The signal station loomed large before her, an alabaster cylinder rising over a walled courtyard. Railed perches on the tower’s upper level looked out in all directions, with the all-important grid of fireglobes sitting on stanchions above the eastern balcony. Dismounting outside the wall, Quarra found a post and tied up the muntok.
“Fog’s rolling in,” said a gap-toothed Keshiri male in his sixties as he opened the gate. “Could be a storm.”
Quarra blanched upon seeing him. Tiny growths of waxy hair terminated in comical points behind his ears, and the buttons of his uniform struggled to restrain his gut. “You’re not Jogan Halder?”
“Mercy, no,” her greeter said. “He’s in the tower. I work with him.”
Inwardly, Quarra breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re the thoughtcrier?”
I am, he said through the Force. And you?
Quarra closed her eyes and sent a telepathic response in the affirmative. She reopened her eyes quickly, to see the old Keshiri smiling.
“Nice to meet another who has the gift,” he said. “But I barely heard you. You tired?”
“Been a long ride.” Quarra tensed up. It had been a long time since she’d been called upon to use the Force in her job. Lately, she’d only used it to amuse her kids, and to see if they possessed her rare talents. That was out of simple maternal curiosity; the Induction Board would eventually discover for sure which children had the talent.
Heaving her duffel bag off the muntok’s back, Quarra turned and proffered her document pouch. “You want to see these?”
“No need,” he said jovially. “Our friends at the fort wouldn’t have let you get this far otherwise.” He stepped out, bearing luggage. “If things go as usual, they’ll frisk me for an hour at every gate. Better go now, before the officers’ club closes.”
Exhaling, Quarra placed the documents back inside her waistcoat. Bag in hand, she waved to the thoughtcrier and shut the gate behind her. She was here—and inside.
Tentatively, she crossed the lawn to the open door of the tower. She heard singing within, echoing up through the massive stone cylinder. Clutching her duffel tightly by the string handle, Quarra stepped inside and tilted her head. Wooden stairs spiraled up, nearly out of sight. The wood grain of the steps didn’t match, evidently having been replaced many times in the station’s life. But someone had started painting them in gradually changing hues, creating the effect of a twirling rainbow.
Around the circular room, she saw doorways connecting to the rest of the complex. She could smell something was cooking in a small kitchen; two open doors led to sparsely furnished bedrooms, side by side. And a final passage led downstairs—to the singing.
“Hup, harroo, for a life with you!” called a baritone voice, growing louder. “The sea’s my home and though I roam I’ll always stay—”
“True?” Quarra stood before the door. “I haven’t heard that one.”
“Sailor’s song. We get them here,” the short-haired Keshiri said, his meaty arms laden with bound volumes of parchment. “You’re Quarra?”
“Guilty.” She dropped the duffel with a thud. “Can I help you with those?”
“No problem,” he said, stepping past. Skin a robust mauve, with a closely shaved patch of silvery beard, the uniformed man was twice her weight and in incredible shape.
And he’s my age? He must run up and down these stairs a lot.
“Sorry I wasn’t there to greet you,” he said, setting the monstrous pile of books on a rickety table. “I was down in the library, in case you were late. I like to read while I eat.” He stepped through a stone archway and found a glass pot simmering over spent coals. “Stew’s always on here. Something to eat?”
“I’m fine,” she said, leaning in the doorway. “You’re—”
“Oh,” he said, dropping the spoon and wiping his hands. “Sorry. Jogan Halder.” He shook her hand. “No big-city manners out here.”
“It’s okay,” Quarra said, smiling in spite of herself as she felt his firm grip. Suddenly self-conscious, she drew her hand back. “You have a library here?”
“Such as it is!” Jogan smiled, leading her out. “I get to Garrow’s Neck on leave, and sometimes travelers leave things there to read. Not much to do here.” He pointed up to where the painted steps ended. “Sometimes one of the other signal stations will send news when there’s no other traffic. But it’s a slow way to read.”
