Authors: Karen Lord
Rafi exchanged a significant look with Serendipity. If Ntshune did have a five-hundred-year plan for galactic dominance, it was perhaps two hundred years too late.
‘Terra will be our last run. We have to consult with a group of specialists. Sadira will be our first; that’s the best-known location. Whenever possible, a mindship crew will travel ahead before each transit and remain until the transit is successfully completed, both arrival and departure. No one will be stranded.’
Teruyai stood up. ‘I would like to go with the team that’s transiting to Sadira.’
Isahena paused before answering. ‘We will not be able to have a mindship backup contingent for that run. The oceans are not yet able to support life.’
‘I’m a pilot – don’t you think I know that? I want to walk on my planet’s surface again, just for a while.’
Isahena lowered his eyes pensively while the room erupted with sound and motion as other pilots jumped to their feet and shouted their demands. Finally he raised his head and looked soberly at Teruyai. ‘I will allow it,’ he said loudly, beating down the other voices. ‘I will allow it, but only one or two additions to the selected team, and only those pilots who have practised with Wallrunners.’
‘Did you want to go?’ Rafi asked Serendipity when the briefing ended and they slowly made their way out of the room.
She shook her head. ‘Sadira may be where my ancestors came from but it’s not that special to me. Besides, I won’t be travelling much. I’m assigned to the land crews at the port.’
‘You’re not staying in the city?’ he asked in dismay.
‘It’s only for work, Rafi. I’ll be here otherwise.’
‘Oh, good.’
She regarded him with a touch of ruefulness, and it felt like when Ntenman told him he was going – the bitter-sweet knowledge that he was loved, he had friends, and yet they were not dependent on him. They were moving on with their lives and leaving him behind.
‘Do you want to get something to eat and go over some project information?’ she suggested, sounding sincere and not at all as if she was offering a consolation prize.
‘I would, but I have to go to a ceremony for Ixiaralhaneki, my former boss. The dynasties are elevating her to an important post in their hierarchy as a reward for doing well during her time on Punartam. She’s going to help rule the Haneki domain. I really owe it to her to turn up.’
She nodded understandingly. ‘Another time, then. Goodbye, Rafi.’
He stood still in the corridor and watched for a moment as she walked away. Then he turned and went about his own business.
*
Watching the Patrona negotiate was an education.
I could have left the rest of the delegation and gone straight to my own work. Part of me had wished that by some stroke of luck I would find Damal on Zhinu A, but no, he was still butting about on Punartam enjoying the risk and annoying the cartels. Nevertheless, he had some fairly solid connections and the token of his endorsement was already paying off in prospective introductions and expressions of interest. And yet, I wanted to be careful. I understood that there was more to this game than making money, and I needed to see what tone the Patrona was going to set and adjust my actions accordingly.
And, like I said, it was an education.
They didn’t hold back. They gave our delegation full honour with the best of comforts and a full roster of meetings with the most influential magnates on the planet. But the best, the most interesting meeting was that between the Patrona and the Chief Archivist. Don’t ask me what exactly his title meant. The Patrona had already had a short, respectful and meaningless chat with the Head of the Planetary Authority. I was getting the impression that whatever titles and appearances might be, the Chief Archivist was the person who actually ran the place.
The Patrona knew it immediately. She looked around his workplace, appraised his appearance, assessed his minions and took a completely different tone.
‘Let me speak frankly. I am less concerned about what Zhinu A might gain from this agreement and more interested in what it can bring.’
He learned forward with a smile. ‘Well, if you’re bargaining—’
The Patrona held up a hand in a request for silence. ‘Don’t misunderstand. I am talking about stakes. If you have no investment in this, if you pretend or even intend to cooperate out of goodwill, you shall lose interest as soon as a better deal comes along. I want to know what you are risking to become part of this project.’
He spread his hands in a gesture that looked as if he was trying to convince himself. ‘The cartels are not pleased with our actions . . .’
She merely shook her head at him.
‘We have heavy trade losses. Every commercial run our ships skip because they will be helping you—’
She cut him off. ‘Even now we make minimal use of your ships and the majority of the Sadiri pilots are already with us,’ she replied, her expression becoming distant.
