‘What?’ an irritated Nigel asked. ‘We had a glorious dream when we were young. We gave humanity the stars. And now, as Elaine said, we’ve grown up because of that. If everything we’ve achieved as a race, this whole glorious civilization we’ve built, is under threat, then damn right I want to protect it. A navy will do that.’
‘Yes it will,’ Thompson Burnelli said carefully. ‘But if we go ahead and announce we’re going to create a navy, it will generate a huge amount of panic and worry. Christ knows what the stock market will do, and the knock-on effect that’ll have on the economy doesn’t make pleasant speculation. You might even get inward migration from the outermost phase two planets – which is the last thing we need. The damn thing will be cyclic, it’ll feed on itself. If it’s our brief to protect the Commonwealth from any alien impact, then we have to consider that as well. This isn’t just external, Nigel.’
‘I know,’ Nigel said. ‘What we should do is copy the way Hitler prepared the ground for his Luftwaffe. After the Versailles Treaty, Germany was forbidden from pursuing any form of military aviation, so he trained pilots in private clubs, and sponsored commercial aircraft which could easily be modified. Then when he wanted an air force he simply brought the two together. All the pieces were available, but no one recognized them for what they were. And today, with our industrial base spread over six hundred worlds, we can run a far more sophisticated covert manufacturing operation than the Nazis ever could. The rest of it is just another bureaucratic reshuffle, bringing together the requisite departments.’
‘I can think of several people in the Senate who won’t take kindly to the Hitler comparison,’ Thompson Burnelli said with dry amusement.
‘Don’t use that analogy, then,’ Nigel said. ‘The point is we can begin preparations for the physical defence of the Commonwealth without being alarmist. Getting the paperwork done is always half the battle.’
‘I’m interested in your opinion of this,’ Rafael Columbia told the SI. ‘Do you think we should have a navy?’
‘Whilst never condoning weapons development, we consider the formation of such a defence organization to be a sensible precaution given the circumstances.’
Wilson gave the screen a sharp look. ‘Would you assist us with weapons development?’
‘We have every confidence in your own ability in that field. You have demonstrated your competence many times through-out your history.’
‘Although I support a further mission to Dyson Alpha,’ Brewster Kumar said, ‘we shouldn’t ignore the other species that appear to be out there. Will this navy or starflight agency be sending missions to try and locate the creators of the barrier?’
‘We need to have a starflight agency first,’ Nigel chided the science adviser gently. ‘But, yes, that should not be overlooked. Nor should a separate mission to Dyson Beta; I’m most interested to see if that barrier is still there. There is a lot more to this than Dyson Alpha’s species alone.’
‘Very well,’ Elaine Doi said. ‘I believe we should leave specific mission planning out of the discussion for now. We have a proposal that will eliminate it anyway. I expect this Council and its function would be absorbed into the new agency?’ She gave Nigel a questioning glance.
‘A starflight agency would need a steering panel,’ Nigel said. ‘This is the obvious choice.’
‘Then we’ll take a vote,’ she said. ‘Those in favour?’
Every Council member put their hand up.
*
This time the message had the author certificate of Chiles Liddle Halgarth, but the spokesman was the same Formit 3004 politician sculpture, still sitting behind his desk in San Matio. This time the city was in springtime, with the powerful sun just rising above the whitewashed walls of the old quarter, turning the buildings a beautiful silken gold. Dark green trees planted along every street were uncurling their leaves to greet the dawn.
‘My fellow citizens, I wish I could welcome you with a sense of satisfaction,’ he said. ‘For once again we who have fought the subterranean battle to prevent the Starflyer’s agents gnawing away at the heart of our wonderful Commonwealth have been proved right. But of course I feel no joy at the situation we face this day. We failed to destroy the Second Chance, and now the starship has begun a chain reaction of events which will plunge us into war. The Dyson aliens have been let out of their prison in accordance with the Starflyer’s wishes. We have all seen the recordings of their aggression, a brutality which we all know will be turned towards us as soon as they build their own starships.
