"You're treading very close to accusing me of incompetence, or sabotage," Glenswarg growled.
Legroeder kept very still for a moment, holding the captain's gaze. "I don't mean to, sir," he said evenly, at last.
There was another pause that seemed to last a dozen heartbeats. "I'll see what can be done," Glenswarg said. "Dismissed."
"Thank you, Captain..."
* * *
Legroeder's request seemed to bear fruit. During the following days, he often saw Cantha working at the sim console with one or more of the Kyber bridge crew; and the Narseil reported in private that the Kyber navigators were becoming a little less grudging in cooperating with his requests. No one was declaring the end of mutual suspicions, but at least he had a sense that they were working together. Of all those on the ship, Cantha clearly had the deepest understanding of the subtleties of the underflux—and even the Kyber crew were coming to recognize that fact, or were being permitted to recognize it.
Days passed, as they flew within distant view of the Great Barrier Nebula, a ghostly green wall that stretched for many light-years along the edge of Golen Space. They were passing to the galactic north of the region known as the Sargasso, where Robert McGinnis had once been shipwrecked. Legroeder fervently hoped that they would have no need to fly any closer to the Sargasso than they were now.
He might as well have wished for a moon.
When Cantha called the riggers together for a look at his latest mapping displays, they were joined by the Kyber crew and captain. As everyone gathered around the floating holo of nearby space, Cantha raised a wand and shone a thin pointer of light into the display. "What I've been trying to establish is a track of where Impris has been seen, and ultimately where we might expect to see her—or better yet, have a chance of breaking through to reach her."
"Explain," said the captain, the light of the holo playing over his frowning face.
Cantha moved the pointer-beam through the glowing display. "The ships that are out there shadowing Impris apparently pick up only intermittent ghost traces—so at best, even with the extra information you obtained, we have only bits and pieces of her course."
"So what's the good news?" said Glenswarg.
"I've been making new projections, based not just on Impris sightings, but on what we think we know of the structure of the underflux." Cantha caused the holo to rotate in mid-air, then pointed out their current destination, not far from the Akeides Nebula. "Here's where the most recent intelligence places Impris, based on KM/C's movements." He touched a handheld controller, and something changed in the display: previously unfocused details came into focus, as though they were peering deeper into a multidimensional display. "Now, observe these green lines." He traced a series of spidery threads, through the newly focused region. "These are routes that I believe Impris could have followed in recent months." He peered through the display at the others. "These are not paths through the known Flux, but projections into the underflux—possibly into the lowest layers, what you call the Deep Flux. These are projections only. It is a poorly mapped region, to say the least."
Legroeder squinted, trying to visualize the elusive layer in which Impris might be trapped. Cantha's lines zigzagged to the south and radially out on the galactic meridian—converging in one region before spreading out again in other directions. "What's that area of convergence?" he asked—uneasily, because he thought he knew the answer. "Is that the Sargasso?"
"Indeed," said Cantha, with a tone of satisfaction that gave Legroeder a shiver. The Narseil's gaze pierced him for a moment, then shifted suddenly to Captain Glenswarg. "I believe, if we wish to catch up with Impris, the place to do it is in the Sargasso."
Legroeder's heart sank.
"That is," Cantha continued, over the muttering of the Kyber crewmen, "if we don't merely want to catch sight of her, but want to actually find her and rendezvous with her." Cantha looked around the room, the display shining on his vertical amphibian eyes, to see if he'd gotten everyone's attention.
Legroeder closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shut out the protests of the others. The Sargasso: a dead zone, where the currents of the Flux dwindled to a stop. Who knew why? And who knew how many ships were stranded there right now—not in the strange, ghostly immortality of Impris, but just stranded in the motionless Flux, dying like animals caught in quicksand. If they went in with Phoenix, looking for Impris, what were their chances of coming out again?
Not good, he thought.
Except that Cantha was suggesting it. And he trusted Cantha's opinion as much as he trusted his own rigging.
