Rarden was standing alone inside the doors bellowing. Looking through the undertime, I could see two other figures outside, but not who they were.
Because everyone seemed in shock, I was there even before the Seco who shadowed the doctor.
“Oh, it’s the brave little swamp rat, is it? Ready to defend the genlovers … but you’re one, too, aren’t you?”
I just looked up at him.
“So now they’ve bought themselves a real ConFed … cause the Secos aren’t enough.”
I ignored the Seco coming up behind me and took another step toward Rarden, stopping just short of easy reach.
“Rarden. Get the hell away from here.” I didn’t even raise my voice.
“Threaten me, swamp rat … go ahead, threaten me.”
“I don’t make threats.”
For some reason, he turned pale.
“You … always you …” He stumbled backwards and out the door.
I waited until he staggered back, and Selioman steered him down the corridor toward the outside entrance. Then I closed both double doors.
The Seco stood there holding the useless riot gun.
“Put that away. It won’t scare any of the ConFeds, just make them kill you quicker.” I walked around him.
Both Deric and the doctor were looking in my direction. I ignored them.
“No, he’s not exactly helpless,” muttered Mellorie. She flushed as she realized I had heard her comment to Gerloc and Amenda.
“I never said I was. I said I understood.” I was tired of trying to justify anything. So I didn’t. I just enjoyed the peffin casserole.
Neither of the other three said anything, either to each other, or to me, until the ubiquitous waitress collected the serving dish and our platters.
“Greffin is good with desserts,” volunteered Amenda.
Since I hadn’t had a dessert since before I had left the Academy, the idea sounded intriguing. “Such as?”
“Tonight is berrycream tort.”
I hadn’t cared much for desserts even when they had been available, and two bites were enough. I finished the tort on general principles. Desserts did contain an ample supply of calories.
Except for Mellorie’s comment, everyone ignored my actions in running Rarden off, as if they were in bad taste. Yet Rarden would have destroyed the entire dining room to get attention. In terms of my father’s background, though, my actions probably were in bad taste. My mother might have approved.
After dessert, Gerloc and Amenda rose together.
“Good night, Sammis, Mellorie.”
I half rose. “Good night.”
Mellorie nodded.
I reseated myself.
“You made quite an impression, Sammis.”
“An unfortunate impression.”
“You’re a rare one,” she mused, almost as if I were not there. “Your understanding is greater than your knowledge. You’re not afraid to act.”
“That’s not quite true, Mellorie.”
She just smiled.
She wasn’t listening, exactly, and I was tired of explaining.
“Would you care to walk me back to my quarters?” She extended her hand as she rose from the straight-backed dining chair.
“I’d be honored, dear lady.”
So I walked her to her doorway, which was less than half a corridor from mine. That was all I did.
AFTER PULLING OFF my boots, I stretched out on the bed, leaving the window open and listening to the breeze. I intended to enjoy the rustle of black oak leaves and the touch of crispness to the evening that would disappear over the days ahead.
The mattress was firm, but not rock-hard like a ConFed pallet. The pillows emphasized the non-military nature of the Far Travel Lab.
For all the apparent friendliness of the dinner, and for all of the interest of Mellorie, including her almost-invitation into her quarters, things were just not what they seemed. None of them, except perhaps the doctor, appeared to understand that we had been attacked by an enemy we couldn’t even find, and that Query was collapsing around them. They just seemed to be going through the motions.
Mellorie seemed to be the only one actually thinking, and I wondered how much that was from contrariness. Her on and off invitations left me confused.
Then there was the doctor, clearly made up to be as old as she claimed, rather than as old as she looked. I knew how old she could be, but I didn’t believe it. The woman had to be decades older than me, for all that she looked like a young woman, for all that she wore severe and dowdy clothes to project an image older than she was. The silver streaks
in her hair were probably dyed, since they didn’t go all the way to the roots.
Outside, the twilight slowly faded into gloom, leaving my room, with its single wide window, even darker.
Chhhiritt, chhirritt
… The sound of some night bird drifted through the open window.
Why had Dr. Wryan Relorn even listened to me on that night I had invaded her laboratory, let alone gone out of her way to have me transferred out of the ConFeds? If Deric were any example, her own senior staffers weren’t exactly thrilled about my presence.
Nothing quite added up. The laboratory had been and still was gathering essentially useless data while it could have been performing a function vital to the Westron Monarchy. Except there wasn’t a monarchy. There wasn’t even a capital city. The nominal second-in-command verged on incompetent. Unless the doctor were keeping it to herself, no one had thought about redirecting the role of the divers to fit the current situation.
I shook my head, then stared into the darkness. Not that darkness was a barrier to someone who could look through the undertime. That raised another question—why couldn’t the other divers see? Even Dr. Relorn seemed only to be able to see
from
the undertime, not through it.
Shrugging again, I sat up on the edge of the bed and pulled my boots back on. Waiting wouldn’t provide me with any more answers.
As I slipped under the now for the short dive across to the other building, I wondered if anyone could track me in the same way I had found the doctor.
She was alone, sitting in one of the comfortable armchairs, leafing through a thick notebook.
“Greetings.”
“Greeting, Sammis.”
“You were expecting me.”
