The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  As the glider gradually climbed along the route that had once been a far wider thoroughfare, say, in the time before the Collapse, I looked out to the east, out over the valley and the mixture of trees and vineyards, and isolated dwellings. I couldn’t help smiling at the serenity and the beauty. Calfya was truly a beautiful place to live, despite the occasional tremors.

  On the trip north there weren’t more than a handful of gliders that passed me going south, and all bore couples enjoying the scenery, and the scent of the winemaking that permeated the whole region from early to late fall.

  By the time I reached the outskirts of Helnya, though, there were more gliders on the byways. I closed the canopy, switched to full manual, and eased the glider along the wide and grassy ways in a general westward direction toward the bluff overlooking the ocean, passing a pair of teenagers on a magscooter, the girl seated behind the young man. The dashplot had the route to RennZee’s outlined. I tried to be alert while still taking in the charm of the artists’ colony.

  I hadn’t been in Helnya in years, not since my school days, and that had only been because Ertis had wanted to see some painter’s work in one of the galleries there. Since I’d been enchanted with Ertis, and she’d wanted to go, and since I’d been low on funds, we’d taken the tube, and seen the paintings, and then I’d taken her to dinner at a uniquery — I’d had to choose between dinner or the glider, as I recalled. I didn’t remember the name of the place, but most of the eating places remaining in Noram — or elsewhere, I supposed — fell into a handful of categories, those providing standard replicator fare for travelers and others away from home, those designed really as meeting places, and the small handful of uniqueries, where every element of a meal was hand-prepared and guaranteed unique. Uniqueries were expensive, needless to say.

  Still … while I didn’t remember either the paintings or the uniquery, I did remember Ertis being pleased. I smiled. She’d been very pleased — even if I hadn’t been able to get the glider. I could still remember checking my credit balance, and deciding I didn’t dare anger Father.

  Glancing around as I followed the directions on the dashplot toward the center of the place, I tried to recall and identify what I’d seen years before. The center of the town was almost lost among the trees, and the gardens, in which were set houses that looked frozen in time — a low hacienda from nearly two millennia before set less than three hundred meters from a pre-Collapse media house, and that was adjacent to what might have been an Anglish cottage.

  Then there was a square, and something I did recognize — the tube station. Past the low gray stone and green tile roofed building that was the upper level of the tube station, there was a clustering of artisan shops, and three art galleries — right in a row ahead on my left.

  I eased the glider past another magscooter, this one bearing a white-haired norm woman with large sack strapped in the second seat.

  The first gallery’s sign was simple — “Gallery West.” Beyond the third gallery was a stone retaining wall, dating back centuries to when people actually cut into hills and thought their work would last. Above the wall seemed to be a park of some sort. I looked more intently. It was an old, old cemetery.

  Off to the side of the glider path on the right, on the same side as the galleries, but after the last gallery, the one Ertis and I had visited so many years before, there was a larger squarish glider, a delivery type, with a side panel open. Two men were bent over, inspecting something inside.

  I nodded sympathetically. Even the best equipment sometimes had problems. I’d seen that often enough in Federal Service.

  “Oh!”

  At the sound of the high yell that sounded girlish, my head flicked back to the retaining wall. A small figure hung from the top coping stone of the vine-covered wall, her body swinging a good three meters above the stone walk below.

  “Help!” came a second call.

  I pushed the glider ahead, past the men working on the delivery vehicle, seemingly oblivious to the girl, then jerked it to a stop at the edge of the gliderway. I half-climbed, half-vaulted from the glider, automatically linklocking it, as I sprinted toward the child whose fingers seemed to be slipping, loosening so that she started to swing across the front of one of the huge gray blocks of stone.

  She wore a pale blue singlesuit, and her eyes were wide.

  My fingers reached up to help the child down … and touched nothing — brushing the stone, despite the realistic image.

  Supraholo image! I glanced back toward the glider, but the canopy was still locked shut.

  Craaacckkk …

  I looked up to see the entire stone wall seemingly toppling down on me — slowly, with stones that suddenly seemed as large as small gliders arching toward me. Slow as they seemed, I moved even more slowly. I still thought I might get clear when the ground underfoot gave way.

  Again … as the very real antique stones and the darkness crashed over me, I had the feeling that I’d been more than a little slow — and very stupid.

  * * *

  Chapter 21

  Fledgling: Supra-Ecliptic Space, Sol System, 423 N.E.

  * * *

  “Deceleration halting. Deceleration halting. Commencing weightlessness. Commencing weightlessness. Fifteen minutes before maneuvers commence. Fifteen minutes before maneuvers commence.” The voice was that of Sylvie Garcya, Pilot Candidate Garcya, as she completed her stint at the controls of the FSS Prasad.

  With my body suddenly lightening in the harness, I glanced sideways from the student couch where I waited toward the candidate strapped in to my right.

  “That was a little rough,” murmured Aaslyn Muriami.

  “Aren’t we all?” I murmured back with a rueful smile.

  Aaslyn rolled his eyes.