‘Even if we survive the coming assault, we will be weakened terribly. Our wealth and our talent will be poured into our very survival, where it will be consumed by nuclear fire. That is when the Starflyer will strike against us, unseen, from our very midst.
‘This monster will ruin us unless we guard against it. The Guardians of Selfhood will always be ready to thwart its machinations, right to the very end. We will root it out and eliminate its agents. But we need your help. Be vigilant. Be vocal. Stand for elections on a platform opposing the meagre efforts which this corrupt government is proposing to protect us. We do not need three scout ships, we need an armada of battleships. We do not need further investigation, we need weapons that can blow the invaders out of space. We must be ready to defend ourselves from the Dyson aliens right now. They will appear in our skies soon enough. Don’t let us fall to their onslaught. Challenge those who claim to be working on your behalf. They are not, they serve only themselves and their evil master. Help us. Be strong. Guard yourselves.’
He bowed his head. ‘I thank you for your time.’
*
The red light was everywhere, oozing pervasively throughout the Ice Citadel to contaminate every room, passageway, and cranny. Ozzie detested it. The Silfen builders of old had done their job well; the big optical ducts and the light battery, whatever that was, delivered rosy sunlight throughout the frozen planet’s entire twenty-one-hour day. There was only one place which offered true sanctuary – the outside at night. But that was when it got seriously cold.
Inside, most of the private sleeping rooms had thick rugs rigged up over the radiant crystal to act as curtains. For those species which did sleep, or at least rest up at night, they were a godsend. Recently, Ozzie and Orion had taken to lighting a kerosene lamp in their room for a couple of hours before they went to bed. Their original supply of kerosene had quickly been exhausted, but one of the icewhale oils was a reasonable substitute. The yellow light also attracted quite a few fellow humans, who would come in and spend some time, either relaxing or bitching about their day. Ozzie’s room in the evening began to resemble a small bar, admittedly one without any alcohol. Inevitably, given that people had arrived at the Ice Citadel from many planets and over many centuries, the conversation ranged across a lot of different perspectives and opinions.
The gatherings also helped Ozzie gain a good understanding of the Ice Citadel and their general situation. One thing was perfectly clear, they shouldn’t try for another path until the Silfen came to hunt.
‘That’s when you’ve got the best opportunity to get clear,’ Sara said one day a couple of weeks after they’d arrived. She’d become a regular in Ozzie’s little evening club. Most humans at the Ice Citadel tended to look to her for guidance, a position she’d earned by the sheer quantity of time stacked up in her favour. It was a role she was content to see slide over onto Ozzie, who was equally keen to resist.
‘Why?’ Orion asked. ‘You don’t need them to get here.’
‘Because it increases the odds,’ she said tolerantly. ‘If you can follow them, or even better, stay with them, you’ll be on the path they take to get out. It’s definitely there, then. For the rest of the time, you’re just striking out into the unknown, hoping you’ll find a path that’s open. From what we know, there don’t seem to be many. And on this planet, that spells trouble. You have to carry a whole load of supplies and be quick as well.’
Ozzie had soon worked out
it was a bad equation. You could use a sledge to reach the forest of crystal trees surrounding the Ice Citadel crater easily enough, but then the sledge would have a lot of trouble travelling through the forest itself. If you went forward on foot you needed a tent that could protect you from the deadly night-time temperature. The air-insulated one he’d brought could conceivably do that, but then he had to carry enough food as well. The more weight you had, the slower you’d be. And so on. An ideal solution would be a pack animal, but those who could survive in these conditions, like the lontrus, were slow-moving. Which meant adding more food to the weight they carried. Sara was right, their best option was a fast dash behind the Silfen. They had to be patient.
*
The usual early morning sounds woke Ozzie, pans and bowls and platters clattering about as the breakfast shift began their preparations out in the main chamber. Human voices combined with alien hoots and whistles accompanied them, echoing down the short passageway to Ozzie’s set of rooms. He lay there on the cot for a while with his eyes shut, his mind ticking off the sequence. Low rushing sound of the bellows and oil burners. Water coming to the boil and rattling the big kettles. Knives being sharpened on the grinder. Familiar and tiresome.
