The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “Good,” she said, and jerked her head toward the gate. “Let’s go.”

  “All of your equations are correct, as far as they go.” Rool Tiazan leaned over the scholar’s shoulder, Lucky the cat weaving ‘round the base of the work screen they studied so intently. He tapped the screen with a light forefinger, feeling the attentive presence of the ssussdriad within the sphere of his being.

  “So here,” he murmured, “this term is correct, but makes an incomplete assumption.”

  “Of course it does!” Liad dea’Syl answered. “There are several values that might be added, all derived properly from the rest of my work.” His fingers moved on the coding wand. “Add this one—and behold! We attain an equation which is quite beautiful, though it must be impossible to achieve. At this point in our adventure, surely practical mathematics outweighs mere elegance.”

  Rool allowed the old gentleman’s irony to pass unremarked, taking a moment to skritch Lucky carefully under the chin. The chin being properly taken care of, he turned back to the discussion with a polite smile.

  “Grandfather, of course it is practical mathematics which will carry the day. And as you have seen, I am far easier with the practical than the theoretical.”

  The mathematician snorted, drawing the cat’s attention.

  “The boy is elsewhere, sir; you may dispense with the fiction that I am your elder, as we both realize that I am not. I suspect that your age is some centuries beyond mine . . .”

  Rool paused, then inclined his head, sincerely respectful. The old one’s mind was both agile and facile. Of course he would have formed the proposition that a being which was not bound by possibility would not be bound by time.

  “Well,” he murmured. “I am here because you are no fool, and I am no mathematician.”

  “It is possible that you err on both points,” the scholar murmured. “But let us not quibble. Pray elucidate this incomplete assumption, and tell me if you have a proof which ties this together so that young Jela’s excellent work does not go to waste.”

  “The value here,” Rool tapped the screen again. “This assumes that when the final decrystallization event begins, it will propagate across space. It will not. The event will, as your initial numbers demonstrate, occur across the affected dimensions and energies simultaneously.”

  The old man seemed to wilt in his chair, though the glow of his life energies were as bright as ever.

  “There, my friend,” he murmured, “lies the paradox. If the event occurs simultaneously, there will be no wave . . .”

  “The triggering event, however,” Rool continued. “The trigger event propagates at the highest possible velocity of transition. When the energy state is sufficient, a coherent decrystallization is the result. Now, note that this is not a reversion to what was, as implied by our limited vocabulary; this is a new state. In this event, prior conditions cannot be recalled, they cannot be calculated. Within the new state there is no information exchange or reversibility with the preceding state in any manner that affords sense.” He paused, frowning at the screen, and leaned forward to tap another phrase.

  “But here, sir,” he murmured, “I fear I misapply language again. Let us consider this, which implies that what shall occur is that the act of transitioning will inform the new location. That is, it will contain the ships, their contents, and whatever else might be accelerated to transitional velocity—and it will contain that impetus and energy . . .”

  “Yes!” Liad dea’Syl said, abruptly enthusiastic. “Of course, the transition will inform the new location, just as the new location will inform that which arrives. And observe!—It furthermore implies that the arrival of the ships, the end of the transition, will in effect not be contingent on their relationships before the transition. It also implies a transformational energy change, one that will exclude any further energy or information exchange. The universe we arrive at will not be the one we left.”

  “And here,” he sighed after a moment, “here is where I falter. It would appear that, no matter the prior conditions, we shall arrive in a universe where certain spins will be . . . let us say, preferred, and where the energy excess we bring with us will mean that space will expand infinitely over time. There will be no steady state, though there may be the practical illusion of it for billions of years.”

  Rool considered that in all its fullness before meeting the old scholar’s eyes.

  “I propose,” he said seriously, “that an infinitely expandable universe is much preferable to one which is about to become largely uninhabitable.”

  “Yes, of course. Well said.” The mathematician rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. “Yet, should we continue down that path, we soon discover that we lack vital information. We have near-proof that this escape we posit is possible. However, if we may not know the time of the spontaneous, great, event, within fractions, we shall be lost. We must have more information than M. Jela’s prognostication and death brings us.” He paused, his eyes wandering from the screen to the window, and the bright day without.

