Thousandth Night (10 page)

“Still
not good enough,” I said ruefully. “We can’t point fingers unless we have a
better idea than that.”

“Agreed.
But we have the drive flame as an additional constraint. Not all of those
twenty ships even use visible thrust. And we also know who Burdock spoke to
about the Great Work.”

I
paused and let those numbers crunch against each other. “Better. Now we’re down
to . . . what? Seven or eight ships, depending on where you draw the cut-off
for the size estimate. Seven or eight names. One of which happens to be
Fescue.”

“Still
not good enough, though.”

I,
thought for a moment. “If we could narrow it down to one ship . . .  then we’d
be sure, wouldn’t we?”

“That’s
the problem, Campion. We can’t narrow it down. Not unless we saw what those
anticollision fields looked like.”

“Exactly,”
I said. “If we could get them to put up their screens . . .  all we’d need to
do is find the ship with the closest resonance to the one in Grisha’s system.”

“Wherever
you’re taking this line of thought. ..” Purslane’s eyes flashed a warning at
me.

“All
I need to do is find a way to get them to trigger their shields. Full ship
screens, of course.”

“It
won’t work. If they get an inkling of what you’re up to, they’ll tune to a
different resonance.”

“Then
I’d better not give them much warning,” I said. “We’ll do it on Thousandth
Night, just the way we said we would. They’ll be too distracted to plan
anything in advance, and they won’t be expecting a last-minute surprise.”

“I
like the way you say ‘we’.”

“We’re
in this together now,” I said. “All the way. Even if we take the line with us.”

Purslane
sniffed her wineglass. “How are you going to get everyone to turn on their
shields?”

I
squinted against the sun. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Because
I was dreading its arrival, Thousandth Night was suddenly upon us. Since
Purslane’s discovery that Burdock had lied, the reunion had passed by in a blur.
For nine hundred and ninety-nine nights we had dreamed of suns and worlds,
miracles and wonders, and perhaps a little mud along the way. Our knowledge of
the galaxy we called home had accreted yet another layer of detail, even as the
endless transformations of history rendered much of that knowledge obsolete.
For most of us, it was of no concern. The innate fascination of the strands,
the spectacle, intrigue, and glamour of this final evening together was all
that mattered. Not the Advocates, though. Though they did their best to hide
it, they itched with impatience. For two million years, they had accepted the
crushing scale of the galaxy and their own fixed relationship to that
immensity. When Abigail Gentian shattered herself into nine hundred and ninety-nine
gemlike pieces, she had hoped to conquer space and time. Instead, she had only
come to a deeper understanding of her own microscopic insignificance. The
Advocates could not tolerate that any longer.

I
kept a stiff, strained smile on my face as I made my rounds of the Thousandth
Night revellers, accepting compliments. Although my strand had not set the
world on fire, no one had any serious complaints about the venue. The island
was just the right size: small enough to feel intimate, but with enough curious
little byways and quirks of design not to become boring. Every now and then I
had introduced some minor change—moving a passage here, or a staircase there,
and my efforts were generally deemed to have been worthwhile. The white
terraces, balconies and bridges of the island had a charm of their own, but
they had not detracted from the strands, and the threadings had gone
flawlessly. Time and again, people squeezed my sleeve and asked me what I had
lined up for the final night, and time and again, I confessed that I couldn’t
even be sure that I
had
lined anything up at all.

Of
course, I knew I must have planned something.

Evening
turned to night. Floating paper lanterns glowed in the warm air, casting
lozenges of pastel colour on the revellers. As was Gentian custom, everyone
wore a costume that, subtly or otherwise, reflected the content of their dream.
We wore carnival masks, the game being to match the dreamer to the dream before
the masks were ripped away. I wore a moon mask and a simple outfit patterned in
sunset shades, with a repeating motif of half-swallowed suns. Purslane wore a
fox mask and a harlequin costume, in which each square detailed one of her
legendary adventures. It didn’t take very long for people to work out who she
was. Once again, she was tormented by questions about the false strand, but she
only had to keep up the pretence for a few more hours. Soon our deception would
be revealed, and we would beg forgiveness for weaving a lie.