“I thought you might show up … although I wasn’t certain exactly when.” She had removed the heavy makeup and looked years, if not decades younger. “You have some questions? Good. So do I.”
I took the other chair without waiting for it to be offered. “Why don’t your travelers do anything?”
She smiled faintly. “What would you have them do?”
“Everything is crumbling around us … couldn’t they bring back some technology … something … ?”
“Such as?”
I felt like I were back in school. “What have I missed?”
She grinned. “Very bright …” After shifting her weight and crossing one trousered leg over another, she added, “You know none of my travelers can carry very much. That means we can’t bring back metals—which we need—not in any meaningful quantity. We can’t bring back equipment that we cannot understand, or that requires different power inputs. When you think about it, that doesn’t leave much.”
“What about knowledge?”
“How can you translate it into usable equipment?”
This time the silence stretched out as I thought and she silently waited. “I’m not educated, Doctor …”
“Just call me Wryan. You’re far more educated than most people left around here, including the ones with degrees and honors.”
Both her comments left me open-mouthed, at least momentarily. “I have to disagree, Doc—”
“Wryan.” Her tone was no-nonsense.
“Are you called Wryan by the other divers?”
“No.”
I shook my head, knowing from her tone that she wasn’t about to explain. As she set down the notebook and leaned forward to place it on the low table, I watched, somehow taking in the grace of her movements.
Finally, I spoke again. “It still seems to me that we could benefit from what other cultures have to offer.”
“We could—if we could find it, understand it, and copy it.”
“Finding it …” I shut my mouth. What an idiot I had been! No wonder they had problems. None of them had learned how to see into real time from the undertime, and searching a culture by having to break out every time you went someplace would prove too exhausting for much productive effort. “I see …” But there was one item … and I saw that, too. “Weapons … is that why the colonel-general … ?
She nodded.
I realized there was something else I had not told her. “He’s also a diver.”
“The colonel-general? How do you know?”
I took a deep breath, wondering whether I could trust this doctor I scarcely knew, deciding I could, and thinking I was a fool for it. “The energies play around him the way they do around all the divers.”
“In the undertime?”
“Yes.”
“That was how you found me?”
It was my turn to nod.
“Who else knows?”
“About the colonel-general? No one I know of. I’m not sure he knows.”
“That would make sense.” She frowned, and I could see the darkness behind her eyes that was the only indication of her age. Otherwise, seated less than two paces from me, she could have been nearly a contemporary. “Does anyone else know how you found out.”
“No. Probably shouldn’t have told you …”
She smiled, and I couldn’t help but feel better. The smile wasn’t the professional one she had presented at dinner, but more impish … more personal.
I found myself smiling back.
“Would you like some cider? Hot?”
Hot cider? That last one who had offered me hot cider had been Allyson … had it been years ago?
“Are you all right?”
Her concern just made it worse, and at first I could barely keep from shaking. Then I couldn’t, and I couldn’t see, either. I could feel her hands on my shoulders, but she didn’t say anything, and neither did I.
After a while, she handed me a small soft towel, and I wiped my face.
“I’m sorry …” She was kneeling next to my chair with one hand covering mine.
I just shook my head again, not really wanting to speak.
How long she stayed by me I didn’t know, but when I looked at the small antique clock on the wall, the hands registered past midnight.
“Sorry …”
“Don’t be … I’m glad I was here.”
I just nodded.
“I meant it, Sammis.”
“Talk to me … about you …”
“All right …” She shifted her position on the floor, and I let go of her hand. “Do you mind if I move? I think my legs are mostly asleep …”
“Oh … I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it.” She reseated herself in the other chair and rubbed her calves with one hand. “There’s not that much to say …”
But she did talk, about growing up as an orphan in the cold of Southpoint, having to sneak off when she realized she was not changing in looks, except to look more and more like her mother, the lady lost at sea and termed the “witch-captain.” In posing as a wanton gentry daughter, she managed to accrue a degree or two from some of the lesser southern Westron universities, which she had used to get into the civil science bureaucracy …
“ … but it’s getting late, and you’re exhausted …”
I jerked upright, realizing I had not heard what she had been saying. “Not that tired …”
“You snored through my last three sentences.” Her tone was gentle.
“You could be a princess, Lady.”
“Wryan,” she corrected.
“You could be a princess, Wryan. Even when you chastise, you make people feel good.”
“A princess? All little girls want to be princesses.” She paused. “Some of them get to be. Some decide it isn’t worth the bother, but most of them never give up. There just aren’t enough princes, and most of them are bastards.”
That didn’t make any sense at all. Finally, I asked, “What … I mean … princes?”
“You’re tired, and we’ll talk about it later. Was she nice?” Wryan stood up.
“Nice?” I had to think.
“The girl you remembered when I asked about the hot cider.”
“Oh … it wasn’t like that. She was very nice, and I never saw her again. I don’t think she and her parents made it. No one else from Bremarlyn did, so far as I know.”
She was next to me, and the faintest hint of trilia touched me. “Good night, Sammis.”
“Good night.” I still couldn’t call her Wryan. “Good night.”
Somehow, I made it under the now and back to my room. I got my boots off, but that was all, before collapsing onto the bed.