He recognised that she was about to dismiss him and launched into his best entreaty. ‘Respected and highly esteemed Patrona, be fair! Even neutrality is a choice in this situation, and we are giving you much more than neutrality. Can you blame us for wanting to see how this venture pays before we sink resources into it? We will not obstruct, we
will
assist, and we do so knowing that we run counter to the cartels. As an additional gesture of goodwill, we will open to you the transit on the surface of Zhinu A. Surely this is sufficient for now.’
‘For now,’ she said, backing down for the moment. ‘But should you decide you want to become a full partner in this venture, you know how to reach us.’
And that was that. When I went to my own meetings, I made sure to keep things as light and introductory as I could, promising nothing and simply making conversation. However, I did enjoy occasionally dropping one broad hint, that I was anticipating a ‘deeper cooperation between Ntshune and Zhinu A which would bring benefit to all concerned’. I varied the phrasing each time and noted with great interest the few split-second reactions that slipped out: startled, pensive, calculating. The Patrona went back to Ntshune and I went back to Cygnus Beta to report to my father, and it was months before those conversations bore fruit in a highly unexpected way.
*
One advantage, if it could be called that, of the decimation of the mindship fleet was that the smaller ships which would have once been unsuitable for passenger travel were now the popular choice to carry tiny passenger modules that could withstand the rigours of splashdown. Serendipity had travelled both by naked mindship and by small-scale module, and she had helped those who travelled. Disorientation was usually the greatest danger, as both methods relied on the use of the mindship’s own toxins to alter the consciousness of both pilot and passengers. Pilots shook off the effects almost instantly. Some passengers needed more time. In those cases it was best to detach the passenger module, crack it open to the atmosphere and allow the occupants a half-hour or so to recline and return to full awareness. If they remained groggy after that, they were usually taken to another area for monitoring.
Even without the flight schedules and information, she was able to recognise the mindship that dived through the entrance and settled into one of the port’s several berths. Most of the berths were claimed by ships from Punartam and Grand Bay, and they tended to pick a favourite and return to it. The other side of the port, where amphibious Zhinuvian shuttles parked for unloading and maintenance, looked deserted in comparison.
Serendipity walked along the pier with the disembarkation crew, all five of them dressed warmly in hoods, gloves and boots. She stood aside as they opened the module’s large side hatch. She came forward and connected her handheld to the module’s systems to view the passengers’ vital signs. To her surprise, one of them was already on the verge of awakening. She quickly reached in and detached the upper casing from their pod. The face that greeted her was very striking even as it reacted in shock to the sudden influx of cold air with wide eyes, gasping and coughing.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Serendipity pulled down her hood. ‘I’m Serendipity. Welcome to Ntshune. Just lie still for a little while. You’re the first to wake up.’
The reply emerged hoarsely from a dry, chilled throat. ‘Familiar accent . . . hmm . . . you’re Cygnian. I’m Second Lieutenant Lian. I’m one of the Terra specialists you requested.’
‘Glad you could join us, Lieutenant,’ Serendipity said. ‘I was sure you would be staying on Cygnus Beta after the Academes fell. But where is Doctor Daniyel? I thought she was the leader of your research team?’
Lian’s brave attempt at a smile looked more like a grimace. ‘That’s partly why I’m here. When the cartels attacked . . .’ After a pause and a sigh, Lian got straight to the point. ‘We were unable to extract Doctor Daniyel from the field. She is still on Terra, and we hope you can help us to get her back.’
Chapter Fifteen
The transit was housed in its own small dome close to Janojya. If anything exploded, if any unwanted thing as small as a pathogen or as large as an army came through the transit, it could be contained. The Wall for transit was nothing like Serendipity expected. ‘It looks like a vertical garden crashed into a Zhinuvian space raft,’ she said sceptically as she craned her neck up to scan it from floor to top. The strange construction hung between two sets of scaffolding like the façade of a green building, and members of the ground crew moved up and down the scaffolding and around the floor, carefully making their last adjustments and carrying out final tests.