"I think, Narseil Cantha," said the captain in a tight, flat voice, "that you have a great deal of explaining to do. Are you seriously recommending that we take this ship into the Sargasso?"
"Yes, Captain," Cantha said. He pointed to the place where the green tracings converged, and altered the focus slowly to a higher level of the Flux, and then back down. The map changed in texture and color as he shifted the display. Cantha's pointer-beam traced green paths through the layers. "Here is what I want you to see. I don't know which of these paths Impris has followed—perhaps none of them precisely. But the important thing is that they come together, and rise very close to the level of the normal Flux—here in the Sargasso." He peered through the display at the captain. "That's the key. If we want to reach Impris, we have to break through into the level where she's trapped. And the Sargasso is the only place I see to do it."
"You're out of your mind," muttered a Kyber crewman. "Why the hell are we listening to this?" said another.
Christ Almighty, Legroeder thought, gazing into Cantha's eyes. He felt despair.
"It could be a very dangerous course to take," Deutsch rumbled, breaking through the grumbling.
"Yes," said Glenswarg, commanding silence with an arch of his bristly eyebrows. "It sounds extremely dangerous." He paused, allowing Cantha to continue.
"That is true," Cantha said. "And that is why we need to talk about the underflux. And about the spatial flaws I believe may underlie it."
"What spatial flaws?" growled a Kyber rigger.
Cantha placed his hands together, forefingers pointing into the holo. "The Flux, generally speaking, displays a fairly smooth progression of dimensionality as we move through descending layers. But, from layer to layer, we may encounter differing currents of movement—yes?" He glanced sharply at Derrek, the Kyber navigator, who shrugged.
"As you go deeper and deeper, you may reach a point where the movement slows too much; and if you're using standard rigging techniques, you lose the ability to maneuver. Or, you simply come to a halt—like getting stuck in silt at the bottom of a river."
"Like in the Sargasso," Deutsch said.
"Almost." Cantha raised a finger. "There's a crucial difference. The Sargasso is a place where currents seem to lose their energy—but there it happens in the normal levels of the Flux, which is what makes it such a hazard. But why do the currents lose energy? Is it just a cancellation effect of converging currents? Or is it something more?"
Palagren's neck-sail stiffened. "Cantha, are you sure you should tell them—?"
"Why not?" Cantha asked. "We've demanded that they share their knowledge with us."
Palagren's mouth tightened. "But this information—"
"Is essential to finding Impris. How else can we do it?"
Palagren's eyes seemed filled with uncertainty; but finally he gestured acquiescence.
"So what's the explanation?" Legroeder prompted.
Cantha hissed softly. "The Narseil Rigging Institute believes there are flaws—fractures, if you will—in the structure of spacetime in the Sargasso. We believe that currents may be leaking out of the normal layers of the Flux into a deeper substrate... into the underflux." He gestured to Legroeder. "You've read the Fandrang Report. It talked about regions of high 'EQ.' We don't use that terminology anymore—but this may be a related phenomenon."
"These fractures—are you talking about openi
ngs that go all the way down into the Deep Flux?" Glenswarg asked, looking troubled.
"Possibly," Cantha said. "We don't know how deep they might go. In the Narseil understanding of the Deep Flux, there are layers far down in the underflux—" the holo shifted to a deeper level, and many of the star systems still visible as ghostly images seemed to draw closer together "—where extremely long routes in normal-space are shortened and compacted, but at the cost of becoming far more unpredictable." The threads marking starship routes became blurred and wavering. "Too unpredictable, in our view, for safe travel."
Cantha walked around the display, pointing here and there. "We can only guess at the details. But we have identified places where subsurface cusps or folds in the Flux may occur. Places where movement along hidden boundaries can result in abrupt transitions." The display flickered with topographic shifts and folds as his pointer beam moved along the indistinct route-threads. "It may happen so abruptly that an unsuspecting crew might not know how to make the transition back."
Legroeder blinked. "And you think this is what happened to Impris?"
