She nodded, trying to smile, to hide her racing thoughts. She could not let him use this gift only for his own advantage, to consolidate his power—not at this time of danger for her people. There will be no end to it. He sees this ship as a key. And keys belong in the First Citizen’s hands.
As the private door closed behind Hiso, her smile faded.
Perhaps there was still hope.
Perhaps, against all odds—against Hiso himself—she could still save her people.
SEVEN
In the private bath of Tereu’s guest quarters, Linnea dried herself off after her shower, luxuriating in the feeling of complete cleanness, the softness of the rug against her bare feet, the deep, complete warmth that relaxed her body, muscle and bone. She hoped Iain felt as good as she did today. He still showed some signs of their long ordeal in otherspace.
They’d had two days of quiet rest in this comfortable suite, part of Tereu’s residence. Then, this morning, they’d received a handwritten note from Tereu, inviting them to join her in the reception parlor where they’d first spoken together. Inviting them to meet, as Tereu put it, a man of importance.
That sounded promising to Linnea: an end to these imposed days of rest and recovery in a suite that was surely monitored, where she and Iain could discuss their situation elliptically or not at all. Enough.
Linnea combed her damp hair smooth. She and Iain understood each other, with no need for words: Finding Linnea’s ship, regaining control of it, was vital. That ship was their hope of freedom and, eventually, return home to the Hidden Worlds. From what Linnea had been able to gather, no ship in this system would be capable of so long a jump.
Yet these two days had been good. Needed. Apparently following unalterable custom, Tereu had left the two of them to rest, alone and undisturbed except for a medical attendant, who checked them in the mornings and evenings. A silent servingman brought them simple but exquisite meals: fresh fruits and vegetables, beautifully cooked fish, small loaves of soft bread. Linnea watched for a blue flower, or the image of one; but none appeared in their rooms, on their meal trays, or anywhere else. Here in Tereu’s house, Linnea guessed, they were well protected from anyone who might try to get a message to them. And it was clear that the nurse, at least, thought that Tereu would wish to prevent it.
But yesterday afternoon the medical attendant had removed their IVs and pronounced them recovered—and now, today, Linnea could hope for answers, from Tereu or from this “man of importance.” Linnea stretched luxuriously, enjoying the feeling of freedom, and picked up a white robe from the back of a chair. The soft, light material caressed her shoulders as she put it on.
Linnea left her bath and passed into the softly lit bedroom beyond. The familiar scent of coffee met her—a tray stood on the table with a shining thermal container and a beautiful arrangement of sliced fruit and bread.
But something else caught her attention. She grinned.
Iain sat naked on the edge of their bed, trying to comb some oil through his long, damp hair. She stood for a moment in the shadows, studying him. His unhealthy thinness would pass, but despite it she still liked the strong line of his body, the way the muscles moved under his skin, the poised angle of his head, his intent focus as he tried to work the comb through the end of the long black hank in his hand.
“Let me,” she said softly.
He looked up, and his eyes lit at the sight of her. “That’s not your job. Not anymore.”
“I always liked this part of it,” she said, taking the comb from his hand and sinking down beside him. “And so did you.” She pushed at his shoulder. “Turn your back so I can work. And sit straight. No, don’t turn your head.”
“But I like to look at you,” he said.
She tugged at his hair. “No arguments, Pilot.”
Her practiced hands worked the comb firmly but gently through his hair, spreading the thin, scentless oil. When she had combed the tangles to smooth black silk from the crown of his head to the ends, she set the comb aside. But instead of gathering the hair up to braid it, she pushed it aside—kissed the side of his neck, the warm strong pulse there, tasting the clean, familiar scent of his skin.
He arched his back. “We’ll be late for our meeting,” he muttered. Eyes watching, she knew he was thinking.
“Then we’ll be late.” Let them watch. It didn’t matter. How many more days of peace would she and Iain ever have together? Each one could be the last.
