When they were back on the street, Carlyle said, "Do you want to go down into the valley, see the mountains?"
Cephean looked at him gravely. (
Alarm.
) "H-no. Noss wanss ssee k-k-horiff. Noss!"
"No koryfs," Carlyle promised. "They're all in the wild country, anyway—not near the city." At least that was how he remembered it.
"H-no," the cynthian insisted. "Muss gho vvack," (
Urgency. Urgency.
)
"Are you worried about the riffmar and the riff-buds?"
Cephean did not answer.
They returned to the spaceport.
* * *
Reluctantly, Cephean yielded samples of his dwindling food stock for analysis.
The answers from the specialists came back the next day. Carlyle studied the report in Cephean's room. The cynthian looked unkempt and ratty, with his fur matted to his body. "Hey," said Carlyle, "I think we can keep you from starving. All you have to do is eat the things on this list. Hope you like some of them." The closest substitute for odomilk, as it turned out, was the melon which Cephean had disdained yesterday. Or condensed valley-goat milk with nectar. There were a number of promising substitutes for syrup stalk, in particular celery soaked in Velan molasses, with vitamin and mineral supplements. For bramleaf, he would have to be happy with cereal grain products—perhaps thin flatcakes.
The cynthian's reaction was not enthusiastic, but at least he did not refuse outright to try the food. Maybe he's starting to understand that he has to adapt, Carlyle thought.
Cephean looked down at the crate of food which had been delivered by the shop. His eyes contracted, and the riffmar sprang into action. They scavenged through the box until they found the one remaining melon and, struggling, lifted it to the edge of the box. It fell from their hands and thumped to the floor and rolled away. They scurried to catch it, then rolled it toward Cephean, hissing softly with the effort. Cephean eyed the melon doubtfully, then mouthed it.
"Wait," said Carlyle. "I'd better cut that open for you." He went back to his own quarters and returned with a sharp knife and a platter. Taking the melon from Cephean, he placed it on the platter and carefully sliced it open. A yellowish milk spilled out, filling the platter. "You can try the milk, and you might like the inside of the melon, too," he said, quartering the fruit and placing the pieces to one side.
Cephean sniffed. "Iss noss ffoisson?" he asked cautiously.
"No, I'm sure it's safe."
The cynthian took a tentative lick, then jerked back and worried his tongue about inside his mouth. "Yach! Whass iss iss?" He hunched forward and took another taste. He shook his head jerkily. "Noss . . . noss . . . vvaddss," he sputtered. But he backed away and to one side and sat stiffly, glancing down at the platter and back up at Carlyle. "Fferhaffs, Caharleel, fferhaffs." He looked perplexed, and swiped nervously with one black paw at his unkempt fur. He looked thoughtful for a moment. Suddenly the riffmar shuffled forward and climbed up his fur and onto his shoulders, one on each side. They began to comb the fur on his head and neck, plucking out tufts that had been shed, and cleaning bits of dirt from his scalp. Their fern tops waved and fluttered as they worked. Cephean bent and licked at the milk again.
Carlyle left them and went for his final meeting with the Guild med and psych experts, and, after that, the hearing panel. The meetings went smoothly, though he never got over his feeling that somehow they were going to find fault with
him
before the inquest was finished. In fact, he failed to hear the concluding commendation the first time it was read, because he was too absorbed in his thoughts. Would he be blamed for the flux-pile adjustments he had made just prior to the accident? Would he be judged unstable? Would he be blamed for bringing the ship to Garsoom's Haven instead of Gammon's Annex and putting the Spacing Authority here to so much trouble?
"Skan?"
"What's wrong now, Gev? You're completely in the clear."
And Janofer:
"You don't have to worry, Gev. You really don't."
"Will I be able to join you when I get back?"
"Get back, first, dear."
He glanced up and saw that every holo-figure was watching him. He cleared his throat.
Fortunately, Wellen stepped in for him. "Gev, the Board has found that you handled your station with more than the requisite care and skill, and it has granted you high commendation, with reward."
Carlyle turned, startled, to Dial Jade. She smiled. He began to feel giddy with relief.
Wellen continued, "When you decide what you want to do next, the Board will help you any way it can. You may remain with
Sedora
after she's been refitted, if you like, or you can take on a different ship."
