“I know. That’s the beauty of it, they use it for everything. I’ve studied some sensevise recordings of the place; they make their buildings with it, their bridges, their boats, Jesus they even make carts out of it. Carpentry is a major industry there. But what I’m going to take them is a hard wood, and I mean really hard, like metal. They can use it in their furniture, or for their tool handles, their windmill cogs even, anything that’s used every day, or rots or wears out. It’s not high technology, yet it’ll be a real cost-effective upgrade. That ought to get me in with the merchants.”
“Hauling wood across interstellar space!” She shook her head in amazement. Only Joshua could come up with an idea so wonderfully crazy.
“Yep, Lady Mac should be able to carry almost a thousand tonnes if we really pack the stuff in.”
“What sort of wood?”
“I checked in a botanical reference library file when I was in the New California system. The hardest known wood in the Confederation is mayope, it comes from a new colony planet called Lalonde.”
Oenone ’s flyer was a flattened egg-shape, eleven metres long, with a fuselage that gleamed like purple chrome. It was built by the Brasov Dynamics company on Kulu, who had been heavily involved with the Kulu Corporation (owned by the Crown) in pioneering the ion-field technology which had sent panic waves through the rest of the Confederation’s astroengineering companies. Spaceplanes were on their way out, and Kulu was using its technological prowess to devastating political effect, granting preferential licence production to the companies of allied star systems.
Standard ion thrusters lifted it out of Oenone ’s little hangar and pushed it into an elliptical orbit that grazed Atlantis’s upper atmosphere. When the first wisps of molecular fog began to thicken outside the fuselage, Oxley activated the coherent magnetic field. The flyer was immediately surrounded by a bubble of golden haze, moderating the flow of gas streaking around the fuselage. Oxley used the flux lines to grab at the mesosphere, braking the flyer’s velocity, and they dropped in a steep curve towards the ocean far below.
Syrinx settled back in her deeply cushioned seat in the cabin along with Ruben, Tula, and the newest member of the crew, Serina, a crew toroid generalist who had replaced Chi. All of them were gazing keenly out of the single curving transparency around the front of the cabin. The flyer had been customized by an industrial station at Jupiter, replacing Brasov’s original silicon flight-control circuits with a bitek processor array; but the image from the sensors had a poor resolution compared to Oenone ’s sensor blisters. Eyes were almost as good.
There was absolutely no way of judging scale, no reference points. Unless she consulted the flyer’s processors, Syrinx didn’t know what their altitude was. The ocean rolled past below, seemingly without end.
After forty minutes Pernik Island appeared on the horizon. It was a circle of verdant green that was so obviously vegetation. The islands which Edenists had used to colonize Atlantis were a variant of habitat bitek. They were circular disks, two kilometres in diameter when they matured, made from polyp that was foamed like a sponge for buoyancy. A kilometre-wide park straddled the centre, with five accommodation towers spaced equidistantly around it, along with a host of civic buildings and light industry domes. The outer edge bristled with floating quays for the boats.
Like habitat starscrapers, the tower apartments had basic food-synthesis glands, though they were primarily for fruit juices and milk—there simply wasn’t any need to supply food when you were floating on what was virtually a protein-packed soup. An island had two sources of energy to power its biological functions. There was photosynthesis, from the thick moss which grew over every outside surface including the tower walls, and triplicated digestive tracts which were fed from the tonnes of krill-analogues captured by baleen scoops around the rim. The krill also provided the raw material for the polyp, as well as nutrient fluids. Electricity for industry came from thermal potential cables; complex organic conductors trailing kilometres below the island, exploiting the difference in temperature between the cool deep waters and the sun-heated surface layer to generate a current.
There was no propulsion system. Islands drifted where they would, carried by sluggish currents. So far six hundred and fifty had been germinated. The chances of collision were minute; for two to approach within visible range of each other was an event.
Oxley circled Pernik once. The water in the immediate vicinity was host to a flotilla of boats. Pernik Island’s trawlers and harvesters produced a crisscross of large V-shaped wakes as they departed for their fishing fields. Pleasure craft bobbed about behind them, small dinghies and yachts with their verdant green membrane sails fully extended.
