Carlyle what arrangements he wanted for
Spillix—
immediate reassignment, short layover, or long layover.
"Is that my decision to make?" he asked.
She explained, "You've been assigned the ship indefinitely, in floating command, as long as you keep it in service with at least minimum profit, and no layover longer than forty days if carryage is available."
"Really?" he said in surprise. Now that he thought about it, he remembered that all this had been explained to him back on Garsoom's Haven. "I really don't expect to be flying her again, though. Not as long as I can sign back aboard
Lady Brillig
."
"Perhaps," she said, "you should request layover on
Spillix
until you find out about that. Then, if you don't want it, you can sign the ship over to the Authority. But you'll have it as a backup in case there are problems."
Carlyle looked at her skeptically, then agreed—mainly to avoid making a scene about something unimportant.
Spillix
had been a good ship, but she wasn't
his
ship. "Can you check on
Lady Brillig
for me now?" he asked. "And Janofer Lief, Skan Sen, and Renwald Legroeder?"
She nodded and started working. After a minute, she looked up thoughtfully, shook her head with a quick smile. "The three riggers you named were on
Lady Brillig
?" she asked.
"Sure, but—"
She held up a finger and went back to work, pressing a crescent-shaped headset behind her ear and working her lips silently. After a minute she stood up and said, "Could you come into the next room with me, please?" Carlyle beckoned to Cephean and followed. He didn't like this.
They went into a chamber which was furnished with several comfortable chairs and a curved desk. Seated at the desk was a man who reminded Carlyle instantly of Holly Wellen. When Carlyle and Cephean and the riffmar were settled, the man retracted his desk about halfway into the wall so that it no longer stood between them, and he introduced himself. "I'm Walter Freyling. I'm pleased to meet you and your companion, Cephean—and pleased and amazed to meet your riffmar." His eyebrows danced up and down as he studied the riffmar.
"We've gotten some of the information you asked about. It took us a few minutes, because the ship you knew as
Lady Brillig
is no longer registered under that name. It was sold about three months ago by Irwin Kloss, and the name was changed at that time. The Guild is not officially privy to name changes under such circumstances, so you would have to follow the rumor tree to learn what the ship's new name is. I think, though, that it is no longer operating out of Chaening's World."
Carlyle stared blankly at the man. He must have heard wrong—or they had misunderstood which ship he had asked about.
Lady Brillig
sold? Renamed? How was that possible?
The blow was hitting him slowly, picking him up and carrying him out of the present, out of anything which felt like reality. How could his ship no longer be here, no longer even exist for him to fly? If it had been wrecked, that would be one thing. But this? He had left her only four or five months ago. This was wrong!
The impact was deep in his gut now, in some part of his body he had not known existed. He stared at Freyling, seeing only the blurred figure of a man who had uttered some words. His blood was pounding so loudly in his head that he could hear nothing else.
What about Janofer and Legroeder and Skan?
"Can you hear me, Gev?" Freyling asked gently. Carlyle focused on the source of the words. Freyling had been waiting for him to absorb the news. Now he spoke again. "We have some information on your friends, but not much, unfortunately. None of them are on Chaening's World right now, so far as we know. After the ship was sold, they broke up as a group and rigged out on separate ships. All we can give you right now is their original flight assignments—but I don't know if that will help you find them. They rigged out months ago."
Carlyle stopped listening again. He couldn't keep on; it hurt too much. His effort—gone, wasted. He had carried his hope all the way from the other side of the Flume—and now there was nothing.
Had they left no word, no explanation?
Beside him, Cephean stirred, transmitting a barrage of bewildering feelings that was beyond him to understand. Carlyle was only faintly aware of Freyling turning to him from the desk com.
"Gev," Freyling said. "We've just found a recorded message for you, from one of your friends. Would you like to see it now? I can leave you alone here for a few minutes—"
"What?" Carlyle came back to awareness.
Freyling spoke to his desk again and pulled out a thin square of plastic. He placed it over a luminous square on the desk and said, "Just touch here when you're ready." He indicated a spot under the square. Then he rose and left the room.
Carlyle looked glazedly at Cephean, then leaned forward and touched the spot. The square brightened, and he sat back. A holo-image appeared beside the desk.
He inhaled sharply.
It was Janofer. She was life-sized, and she was seated on the edge of a chair, facing just to the right of Carlyle. For a moment he thought that she had changed, or that his memory was faulty. But no—her hair had always been that silver-brown mixture, and her eyes always deep and intense. But they were troubled, sad; she had been crying. Her eyes looked out into the room, shifting, brushing his but not catching. No, of course they wouldn't. She was speaking to a holo-recorder—how long ago?
"Gev?" she said, her voice trembling. "Hello. And good-bye. I wanted to welcome you home myself—we all did. But this is the best I can do. You've read my letter, so all I can really add is to say how sorry we are about
Lady Brillig.
We all loved her, and we're as unhappy as you will be. We all wanted to be here to see you again, but we're leaving on our new berths soon. I'm leaving tomorrow, Legroeder's already left, and Skan will be off in about four days. So you'll be seeing this after we're gone. It's terrible parting like this, but we all must carry on, and this is our way. I've found a new crew, though I'm sure they won't let me fly for a few days, I'm so shaky right now." She stopped and leaned forward for a long minute, apparently thinking. Carlyle tried to shift his position so as to look into her eyes. She tilted her head, and her hair fell awkwardly. Her face looked strained, as though she might cry again, but she did not. This was the real Janofer. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger. "So, Gev, good-bye. We all love you, and I love you. Good-bye." She tried to smile, and then she was gone.