  I glanced up at the overhead. Everything in the Prasad seemed to be some color shaded with gray. The overhead was a grayish cream. The deck was a darker gray, although, in half the time the Prasad wasn’t accelerating or decelerating, it was impossible to feel which was which. That was probably the reason for the colors, some form of reminder as to what was where when the ship was under power, except that even half that time what was “up” was really down, or the other way around, except on long decels.

  In a way, the ship also smelled “gray,” with the odor of oil, people, metals, and composites of all temperatures, and food all swirled together.

  Major L’Martine had been clear enough about some of that when he’d said that there was no way to build a ship cost-effectively that would allow every exposed surface to serve effectively as overhead, deck, or bulkhead. So the Federal Service didn’t. The deck was down for acceleration, and — on long runs — for deceleration. For training maneuvers, everyone was just strapped in, and if your harness weren’t snug, you ended up with a lot of bruises.

  As I waited, I took a slow deep breath, knowing what was coming.

  “Candidate Alwyn. You’re up next.” Major Imoro’s voice was pleasant enough, but she had a reputation of being tough on candidates. The increasing raggedness of Sylvie Garcya’s handling of the Prasad confirmed that — at least to me.

  “Yes, ser.” After releasing the harness and sliding out, careful to keep a boot toe locked under the couch coaming, I relocked the harness, then hand-over-handed my way along the narrow passage between the couches in the candidate waiting area to the control center.

  My stomach had finally adjusted to weightlessness, and I pulled myself down toward the couch where Sylvie had just unstrapped. Her back to the major, who remained strapped in the left couch, Sylvie floated beside the student control station, her face composed. Her face was always composed. “Good luck,” she murmured.

  “Thank you.” I offered a grateful smile. I knew I could use the luck, and more than that.

  I readjusted the harness, then slid into the couch, where I connected the control line to my own helmet, testing the links to make sure I had complete bandwidth control. Then I had to tighten the harness, strugglin
g to ensure that the straps were tight, since using leverage in weightlessness wasn’t automatic to me. Next came the personal testing routine, and the start-up checklist.

  Major Imoro’s head turned slightly.

  Sylvie had slipped back to her student couch behind the bulkhead beside Nikko Patel.

  I mentally checked the time since Sylvie’s announcement. “It’s six minutes to go.”

  “You’re cleared to make any announcements.” The major’s voice was low, but it carried.

  I waited another thirty seconds, and then keyed the ship’s system. “Resume acceleration stations. Maneuvers will commence in five minutes. Maneuvers will commence in five minutes.”

  Major Imoro touched the console, and I was flooded with inputs from the entire ship.

  … sixty degrees absolute … stern sensors … fusactors at ten percent … absolute speed less than point five NL relative Sol … magscoops in shield mode … no EDI traces within one thousand LS … converters at twenty …

  The ship felt red against the black cold of semideep space, where the molecular density was less than dozens per cubic meter. Nearer the center of the ecliptic, the sensitivity of the sensors had to be adjusted, because, otherwise, they gave a pilot the impression of guiding the ship through a fog. But the greater sensitivity was necessary farther out because a pilot needed to be able to monitor the loads on the system, particularly the stress on the magscoop fields.

  I moistened my lips and began the second checklist — the one for all ship systems, the important one. My mind still felt as though it were moving through a gluey fog as I ran the comparisons against the optimal level.

  Abruptly, I frowned. “Scoop sensor three … no reading.”

  “Good,” pulsed Imoro. Just as suddenly the sensor registered on the system.

  “System review complete and green,” I announced when I finished.

  “You have the con, Candidate. Proceed to accelerate to point one ell, then execute a Kirwan turn, and commence a standard approach to gamma three.” Major Imoro’s tone made it clear that something would go wrong on the approach to the beacon that served as the reference point.

  “Maneuvers commencing in one minute. Maneuvers commencing in one minute.” My voice sounded harsh over the net and the ship’s speakers.

  I scanned the motion detectors and harness locks to make sure all the ship’s personnel were in their couches before pulsing the major. “All personnel are restrained, ser.”

  “You are cleared for full power-up and scoop extension.”

  “Understand cleared this time. Commencing power-up and acceleration.” I eased up the power flow from the fusactors, watching as they climbed past twenty percent, then twenty-five, where the scoop fields began to extend. Initial acceleration was barely noticeable, just the slightest of pressures, because the gathering efficiency of the magscoops was a function of power and velocity, and without the input from the scoops, the LDD that created the photonjets was only operating at a fraction of potential output. While the ejv was near max, the photon stream volume wasn’t.

  Even though the Prasad seemed to be moving slowly at first, that velocity built within seconds to speeds that would have ripped an atmosphere apart with the ship’s passage. The acceleration increased almost as quickly, pressing me back into the couch.

  … acceleration at point four gees … point eight … one point one … two point three …

  I could feel the sweat oozing from under the soft helmet, even as I continued to try to check everything, wondering what and how the major would ensure went wrong.

  The sensors showed the beacon dwindling behind us, and I automatically switched scales on the relative plot.

  “You can begin the Kirwan turn any time, Candidate.”

  I’d already programmed the turn, and brought the macro online, monitoring the system as the scoopfields altered their configuration, and as the ejection field nozzles redirected the photon flow.

