"Now, then, do wee all-I-I know why wee're her-r-re?" Connolly asked, in a tone of obvious sarcasm. He looked from one to another with a gaze that seemed disapproving. Jael suddenly had a feeling that Kan-Kon and Connolly had been arguing.
Ar waited for Jael to answer, but when she didn't, he murmured, "Well, as I understand it, we're here to discuss terms for the purchase of a ship." He set his glowing eyes upon the silent ex-rigger. "Kan-Kon. Mr. Gonzoles. I am . . . surprised. I believe I speak for Jael, also."
There was an awkward pause. Kan-Kon suddenly looked up and grinned broadly. "Guess I never told you, when I quit riggin' I went into the shippin' business."
Ar shook his head, his lips crinkling ever so slightly. "I believe you omitted that fact. But then"—and he glanced at Jael—"I suppose we never asked, either."
Kan-Kon continued to grin. "But I tol' you I kep' my hand in."
Jael flushed. You did, she thought. And we never asked because we thought you were a hopeless drunk. We thought you slept in the street at night. Go ahead and say it, Ar, it's true.
"I reckon it's understand'ble," Kan-Kon admitted. "After all, I don't 'xactly—well—that is, I do have my problems. I'll be th' first to admit it. And I don't exactly run what you would call a high-class shippin' firm—do I, Herb?"
Jael found herself quaking with silent, astonished laughter. "You mean, this is—" Her voice failed, and she gestured around.
"My outfit, more 'r less, yep." Kan-Kon cackled suddenly. "Not that Herb here would let me brag much about my contribution to the day-t'-day operation—would you, Herb?"
Connolly steepled his fingers on the desk, looking long-suffering but near the end of his patience. "Eef I may say—weeth all respect—we do a profitabl-l-le enough business here. That is"—and his gaze darkened even further—"when we refr-r-rain from . . . unwise purchases."
Kan-Kon suddenly became serious. "Yep, we make a pretty good profit—thanks almost entirely to Herb Connolly, who don't drink near as much as I do. An' if he owned any more of the company, he'd prob'ly kick me out on my rear, an' I couldn't much blame him. And o'course, the whole place would fall apart without Mrs. Murdock—isn't that right, Mrs. M?" He glanced at the older woman, who merely sighed, shaking her head in disapproval.
"But you two don't give a dinglydamn about that. You need a ship. And mebbe I can help you." He paused, while Jael and Ar looked at each other and back at Kan-Kon, who grinned again. "Wouldn't you know, it happens that we've been known to buy a ship or two at auction. Thing is, right just now, we don't have the capital to buy your ship, Seneca, right out. But I thought just mebbe, if we put our heads together, we could become shared owners—Herb's quite proper reservations notwithstanding, you understand. Then you could take that flight you been dreamin' about to certain regions of the civilized realm." With a sidelong glance at Connolly, he winked at Jael. She could not help trembling with hope.
"Eef I may say—" Connolly interjected.
"No, Herb, you may not," Kan-Kon barked, with sudden vehemence.
Connolly stiffened. "I am onl-l-ly trying to prevent a terribl-l-e mistake. Do you know what it could cost you to—"
Kan-Kon shook his head. "Sorry, Herb. Yes, I do know. But this time I'm pullin' rank on you."
"Then perhaps-s-s you should theenk about finding another operations manager-r-r."
Kan-Kon sighed. "Herb, Herb—don't take this so personal, will you? You can go right back to runnin' the whole show and makin' us lots of money, just as soon as these folks is on their way."
Ar spoke before Connolly could reply. "May I ask . . . why . . . you're offering to do this? It's not that I'm unappreciative, but . . ."
Kan-Kon glanced at Connolly, who looked away—then suddenly leaned forward. For a moment, he seemed to be gathering some inner strength. He closed his eyes and said, "Yeah, I guess I can tell you. Or try, anyways." When he opened his eyes again, they were burning with intensity. "There was a time, once, when I didn't do somethin' I should've done." His voice caught. "When I ran . . . instead of standin' and doin' what a rigger might've done."
"You mean—" Jael began.
"I mean—I don't know what I coulda' done to save him, exactly, but I do know my partner's dead because I was too scared to try." Kan-Kon drew his lips together, touching his chin with one hand, looking as if he were thinking of something that he was afraid to speak of, even now. He shook his head slowly. "At least, I'm pretty sure he's dead. And if he's not . . . oh holies, I bet he wishes he were." Kan-Kon's breath whistled out in a nervous sigh, and his next words were whispered. "Because I know from what the iffs—ifflings—said, that there's somethin' dangerous out there. Somethin' mighty big, and dangerous, and growin', and—well, I guess you know it as well as I do, you told me about it yourself. You called it—what—?"
"Tar-skel," Jael whispered with a shudder.
"Right. And that's really, I figure, what got Hoddy. It scares me to think about it, even after seven years. But . . . mebbe I coulda done something about it then—for Hoddy, anyways—but I didn't. And mebbe now I got another chance."
