The Namura Stone (36 page)

Both Diva and Ledin stared at him.

“It is a very great puzzle,” he said. “Why time is not symmetrical. Why the arrow moves in only one direction. Did you not know?”

Diva ignored the orthogel entity. “It was just a feeling, Ledin. I’m afraid I can’t see into the future.”

“Pity. I would like a baby girl. Not that I wouldn’t be happy with a boy, you understand. I just want a healthy baby.”

“I can’t wait to congratulate her, but I saw her lifting Temar this morning. She shouldn’t be doing that if she is pregnant, should she?”

He gave a sigh. “You can tell her that until Lumina turns blue, but she takes no notice.”

“She will take notice of me,” Diva predicted grimly. “Don’t worry; I will make her see sense. I am going back now.”

Ledin watched as both the firemorph and the orthogel entity disappeared, one to Cesis and one back to Xiantha. He grinned to himself. Diva might well be able to flit from planet to planet now, but he wouldn’t bet a mud-caked stick against a new dagger that she would succeed in changing his wife’s behaviour one iota.

Chapter 18

ON DESSIA, IT had taken time to arrange things for a second attempt. At last, however, they were ready. This time, the prognosticator thought, nothing could go wrong. This time Dessia would come out on top, and he would have led his people into a great new future where no part of the galaxy would remain a secret to the Dessites, where they could relocate to a new planet in the time it took to prune a frond. He would be remembered for generations to come, would be the saviour of his people.

One thing was certain; there would be no repetition of last time. He would have video cameras patrolling the whole of the Island of the Forthgoing, starting well before the planned attack on the orthogel entity. He would not allow these bipeds access to the facility again. They had already caused enough damage, and although he had been assured by Dessia’s new allies, the Enaran Ammonites, that they would themselves deal with the bipeds, he was not prepared to take the risk. After all, if he himself had plans to break the new treaty, it would be short-sighted to assume the Ammonites would keep their part of the bargain.

He gave his orders, and sat back to watch as they were carried out. Mistakes had been made in the past; they would not be repeated while he was in charge. He was not about to let a small contingent of foreigners stop him.

It was complicated to set up a network of video cameras, and they had to equip a new chamber where all their incoming data could be monitored, so it was a costly process. But the prognosticator knew that the Island of the Forthgoing represented the safety of all of Dessia. If the island were destroyed, it would be a disaster. The chances of his people’s finally finding suitable planets for colonization could disappear irrevocably. It was not to be thought of. Although no aliens had dared to step inside the facilities on the Island of the Forthgoing until recently, it was clear that new times had come and that the Dessites would simply have to adapt to these new times.

He had taken to visiting the cryonutrient facilities, on the nearby Island of the Preborn. He had already picked out which spot he would choose for his final resting place, after he had been cryolized forever. It was in one of the largest of the vaults, but one which was aligned directly north and south, making it vastly preferable to the newer vaults. Recent construction had chosen to ignore the age-old customs of their ancestors, but the prognosticator was not in agreement. When he was laid for his enduring sleep, he wanted it to be in perfect alignment with the poles, where no magnetic lines would cross his body. That was the way it should be.

He made his way over to the inter-island hatches. These were set right to the back of the Island of the Forthgoing, and were defended zealously by three large Dessite guards, who were ready at any moment to clear all mundane traffic to allow the priority passage of one of the twelve.

The prognosticator felt a frisson of expectation in the ends of his fronds. This was the first time that he was to travel through the inter-island tubes as Prime of Dessia. It would be an extremely gratifying experience, he thought. Fitting proof of his new status.

He came to a stately halt just inside the staging area and looked around regally. There was an immediate ripple of awe, which he took as only his just due. The guards sprang into action, activating the priority channelization of the outgoing tube and evicting both those waiting their turn for the outgoing tube and those who emerged from the incoming tube with scant consideration of their dignity.

Soon, the tubes were suitably vacated, and the guards gestured to the prognosticator. One would, of course, travel immediately before him, and one immediately behind. None of the twelve guardians of Dessia could be left alone in the dangerous traverse from island to island, and the Prime would have not only the two statutory guards, but his own domestic phalanx too. Travel through the inter-island tubes was considered high risk, due to frequent breakage of the material they were made of, and it was therefore vital to protect important travelers. The inevitable movements of the floating islands meant that, despite the tubes being extensible to five times their normal length, ruptures were frequent. It was fifty Dessite miles from the Island of the Forthgoing to the Island of the Preborn, and so travelers could find themselves marooned in areas of strong currents and high surge.

This particular journey passed without incident, and once on the Island of the Preborn the prognosticator let himself wander amongst the old cryonutrient vaults. There were too many of them. All these ancient ones, which actually held miscreants rather than heroes, would have to be destroyed. They could serve no purpose in the Dessia of this new century. They had won only a place to be recycled in the great sea, not to be preserved forever in the hallowed vaults of the Island of the Preborn.

Look at this one! The prognosticator bent to decipher the name. There were many words in old Dessite, followed by the name ‘Exemphendiss’ in modern symbols. Of all Dessites, this one should be the first to be ceremoniously triturated and pumped back into the seas, he thought savagely. The name was more than familiar; this Dessite had caused nothing but trouble before being frozen forever in the cryonutrient tank as a criminal, had continued to cause endless trouble as a traveler, and should clearly be finally terminated. What good was he now? They would never use any more of his neurons for future travelers, not after what had happened with the notorious specimen that had contained his DNA. All he was doing was using up valuable energy. That space in the cryogenic program could be much better utilized by modern, sensible Dessites, ones who would know how to behave if they were lucky enough to be chosen as travelers, ones who would know exactly what the council of guardians would expect of them.