This was the seventeenth week now. Or at least he thought it was. He was having strange dreams, events and Commonwealth worlds rushing past him like some fast-motion drama. There were stories from his fellow travellers about time being not quite right as you walked along the paths, of them missing or gaining weeks, months, years while they travelled through the Silfen worlds. The notion kept feeding his feeling of impatience.
Orion stirred, groaned – as he always did – and sat up in his sleeping bag.
‘Morning.’ Ozzie opened his eyes. The rug was still pulled over the crystal tract set in the ceiling, but enough light spilled round the sides, and through the curtained-off doorway, that he could see the room’s outlines without having to use his retinal inserts on infrared.
Orion grunted a response, and unzipped his sleeping bag. Ozzie started to get dressed as the boy went into the bathroom. When they arrived, he’d thought the Ice Citadel to be like a hothouse inside. After a while he knew that was just a reaction from being so cold when Sara brought them in. Despite the hot springs and all the body heat soaking through the Ice Citadel, it remained several degrees below genuinely comfort-able. He fastened one of his thick check shirts over his T-shirt, buttoned up his leather trousers, and pulled on a second pair of socks. Only then did he stand up and tug the rug off the overhead tract. Orion let out a sullen moan of complaint at the burst of red light. The boy was having a bad time of it in the Ice Citadel. The way it confined them physically, the monotony of the routine, the bland diet – it all chafed against his natural teenage boisterousness. Although the worst part was the lack of anyone else remotely near his own age.
‘There aren’t any girls here,’ the boy had moaned on the second day. ‘I couldn’t see any, so I checked with Sara. She says there were some twenty-somethings here a couple of years back, but they followed the Silfen out.’
‘Yeah? Well you’re not missing anything,’ Ozzie had told him. He was slightly put out that the friendliness he’d shown towards Sara hadn’t been reciprocated.
‘How can you say that! You’ve had hundreds of wives.’
‘True,’ Ozzie said modestly.
‘I’ve never had any girl,’ Orion said miserably.
‘Not even back at Lyddington?’
‘There were a few I hung out with. I liked one. Irina. We kissed and stuff, but . . .’
‘You left and came walking down the paths with me.’
‘Actually, she went off with Leonard. He’s slept with half the girls in town.’
‘Oh. Right. Well . . . Women, huh, who understands them?’
‘You must, Ozzie.’ Orion had produced one of those desperate mournful looks that always made Ozzie uneasy. ‘How do I talk to girls? I never know what to say. Tell me, please.’
‘Simple really. It doesn’t matter what you say, you’ve just got to have confidence in yourself.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yeah.’ Ozzie was worried the boy was going to start taking notes. ‘When you’re at a party, find a chick you can dig, break the ice, then let them do half the work. It’s supposed to be an equal relationship, right?’
‘I suppose.’
‘So let them do their fair share. And if there’s nothing there, no spark – then no worries, man, just move on to the next babe. Remember, they had no spark either, they’re missing out on a great dude: you. Their loss.’
Orion considered that for a long moment. ‘I get it. You’re right.’
‘Hey, it’s what I’m here for.’
‘So what do I say?’
‘Huh?’
‘To break the ice? What’s a good opening line?’
‘Oh.’ Ozzie thought back to the few horrendous memories he’d kept from his high school days. ‘Well, er, just asking them to dance is always a great classic. Course, you have to be able to dance, chicks really dig that in a guy.’
‘Can you teach me how to dance, Ozzie?’
‘Ah, been a while there, man; best ask someone like Sara for some shapely footwork, okay?’
‘Right. So, an opening line?’
‘Er. Right. Yeah. Sure. Um. Hey! Okay, I remember this one from a party in the Hamptons way back when. Go up to a girl, and look at her collar, then when she asks what you’re doing you say: I was checking the label, and I was right, you are Made in Heaven.’
Orion was still for a second, then burst out laughing. ‘That is so lame, Ozzie.’
Which wasn’t quite the respectful response Ozzie had expected. Damn kids today. ‘It worked for me.’