Quarra knew what he meant. Her conversations with Jogan had started three years earlier during a routine visit to Kerebba, a military supply center upstream on one of the canals that emptied into one of the bays defined by the Six Claws. She’d spoken to a cousin there who’d saved months of tales of the frontier transmitted to her by a signal officer in his off-duty hours. Quarra had read the collection thoroughly, enchanted by the author’s wordplay and honest, bruising appraisal of life at the edge of civilization. When her cousin was reassigned, Quarra had sent a message through the signal station at Uhrar introducing herself.
What had followed had transformed her life. More than a thousand messages had passed between Jogan and Quarra. Mostly arriving overnight, his dispatches had awaited her when she reached her office each morning. She soon began carrying them with her throughout her rounds, leafing secretly through them to get through the drudgery of her days. Pointless distribution meetings became opportunities for her to brainstorm the responses she sent him before going home. She had struggled to make her own life sound exciting; eventually, as trust grew, she shared her feelings about her job and household. She was thankful her access to the semaphore system was limited, lest her ranting grow unbearable. But Jogan had always been understanding, taking his long nights to craft thoughtful and eloquent responses.
And now she was here, in his element. She’d imagined him many times, in his fog-enshrouded outpost on the edge of the safe world. He wasn’t a disappointment—and he definitely seemed to be paying attention to her. Spying the coatrack, she removed her overcoat to reveal her dress uniform. It was necessary for her travels, but she’d left the decorations in her desk at work. She felt awkward enough without visibly outranking him in their first meeting.
“You met Belmer on the way out?”
“I did,” Quarra said. She chuckled. “I was afraid he was you.”
“No, but I do send romantic messages out for him under my name.” He laughed. “Just kidding. Belmer’s loves are all fermented.”
“Not exactly what you want in a thoughtcrier at the front, is it?”
“He doesn’t drink on duty, of course.” He reached for her duffel bag. “Let me take that.” She watched with anticipation as he placed it between the doors to the two bedchambers, almost the baggage-handling equivalent of a wink. They hadn’t spoken in specifics about sleeping arrangements for the week of her visit—that would be too premeditated. It had been more fun to wonder.
“Forgive the look of the place. We’re at the end of the inspection route, and with old bachelors, you can imagine …”
“I have three kids. You should see my place when my husband’s away at work too long,” she said, immediately regretting it.
“Your husband—Brue, isn’t it? How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine,” Quarra said, sorry she had ever invoked him. Stupid, stupid! Her eyes darted to the side. “How about that tour you promised me?”
“Happy to show you around, though there’s not much to see,” Jogan said. “But first things first, Quarra. Come along.”
Seeing him beckon for her to follow, Quarra hesitated before realizing what he had in mind. Embarrassed at where her thoughts had gone, she followed him up the spiral staircase to the signal tower. She shook her head as she climbed and wondered about her mental stability.
I haven’t been fourteen in thirty years! What in blazes is wrong with me?
2
“Here’s where the magic happens,” Jogan said, helping her into the belfry. “What there is of it.”
Just inside the doorwa
y facing west, a wooden stand held cylinders of various sizes. Each drum had several slate-covered wheels oriented around a central dowel, with lines dividing the circumference of each wheel into equal parts. Jogan selected one of the medium-sized drums and snapped it crossways into a holder on his workbench. With a swiftness born from routine, he scrawled a message in chalk across the cylinder, one character in each box, turning the entire drum as he reached the end of each line. Finishing, he pulled a small locking rod free from the cylinder, causing the letter-wheels to rotate freely. Having reset the positions of the wheels at random, he replaced the locking rod and recorded a ten-digit number reflecting the new positions of the tumblers.