The prognosticator smiled to himself. He had already promulgated the law which would allow him to change the status of all cryolized Dessites who had not been voted to preserved 12 status. All that was needed was the vote of the rest of the council, and Exemphendiss and his like would be gone for good, enriching the sea water with the scanty proteins in the remnants of their brains. And that was all they were good for. A little judicious recycling of protein. It was really the best service they could offer to the community. At least that way they would be of some use.

He ran a membrane over one of the cryovats lovingly. To have yourself saved for posterity. There could be no greater compliment than that! All the fronds on his body rippled at the thought, and it was hard to suppress his delight. But he knew better than to let anybody else see how much he wanted this. The more they thought him disinterested in his own future, the better his presidency would go. He calmed his thoughts, forcing his mind to close itself to these personal dreams. They must not seep through into his public mind. His ambitions, at the moment, must remain deeply hidden inside his psyche.

DIVA WAS LOOKING challengingly at Arcan after the quick test she had carried out.

“You can’t tell me what to do!”

“You should never have gone over to Enara!” the Arcan shape had turned dark, and the whole orthogel lake mirrored him. “What if you hadn’t been resistant to them? What if they had been able to capture you? You would have precipitated a conflict! It was rash!”

The visitor, who was hovering close to Diva, gave a greenish shimmer and she had no trouble interpreting it as more criticism.

It was Diva’s turn to spin angrily. “I have spent the last three months learning how to use the ortholiquid —I have hardly been able to see Six in that time— and learning how to transport myself by quantum decoherence. It was time to find out my limitations, don’t you think? We know that the Enarans are going to attack us. I only wanted to find out whether I would be like the Trimorphs: very vulnerable to them, or like the visitor and like you – you both seem fairly immune to their astrand.”

“You do seem to be fairly resistant to the Dessites,” admitted Arcan, “but you should not have gone, especially not without letting any of us know.”

“You would have tried to stop me!”

“Naturally. What you did was stupid.”

“Well that’s what you think, Arcan, but I have come up with an idea, and I never would have if I hadn’t gone over to Enara. Anyway, none of them even realized I was there. I was stealthier than the visitor. No harm done.”

Arcan was still pulsating slightly. “I suppose not.”

“There! I knew you would have to admit it was a good idea!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you almost did.”

Arcan shimmered. Even now she was a morphic, he still found Diva difficult to understand. He looked around the slate-grey dark side of Valhai and sighed.

“Well, you don’t have to go to Dessia to try your experiment there. That really would be suicide. I have just transported grains of namura dust to all of you morphics. That should make you at least initially immune to the carbon nanographite traps. Not to the mindwall, of course – that is a different matter.”

“No,” said Diva thoughtfully. “I can’t know whether I will be able to fight the Dessite mindwall, not until they form it. But I think I will be like the trimorphs, rather than the visitor. At any rate, the chances are good.”

“Just don’t go over to Dessia to try to prove it!”

She shook her head. “I shan’t. Because I came up with a plan when I was on Enara.”

“You did?” The visitor sounded dubious.

“No need to sound so surprised, is there?”

“N-o-o, I suppose not.”

“Grace isn’t the only one who can come up with plans, you know.”

“I can see that.”

“In any case, having some of Arcan’s brain cells seems to have made me quicker.”

Arcan looked unsurprised. “That would not be difficult.”

“It is as if my mind is suddenly much bigger, wider, able to grasp things that it couldn’t before.”

“You
must
have some of my brain cells, then.”

Diva took no notice of the sardonic tone, spinning excitedly. “So, I was thinking about how they managed to control Grace, and it came to me!”

“What did?”

“Well, I figure that they will start their attack by trying to control the minds of those of us who are still bipeds. If we are expecting them, then I can use their mental link against them. Don’t you see?”

The visitor clouded over. “No. No, I don’t.”

Diva buzzed. “Well, we can! Because … if there is a mental link by which they are controlling somebody in this system—”

“—Then one of us could follow the link back in the reverse direction and find the astrand!” finished Arcan. “—Which means that we could find the physical bodies of the Enarans when they are defenseless, when their minds are in the aura!”

Diva flashed in a circuit around both of them. “Exactly! What do you think, Visitor?”

The visitor was looking piqued. “Anybody could have thought of that.”

“Yes, but you didn’t. It was me!” She gave another shimmer of triumph.

“It
could
work …” The visitor was still cautious.

“Of course it could! And it will! All we have to do is wait for them to attack. As long as we are ready, and as long as the others have a way to let us know of any impending attack, then we can beat them!” Now Diva executed two full laps of triumph around them both. “Am I good, or what?”

Arcan’s cloudiness had cleared. “It is a feasible plan,” he said. “And if you are able to carry it out, I think we could do something else. I have been trying to think of a way of stopping this prospective war – and I have an idea.”

“Go on!”

“It would involve taking Six, Ledin and the visitor over to Dessia in an orthobubble, hidden inside me. I would let them think I am trapped … and then break free using the namura dust to escape the carbon nanographite. They still have no idea how I escaped last time; they do not know about the namura stone. Then Six and Ledin would take the visitor over to what the Dessites call the Island of the Preborn. The visitor can show me exactly where to decohere. The visitor’s ancestor, Exemphendiss, is in cryogenesis over there. We would wake him up. I think he could persuade the Dessites to form an alliance with us, instead of the Enaran animas.”

“Don’t you think the Dessites will be able to feel the traces of namura stone inside you?”

Arcan shook his head. “They would be almost undetectable, especially if I wanted them to be. I can move them around inside my body, if necessary.”