“Look,”
I heard someone say, pointing to the zenith. “A shooting star!”

I
looked up sharply enough to catch the etched trail before it faded from sight.
A shooting star, I thought: a good omen, perhaps. Except I didn’t believe in
omens, especially not when they were signified by pieces of cosmic grit slamming
into our planet’s atmosphere.

Purslane
sidled up to me a few minutes later. “Are you sure you want to go through with
this?”

“Yes.
In less than a day, every ship you see here will be on its way out of the
system. We do it now or we forget about it forever.”

“Maybe
that would be easier.”

“Easier,
yes. The right thing—no.”

Another
shooting star slashed the sky.

“I
agree,” she said.

Upon
midnight, the revellers assembled on a high balcony flung out from the side of
the main tower on an arm of curved ivory. They had all cast their votes and my
system had tallied the winning strand. Shortly it would push the information
into my head, and I would deliver the much-anticipated announcement. One of us
would leave the system heady with the knowledge their dream had moved us like
no other, and that they had been honoured with the design of the next venue.
Whoever it was, I wished them well. As I had discovered, the praise burned off
very quickly, and what was left was a dark, ominous clinker of responsibility.

I
looked down on the assembled gathering from a much higher balcony, watching the
masked and costumed figures slow in their orbits. The atmosphere of the
revellers became perceptibly tense, as my announcement drew nearer. There was a
palpable sadness amongst all the gaiety. Friendships made here must be put on
hold until the next reunion, two hundred thousand years in the future. Time and
space would change some of us. We would not all be the same people, and not all
of those friendships would endure.

It
was time.

I
stepped from the side of my balcony, into open space. There was a collective
gasp from the revellers, even though no one seriously expected me to come to
harm. As my left foot pushed down into thin air, a sheet of white marble
whisked under it to provide support. As my right foot stepped below my left,
another sheet whisked under that one. I took weight from my left foot and
stepped down again, and the first sheet curved back under me to meet my falling
foot. Stepping between these two sheets, I walked calmly down to the lower
balcony. The effect was everything I could have wished for, and I tried to look
as quietly pleased with myself as I ought to have been.

But
not all the eyes were upon me. Masked and unmasked faces were caught by
something above. I followed their gaze to see another slashing shooting star,
and then another. In quick succession, six more cut the sky from zenith to
horizon. Then more. A dozen in the first minute, and then two dozen in the
second. I smiled, realising that this must be the surprise I had arranged for
Thousandth Night. A meteor shower!

Easily
done, I thought. All I would have needed to do is shove a comet onto the right
orbit, shatter it and let its dusty tail intersect the orbit of my planet at
the right point in space and time . . . here, tonight. Now that I thought of
that, there was a twinge of familiarity about it. . . the memory of doing so
not completely erased.

By
the standards of some, it was very low-key, and for a moment I wondered if I
had misjudged the effect. . .  but just as I was beginning to worry about that,
people started clapping. It was polite at first, but soon it built in
enthusiasm, even as the stars quickened their display, flashing overhead too
quickly to count.

They
liked it.

“Bravo,
Campion!” I heard someone say. “Tasteful restraint. . .  beautifully simple!”

I
stepped onto a low plinth, so that I was head and shoulders above the crowd. I
forced a smile and waved down the applause. “Thank you everyone,” I said. “I’m
glad things have gone so well. If this reunion has been a success, it has far
more to do with the people than the venue.” I looked over my shoulder, at the
central spire rising behind me. “Although the venue isn’t half bad, is it?”
They laughed and applauded, and I smiled again, hoping I looked and sounded
genuine. It was hard, but it was vital that no one suspect I had anything else
up my sleeve.

