by C. Litka
02
'I'm sure it's been a very, shall we say, interesting, morning for everyone. I suspect that you'll need some time alone to absorb all of it and talk about it among yourselves. If you want to get away, we have a trail that circles the valley - you can see the trail head just beyond the hangar. There are feather-bears and a few big cat-like creatures in these mountains, but if you don't annoy them, they should leave you alone,' said Malin, pointing to the trail's head, as we left the hangar.
'I, for one, will risk them,' I said.
'Lead on, Litang. We'll follow you - at a safe distance,' said Naylea.
As it turned out, we followed the dragons, who ranged out ahead of us. Siss no doubt hunting, Hissi, I suspect, making snide comments about Siss's hunting, since I heard them growling at each other up ahead.
We walked mostly in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, along the narrow path as it wound its way up and down between the mossy green boulders and under twisted pines. The wind shook droplets from the pines, which slowly floated down, to splash on my face and dampen my clothing. I looked down to follow the path, and watched as my feet stepped the way I had learned more than ten years ago - setting the little claws in the toe of my leading boot into the moss, and then slipping the trailing one free? even here, where it wasn't necessary. A little habit of life in the Pela. A life that up until a few hours ago, I thought would be mine until I died.
I'd chosen it when I had steered the Phoenix for the brighter sky and Naylea Cin, and I didn't regret it. I'd found a place where - if I could keep my wits about me, and not go off to pirate gatherings again - I could live the quiet life I yearned for. I had found Naylea Cin again, and had good friends like Py, Trin, Tey Pot, KaRaya Ma and her boys, even Captain KimTara and my shipmates aboard the Lora Lakes and Telrai Peaks here. On the other hand, just about everyone I knew in the Nebula were spaceers - and I couldn't go back to that life - so I'd see them only briefly and rarely. If I returned, I'd have to start over? But I did miss my old life - the nights, the seasons, oceans, and the safety of the Unity.
'I'm thinking that you are so intensely ordinary, Litang,' began Naylea, who was walking beside me. She paused as we ducked under a drooping pine bough. 'So intensely Unity Standard, that you're like a massive lodestone of ordinariness which attracts anything extraordinary towards you. Take this,' she swept her hands to include the entire Pela. 'A secret way station, the deepest secrets of the Order, and a sentient machine all before the mid-round meal. And, I gather, even the Machine Directorate sees it in you. You're a magnet for weirdness.'
'I seem to recall you saying that it was my Unity Standardness that attracted you to me. So perhaps you're right.'
'Touche!' she laughed. 'What will be next? Hopefully only a feather-bear. We can deal with feather-bears.'
'Well, we found our way home to the Principalities,' I said as we came upon a long stone bench overlooking the valley. 'Naylea and Py can resume what remains of their assignments. I've no definite plans - it sort of depends. What about you, Natta? We had talked of exploring the Core Islands for a while.'
'It sort of depends, as well,' she said with a glance to Py, and with the faintest of smiles.
'Remember, Litang, whatever you do, your ride to the Unity leaves in less than four years,' said Naylea.
'I've no intention of returning to the Unity any time soon. And not without you. I made that decision a decade ago.'
'You'll leave. You're too Unity Standard to stay.'
'You're wrong, my dear. I believe I have found all that I want here - you, friends, and the prospect of a quiet life. And I did have a quiet, unexciting life as an engineer for a couple thousand rounds, so I know it's possible.'
'Somehow I doubt that. And well, none of us are home yet. We still have the Endless Sky to cross with Litang. That's far from a sure thing.'
'I'm sure that Captain LyeCarr will see us all safely home,' I replied, hoping I wasn't tempting fate yet again.
We walked on, now talking of this and that - of how I came to know Botts, the Order beyond the shell, and of Py's prospects of leaving the shell for a time to see this other place. The walk was long and we took our time, arriving back at The Hermitage not long before the mid-round meal. I, at least, was exhausted, not from the walk, but from chasing thoughts around and around in my mind, without ever quite catching them.
Malin introduced us to the staff once more - this time as full partners in their operation.