She smiled, climbed lightly onto Iain’s lap facing him, kissed his ear, and laughed, deep in her throat, at the way his breath caught, and the sudden strength of his hold on her, his hands sliding down to grip her hips. “Remind me how this works,” she said.
“You just have to—” His breath caught again, and he bit his lower lip. “Oh. You remember.”
It was easy in the light gravity to wrap her legs around his body, easy to fit herself against him and kiss him as he began to move inside her. “You remember, too,” she said on a gasping breath, and then for a long time there were no words.
They were indeed late. But as Linnea and Iain entered Tereu’s reception parlor, Tereu and her companion, a gray-haired, upright man with a neatly trimmed beard, showed no concern; they turned, smiling, from the hearth to greet their guests.
Tereu said, “Pilot sen Paolo, Pilot Kiaho, I am honored to present to you my consort and the First Pilot for Triton, Kimura Hiso.” She turned to Hiso and set her right hand on his arm, a precise and formal gesture, and continued. “Hiso, please welcome the pilot sen Paolo Iain and the pilot Kiaho Linnea.”
“You delight me as always, Perrin Tereu,” Hiso said. He turned to Linnea. “As does the prospect of acquaintance with so intrepid a pair of pilots.”
Smooth words. But sharp eyes. Linnea nodded politely. She did not need to glance at Iain to sense that he shared her wariness. Sparring with this man for information would be no easy game. Linnea had seen already that the rules and protocols binding this world to order were easily a match for the rules and protocols of the Line.
Familiar territory for Iain. But for her, a battlefield, and a dangerous one.
She watched as Hiso studied them both, his glance flicking over their fine borrowed clothes. The long black sleeveless dress Tereu had provided for Linnea clung to her body in a way that made her nervous, after years of living and working in rough coveralls or sensible tunics and trousers, years of never thinking about how she looked as long as she was clean. Judging from Hiso’s smile, Linnea’s appearance pleased him; perhaps an advantage, though of a sort she had little experience in using. That had been a lesson from Nexus—one she’d deliberately forgotten long ago.
Tereu waved Iain and Linnea into chairs and served tea before speaking of business. This time the tea was mildly warm, milky, and sweet. Hiso refused a chair and drank his tea standing. No doubt, in this world of tall, long-boned people, he sought what advantage he could. He kept his focus on Linnea. “So,” he said. “Tereu and I are all eagerness to hear what you can tell us of the Hidden Worlds. Did they prosper after their founding?”
Last night she and Iain had settled, in whispered words that would have made little sense to an outsider, exactly how much they would say this morning. “They prospered for the most part,” Linnea said. “Most are self-sufficient; some are net exporters. But some worlds have struggled to survive.”
Hiso tilted his head, his expression politely regretful. “The war?”
“An older problem than that,” Linnea said. “Poverty of resources. . . . The Cold Minds have done serious harm to few of our worlds as yet.”
“But they have to some,” Tereu said. It was not a question. At Linnea’s glance, she added dryly, “We have some familiarity with their methods.”
“We have suffered some losses, yes.” Two worlds—Nexus contaminated beyond recovery, and before that, Freija destroyed utterly. Linnea did not fully understand Iain’s insistence that these disasters not be mentioned, but she kept to the plan. “Losses of property and people
.”
“You’ve lost people to the Cold Minds?” Hiso asked, his voice full of quiet sympathy. “To infestation? Or were they killed?”
“Both,” Iain said. Linnea sensed the disquiet he was struggling to hide. “We’re fighting a defensive war, against infiltration. We don’t know where the Cold Minds will turn up next.”
“But you appear to have defended yourself effectively, if you’re still fighting after several years,” Hiso said with a bleak smile. “Earth fell in forty-seven days, between the first open rising and the last clean ship to launch.”
“I know,” Iain said quietly. “We haven’t forgotten.”
“We’ve been lucky,” Linnea said. “We’re mobilizing, finding and training new pilots, building ships as fast as we can, while we can.”