  “If I might but look upon the works of our Enemy, and understand what it is that they accomplish, perhaps—”

  Abruptly, the room, the screen, the cat were gone, replaced by a vision of sand, and the vast, fallen corpses of trees; the wind swirled dust into a funnel—and the room returned.

  Rool Tiazan folded his hands and awaited what the scholar might make of such communication.

  “Our other ally, speaks, I apprehend.” The old man raised a hand and sighed. “That is a mighty work,” he said sadly, “and an irredeemable loss. Yet how was it accomplished?”

  The room flickered, there was impression of baleful energies, greatly confused, yet more accurate than Rool would have expected from a form-bound intelligence—and then nothing more.

  “Ah.” The scholar turned, looked to him, his eyes deep with wisdom. “You, my master of energy states. You know how it was accomplished, do you not?”

  Rool bowed his head. “Grandfather, I do. The Iloheen caused probability to be altered so that increasing amounts of inimical energies were aimed at the world which had been inhabited by the ssussdriad.”

  Liad dea’Syl laughed. “So I am told, and having been told, understand nothing.”

  Rool smiled, and swept out a hand. “Forgive me, Scholar. I am as a bird in the air . . .”

  “Indeed. Indeed. And yet, you have the means, as I understand from our discussions in the night hours, to . . . change state, and to observe the workings and progress of the Enemy. Is that so?”

  “Stipulating that I dare not show myself, nor come too close,” Rool said slowly, “yes, that is so.” He paused. “Shall I go, observe what I might, and return to tell you?”

  “Will the bird bring news of aerodynamics, lift, and thrust?” The scholar smiled, and reached out to rub Lucky’s ear. “Perhaps you might bear me to a point of observation.”

  It had been within the possibility described by the current configuration of the lines that this boon would be asked. Rool closed his eyes and took counsel of his lady.

  “It is,” he said slowly, “possible.” He opened his eyes. “Whether it is desirable . . .” He sighed. “There is a price . . .”

  “There is,” the old scholar interrupted tartly, “always a price, Ser Tiazan. I am not a child.”

  “Indeed. Indeed, you are not a child, Grandfather. But I must be selfish in this—you may not die before those equations are set.”

  Liad dea’Syl smiled. “Guard me, then,” he said. “And snatch me away to safety when you judge it best. But I would see this work of the Enemy.”

  Rool bowed. “I am at your command. When shall we proceed?”

  “At once.”

  THE PORT WAS MORE crowded than ever he recalled, with a great many high-caste persons about. Nor was he the only one to notice it.

  “That’s a lot of expensive citizens I’m seeing,” Cantra yos’Phelium commented at his side. “Streets weren’t near so full, yesterday.”
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  “The High Families are not usually so well represented on-port,” he agreed, and touched his tongue to his dry lips.

  “Forgive me, Pilot,” he murmured, and felt himself flush when she glanced at him.

  “What’s on your mind?” she asked easily, giving no sign of noticing his discomfort.

  “I wonder—your face, and—your hands. How is that they are healed?”

  “One of Jela’s friends stopped by last night and did me the favor,” she answered, and gave him another casual glance from green eyes. “Last I saw him, he was set to call on the scholar and yourself.”

  “You will mean Rool Tiazan,” he said, around a feeling of relief. “He represented himself as an ally to Captain Jela.” He bit his lip. “Are you easy with this person, Pilot?”

  “Not to say easy,” she answered after a moment. “Takes some getting used to, does Rool Tiazan. Don’t care for doors—” another quick green glance— “which may be what’s bothered you, Pilot?” She used her chin to point to the left. “That’s our road, I think.”

  “There were,” he pursued, turning his steps to match hers, and dodging ‘round a floater piled high with expensive luggage, “several things which were worrisome. The first was, as you say, the matter of not entering by the door. He—you will think I refine too much on it, perhaps, but—he seemed to know me on sight, Pilot, though he addressed me as ‘housefather.’”