Rafi tried to explain. ‘Think of it as a kind of organic passenger module. A single nexus can take a few people through a transit, but for a larger group we need to have a kind of ecosphere. You should know – it’s like the mindships. We’re creating a collective consciousness, a temporary colony organism. That makes it easier to hold everything together when travelling.’
‘I understand the concept,’ she said truthfully. She had been about to ask how plants could be sentient, but then she remembered the unusual additions that appeared to be of Zhinuvian manufacture and said nothing more.
Rafi grinned. ‘Anyone who allows themselves to be stung and swallowed by a two-thousand-tonne beast is in no position to judge. The point is, it works.’
She pointed up and waved a finger around uncertainly. ‘Which bit is the actual transit?’
‘It’s underneath.’ Rafi said.
Serendipity took a step back and stared at the ground beside the Wall. The bottom of the Wall appeared to be suspended about ten centimetres from the floor. ‘I can’t see anything.’
‘It’s mostly power inputs. There’s a slight shimmer, nothing more.’ He gently touched her arm and directed her to another part of the dome to point out the Wall from the other side. From this angle, the passenger aspect of the Wall was clearly visible. Half-sunken cocoons, slightly reminiscent of the pods in a mindship module, were arranged in a neat central grid. Surrounding the grid was a series of what looked like steps or ledges.
‘Do you run on this Wall? Is that what the ledges are for?’ she asked.
‘No!’ Rafi laughed at the picture. ‘We stand. The game Wall is stationary and we move, but the transit Wall moves and we are stationary.’
She walked another slow half-circle around the back of the Wall. ‘What does it feel like?’
He tilted his head and smiled at her. ‘What does travelling with a mindship feel like? I’m usually unconscious for that.’
She tried to find words. ‘Transcendent,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a powerful experience, but they’re in complete control. You feel what they’re feeling and sense what they sense. You dissolve and become a part of them, but you feel more like yourself than when you’re alone. They’re beautiful.’
He smiled with more politeness than understanding. ‘That sounds very calm. Transits with one or two people are hard. You feel like you’re being dragged back when you just want to dive in and get where you’re going. But a Wall transit . . . it’s dynamic. There’s vertigo and you feel like you’re falling and rising and your adrenalin— it’s a rush! You forget yourself, you don’t think, you become pure motion. And everything’s balanced with a Wall, so you don’t feel like you’re being pulled in all the wrong directions. We don’t have to pilot anything – it’s a straight road – but we have to stay on that road. I’ve only been on a few practice runs to nowhere and back, but . . . that’s what it feels like.’
‘Sadira will be your first major run,’ she said, looking at him proudly.
He glowed with happiness. ‘Yes. It’s frightening, and we all know the risk, but I can’t wait.’
She laughed with him and hugged him, stroking the textured material of his pilot-like transit suit as she stepped away. ‘Be careful, Rafi. Always come back.’
*
Later that night, Rafi tried not to shiver as the ground crew secured him to his assigned position on the Wall. The full Vanguard suit was in many ways like a more flexible version of a single passenger pod, but without a doubt it was less heavily protected and less secure as they had to sacrifice safety to mobility. For a moment he envied those in the pods, but when he glanced around and saw them in their half-open capsules, they looked uncomfortable and slightly claustrophobic, not to mention tense with anticipation of the moment when the crew would close the top half of the pod and leave them in relative isolation. Rafi’s excitement completely dampened when he saw Teruyai’s face – bleak, cold, resolute. He took a moment to call to her.
‘Teruyai!’
She blinked, mildly startled.
‘Stay with us,’ he mouthed.
She stared at him, but the words gradually sank in until her expression softened and she gave him a half-nod of understanding as they closed down her pod.
The crew vacated the area. Rafi breathed deeply, trying to slow the thundering pace of his heart. It began as a single vibration, purely physical, in his bones. The Wall was pulsing as the power increased. Then a familiar tingle washed over him, building to a buzz that galvanised his blood and brain. He closed his eyes, already starting to feel the doubling, tripling sensation of other minds and other bodies fretting, fidgeting, all caught in the buzzing net like insects secured to a single web. Both vibrations grew to the point of irritation . . .