Hiso looked at her with frank admiration, and she flushed. “I understand,” Hiso said. “You’ve set orbital patrols, no doubt? And of course you would destroy any unauthorized ship that reaches ground.” He sipped his tea. “It will work for a while, until the Cold Minds’ numbers increase.”
“I would be interested in understanding your own defensive measures,” Iain said. “Whether perhaps you could offer any suggestions, any new tactics. . . .”
Hiso set down his tea, and Linnea saw his mouth tighten. When he looked up at Iain, his eyes were strangely bright. Tears? He said, “We do as you have done. I lead a flight of three wings—forty-two jumpships and numerous conventional orbital vessels. We fly orbital patrols. We fight. Some of us die. Some die who should not.” His voice was husky. “But the thought of our people sustains our courage. As I’m sure it does your own.”
Linnea caught Iain’s eye, then looked away. She knew he was sharing her thought: This could not be all of the truth; a force like that could not hold off the full power of the Cold Minds for six days, let alone six centuries.
But judging from Hiso’s polished words, and his easy bid for sympathy, they would not startle any new information from him, at least not yet. He was giving with one hand and withholding with the other—as anyone would do, early in a game like this one.
“The key, of course,” Hiso said, “is to keep them from gaining a foothold in-system. Too late for us, of course, but fortunately, there’s little to tempt them to come out this far. You have—how many entire systems to defend?”
Linnea ignored his question. “You’re right, of course—our main objective is to prevent them from planting a base anywhere and easily increasing their numbers.”
Hiso hesitated, then said, “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “It delights me that this effort has met with enough success to permit the Hidden Worlds to send a ship and two pilots far from your war, all the way to ours. To charm us with your company.”
“We are equally delighted, of course,” Iain said calmly.
Hiso shrugged with one shoulder. “May I ask—why have you come? Pilot Kiaho, from the reports I have been given by my orbital patrolmen, your words when you first arrived were—confused.”
Linnea looked down at her pouch of tea, then up into Hiso’s eyes. She and Iain had agreed last night that their mission must appear to be official, sanctioned by the government of the Hidden Worlds. This would give Iain and Linnea some level of immunity, assuming the customs here were anything like those of Earth or the Hidden Worlds. Iain had not wanted to tell their hosts anything else at all.
But Linnea’s determination had not changed: She must tell the truth about what had first called them here. “We came because you called me,” she said quietly. “Someone here did. A pilot, because it was in otherspace that I sensed it. Again and again, on many jumps, stronger every time. No words, but images of Earth as it once was. And a feeling that time was running out.”
She saw Hiso and Tereu exchange a glance. Hiso coughed and said, “Sometimes, during training or even after, younger jump pilots begin to receive . . . emotional impressions while in otherspace. And it soon becomes evident that these are related to—weaknesses in the mind of the pilot. I’m sorry to be blunt.”
“I know that,” Linnea said firmly. “I’ve trained more than a hundred young pilots myself. This was different. I received an image of a jump point—a real one. That image brought us here.” She described it: Neptune, the stars.
Hiso laced his fingers together, shook his head. “If anyone less distinguished, less courageous had told me this tale—if I did not already know that you had in fact achieved this journey—well, I would call it very strange.”
He hints that I’m lying. “And yet we arrived. A dream, a hallucination, could not have brought us here safely.”
“Did the Line preserve no records of the jump points for Earth?”
The answer to this would have to come from Iain. But he said only, “I was young when the Line exiled me. There are inner secrets of the Line that hadn’t yet been revealed to me. If those records existed, I never knew it.”
Linnea took a breath. “First Pilot Kimura—”
“Hiso, please,” Hiso said with a brief smile.
“Do you know who summoned me? And how?”
She saw Hiso and Tereu exchange an opaque glance. Then Hiso said, “No. We know nothing about this. It has never been possible to communicate through otherspace. From one ship to another!”
“And yet—” Iain said. He turned both hands palm up.
Hiso nodded impatiently. “And yet, here you are. We must find the pilot who sent you the jump point—find out who has developed this capability.”