  “Right. Calls me ‘lady,’ in case you’ve taste for irony, Pilot. Doubtless it amuses him, and does me—nor you—no harm. How’d the old gentleman take him?”

  “Well,” he answered, and sighed to hear how bitter voice was. “Very well,” he said again, trying for a more moderate tone. “They were at work together through the night, and still in deep converse when I rose to keep my appointment with Arin. Lucky also seems favorably impressed,” he added after a moment, recalling again, and with a pang, the sight of the cat curled tight on Rool Tiazan’s knees.

  “Sounds like all’s in hand, then. Wink an eye at his oddity, is what I advise, Pilot.”

  Yes, well. “But—” he said, as the military shuttle hove into view— “what is he? Rool Tiazan?”

  Pilot Cantra didn’t answer immediately, and when she did, it was slow, as if she was feeling her way toward an answer.

  “Calls himself a dramliza. What that means in practical terms—which is what you an’ me need to think in, Pilot—is that he was a soldier for the Enemy. Him and some of his, though, they deserted, for reasons that seemed good to them. Rool Tiazan and his-lady-that-was, they offered themselves as allies to Jela, who thought it would be of benefit.” She sent him another quick glance, and sighed. “It was by way of serving the interests of that alliance that Scholar dea’Syl was brought out of Osabei and given to Wellik for safekeeping.”

  “He offered the scholar aid. He said that he was—an expert on energy states.”

  “That he may well be,” Pilot Cantra said judiciously, and gave the guard at the shuttle door a friendly nod. “I’m Cantra yos’Phelium, heir to M. Jela Granthor’s Guard. I’d like to go up and inspect my ship, if there’s a shuttle to be had.”

  The guard frowned down at her, his facial tattoos gaudy in the pale morning light. “What ship?” he rumbled, deep in his chest.

  “That’d be Salkithin,” she said composedly.

  “Would it. And who’s with you?”

  “Tor An yos’Galan,” she answered, and if her heart quailed under the X Strain’s stare, as his did, no hint of it was apparent on her face. “My co-pilot.”

  The guard jerked his chin, toggling the comm, muttered, hit the toggle again, and stepped back.

  From inside the ship came another X Strain, this one with lieutenant’s chops on her sleeve. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down the ramp at Pilot Cantra and himself.

  “Jela’s heir, is it?”

  Pilot Cantra bowed, brief and ironic; the lieutenant grinned, broadly.

  “Ilneri’s going to be real happy with you,” she said, in a voice that Tor An thought did not bode well for the coming ship’s inspection, and stood aside, sweeping an exaggerated bow.

  “Please, pilots, enter my humble shuttle. I hope you’re in a hurry.”

  THE LINES LAY thick about them, red-gold and vital, spilling energy enough to conceal one wary, weary dramliza, and the essence of an ancient human. The ssussdriad was also with them; its regard lying so gently amongst the lines that Rool could scarcely discern it.

  The ssussdriad was the best husband of itself, as it had proven, many times. That which was on the physical plane Liad dea’Syl burned with a hunger for knowledge so bright that lesser urges—such as survival—paled beside it. The scholar was a danger to himself in this place, and a danger thereby to all that was.

  Rool held the scholar’s precious essence furled in green-and-ebon wings, both shielding it and directing its attention—out, to that far yet too near space where the Iloheen worked their changes.

  The process approaches critical mass, he sent gently. Observe.

  It was a small thing to observe, even from this level. Merely, a Shadow fell across lines, stars and lives, replacing all with—nothing.

  The lines stretched, then parted with a sob; the stars screamed as they were extinguished, the lives they had engendered gone before they realized the danger. The anguish of unmaking struck Rool at the core, and from the one he protected came a gasp, a wail—and an ominous wavering among his energies.

  You have seen enough, he sent, and received no protest. The ssussdriad had already departed. Rool folded his wings and followed.