Connolly looked disgusted. "Dangerous fantasies," he hissed. "You run from fantasies, and now you dreenk and you won't take the treatment for it because—"
"Not fantasies!" Kan-Kon shouted. "Real." His voice softened as he turned back to Jael and Ar. "Real. And maybe you two can do somethin' about it, in my place. Just maybe."
Ar stared at him for a few moments. "What exactly are you proposing?" he asked quietly. "Seneca goes up for auction day after tomorrow."
"Don't y'know." Kan-Kon drew himself up, and nodded as though dismissing his disagreement with Connolly. "But what 'f we paid off her refit bill? What if we stopped that old auction and bought her at a favored price from your old employer? You think he might go for that? Hell, at auction, he'd be lucky to cover his legal fees, anyway."
"She," Jael croaked.
"Beg your pardon. She. But she might jus' do better, and we might do better, if we cut a deal on that ship and get her off that auction block before she gets on. What do you say? Can you reach her?"
"She's on Vela Oasis," Ar said.
Kan-Kon frowned. "Long ways away. If we can't reach her, I don't know if we could do it. We could pay to spring the ship, but how do we know she'd honor the deal?"
"I'd trust her," Ar said slowly. "But it would be better to have confirmation, certainly."
Kan-Kon pointed to the com, finger tapping. "Fluxwave is as close as your phone," he said cheerily. "Class One 'gram, and you pay for it?"
Jael winced at the thought of the cost. But Class One was the surest way to get through. She swallowed and nodded to Ar. He stirred, but before reaching for the com, he asked one more question. "Exactly how much were you looking for us to invest?"
Kan-Kon whooped and grinned at his unhappy partner. "How much you got?"
* * *
Even after the answer came back from Flaire on Vela Oasis, approving the sale price, it was no easy matter to work out all of the details. Jael gratefully left most of that in Ar's hands while she completed her research on the fastest course from Cargeeling to the distant mountain realm.
When the dust had settled, Jael and Ar were listed as first and second in command, respectively. Kan-Kon, or rather, AAA Refitting and Resupply, Unlimited, was listed as minority shareholder. Kan-Kon could have demanded more, and they would have given it to him, but as he said, "Hell, you think I want it on my shippin' record that I ordered one of my ships to fly the mountain route? It's outta my hands—outta my hands. Just pay me my share o' the profits." There was some discussion about a cargo manifest for the trip—which might, after all, recover the costs of their voyage once they reached Lexis or another port. Jael was reluctant to take on the responsibility for a cargo, but they finally settled on a small manifest of surplus optronics parts that AAA had purchased at auction some time ago and had been unable to get rid of.
There was one more thing that seemed to be on Kan-Kon's min
d, but he seemed to be having trouble getting around to saying it. Jael thought perhaps she knew what it was. "Would you . . . Kan-Kon, are you changing your mind? Would you like to come with us?" She glanced at Ar, who merely looked puzzled.
Kan-Kon turned white. "By the holies, no!" he whispered. "But—" and he hesitated and swallowed hard, and Jael realized that she had, perhaps inadvertently, touched upon what was bothering him. "There is somethin' I want to say before you go," he murmured. "And that's . . ." He swallowed again.
"What is it, Kan-Kon?" Jael asked softly.
"Well . . . it's about when I was there. With Hoddy. When I . . . when I let him . . . die." Kan-Kon's hands were moving in small circles around one another, wringing and clasping; Jael had never seen him look so nervous before.
"You didn't let him die," Jael whispered. "You couldn't have stopped it."
"Couldn't I?" Kan-Kon said plaintively. "Couldn't I? You don't know that—"
"But the dragons! What could you have done against the dragons?"
Kan-Kon nodded and wrung his hands some more. "I don't . . . exactly know. But Jael—remember this! You can change things in the Flux! You can change things!" He groaned, almost whimpering. "I forgot, Jael. I forgot that. Don't let the same thing happen to you, okay? Okay?"
Jael nodded. "Okay."
He seemed to brighten, and looked from Jael to Ar and back again. "Good, then. Good!" He picked up a hardprint from his desk and waved it in the air. "Shall we go give our new ship a look-over?"
Jael jumped up without answering. She didn't have to. It was all she could do to keep from running across the spaceport field.
* * *
By the beginning of the second week following, Seneca was reregistered, fueled, provisioned, and waiting on a liftoff pad. They would depart in the morning.
Jael could scarcely wait. Tonight they would sleep aboard ship. Tonight, she knew, she would sleep the restless sleep of a soldier before battle.
Chapter 14: Into the Streams of the Flux
Space!
Liftoff came precisely on time, at 0842 local. The tow carried them swiftly into space and left them on an outbound course, rising out of the plane of the ecliptic of Cargeeling's sun. After a check of the rigging systems, Jael took up her station in the starboard rigger-alcove. Reclining in the couch, she took a deep breath. Her vision of the console overhead darkened, and her senses sprang outward into the net, into the mists of the Flux. She was floating in space, the ship invisible behind her. There appeared to be a white layer of fog below her, a morning mist clinging to the surface of an infinitely deep sea. It was a mist that no morning sun would ever burn away.