"I want to go back to Chaening's World," Carlyle said, impelled by a rush of homesickness—for Jarvis, for
Lady Brillig.
Pierce, the deputy administrator, said, "I'm sure we can arrange that."
Wellen glanced at Carlyle, then said to Pierce, "Fine. Perhaps we can work out a way to combine that with the monetary settlement for the riggers."
Hearing that, Carlyle wondered. A monetary settlement? Just for saving himself and the ship? Of course this was all standard procedure, as specified by agreement between the RiggerGuild and the Interstellar Consortium of Spacing Authorities. Skan was right; he should have expected all this. But he still felt peculiar about it.
"And your companion, the cynthian," Pierce said. "Can you tell us what his choice for the future might be?"
Carlyle frowned. "I think he'd like to return home, too, but I don't think he knows the way back from here. I don't think we
can
take him home."
"You will try to learn for us what we can do for him, then?" Pierce asked.
"Of course. I'll try."
The hearing was adjourned, and Carlyle went to be alone to think. He felt responsible to Cephean, but what did that mean he should do if he left Garsoom's Haven for Chaening's World? Should he just do his best for Cephean here, and then trust Wellen and the Guild to help the cynthian? Should he invite Cephean along to Chaening's World? How would that benefit him? Cephean was so damned stubborn about not talking; he probably wouldn't be such bad company if he would just open up.
Dial Jade met him as he was walking back to his quarters. "Holly asked me to tell you that there's a light courier ship available, with a cargo already cleared for Elacia V. If you'd like to fly that, the Spacing Authority will set up a floating command arrangement, and you can take the ship on through to Chaening's World or any other destination you can get minimum carryage for. That's probably the quickest way home for you, and it would serve as a long-term monetary settlement, since you would have command and a share of shipping profits. It can be flown as a one- or two-rigger ship. Would you be interested?"
Blood pounded in his head, and it was a moment before he could even think. Chaening's World! The images: bright, busy spaceport at Jarvis with flashing ships of all designs, the city of Jarvis to one side, and beyond it the gleaming sea. And . . .
Lady Brillig
poised to lift, and three long-awaiting friends.
Dial was watching him curiously, as he brought his mind back. "Yes," he said. "It sounds like exactly what I want."
"Good," said Dial. "Holly is down in the spaceport now, if you want to go look over the ship with him."
Carlyle grinned and bounded down toward the main lobby. Holly was there with Deputy Administrator Pierce. "The ship can carry a co-rigger, too, if you like," said Pierce.
"You mean Cephean?"
"Do you think he'd like to go with you?" Pierce clearly hoped so; it would discharge their obligation to Cephean with the least trouble to them. "We could modify the second rigger-station for him."
Carlyle hesitated. "I haven't had a chance to talk with him yet, but—"
Pierce waited.
Before Carlyle could conclude his thought, Wellen suggested quietly, "Why don't we go look over the ship?" Carlyle agreed at once.
Later, after they had inspected the vessel, Wellen and Carlyle talked privately. "What do you think of her?" Wellen asked.
Carlyle gestured affirmatively. The ship seemed respectable enough. Its name was
Spillix
, and it was shaped like a long, thin seed. It seemed appropriate for its mission, which was carrying mail and valuable light cargo. "It's fine. It's what I need to get back home, and after that it won't matter, since I'll be rejoining my old friends on another ship." He had already told Wellen his plans for getting together with Skan and Janofer and Legroeder.
Wellen gazed at him with clear eyes. He tapped his cheekbone with one finger; he traced the line of his wide sideburn. "I hope that your expectations work out," he said. "But please don't become
too
hopeful. There are many uncertainties in the way things happen, and time goes by. I'd hate for you to become too attached to what is, after all, only a hope."
Carlyle looked at him. Confusion buzzed in his mind. Anger.
"Do you understand why I'm saying this, Gev?" The lines in Wellen's face deepened.
Carlyle felt dizzy, and his vision blurred. Yes, of course he knew what Wellen was talking about. Uncertainty. The uncertainty of the rigger. A part of his way of life—that time could play strange tricks, that in a journey completed something might be lost.
Nothing he didn't already know in theory. But to have it flung at him in a moment of hope, of vulnerability—and by the Guild counsel, a friend—was unkind. "I understand," he said tightly.