“Some one of your own pilots,” Iain said.
“I suspect not,” Hiso said frankly. “There are—other inhabited places in the Earth system. A few jump pilots who are not under my command. Perhaps it was one of them. Tereu has—connections with some of those people, and I will request that she pursue that question.”
Linnea had no trouble guessing Hiso’s thoughts: If this is real, it’s a weapon. And he would want it for his own pilots. Controlled, refined, made to carry words or commands, it would give an advantage against the Cold Minds; multiple ships could maneuver together in otherspace, perhaps, or carry out a coordinated attack—things that had never been possible before. She guessed from Iain’s troubled expression that this realization was just now coming to him. He had resisted the idea that such communication was even possible for so long that he’d never thought it through.
Well, she had. “I believe that we would all benefit from an exchange of ideas,” she said. “A discussion of tactics that have served us both.” She kept her voice neutral, her expression noncommittal, but she watched Hiso carefully. “We’ve had some success in our skirmishes with the Cold Minds. And you—your people have survived in this system for a very long time.”
Linnea saw Hiso’s face smooth out under bland self-control. “You may not yet grasp our great distance from the sun, Pilot Kiaho. There’s little energy here for the Cold Minds to exploit; the solar flux is a thousandth of what it is at Earth. We have no resources the Cold Minds can’t obtain more easily in the warm inner worlds—which they utterly control.”
Linnea studied Hiso. There is definitely something you don’t want to tell us, my brother pilot.
But she took her cue from Iain’s restraint. Don’t push. Not yet. For a wild moment she considered asking Tereu about blue flowers. But no, she would dance this dance, follow Iain’s lead; these people were much more his than hers. She smiled pleasantly at Hiso. “Iain and I look forward to learning more about your achievements here.”
She was watching, and she saw Hiso’s bland mask slip, revealing a flicker of anger, gone almost at once. And at the same moment, beyond Hiso, she saw that Tereu, too, was watching him—and her eyes showed a deep wariness.
Linnea smiled at Hiso. So you are dangerous.
Well, brother, so am I.
After Hiso had departed with another exchange of courtesies and assurances, two of Tereu’s staff of scholars—a man and a woman, both gray-haired and black-clad—conducted Iain and Linnea on what was to b
e a brief tour of the Triton outpost. Tereu waved them all off with a smile; apparently she had no intention of leaving her comfortable seclusion to continue as their guide and host. After the first few minutes with the scholars, Linnea began to understand why.
They went on foot—trailed at a distance by two of Tereu’s men—through the little park that surrounded the residence, then along a high-arched main corridor. This one was walled with gleaming polished metal, lined with the ever-present stunted trees in pots, set meticulously every ten meters along each wall.
“This is spacious,” Iain said.
“The city has grown over the centuries,” the woman, Cleopa, said with clear pride. “Do you know, Pilot sen Paolo—one can walk three kilometers without ever passing through the same corridor twice?”
Iain shook his head as if in amazement.
“There are slideways,” Cleopa said, “and a few dedicated shafts with shuttle cars; but in general, you see, our design encourages regular exercise.”
“And yet no one seems to be out walking,” Linnea said. This was a radial corridor, leading straight out from Tereu’s residence at the center of the city, and Linnea could see far ahead: The wide corridor was empty. She’d lived on orbital stations. There, people were everywhere, pursuing their work, their leisure, their business, the corridors always crowded. Yet here the four of them walked in a shell of emptiness. Much like the one in which Tereu lived, Linnea reflected—in her small, perfect residence in its domed circle of garden. “Is there any public gathering place we could visit?” Linnea asked. “Maybe a market?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Pilot Kiaho.” The gray-haired man who had called himself Scholar Natan smiled thinly. “There are no scheduled gatherings for sport today, and as for markets—we distribute goods rationally here, you see. We have no need to buy and sell among ourselves.”
“No, not among ourselves,” Cleopa said. She had fallen into step beside Linnea. “But there is always the deepsiders’ market—”
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