Ar joined her in the net like a swimmer slipping silently into the water. They exchanged glances, and together they took the ship down, a gleaming silver submarine dropping beneath the waves into a world that knew no limits in time or space. The Flux seemed at once quieter and vaster, and yet more alive, than the realm of normal-space. Once they began moving, Jael became aware of the distant whisper of worlds moving through the currents of the water, far, far away.
Time passed, as they reacclimated themselves to the net and to the Flux. For Jael, it was her first time rigging in fourteen weeks, and she felt like a swimmer whose muscles had tightened from disuse. Even Ar had to reorient himself to the ship. Not only had he just come from flying another ship; but Seneca's flux-pile systems had been completely overhauled, resulting in a different feel to this once-familiar net. Together, they flew carefully, testing the ship's movements, until they were sure they were ready for the faster layers of the Flux.
Ed was another matter. Ar favored waiting until they were well under way before bringing the parrot into the net, on the theory that the more smoothly they were flying, the easier it would be to merge his rigging personality with theirs. Jael thought it better to sort out any problems now, while they were still in the easy waters. Soon enough, they would be flying for all they were worth. Ar conceded, and soon afterward Ed was flying around in the net, happily scrawwwwing and screeeeing as he exuberantly tested the limits of the bubble surrounding them, and pausing occasionally to pluck at the fruit of a tropical cybertree that Jael had introduced into the net for him.
They kept the submarine-bubble image for a while, extending large ghostly fins into the currents to carry them along. The image was of their making, but the actual currents were objectively real, sensed by the rigger-net and transformed through their personal intuition into images that they could craft and control. That was one characteristic which distinguished the mountain realm of the dragons from other regions of the Flux. The landscape there was far less mutable, their control over it limited mostly to the altering of their own physical form. Why this was true, she could only guess: perhaps it was because of the living beings there—the dragons, ifflings, and who knew what else. She in truth knew little about life in the dragon realm, or the rules by which life was lived there.
In her rigger-school training, when the subject of the dragons-in-space legend was first raised, the instructors had spoken at length of the dangers of taking legend too seriously, of mistaking one's own prejudices and expectations for realities inherent to the Flux. That was good wisdom; but those instructors, she guessed, would never have believed the truth of her experiences along the legendary "mountain route."
Just the thought was enough to remind her of the urgency of their mission. Without a word, she began pushing herself harder. The faster, deeper currents beckoned, and time was fleeing. . . .
* * *
The surviving iffling-child nearly missed its opportunity to follow the human rigger. While keeping its distance from the dangerous false-iffling, it had been trying to save its strength, drawing energy from the distant light of this world's sun, while keeping a silent watch on the human rigger's spirit-presence. It felt fairly confident that its message to her had been heard. But it was shocked when it realized that the rigger-spirit was suddenly rising away from the surface of its world. The iffling shot upward in pursuit. Outside the atmosphere, the sunlight was stronger, giving it just enough strength to pursue and intercept the speeding vessel in which the rigger Jael had clothed herself. Should it continue to follow at a distance? the iffling wondered. Or should it try to penetrate the conducting enclosure of the vessel? Something odd was happening around it, some sort of disturbance in the flow of space and time. What was the human doing?
As the iffling-child wondered, it saw the enemy-spirit appear, momentarily, from within the vessel. The thing darted back into the ship, no doubt having spotted its adversary. That left no question: the iffling streaked forward to catch the gleaming ship. Wary of the enemy, it slipped in through an opening where energy pulsed, gaining a breath of strength as it did so. It darted through the shadow-structure of the ship, seeking a place of safety from which to watch the human.
It found a spot near the focal point of the disturbance. Hardly had the iffling settled into place when the disturbance deepened without warning. Dizzily the iffling clung to the structure, aware of the enemy also watching from the far side of the vessel. The web of space-time opened in the center of the disturbance, the threads separating from one another, the vessel sliding into the underrealm of this strange human reality. The threads closed behind it as the vessel plunged deep into the underrealm.
The iffling was both terrified and relieved. An instant later and it might have been left behind, alone in human space, the rigger out of its reach forever. The iffling clung to its position ever more guardedly, watching the enemy, watching the human in its ship, waiting to see where it would go.
Home, perhaps. Home.
* * *
Jael, do you want to rest awhile?
She glanced from the bow position, where the bubble was spearing through the fast-flowing waters, back toward Ar, who was sitting at the stern wielding a long-handled tiller. The image was absurd: a submarine with a sailboat's tiller. But it was working. Their course was taking them over a rising and dipping bot
tom surface, following the contours of a strange abyssal plain as the light-years flowed around them. Jael shook her head. This is no place for one person to try to handle the ship, she answered, focusing her control on the steering planes at the prow of the ship.
We could ease off and drift higher for a while, Ar said. We need to rest sometime, you know.
He was right, of course. Nevertheless, she shook her head. The current was moving in the precise direction she wanted, and she didn't want to lose any time because of something like a need for rest. She knew she was being stubborn—but sometimes, she thought, stubborn is the right way to be.
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