He understood. The fact was that for all the established dangers of rigging, there were others that were only speculation, rumor, or legend. The legend that a crew once sundered could never be rejoined. The legend that a rigger-ship and its crew lost something in passing through the Flux, a trace of substance, an unmeasurable bit of mass.
Legend only. There had never been established any loss of mass not attributable to pile or fusor conversion, or simple gas loss from the ship. But rumors and legends persisted. It was said that a rigger who plied the Flux long enough lost something of his body and of his soul and even became, in a ghostly sort of fashion, translucent. And that ships themselves, with their crews, became ghost ships. Legend only. No one Carlyle knew had ever seen a translucent rigger or a ghost ship. But . . . there was the so-called Dutchman legend, the legend of the ship called
Impris
, with her ghostly, immortal crew which had wandered the seas of the Flux for centuries and would continue wandering for all of eternity, doomed. Legend only.
But what Carlyle really feared was not legend but
change—
something which might stab at him out of the future's murk. A change such as finding his place on
Lady Brillig
taken by another . . . by someone who had shared nothing of Gev Carlyle and who cared even less . . . by someone who had rendered him unneeded, extra. His face burned as the thought circled in his mind. He saw Wellen again, met his eyes. They were the eyes of a friend who knew the upset his words had caused.
Carlyle's fear slowly dropped away, and though his heart was still fluttering rapidly he pushed his anxiety aside, and he said simply, "Yes. All right."
* * *
He was astonished to find Cephean's quarters tidied, at least by comparison with their former state. The floor had been cleared of debris, and the containers of food were now arranged neatly in two piles at one side of the room. The two riffmar stood under a sunlamp; their toes
sssk'
d deep in the rich-smelling nutrient bed.
"Good lord," he said.
The black cynthian studied him aloofly. "Hyiss?"
"Well. I hardly know what to say. The room looks good. You've been busy." Or the riffmar had been busy. "Anyway, I'm getting ready to leave on another ship, to go home. And you have to tell me what you want to do."
The cynthian turned away, feigning disinterest.
Carlyle looked around the room again. He wondered why the food boxes were piled in two separate piles. Sidling closer, he saw that a number of the boxes were dented and battered, and he wondered if the cynthian had thrown another rampage. But Idi and Odi and the riffbuds appeared unharmed. "Cephean, did you separate the foods you like from those you don't like?" he asked.
"Hyiss," whispered the cynthian.
Carlyle nodded. "Good. Well, then. You can stay here if you like, and you'll be under the protection of the RiggerGuild."
(
Scorn, revulsion
answered him, though the cynthian did not turn.)
"I can't imagine why you would want to stay, though. The people here probably won't be able to help you get home."
(
Irritation. Impatience.
) Cephean turned, and Carlyle sighed. "Cephean, why don't you come along with me? I'm not saying that I can get you home, either, or that you'll like the next planet any better than this one. But at least you know me, and you won't have to make your way alone."
The cynthian's ears lifted slightly, but otherwise his gaze did not change. The sensation Carlyle received was a trembling contradiction of emotions. Probably Cephean did truly want to be alone; but he also wanted
not
to be alone. "How about it, Cephean? Will you come with me?"
Still the cynthian stared, copper-and-obsidian eyes blinking at second-long intervals. (
Fear. Killing anxiety.
)
"Cephean?"
Still the cynthian stared. And suddenly he cried out, "Hyiss, Caharleel! Hyiss!" He blinked rapidly, and his whiskers twitched with great agitation. (
Shame. Relief.
)
Carlyle held his breath with his mouth half open, and then, slowly, he smiled. "Okay. Start getting your things ready to go. Let's make a list of the food you have to order. And maybe some fertilizer for the riffmar beds?"
Stretching to his full length, Cephean leaped to all four feet and began pacing the room. "Hyiss. Yiss, yiss."
The sky opened to darkness and the stars. An hour later, the tow left
Spillix
in a fast-ascending solar orbit and departed, and Carlyle applied his hands to the controls for the first time.
Spillix
was a light and maneuverable craft, a pleasure to pilot even in normal-space. As Garsoom's Haven dwindled behind him, he tested the net for feel; but it was not until
Spillix
reached the fringes of the Garsoom's Haven star system and left the system's major gravitational influences that he entered the Flux.