by Sharon Lee
"No!" Tor An cried.
Cantra's hands danced across the board. "We're leaving, Pilot," she said, keeping her voice firm and easy—just a piloting exercise, boy, she thought at him. Stay with me, here, there's worse to come...
"Aye," he said crisply, and that quick he was steady, his hands moving sure and firm across his board, feeding the shields, slapping the noise off the bands down to a whisper, and doing all that a co-pilot ought, which was good, because she had everything she could do, dodging ships and shrapnel, as Quick Passage gathered and surged around them.
* * *
"Alert!"
His voice sounded strange in his ears: calm, collected, professional. His fingers moved efficiently across his board, doing what was needful while his heart hammered, and he rode his screens and scans—
"Captain—on visual, your screens six and eight..."
Objects—Were they objects? They glinted and gleamed in the visual tracking system, their shapes disturbingly fluid, even as they eclipsed stars and ships. They appeared to actively avoid Quick Passage, and scarcely registered on the radar—
"Got 'em," Pilot Cantra said, her voice so calm and easy that the pounding of his heart eased somewhat. "They don't scan like anything I've seen before. Almost look organic, close up. Keep 'em in eye and sing out if they look like changing their minds about avoiding us."
"Aye, Captain." His fingers had already brought the tracking systems up. He looked to the shields, and frowned, trying to place the low growling noise that had suddenly come on-line.
"Aha! Our noble feline would defend us from those!" The scholar cried, as delighted as a child. "Captain Cantra—an adjustment—if there is time? I have an additional factor. This should be added to the final equations, for accuracy."
Now? Tor An thought wildly. With space in chaos about them and creatures unlike anything seen or told by pilots—
"Go," Pilot Cantra said calmly; "I'm tracking."
"Yes. You will wish to multiply the final result of section seven by this number, which is a very rough approximation induced by the infinite expansion theory I have settled upon. The number is this: Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine-two-six-five-three-five-eight-nine."
"Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine-two-six-five-three-five-eight-nine," Cantra sang back, fingers dancing across her board.
"That is correct," the scholar said. "Very good."
"Added, compiled and locked. Is the cat..."
"The cat proclaims his warrior status, Captain Cantra. Also, you will perhaps wish to know that Rool Tiazan is behaving—or shall I say, not behaving!—in a somewhat peculiar manner."
Tor An looked up. At first glance, it appeared that Rool Tiazan leaned as he had been, in defiance of the captain's repeated order to strap in.
On second glance, his pose was not relaxed, but rigid—and he was... glowing with a pale green light...
"Captain..?" He began, his heart racing into overdrive again...
"Mind your board, Pilot! I need seal readings, now!"
He wrenched his attention back to his first duty, scanning and quoting the shield strength, the seal parameters, the go-condition of life-support.
"Matches straight across. Energy level's up, but we're not at transition yet. Keep an eye on that, and tell me what you're scanning down low. I'm watching for intercept course objects, but I don't find anything...."
The ship's acceleration was constant, and Solcintra could now truly be said to be behind them rather than beneath. The rear screen was tracking the planet, but the clarity of the image was off—Tor An slapped the back-up into life.
The weird, organic objects were converging on Solcintra, melding into one enormous ...object, which cast a long, cold shadow along the land...
"I am my own destiny," Rool Tiazan said suddenly, and his voice seemed to reach beyond the skin of the ship, and out unto the very stars.
"I am my own destiny. Do what you will."
Thirty-Five
HIS BODY LEANING against the chair, he kept watch, all things great and small shining within the net of his regard.
There, Spiral Dance sang sweet seduction to her makers, the tree's sacrifice adding counterpoint, and sending insults of dragons.
And there—the Fourteen lay poised and secret, energies caught and cloaked, holding the secret of their Weaving close, watching the lines, and the luck, and the progress of annihilation, weighing the virtue of each passing instant.
Ships as numerous as the stars themselves rose from those planets which had yet escaped the Iloheen's kiss, equations were filed into boards, velocity was sought. Meanwhile, a taint of subtle poison drifted on the winds, which was the mark of she who would rule in place of the Iloheen. And at every front, through every level and phase, was there evidence of the Iloheen's work, the wave front sizzling with icy energies.
Nearby, the ssussdriad was silent, its essence folded close.
On this level, the pilots were living flame, burning bright, and fierce, and fast. Against their glory, the old man was but an ember, shielded by the shadow of the cat.
And everywhere, on every surface, on every level, the luck gleamed and swirled and danced, infusing every action, every thought, every breath, so that even the Hounds of the Iloheen were turned aside, and sought lesser prey.
The touch, when it came, was so elusive that it seemed at first a memory.
Again, the touch, followed by a fuller presence. Within the lines and the fields of underspace, it made itself known, with a certain pleasing subtlety, as if it had learned somewhat of grace.