Carlyle was unable to move. He heard Cephean's questioning hiss, but he could not answer. Janofer had reached to the deepest nerve of his soul—and now there was an emptiness which was like the emptiness he had felt on leaving his crewmates months ago, but a thousandfold deeper.
She had said something about a letter. What letter? He had been given only the recording, and Freyling had said nothing at all about a letter.
"Mr. Freyling!" he shouted, jumping up. "Mr. Freyling!" He gazed at Cephean in dismay. The riffmar hid behind the cynthian's front paws.
Freyling entered from the far side of the room.
"Where's the letter?" Carlyle asked, pacing. "What happened to the letter? She said that there was a letter I was supposed to read, and that was supposed to explain everything. Where is it?"
Seating himself again, Freyling said slowly, "Why, I don't know. Perhaps there's been a mistake." He turned and spoke silently into the desk intercom. Finally he turned back. "We're going to check again," he said, "but there doesn't appear to be any letter in our care. The recording was placed in safekeeping by Janofer Lief, and as far as we know, it was the only thing she put in the box. Perhaps she made other arrangements for a letter, or perhaps she simply forgot to leave it here. Or, possibly, we have made a mistake in our finder coding."
Mistake? How could they make a mistake? But Janofer forgetting—that was something which might have happened. What other arrangements could she have made? Janofer . . . dear Janofer. It would be so like her to painfully write a letter, telling him everything, and to make a holo-recording to make the letter more personal—and then to forget to deposit the letter. Lost in her own new dreams, perhaps, trying in vain to put her past behind her. And forgetting. Simply forgetting. Perhaps she had the letter with her even now, wherever she was.
This pain was like nothing he had ever known—it lanced straight to the heart of his soul. Why had they split apart? Why had
Lady Brillig
been sold? Why renamed?
He addressed Freyling hoarsely, the questions falling all out of order in his thoughts even as he spoke. "Don't you—can't you find out anything more about
Lady Brillig
? Isn't there anything you can do?"
Freyling looked at him kindly. "I'm afraid there really is nothing we can do, Gev. We have no control over what an owner chooses to do with his ship, so long as he meets Guild standards. They don't have to tell us their business arrangements, and that's why we only keep current status on record."
"But why would Mr. Kloss mind telling? He always seemed friendly enough." Carlyle stared in frustration.
Suddenly Cephean broke in, sputtering. "Whass iss hwrong, Caharleel? Whass hyor frenss ssay? Hi ssaw buss c-houldss noss hundersthandss."
"That was just a holo-image," Carlyle said miserably. "They've gone. All of them. And my old ship's gone, too. What am I going to do now?" He gazed helplessly at Freyling; he started to choke and almost to cry, but not quite. For a long while, he simply sat and stared through watering eyes, and thought about really nothing at all, and about everything; and though he wanted to release all of his pent-up frustration, disappointment, sadness . . . he could not.
Cephean was breathing with a sharp hiss, and seemed increasingly ill at ease. (The emotions touching Carlyle from the outside were a blurry mixture of
confusion
and
scorn
and
sympathy
and
fear.
)
Freyling finally broke the silence. "Perhaps," he said, "if Mr. Kloss is, as you say, a friendly man—and I don't know him, so I'm only speculating—perhaps you could go talk to him and he would tell you something more about the ship, at least."
Carlyle thought about that. "Can you try to find out about Janofer for me? And Skan and Legroeder?"
"We can try, of course. But tracking someone who's left the system is difficult at best, and usually impossible without physically following the trail. You know how expensive and erratic fluxwave transmissions are, even among the nearby systems. That really just leaves the mail."
Carlyle scarcely heard. Suddenly he said, "We'll go to our rooms now. I'm going to look for Mr. Kloss. And I don't know what else. For the letter." He looked at Cephean. "Ready to come? You have to go see to your riff-buds."
"Yiss, yiss," Cephean whispered. He seemed to be looking at Carlyle as though expecting something more—his ears were lifted though flattened outward at the tips—but when Carlyle led without speaking, Cephean simply directed the riffmar ahead, running in low, fast leaps, and followed Carlyle himself.
Carlyle's thoughts were already focused elsewhere—on the future and on the past, but not on the present. Not at all on the present. The cynthian following him provided the comfort of familiarity, but that was small comfort now.
Carlyle gazed at the cynthian in astonishment and looked down at the floor where seven baby riffmar staggered and squeaked. Cephean hissed with nervous satisfaction, his eyes bright.
"I'll be damned," Carlyle said. "Nice work. But Cephean, do you really want to go off? I mean, whatever you want . . . " He tried to keep the melancholy out of his voice, but he couldn't.
Cephean looked at him nervously. Carlyle had just returned from a futile effort to have
Lady Brillig
traced through the Spacing Authority registry. And now Cephean was telling him that he wanted to go away with the "newborn" riffmar, to take them to a forest where they could grow up properly.
Carlyle felt wretched and lonely.
Cephean tilted his head. "Hyou ffinds hyor shiff?" he hissed, his voice trembling.
Carlyle shook his head. Maybe that was why Cephean wanted to go off—because he found it impossible to bear the tortured emotions of a human being. Or perhaps he really did need to bring up the riffmar in forest surroundings. That would be how it was done at home.
"I found out where I have to go to see the man who owned my ship," said Carlyle. "There's nothing else I can do. So, if you want me to see you off to the nearest forest, I can do that before I leave. But will you come back?"
Cephean's whiskers trembled. "Fferhaffs. Hi muss theash h-riffmahr fforess hwayss. Fferhaffs h-we sthay."
Carlyle felt more pain than he'd have thought. Well, he'd no reason to expect the cynthian to stay with him. Why should the cat be interested in chasing around looking for a human's friends—especially if he might be abandoned afterwards? Not that he would be, but . . .