Cantha steepled his long-fingered hands together. "Quite likely. I also believe this is how she can be found."
Glenswarg cleared his throat. "And that's why you're asking me to risk this ship in the Sargasso?"
"It is a risk," Cantha agreed. "But if these flaws exist, as we believe, in the Sargasso, then they could provide openings where we could break through into the underlying layers."
Glenswarg waved his arm through the holo. "But Impris isn't there. As far as we know, she's up here." He pointed to what was now the far corner of the display, at the point marking their present destination.
"Indeed," Palagren said, stirring. "She was last seen up there. But that doesn't mean we can reach her from there. Legroeder—when you encountered Impris seven years ago, did you have any sense that you could have physically reached her?"
"You mean, if we hadn't been attacked?" Legroeder shook his head. "I don't think so. We saw it, heard her riggers in the net... and then it faded, just as the attacking ship—" He shuddered, and allowed the inner hands of the implants to close off that memory for him.
"Exactly. It's there, but it's insubstantial... and then in a matter of seconds, it's gone again. Cantha, can you show the folds more clearly?" As the display changed to highlight the features, Palagren traced with his hand along the irregularities in the Flux. "We suspect that Impris may have become trapped somehow inside one of these folds in the underflux. Trapped in a parallel channel—seemingly close to us, and yet isolated." Palagren glanced around. "She does seem to move very quickly from one location to another."
"So," said Cantha, "we can look for Impris up here—" he rotated the image and highlighted their present destination "—under the nose of KM/C, where we won't be able to reach her anyway. Or we can try to enter that fold down here—" he rotated it again, highlighting the Sargasso region "—where the pathways converge and there may be openings that will let us reach her from within the fold. Where, I might add, Kilo-Mike/Carlotta will see much less of what we're doing."
"Carlotta will love that when she finds out," whispered a Kyber rigger.
He was silenced by a look from Glenswarg. The captain's eyebrows looked like two caterpillars trying to merge. He scowled into the display. "It's an interesting idea. But it'll be dangerous as hell, won't it?"
Cantha shrugged. "The Kyber are known for their courage, yes?"
Glenswarg's scowl darkened even further. "These paths in the folds—are they fast moving?"
Cantha cleared his throat with a rumble. "If they are Deep Flux, they may be very fast. Or short. So if you're asking, could we hope to make our way to her quickly once we're in the fold—"
"Not just that," said Glenswarg. "Are we going to be able to find our way out again?"
The Narseil hesitated.
"Impris couldn't find her way out. What makes you think we're different?"
The blood pounding in Legroeder's ears competed with Palagren's answer. "Impris probably didn't know why she was trapped. We will. We're going to have to look for a way in. Which means we'll be noting exactly where and how we enter. That'll make us better equipped to find our way out again." Palagren turned to Legroeder, then the captain. "With your permission, we would perform some retuning of the rigger-net—to take maximum advantage of our versatility. Human, Kyber, Narseil. All together. That's another advantage we have that Impris didn't."
Glenswarg rubbed his chin. "And assuming we make it out of this fold of yours, what about getting out of the Sargasso itself—once we're back in the normal Flux?"
"The Sargasso has extremely slow and tricky movement," said Palagren. "Not no movement. If we plan ahead and map with care, we should be able to manage. I won't deceive you, though. There's a degree of risk."
"High risk, if you ask me," said Navigator Derrek, leaning into the holo and craning his neck as though trying to extract more information from it.
Glenswarg turned to stare at Legroeder, who was responsible for the rigging decisions. Legroeder took a deep breath. "It has to be the Sargasso?" he asked the Narseil.
First Cantha, then Palagren nodded. "It's the only place we see an opening," Cantha said, unfolding his fingers in a humanlike palm-up gesture. "If we want to find Impris, that's where we have to go.
Legroeder closed his eyes, asking the implants if they had any wisdom. They didn't. He gazed at Glenswarg and sighed. "I'm afraid I must recommend, Captain, that we take this ship to the Sargasso."