This falls to me, came his lady's measured appraisal.
Rool acquiesced and withdrew to the subordinate posture, sparing a thought for the precious lives and the dancing of the luck.
Daughter of my intent, I greet you! The hour of your destiny is nigh. It is time to take up your proper place and duty.
A fair sending it was, as the Iloheen came at them from several levels, seeking advantage, seeking to distract, seeking to measure their strength.
I am my own destiny, his lady made answer, as Rool parried, expending the least energy possible; keeping the secret of their strength. Do what you will.
Is this how you welcome me, who made you what you are? The test that accompanied this was less wary, and too close to the plane wherein dwelt the darlings of the luck. All about, on every level, the wave-front of annihilation moved fast, and ever faster.
What peculiar arrangements you contrive for yourself! To cede dominance and submit to this prisoning of your powers! To consort with the small lives and strive to force a variant outcome? And yet—your promise is fulfilled. You are become as the Iloheen and have earned your place among us. Open to me. I shall free you from this bondage you have accepted and together we shall achieve perfection.
Rool felt a shift—stealthy and subtle—and tasted a stench upon the breeze. He looked to their shields, and made his reserves ready.
I am where I wish to be and those things which I have put in order please me, his lady answered. Begone! And trouble me no more.
Rool felt the hated touch against his essence as she who would rule in place of the Iloheen drew him. Willingly, he released the small tithe of his power that she had bargained to gain, and severed the thread that bound them.
The wind whipped foul and hot as she struck, strongly and with surprising depth. The Iloheen made answer, yet not without taking some damage.
Again, the wind struck, and Rool increased his defenses, holding them close, intent only upon surviving this battle as the Iloheen drew its energies and—
From underspace itself, and from planes which no zaliata nor Iloheen had ever glimpsed, burst a vast and implacable greenness, a rage of life so potent that the terrible advance of perfection trembled, paused—
And crashed onward, consuming all and everything which was not itself.
Rool threw out what was left of his power, encompassing the fragile shell that contained the last, and best, hope of life.
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Lute! he screamed against the wind. Lady Moonhawk!
Now, sister! The time is now! his lady's sending echoed his as they plummeted, burning, to the physical plane.
* * *
BEHIND THEM, THE sphere that was Solcintra distorted, its crust crushed beneath the weight of the shadows, fireballs bounced around the tower, and alarms shrieked as moons, meteors, and comets assaulted the shielding. Quick Passage lurched while the pilots fought for control, for stability, for—
"Now!" Rool Tiazan screamed. "Transition, Pilots, or all is lost!"
Wild energies engulfed them; radiation shielding boiled away. Tor An slapped for back-ups, saw Cantra lean to the operation stud, as the ship staggered—
And steadied, the screens showing gray.
"Systems check!" the pilot snapped. "Vacuum check! Interior radiation check!" Ordered, his fingers moved, querying the ship. He read out the answers, hearing wonder in his own voice.
"All ship systems blue; passenger bays secure, systems blue; cargo pods show balance within tolerance, systems blue. Interior radiation within tolerances." He looked up and met her eyes.
"Vacuum check clean. We made it."
"By the skin of our teeth," she answered, but she was smiling.
"Rool Tiazan." She spun her chair about to address him, sitting bedraggled and blood-stained in the comm-chair, properly webbed in, and stroking the cat on his lap.
"Captain?" he returned, warily. Wearily.
"Thank you," she said, and spun back to face her board.
Thirty-Six
Quick Passage
THE SCREENS WERE gray.
Or say rather, Tor An thought wearily, the screens were still gray. And no way of knowing when they might reach normal space, and what might be awaiting them there. If they ever reached normal space.
The longest sustained transition known to pilots, so he had been taught, was Moreta's Flight, which had been the result of a malfunction of a prototype translation booster. The Moreta had been eighteen Common Months in transition, and when it finally regained normal space, its shields were shredded, its hull was pocked, and its pilot was dead.
To be sure, they were in somewhat better case—so far. The ship was whole, the pilots hale, if weary; the passengers content in their sleep. Those passengers who had not taken sleep were an entirely different matter, alas. It had nearly fallen to blows between Nalli Olanek and Cantra, before the Captain Ruled that the Speaker might only ask after arrival times once every six ship-days. The notion that they might yet be a-ship for such a length of time had—so Cantra had maintained, with amusement—stunned the Speaker into silence.
Twenty-eight ship-days, now.
Tor An rubbed his eyes.
From the tree came an image of fog, and dragon-shapes seen dimly, gliding on silent half-furled wings.
Which was all very good, he thought, but even dragons must need come to roost eventually.
The tree persisted, however, displaying once again the damp and chilly fog, the misty dragons—and a glow of light just off the right wing-tip.