“Every
strand is to be treasured,” I said, injecting a note of solemnity into my
voice. “Every experience, every memory, is sacred. On this Thousandth Night, we
gather to select one strand in particular that has touched us more than others.
That is our custom. But in doing so, we do not denigrate any other strands. In
the totality of experience, they are all equally vital, and all equally cherished.”
I singled out Mullein, and smiled sympathetically. “Even the ones with an
unusually high mud content.”

Mullein
laughed good-naturedly, and, for a moment, he was the star of the show again.
The gentle mocking of one of our number was also part of tradition. Of all us,
Mullein could relax now.

“In
a little while, we will return to our ships,” I continued. “We will travel back
out into the Galaxy and seek new experiences; new strands to be woven into the
greater tapestry of the Gentian collective memory. None of us will leave here
the same person he or she was a thousand days ago, and when we return, we will
have changed again. That is part of the wonder of what Abigail made of herself.
Other Lines favour rigid regimentation: a thousand identical clones, each
programmed to respond to the same stimulus in exactly the same way. You might
as well send out robots. That wasn’t how Abigail wanted to do things. She wanted
to gorge on reality. She wanted to feed her face with it, drunk on curiosity.
In our bickering diversity, we honour that impulse.” I paused and laced my
hands, nodding at the nearest faces. “And now the time has come. The system has
informed me of the winner . . .  the name I am about to reveal.” I pulled a
face that suggested amused surprise. “The name is . . . ”

And
then I paused again, and frowned. The crowd tensed.

“Wait
a moment,” I said. “I’m sorry, but. . .  something’s wrong. I’m receiving an
emergency message from my ship.” I raised my voice over the people who had
started talking. “This is . . . unfortunate. My ship has a technical problem
with drive containment. There’s a small but non-negligible risk of detonation.”
I tried to sound panicked, but still in some kind of control. “Please, remain
calm. I’m ordering my ship to move to a safe distance . . . ” I looked over the
heads, beyond the island to the forest of parked ships, and counted to five in
my head. “No response . . .  I’m trying again, but. ..” The heads started
moving, their voices threatening to drown me out. “Still no response,” I said,
tightening my face to a grimace. “I don’t seem to be able to get a command
through.” I raised my voice, until I was almost shouting. “We’re safe here: in
a few seconds, I’ll screen the island. Before I do that, I recommend that you
order your ships to protect themselves.”

Some
of them already had. Their ships trembled within the vague, wobbling shapes of
anticollision screens, like insects in spit. After a few seconds, the screens
locked into stable forms and became harder to see. I allowed myself a glance in
Purslane’s direction. She responded with the tiniest encouraging nod.

It
was working.

“Please,”
I urged. “Hurry. I’ll raise the island’s own screen in ten seconds. You may not
be able to get a message through once that happens.”

More
and more ships wobbled as their screens flicked on. Peals of thunder, distant
and low, signalled the activations. Doubtless many of the people were wondering
what was going on: how it just happened that it was my ship that was
threatening to blow up, when I was already the centre of attention. I just
hoped that they would have the sense to put up their screens first and worry
about the coincidence later.

But
some of the largest ships were still not screened. I could not delay the
screening of the island any longer. I would just have to hope that the
necessary commands had already been sent, and that those ships were just a bit
slow to respond.

But
even as the island’s own screen flickered on—blurring the view all around us,
as if smeared glass had dropped into place—I knew that my plan was coming
adrift.

Fescue
spoke, his deep voice commanding instant attention. “The danger is passed,” he
said. “My own ship has projected a secondary screen around yours, Campion. You
may lower the island’s shield.”

My
answer caught in my throat. “My ship may blow at any moment. Are you sure that
secondary screen is going to be good enough?”

“Yes,”
Fescue said, with withering authority. “I’m more than sure.”

The
gathered revellers looked out to my ship, which remained stubbornly intact
within the envelope Fescue had projected around it.

“Lower
the island screen, Campion.” And even as he spoke, Fescue’s ship pushed mine up
and away, into the high atmosphere, until it was lost among the stars.