The flyer darted in towards one of the landing pads between the towers and the rim. Eysk himself and three members of his family walked over as soon as the haze of ionized air around the flyer dissolved, grounding out through the metal grid.
Syrinx came down the stairs that had folded out of the airlock, breathing in a humid, salty, and strangely silent air. She greeted the reception party, exchanging identity traits: Alto and Kilda, a married couple in their thirties who supervised the preparation of the family’s catches, and Mosul, who was Eysk’s son, a broad-shouldered twenty-four-year-old with dark hair curling gypsy-style below his shoulders, wearing a pair of blue canvas shorts. He skippered one of the fishing boats.
A fellow captain,syrinx said appreciatively.
It’s not quite the same,he replied courteously as they all started to walk towards the nearest tower. Our boats have a few bitek items grafted in, but they are basically mechanical. I sail across waves, you sail across light-years.
To each their own,she replied playfully. there was an almost audible buzz as their thoughts meshed at a deeper, more intense, level. For a moment she felt the sun on his bare torso, the strength in his figure, a sense of balance which was the equal to her spacial orientation. And the physical admiration, which was mutual.
Do you mind if I go to bed with him?she asked Ruben on singular engagement. He is rather gorgeous.
I never stand in the way of the inevitable,he replied, and winked.
Eysk had an apartment on the tower’s fifteenth floor, a large one which doubled as an entertainment suite for visiting traders. He had chosen a rich style, combining modernist crystal furniture with a multi-ethnic, multi-era blend of artwork from across the Confederation.
The reception room had a transparent wall with archways leading out onto a broad balcony. A long table of sculpted blue crystals flecked with firefly sparks sat in the middle of the room, laid with a scrumptious buffet of Atlantean seafood.
Ruben glanced round at the collection of ornaments and pictures, pulling his lower lip thoughtfully. The seafood trade must be pretty good.
Don’t let Eysk’s dragon hoard fool you,kilda said, bringing him a goblet of pale rose wine. His grandfather, Gadra, started it a hundred and eighty years ago. Pernik is one of the older islands. Our family could have its own island by now if we didn’t suffer from these “investments”. Pieces lose their relevance so fast these days.
Ignore the woman, Ruben,gadra spoke out of the island’s multiplicity. A lot of this stuff is worth double what it was bought for. And all of it retains its beauty providing you view it in context. That’s the trouble with young people, they take no time to appreciate life’s finer qualities.
Syrinx allowed Eysk to lead her along the table. There was an enormous range of dishes arrayed, white meats arranged on leaves, fish steaks in sauces, some wild-looking things that were all legs and antenna and didn’t even seem to have been cooked. He handed her a silver fork and a goblet of carbonated water.
The art is to taste then flush the mouth with a sip,he told her.
Like a wine tasting?
Yes, but with so much more to savour. Wines are simply variants on a theme. Here we have diversity that defies even the island personalities to catalogue. We’ll start with unlin crab, you said you remembered it.
She pushed her fork into the pвtй-like slab he indicated. It melted like fudge in her mouth. Oh! This is just as good as I remember. How much do you have?
They started to discuss details as they moved round the table. Everybody joined in good-naturedly, advising and arguing over individual dishes, but the final agreements were always between Syrinx and Eysk. The Jovian Bank segment of the island’s personality was brought in to record the transactions as they were finalized.
They wound up with a complicated arrangement whereby Syrinx agreed to sell ten per cent of any cargo of Norfolk Tears back to Eysk’s family in return for preferential treatment to obtain the seafood she wanted. The ten per cent would be sold at just three per cent above the transport cost, to allow Eysk to make a decent profit distributing it to the rest of the island. Syrinx wasn’t entirely happy, but she had come into the Norfolk run too late to make heavy demands to her only supplier. Besides, ninety per cent was still a lot of drink, and Oenone could transport it right across the Confederation. The price was always set in relation to the distance from Norfolk it had travelled, and a voidhawk’s costs were minimal compared to an Adamist starship’s.