Tor An blinked, looked to his screens and saw a familiar display, too long absent from the screens. He blinked again, and touched the button that opened the comm in the pilots' quarters.
"Go," Cantra said crisply, no hint of sleep in her voice.
"Pilot," he said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. "We have end of transition calculated in—thirty-six minutes."
A short silence, as if even Pilot Cantra had blinked.
"I'm on my way," she said then, and the connection closed.
* * *
ROOL TIAZAN KNELT at the side of Liad dea'Syl's carry-chair, red hair mingling with white as the two of them bent over the old gentleman's tablet, muttering dark mathematical secrets to each other. The cat was curled 'round the tree's trunk, which had come to be a favorite position of his, eyes squinted half-shut.
The pilots were in their seats, poised and jumpy as newbies, both with their eyes tending to stray to the screens and the numbers that counted down, matter-of-fact and usual, toward transition's end.
"Cannon prepped," Cantra murmured.
"Shields on high," Tor An answered.
The numbers on the countdown zeroed out. The ship shrugged, the screens flickered. Cantra brought the cannon live, Tor An hit the scans.
The good news, Cantra thought, was that there weren't pirates waiting for them. The medium news was that they were the only ship within the considerable range of the scans.
The bad news was that the nav-brain beeped and quietly took itself off-line.
"Pilot?" she asked it quietly, though she already knew what he was going to report.
"We have no set north, Captain, and no confirmation from the computers of recognized beacons."
"Right. Guess we'll do it hard way, then. Find me something big and bright and far away. First, we need to know if we're in a galaxy." She keyed in her own searches, and the screens began to fill with stats as the sensors sifted local space for clues.
"I have magnetic fields we can read, Captain," Tor An said, sounding surprised. "We can pull a north from that. We are apparently in a galaxy, but we lack baselines..."
"One thing at a time," she told him, tending her own explorations. "Good amount of dust hereabouts. I'm wondering—"
"Captain, I have a star! We—we are close within a system..."
The old scholar laughed. "Why, thank you, Pilot Tor An, my son. Yes! The equations have not misled us. We should indeed be very close to a star system within a few percentage points of the mass and energy output of the average star-system with populated planets in our former galaxy." He raised a frail hand as both pilots turned to stare at him.
"I guarantee nothing, of course! I have merely done what my poor skill allowed." He glanced at his tablet. "Locate, my dears, the plane..."
"Working on that now," Cantra assured him, spinning back to her board. "Star's slightly oblate; might be the bulge 'round the equator can tell us something interesting..."
"No radio traffic on common frequencies," Tor An reported. "The military transceivers are entirely out of band..."
"We've got a gas giant, working on mass analysis. 'nother gas bag right here, not nearly as big, but she'll do until we can..."
The in-ship comm chimed, and Cantra swore, not quite under her breath.
Tor An touched the stud.
"Tower," he said, prudently leaving the general line closed. "Yes, Speaker, the ship has entered normal space. No, we do not have an estimation of when we will—No, we do not know what sector—" He flushed, lips pressing tight. "The pilots are doing what we may, Speaker, the nature and order of our work is dictated by circumstance. We will inform the passengers when an appropriate port has been located. Tower out."
He hit the stud a little harder than was needful, and then looked shamefaced. Cantra chuckled, and grinned when he met her eyes.
"My foster-mother always said passengers was more trouble'n they was worth," she said. "I'd own she was right. You, Pilot?"
He tried to frown, but his lips kept twitching the wrong way, and finally he let the smile have its way. "I'd own she was right, too, Pilot," he said, and turned back to his board.
* * *
QUICK PASSAGE'S BRAINS were top-notch and her instrumentation was second to none. In relatively short order they were in possession of a fistful of useful facts. The larger gas giant was just over one-thousandth the mass of the star; the smaller gas giant half the mass of its sister. The giants were more than ninety degrees apart as they circled the star, but in the same plane. There was some debris, and some radio noise typical of energetic discharges. The star had a single small relatively low-energy magnetic storm on its surface, and there seemed to be no other stars within half-a-dozen light-years. So far, so good.
In-ship chimed; the boy reached—and stopped as she held up her hand.
"She's got six ship-days to stew and we got work to do," she said. "Turn it off and mind your
analysis, Pilot."
Tor An grinned. "Aye, Captain."
In the back of her head, an image formed: A white dragon, wings blazing light, rose in a lazy spiral into a brilliant sky. Cantra's fingers paused on the work-pad; then she spun and came out of her seat quick. The boy was up, too, and they walked side-by-side and quiet to the power-chair.
Liad dea'Syl's eyes were closed, his head against the rest. He was breathing, shallowly. Lucky was curled on his lap, and the long, clever hands rested on the plush orange fur. On his far side, Rool Tiazan knelt, his fingers curled lightly 'round one thin wrist.