Glenswarg's gaze bored into him, as though waiting to see if he would change his mind. When Legroeder held his gaze, the captain grunted and turned to his exec. "Prepare a message to the escort ships. And tell the bridge crew, we're changing course."
Chapter 28
Ghost Hunting
It was hard to be sure precisely when they entered the Sargasso, but soon enough the signs became unmistakable. The net softened around them like sails gone limp, as the currents of space slowed to a crawl. Legroeder gazed out at a tenuous skyscape of ocher clouds, and felt the image changing of its own accord to a vision of water. The mists flattened to become the foggy surface of a still sea, with a half-shrouded sun burning overhead.
Nothing moved. Even the water lapping at the side of the ship sounded like something caught in a time warp, the chuckling slap of listless waves drawn out into a croaking sound, like the monotonous drone of some primordial, throaty-voiced creature.
The riggers scanned in all directions. Legroeder half expected to see the cluttered flotsam of drifting ships; instead, what he saw was a profound and oppressive emptiness. It seemed to permeate not just the outward scene, but the mood inside the net, as well. All four riggers were silent, as though a single word might destroy the fragile magic that held it all together.
The Narseil had spent hours working with the Kyber crew, carefully retuning the flux reactor, adjusting the sensitivity of the net in painstaking increments. Palagren and Cantha were trying to make the net more responsive to emotional fluctuations among the riggers. That was easy; what was hard was to do it without losing the usual buffers against mood shifts. The other riggers, especially the Kyber who flew the alternate shifts, felt uneasy about the changes—and even Ker'sell seemed uncertain—but Legroeder and the captain had allowed Palagren and Cantha to try. They were convinced that, by heightening their sensitivity to fainter stirrings of the Flux, they could improve their maneuverability in the Sargasso. And Legroeder was very much in favor of being able to maneuver out of the Sargasso.
Right now, he couldn't see much except the stillness. He found himself thinking of Com'peer, the Narseil surgeon, quoting from the book of Psalms. How had one of them gone? He leads me beside the still waters... Yes, Legroeder thought. Still waters, indeed.
An unfamiliar inner voice offered a comment:
// The quote refers to "safe" waters, actually. Are these waters safe?//
(I doubt that,) Legroeder muttered. (Who ar
e you? Do I know you?)
// I am an analytical subroutine. My exegetical database includes many of the known galaxy's religions.//
(Oh. Well, what do you analyze about this place?)
// Difficult to know... // said the implant.
(Yah.)
// But I am working on it.//
As are we all, Legroeder thought. But perhaps the implant was right about one thing: it would be very helpful to keep in mind an image of these waters as safe—particularly since the net was far more sensitive now to fear or anxiety. But they were also looking for evidence of any opening in the underflux, any opening through which a ship might pass into a hidden fold—a ship such as Impris. Or Phoenix. Legroeder wondered where their escort ships were by now. They had been unable to make contact; and though Phoenix had transmitted their intentions, they had no way of knowing if the escort had received the message.
Legroeder watched his crew watching the Flux. While commanding the rigger crew, Legroeder occupied his customary stern position, with Palagren at the bow and Ker'sell at top gun. Deutsch, at the keel, seemed intent on something. Freem'n. What are you picking up?
Deutsch didn't answer at once. He seemed to be processing through his augments. Finally: Nothing that I can describe clearly. For a moment, I thought I'd sensed some ghost traces... I don't know of what. Like shadows. Maybe echoes from the underflux. Not clear. Deutsch fell back into silence, but he seemed more emotionally connected to the imagery than usual.
Legroeder, for his part, felt a strange, listless foreboding, as if he were floating under a tropical sun, awaiting the arrival of some vaguely defined enemy. So far, though, he'd seen nothing; he found it hard even to focus on the features of the Flux. The ship was drifting sideways, very slowly. The only visible features on the sea were the fog banks, and if you watched them carefully you could see that they too were shifting with dreamy slowness, as if stirred by convection currents rising from the still surface of the water.
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