“No big cipher for this one,” he said. Unplugging the cylinder from his workstation, he stepped out onto the eastern balcony. By the parapet stood the frame holding the massive fireglobe grid, all but one of its orbs cycled inward toward their bushings—the “off” position. “You might want to shield your eyes,” he said.
Quarra lingered in the doorway and watched Jogan work the signal device. Cycling pulleys, he brought the grid to blazing life. One orange light flashed and then another, beaming far into the deepening darkness of the east. The alert signal sent, Jogan’s hands darted from one control to another, opening and shuttering lights of burning white, gold, orange, and green. She’d learned what they meant once; it had been part of her basic training back home. But only an expert could send signals as fast as an experienced Alanciar semaphore operator. It took Jogan all of five seconds to send the destination code and begin transmitting his missive.
“You’re good.”
“Practice,” he said, barely looking at the drum with the scrambled text for reference. “It’s an awful lot of work just to say that Belmer Kattun has headed off to sleep on the floor of a tavern for a week, and that his relief has arrived.”
“You’re not using my name?”
“No need,” Jogan said, smiling at her even as his hands continued to work the device. “You’re one more anonymous warrior for the Great Cause.”
We may have a different Great Cause this weekend, she said to herself, hoping her blush wouldn’t be noticed in the glare.
Turning back inside, shielded from the searing flashes, she studied the lonely room. What with spotters, signalers, and transcriptionists, most inland signal stations had no fewer than four workers. And many had more, handling traffic in more than one direction. What had begun as an early warning system had become the logistical backbone of the state, conveying everything from weather reports to shipping updates. As decades passed without the expected foe arriving, many in authority had started using the network for personal messages, like those that had passed between her and Jogan. The network had been one of the greatest developments of modern times, but it was under ever more stress, and she expected that any minute the War Cabinet would clamp down.
That’s fine, she thought. I’m here now.
“Where does the thoughtcrier work?” she asked.
“Sometimes here. Sometimes on the balcony, or in the yard,” Jogan said, returning from outside. The message finished, he wiped the cylinder clean with a damp cloth. “There’s a meditation room downstairs with some privacy, but it doesn’t seem to matter to you folks.”
“Right,” she said, remembering. “You can’t use the Force.”
“I like my way of sending messages just fine.” He pointed to the door beside him. “Sunset?”
Somehow, Quarra found herself on the western balcony, high above the thunderous surf. Life was moving without her, now. She wasn’t making decisions anymore, not consciously. Out there, as promised, an orange blaze appeared between the low clouds and the horizon.
“The Coral Banks to the south are even nicer. We’ve got a rowboat—maybe in the morning, you can see.” Jogan appeared next to her holding a bottle and a glass. “From Belmer’s stash.”
He poured for her. “Sorry, there’s only one glass. Belmer drinks from the bottle.” Winking, he did just that.
“So this is what you guys do,” she said. “You sit out here all year, drinking—”
“And writing to married women.”
“—drinking and writing to married women, all while the Great Enemy lurks over the waves.” She sipped and smiled. “I’m a wardmaster, you know. I could report this.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
The sun vanished, and the carpet of clouds erased the remaining sky. Feeling the wind pick up, she sidled closer to the railing where he drank. “You never married?”
“No, and you know this,” he said. “We covered that in message two.”
Quarra chuckled. Her marital status had been introduced only in message twelve. “I suppose it’s hard to think about having a family at the end of the line.”
“The End of the Line,” Jogan said, turning to look at the ocean. “I like it.”
“Sorry—did that offend you?”
“Nothing inferior about being here. This is the front,” he said. Grasping her shoulder, he turned her and pointed. “See that buoy out there? That’s the direction the Herald came from, two thousand years ago. Somewhere behind it is the greatest evil Kesh has ever seen. The devil we know. Now, I could be stationed inland, passing along other people’s mundane messages—or I could be here, telling the world every night that everything is still all right.”
“Profound,” she said, finishing her drink. She set the glass on the ledge. “You wrote me that once.” Several times, she recalled. “That’s a good reason to be here.”