After two hours negotiating Syrinx stepped out onto the balcony with Serina and Mosul. Ruben, Tula, and Alto had gathered on one of the reception room’s low settees to polish off some of the wine.
They were on a corner of the tower which gave them a view over both the park and the ocean. A gentle moist breeze ruffled Syrinx’s hair as she leaned on the railing, a glass of honey wine held loosely in her hand.
I’m not going to eat for days after that,she told the other two, giving away a sense of rumbling pressure inside her belly. I’m bloated.
I often think we named this planet wrong,mosul said. It should have been Bounty.
You’re right,serina said. No Norfolk merchant is going to be able to resist this cargo.she was twenty-two, the only crew-member younger than Syrinx, slightly shorter than the Edenist norm, with black skin and a delicate face. She was watching Syrinx and Mosul with quiet amusement, enjoying the vaguely erotic overspill of their growing rapport.
Syrinx was delighted with her company, it was nice to have someone so unashamedly girlish on board. She’d chosen her original crew for their experience, and they were highly professional, but it was nice to have someone she could really let her hair down with. Serina added a sparkle to shipboard life which had been absent before.
We’re a pretty common choice,mosul said. But none the less successful for that. Nearly every first-time captain takes some of our produce. That’s if they’ve got any sense. You know, even the Saldanas send a ship here every couple of months to supply the palace kitchens.
Does Ione Saldana send one as well?serina asked interestedly.
I don’t think so.
Tranquillity doesn’t own any starships,syrinx said.
Have you been there?mosul asked.
Certainly not, it’s a blackhawk base.
Ah.
Serina looked up suddenly, her head swivelling round. At last! I’ve just worked out what’s missing.
What?syrinx asked.
Birds. There are always birds by the shore on normal terracompatible worlds. That’s why it’s so quiet here.
One of the larger cargo spaceplanes chose that moment to lift from its pad. The vertical-lift engines produced a strident metallic whine until it was a hundred metres in the air. It banked to starboard and slid off over the ocean, picking up speed rapidly.
Serina started laughing. Almost quiet!
Be a friend,syrinx said in singular engagement. Vanish!she pulled a wry face, and drained her wineglass. “Refill time. I’ll leave you two alone for a moment.” She sauntered off into the reception room with a suspicious wiggle.
Syrinx grinned. My loyal crew,she told mosul in singular engagement.
Your attractive crew,he replied on the same mode.
I’ll tell her you said that. Once we’re safely outsystem.
He came over and put his arm round her shoulder.
I have a small confession,she said. This isn’t all pleasure.
It looks that way to me.
I want to hire a boat and visit the whales. I’d also need someone who can navigate properly to take me. Is that possible?
Alone on a boat with you? That’s not merely possible, that’s a guaranteed certainty.
Are there any schools near here, or do we have to go from a different island? I’ve only got a week.
There was a school of blues a hundred kilometres south of here a day ago. Hang on, I’ll ask the dolphins if they’re still there.
Dolphins?
Yes. We use dolphins to help with the fishing.
I didn’t know you had servitor dolphins.
We don’t. They’re just plain ordinary dolphins with an affinity gene spliced in.
She followed his mind as he called. The answer was strange, more of a tune than phrases or emotions. A gentle harmony that quietened the soul. Accompanying senses flooded in. She was barrelling through solid greyness, seeing little, receiving sharp outlines of sound. Shapes moved around her like a galaxy of dark stars. She reached the surface and flashed through the ephemeral mirror into the dazzle and the emptiness where she hung with tingling skin stretched taut.
She felt her own body stretch luxuriously in tandem. The affinity link faded away, and she sighed in regret.
Dolphins are fun, Oenone said. They make you feel good. And they rejoice in their freedom.
Like voidhawks in water, you mean?
No! Well, yes. A bit.
Happy with being able to tease Oenone successfully, Syrinx turned to Mosul. It was very beautiful, but I didn’t understand any of it.
Roughly translated from the scherzo, it means the whales are still within range. It’ll take a day’s sailing if we use my boat. Good enough?
Excellent. Can your family spare you?