  Just as I’d let out a long slow breath against the still increasing gee force, the left half of the magscoop net vanished, and the ship slewed, its acceleration decreasing precipitously, and the attitude dropping seventy red. Demand draw on the fusactor skyrocketed, climbing toward the red of overdraw. The ship’s heading immediately began to revolve to starboard, into what would become an ever-tighter spiral down into the ecliptic and probably the Kuiper Belt and all the garbage that would shred the now-unprotected port side of the Prasad.

  … scoop imbalance IMBALANCE …

  The left half — that meant the left converter had gone. I dropped power to half on the right net output nozzles, then reconfigured the net phasing so that the entire net was handled by the right converter.

  My stomach lurched as the acceleration dropped from nearly three gees to near-nothing, and I swallowed.

  The magscoop shimmered back into a unified and balanced energy net — if one invisible except to the ship’s sensors — but its area was more like forty percent of what it had been moments before, and the acceleration climbed back to around point five gee, then edged up.

  Major Imoro said nothing.

  I corrected the heading and attitude to “climb” back toward the beacon that served as a representation of either a Gate or an orbit station. Needless to say, no one was going to let any of us near the ecliptic or a real Gate or station — nor in a ship with passengers or real cargo — not with the power of a magscoop, photonjet ship — until they were quite assured of our capability.

  Then I had to replot the entire turn and approach to take into account the lower acceleration and the power requirements. The time seemed to drag, but it was less than two minutes before I had a stable profile for the lower gee approach.

  The magscoop vanished entirely. So did acceleration — leaving my stomach lurching in sudden weightlessness — or, more properly, without the artificial gravity provided by acceleration.

  … Shields at minimal … shield reserves at thirty, declining … twenty …

  My mind felt as if I were slogging through heavy syrup as I flashed through the diagnostics before I discovered that an interrupter had taken the power conduit from the fusactor to the right convertor off-line. I patched the conduit from the left convertor through the standbys, and then reduced the overall power load, reconfiguring the magscoops to twenty-five percent of full span, hoping my calculations were correct.

  Once again, the acceleration built, leveling out at around point seven gee.

  “Do you know why you lost the scoops?” asked the major.

  “Because the power load creates more heat when it’s asymmetrical?” I was trying to recall the exact language.

  “Close enough. In another two minutes, the conduit will be cool enough to put back online. I’ll give full scoops then. Otherwise we’ll be out here for another three hours for a single approach. And that won’t set well with the other trainees, and it certainly wouldn’t set well with the captain or the passengers on a real run.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  The conduit did cool, and I got full magscoop capability back and I didn’t incinerate the beacon on decel the way Aaslyn had. And I thought I’d actually brought the Prasad to an absolute halt relative to Sol.

  I just waited for the major’s orders after that.

  Her words followed a silence of about a minute. “Announce a thirty-minute stand-down, and then a constant acceleration return to base,” Imoro ordered. “We’ll start with your debrief once we’re under way back to Earth Orbit Three. Get something to drink. Your system monitors say you’re dehydrated, and you won’t understand half of what I tell you.”

  “Yes, ser. You have the con.”

  “I have it. Be back in twenty.”

  “Yes, ser.” I eased out of the harness, and disconnected the leads, pulling myself back to the small officers’ galley. I swallowed back a touch of nausea.

  Sylvie Garcya offered a smile as I passed the candidates’ couches. I returned it with a smile of my own and a shrug.

&n
bsp; We both knew that the “bad” part of the trip was just beginning — a day plus of constant one gee acceleration/deceleration to take us back down to Earth Orbit Three. After several hours of intensive debriefing for each of us, there would be a period of two hours in the couch with one of the instructors, being taken through ship system after ship system, quizzed, grilled, and thoroughly worked over. There were five instructors — all majors — and all very thorough.

  * * *

  Chapter 22

  Raven: Kewood, 458 N.E.

  * * *

  I dreamed for a long time, and most of the dreams were nightmares of various sorts, ranging from being a raven pursued by eagles, and falling walls, to being swallowed by octagonal Gates in deep, deep space. I felt hot and cold by turns, sometimes shivering in ice, other times feeling as though I were being turned on a spit over a fire.

  When I woke for the first period of real awareness, Kharl and Gerrat were both by my bedside, except it was a medcradle and not a bed, and every part of my body itched. My arms and hands were restrained, of course.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Gerrat said.

  “But it’s going to take more time,” Kharl added.

  “A lot more.” I tried to speak, but the words came out mumbled.

  “You need to know you’ll heal,” Kharl said.

  “When you’re better, we’ll need to talk about why you were climbing on shaky walls,” Gerrat said.

  I tried to shake my head, but it was also restrained.

  “You’ll be better than new,” Kharl promised. “You’re stronger than anyone thought.” He laughed, softly, and even pain-drugged as I was, I could sense a certain irony and bitterness there.

  But the last of his words blurred, and I dozed off.

  When I woke later, lying cradled in the medweb, nanites scurrying to rebuild me, I wondered how I’d gotten to the point where people were trying to kill me — a not-quite-obscure edart composer, from a far less than obscure family. And I still didn’t understand why they weren’t after Father — or Gerrat.