He nodded. “Now,” he said, setting down the bottle, “why are you here?”
Quarra laughed. “I was drafted, like everyone else!”
“That’s not it.” He turned her away from the view and looked at her with dark, earnest eyes. “What are you doing here?”
She stammered, taken aback by the change in his tone. “What—what do you mean?”
“I mean a woman in your position has better things to do than come out and jaw with a lifer in the Signal Corps.”
“I wanted to see the ocean?”
He smiled—but did not laugh.
She exhaled and said the name. “Brue.”
“Brue. What does your husband do again? Something with the Training Directorate, I thought.”
“He teaches glassblowing to the elderly.”
“Well, that’s …”
Quarra looked away as Jogan stopped to recompose his words. “I’m sure he gets a lot out of working with them,” he finished.
“Do headaches count?” Quarra smiled weakly. “Brue hates every minute of it. They’re veterans, and while they’ve all been retired, they still have to do something for the Cause, like we all do. So these cranky people are on the factory line and every single one thinks they outrank him. Which they might not, if Brue had any rank at all …” Quarra’s voice trailed off.
“Still, he’s putting people to use. All we can do, no?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Or yes. It might be all he can do—but he’ll never know because he doesn’t try. Brue’s a good father for the kids, and he’s made a decent home in spite of me being busy—”
“But he’s not the man you married anymore.”
“Actually, he is. That’s the problem. In twenty years I’ve gone from supply clerk to thoughtcrier to materials supervisor to wardmaster. Successful wardmasters become mayors. I always end up hating my job, too, but every time, I find a path to something better. But Brue can’t find the nerve to tell off an old fossil whose authority ended before the Ancient Cataclysm!”
Quarra caught her breath. It was like her messages, but this time there wasn’t a word limit to stop her. She hadn’t wanted to do this, hadn’t wanted to complain about Brue. It wasn’t fair to him, wasn’t what she’d come here to do.
What had she come here to do?
“You know,” Jogan said, “it’s not so bad if he’s got the right attitude. Nothing much happens here, but there’s something about being
able to tell people things that I like. Every one of my reports from here—it’s a little story, if told a sentence at a—”
Jogan didn’t finish the sentence, because Quarra had decided what she had come there to do. He didn’t reject the kiss. Turning him so his back was against the balcony railing, she pressed against him and kissed harder. She felt overwhelming relief to be in this place, doing this, after so many months and so many words. They were done talking.
“Quarra.” The name was soft in the air. He pulled her tighter. She turned his head to brush his cheek with her lips, and opened her eyes to the ocean—
—and saw the giant flying blob, emerging from the fog.
“Jogan!”
The man looked at her in panic, horrified that he’d crossed a line. Seeing her eyes, though, he turned to look in the same direction.
“What in blazes is that?”
The shadowy form became clearer as it approached. Paunchy and rounded, like a raised commissary biscuit—only gigantic, as tall as the signal tower itself. Fluorescent design work gave the shape a snarling, alien face. Something was suspended just beneath the mass: a railed deck, easily the size of one of the canal packet boats. And there was something to the body’s rear on either side, moving back and forth almost organically in the wind. Something was alive over there—Quarra could feel the stirring in the Force—but the overall structure was artificial.
It was an airship.
“There’s two of them,” she called, yanking at Jogan’s vest and pointing.
“No,” he yelled, pointing to the clouds just north of west. “Three!”
For a split second, they held each other again, stupefied, both looking out at the vessels. “What do we do?”
“What we’re supposed to do,” Jogan said. He released her and dashed back inside.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
“That should be an easy answer,” he said, grabbing a dust-covered drum sitting alone at the very top of the wooden stand. It was the first cylinder to be inscribed for transmission when the signal station opened, centuries earlier, and it bore only one word, unscrambled, with the source identifier for Point Defiance at the top.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories Page 23