Yes. This is a slow month coming up. We’ve been working our arses off for the last nine weeks preparing for the Norfolk trade, I’m entitled to a rest.
So you think you’re going to get some rest on that boat, do you?
I sincerely hope not. Although you didn’t strike me as someone who’d do the tourist routine. Not that the whales aren’t worth a look.
Syrinx turned to face the ocean again, squinting at the white cloud stripe where the sky merged with the water. It’s a memory for someone else.“my brother.”
Mosul sensed the pain integral with the thought, and didn’t pry.
Alkad Mzu walked up the stairs from her first-floor apartment in the StPelham starscraper, coming out into the circular foyer with its high, wave-curved ceiling and tall transparent walls looking out across the habitat parkland. A dozen or so other early risers were moving around the foyer, waiting for the lifts in the central pillar, or heading for the broad stairs around the rim which led down to the starscraper’s tube stations. It was an hour after the axial light-tube had brought a timid rosy dawn to Tranquillity’s interior; patches of fine mist were still lurking amid the deeper tracts of undergrowth. The parkland around each of the starscraper foyers was maintained as open meadow dotted with small copses of ornate trees and clumps of flowering bushes. She stepped out through the sliding doors into damp air flush with the perfume of midnight-blooming nicotiana. Colourful birds arrowed through the air, trilling loudly.
She set off down the raked sand path towards a lake two hundred metres away, with only the slightest hint of a limp in her walk. Flamingos were wading through the shallows between the thick clusters of white and blue lilies. Scarlet avian lizards floated among them; the xenoc creatures were smaller than the terrestrial birds, with brilliant turquoise eyes, holding themselves very still before suddenly diving below the glass-smooth surface. Both species began to move towards the shore as she walked past. Alkad reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out some stale biscuits, throwing the crumbs. The birds and lizard-things (she never had bothered to learn their name)
gobbled them up hungrily. They were old friends, she had fed them every morning for the last twenty-six years.
Alkad found Tranquillity’s interior tremendously relaxing, its sheer size went a long way to suggesting invulnerability. She wished she could find an apartment which was above the surface. Naked space outside the starscraper apartment window still made her shiver even after all this time. But repeated requests to be re-allocated inside were always politely refused by the habitat personality who said there were none. So she made do with the first-floor apartment which was close to the security of the shell, and spent long hours hiking or horse riding through the parkland during her spare time. Partly for her own frame of mind, and partly because it made life very difficult for the Intelligence agency watchers.
A couple of metres from the path a gardener servitor was ambling round an old tree stump which was now hidden beneath the shaggy coat of a stephanotis creeper. It was a heavily geneered tortoise, with a shell diameter of a metre. As well as enlarging the body, geneticists had added a secondary digestive system that turned dead vegetation into small pellets of nitrogen-rich compost which it excreted. It had also been given a pair of stumpy scaled arms which emerged from holes on either side of its neck, ending in pincerlike claws. As she watched it started to clip off the shrivelled tubular flowers and put them into its mouth.
“Happy eating,” she told it as she walked on.
Her destination was Glover’s, a restaurant right on the edge of the lake. It was built out of bare wood, and the architect had given it a distinct Caribbean ancestry. The roof was a steep thatch, and there was a veranda on stilts actually over the water, wide enough for ten tables. Inside it had the same raw-cut appearance, with thirty tables, and a long counter running along the back where the chefs prepared the food over glowstone grills. During the evening it took three chefs to keep up with the orders; Glover’s was popular with tourists and middle-management corporate executives.
When Alkad Mzu walked in there were ten people sitting eating. The usual breakfast crowd, bachelor types who couldn’t be bothered to cook for themselves. An AV projection pillar stood on the counter between the tea urn and the coffee percolator, throwing off a weak moire glow. Vincent raised a hand in acknowledgement from behind the counter where he was whisking some eggs. He had been the morning cook for the last fifteen years. Alkad waved back, nodded to a regular couple she knew, then pointedly ignored the Edenist Intelligence operative, a ninety-seven-year-old called Samuel, who in turn pretended she didn’t exist. Her table was in the corner, giving her a prime view out over the lake. It was set for one.
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