‘What was her name?’ Orion asked quickly.
‘I forget, man, it was a century ago.’
‘Yeah, right. I think I’ll ask Sara. She’s probably better at this kind of thing.’
‘Hey, I know how to chat up babes, okay. You are talking to the Commonwealth’s number one expert on this subject.’
Orion shook his head and walked off into the pool cave, chuckling. ‘Made in heaven!’
Ozzie rolled up his sleeping bag. Along with Orion’s sleeping bag, it went straight into the carbon wire security mesh which contained their packs, looking like a black spider web had wrapped itself around all the bags and bundles. A mechanical padlock fastened the mesh’s throat cable; he’d managed to loop it round a jag of rock on the wall, making sure no one could make off with the whole lot. After centuries spent moving around the Commonwealth, Ozzie knew just how much truth there was in the old saying that every conservative is another liberal who got mugged. He didn’t trust his fellow travellers an inch, especially those good causes less fortunate than himself. Right now, that was just about everyone in the Ice Citadel. The packaged food, first aid kits, and modern lightweight equipment in those packs were their best chance of making it off this planet.
For the first week or so, every time they’d come back to their rooms, there were new scuffs and scratches on the rock where someone had tried to work the security mesh loose or smash the padlock.
They took their plates and cutlery out to the main chamber and joined the short queue for breakfast. The food was the same as every day, the small pile of boiled and mashed crystal tree fruit looking like mangled beetroot, along with a couple of fried icewhale rashers that were alarmingly grey and fatty. There was also a cupful of the local tea, made from dried shredded fronds of lichenweed.
When they finished the meal they went back to their rooms to dress in thick icewhale fur jackets and overtrousers. Orion went up to the stables, where he would spend several hours mucking out the animals, and bringing in new bales of rifungi for them to eat. Though the tetrajacks, which looked like blue horse-sized reindeer, got to eat the swill left over from the kitchens below.
Ozzie walked up to the ground-level workshop. The big circular room had probably been intended as another
stable, it had a rotating door large enough for an elephant to pass through comfortably, but the Ice Citadel’s new ragtag inhabitants were using it to garage the big covered sledges that were pulled by the stupid hulking ybnan. It was also the carpentry shop, not for wood, but icewhale bone, which had remarkably similar properties. Leather was also cured there; fat was rendered down into various oils; repairs were carried out on the Ice Citadel’s few precious communal metal artefacts, like the cooking range or cauldrons. Tools were mostly stone or crystal blades for shaping and cutting bone; those who arrived with their own little knives or pliers or multipurpose implements held on to them and treated them like the high-value currency they were. Nobody was a real artisan, they didn’t have to be, all that was needed was a basic grasp of mechanics; the Ice Citadel kept ticking over on a level virtually equal to medieval.
The job which had been taking up everyone’s efforts for three days was repairing and refitting the runners on two of the big covered sledges. They’d finished one, and the second was resting a couple of metres off the ground on thick stumps of crystal, waiting for its newly carved runners. It was barely above freezing in the workshop, hot spring water ran along curved channels under the stone floor, keeping the air moderately warm. Like the rest of the Ice Citadel, the heating arrangement was worn down. The thick flagstones covering the water channels had cracked and shifted down the centuries. Tenuous puffs of mist leaked up in a dozen places, turning the air damp and cloying. Condensation slicked the walls and the workbenches, and rusted any metal that was left out for too long. Around the rotating door, there was a permanent prickly frost.
Ozzie made sure he kept his woollen gloves on at all times. It made the tools harder to use. He had to move slowly, and consider what he was doing. But without them, his fingers became too cold, losing feeling. That was when real accidents occurred.
He joined in with the repair team, three humans and a Korrok-hi lifting the first heavy runner up into place on the end of the legs – sliding it back, under George Parkin’s directions. George had been at the Ice Citadel long enough to qualify as the unofficial workshop foreman. He was certainly the most competent carpenter. The new runner fitted neatly, the dovetail joins slipping into their grooves with the help of a little oil lubrication. Two of the team members set about securing the joins with locking pins hammered in sideways and glued.
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