  AS IT HAPPENED, Sergeant Ilneri had been happy to see them, after a period of attitude adjustment which hadn’t maybe been all that good on the boy’s nerves. Test passed, though, the rest of the crew had been pleased to see them, too, and nothing would do except they show off every cranny and cubby of proud Salkithin, talking twelve qwint to a flan about Jela.

  Happened this particular crew’d been Jela’s own from when Salkithin had been put to sleep, six Common Years ago and a bit. It were a mixed crew—three X Strains, two Ms, a Y and Ilneri, who was, as far as Cantra could make it, a natural human—and they all had something to tell about the “little Captain.”

  There was the time Jela and two others had come down late from the work, and were set on by a gang of what passed for toughs on Solcintra. And the time that Stile—one of the Xs—the time that Captain Jela had talked Wellik out of slamming Stile into detention for—well, it didn’t exactly matter for what—saying he needed her on the roster or the work would fall behind. And the next day, didn’t the captain put her up against the wall hard and let her know he didn’t tolerate stupidity in his crew, and if there was any additional slippage, detention was going to look damn’ soft . . .

  “There were some of the troop,” Vachik, the second and most talkative of the X Strains, told them, “some of them thought to taunt us with our captain, and called us ‘Jela’s Troop,’ like it was less than soldier’s honor to take his orders.”

  “They learned better,” Ilneri said, with a wide, wolfish grin. “And we’re still Jela’s Troop.”

  And so, what with one thing and a tale, it was deep into Solcintra nighttime when the shuttle settled back into its cradle at the port and her and the boy and Ilneri and Stile strolled down the ramp.

  “Missed the party,” the night guard told them, jovially. “Damn’ near had us a genuine riot to quell.”

  Ilneri frowned and looked around, and Cantra did, too, seeing only a peaceful backwater port about its lawful evening bidness, saving a broken window or six, and some extra trash on the street.

  “What happened?” the good sergeant asked, in a tone that conveyed it would go bad if the guard was indulging himself with a short round of leg pulling.

  “Service Families finally figured it out,” the guard answered, clearly disinterested in the why. “Wellik’s got the speakers-for with him now. Got the word from the gate there’s a crowd waiti
ng for them to come out, but everybody’s staying peaceful. So far.”

  “All right, then.” Ilneri looked over his shoulder. “Stay close, Pilots.”

  “Right you are,” Cantra assured him with a grin. Ilneri laughed.

  “B’gods, I can see why Jela liked you, Pilot. But—mind me, now: stay close.” He turned a stern eye on the boy. “You’re her co-pilot; make it so.”

  “I am certain that the pilot will not put herself in danger,” Tor An said, straight-faced and earnest, and for all Cantra could tell, believing it as he spoke it.

  Ilneri nodded, directed Stile to bring up the rear and the four of them moved on, the sergeant a bit ahead and concentrating on shadows. Cantra kept pace with the boy, and a watchful eye out.

  “What,” Tor An asked, for her ear only, “did the Service Families figure out, Pilot?”

  She sighed. “The man I was drinking with yesterday, before things went and got interesting, had it that the High Families were vacating the premises, which was what all the extra shipping—including that liner—was up to.”

  He turned wide, shocked eyes on her, like this was the first story he’d ever heard when them what had took advantage over them what didn’t.

  “They removed to safety and left the Service—but no!” He frowned. “That cannot be possible. The High Families—you understand, Pilot, that they govern. The Service Families—they do everything that is needful. They—they cannot have—”

  “Thought it through, sounds like,” Cantra agreed. She put a soft hand on the boy’s sleeve. “Listen. You hear that crowd breathing?”

  He tipped his head, holding his own breath, until— “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s close it up with Ilneri, Pilot. We want to pass through this quick as we can.”

  He didn’t argue, nor did Stile object to coming up tighter, as they rounded the corner and saw the crowd before the gate.

  Hundreds—maybe thousands, Cantra thought, standing still and watchful in the searchlights from the garrison. There were soldiers deployed, long arms on display and combat shields down over their faces, keeping the road to the gate clear. The tension rising up off the crowd was enough to make a pilot’s ears ring and the heart squeeze a little in her chest, despite everything being peaceful.