The Story Road

by Blaze Ward

  “Ah, you are the musician,” she cried out. “I’m sorry. I was expecting someone rather older. She specified a Master Bard.”

  Well, that was deflating. Just when he was starting to appreciate older women. Henri decided that he needed to dial up the charm this morning, lest the trip be a waste.

  “Correct, madam. I am a Bard from Bayonne, here studying astro–physics at the university.”

  “Oh. Please, hold on a moment.”

  Henri enjoyed watching her walk back into the office. Katayoun had only been gone a few days, but she had given him a much greater appreciation for certain things.

  And it was amazing what being totally relaxed could do for your humor.

  Dr. Lindgren returned a moment later and handed him a folder. “Here is the analysis, Mr. Baudin. It appears to be a species of zebrawood, but one unfamiliar to our records. Where did you say it came from?”

  “I brought the board in Pohang from a specialist who had acquired it himself for the color. Its provenance is unknown. I was hoping you could help.”

  Something about the way she took off the safety goggles and polished them with her shirt was disturbingly distracting.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I would like to be of more help. What do you need?”

  Henri set the folder down and pulled the printouts. He spread them across the counter and quickly scanned through them.

  “It would be useful to know where similar species grow,” he said, “or maybe the environment that would produce it. And is the blue dangerous?”

  Dr. Lindgren, Torny, slid around the counter easily and leaned close, accidentally bumping his hip as she did and pressing her side and arm into his as she pointed at a particular sheet of paper.

  “There,” she said, turning to look up at him with a smile.

  Henri was keenly aware that Dr. Lindgren, Torny, was rather closer than was normal on Ballard. This was not a place that fostered particularly–intimate physical contact.

  He picked up the page and stepped back from the counter. And the woman doctor. Katayoun really had gotten to him, hadn’t she? He needed to turn the charm back down.

  “So,” he said, reading the paper closely while using it as a shield to protect himself from this suddenly–friendly woman. “Most likely a wet, tropical climate. Where does the blue come from?”

  She was suddenly beside him again, touching him, holding another piece of paper. “Here is a chemical analysis of the sap,” she said. “I have listed a few worlds where the wood might grow, but none of them list anything similar in our archives.”

  “I see,” Henri said, backing up. “Well, thank you for your help, Dr. Lindgren.”

  He grabbed the pages and stepped quickly around her.

  “It was my pleasure to help, Mr. Baudin,” she replied. “If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out.”

  He watched her pull out a pen and scrawl a number on the outside of the folder.

  “Here’s my contact number,” she smiled up at him. “Use it any time. I would love to find out more about your adventures, Mr. Baudin.”

  Henri grabbed the folder back from her hand and fled the room. His dignity could catch up later. If it could outrun him.

  He made it to an elevator, and pressed the button, collapsing against the wall inside when it arrived. Gratefully, alone. He took a moment to catch his breath, and then another to stuff the pages together into the folder.

  When had pretty women hitting on him become a problem?

  Right. Katayoun.

  How many days until she was back? Henri decided to spend as many of them as he could in his room, hiding.

  Ξ

  The song started slow. It was down at the bottom of Nyange’s voice, rich and earthy as he pulled the bow inwards.

  Henri had turned the lights down, the better to concentrate. Or rather, he had barely turned them up from sleep when the song had awoken him.

  He knew from long experience that when a song was as demanding as the one in his head right now, even attempting to sleep was a waste of time. Instead, he had grabbed his closest friend from her case, tuned her strings, and let her sing.

  It had the rhythm of a dirge, playing tricks on the nerves in nape of your neck as it wound slowly, like a caravan climbing the corpseroad to bring a present from the lichgate. Sadness yelped out in the darkness for a moment of touch denied. Mourners wailed, fading as the darkness engulfed everything.

  Henri’s eyes were completely closed by now, listening to Nyange cry out, tears reverberating off the wall of his tiny cabin in tight, mournful wails.

  Long minutes passed as the song unfolded.

  He felt it building to a terrible crescendo with his fingers, rather than his ears, trapped within the power of the music.

  As the last notes faded, he opened his eyes, knowing he would see her there.

  Erato. Muse. Goddess of Music.

  She smiled at him, warm love in those bright blue eyes as she faded. No, turned translucent. He could still see her there, but he could see through her as well. Where her heart would be, he saw a planet, a blue–gray gem hanging in darkness, surrounded by two small moons.

  Katayoun was there as well, dressed as she had been, waving as Marrakesh’s boarding ramp closed. She smiled at him as well. Warm, embracing.

  Henri wondered if he could fly on the strength of it.

  Finally, the reverberations faded and he felt the darkness take hold. Both women vanished, leaving him alone.

  Carefully, he laid Nyange and the bow on the bed and let his head droop in exhaustion.

  “I have a confession to make,” the voice snuck up on him.

  Henri was too drained to jump. It took a moment to even process that it was Suvi’s voice in the darkness.

  “I normally monitor all cabins with an audio channel, in case of an emergency,” Suvi said quietly, almost ashamed. “In your case, I also record things, because I know you often wake in the middle of the night inspired and I don’t want to miss anything you play.”

  He raised his head enough to look in the general direction of the door.

  Silence.

  “That was the most beautiful, the most painful thing I have heard in so long you would not believe me,” she continued. “It’s for her, isn’t it?”

  Henri let his head drop again. He had managed to get into messy love triangles before. He was a Bard, after all. It was almost a job requirement.

  But he had never been in love with either woman in such a triangle, let alone both.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Will she go with you, Henri Baudin,” she continued, “when you leave here?”

  “Yes,” he said, louder. “I think so. I hope so.”

  “And what of me? Will you forget me when you leave?”

  “I do not think that is possible, Suvi.”

  “Could you love me?”

  “I already do,” he said, “but this is not my destiny, my love.”

  “Who is she? Who is that other woman, Henri?” Suvi asked suddenly. “There was another. Before Katayoun. Before me. There is another. She drives you. I have heard you call out to her in your sleep. Who is she?”

  Henri slumped, and then took a breath. He rose from the bed and lifted his fourth great love with him. How had he come to be surrounded by such women?

  “Suvi,” he said, “she is Erato. She is Athena. She is Brigit. She is Music.”

  “Oh,” Suvi said simply. “Play something for me then, my love.”

  He brought Nyange to his chin, as one might kiss a bride. This was not a time for sorrow, for he could still touch this woman, even if he could truly touch none of them, save Nyange.

  It was a moment for brightness. For leaves sprouting. For flowers, aching in their demand.

  He played of Summer.

  Part Three: AQUITAINE

  Eleven

  Even in the depths of space, there was light and warmth to be had. You simply had to look p
ast the bleak vacuum that surrounded you and consider the many stars, diamonds hung in the night.

  Henri sat in the cramped piloting station of the little yacht he had named Aquitaine, and fiddled with knobs and sliders. Space remained stubbornly silent about him.

  “Any luck?” a voice whispered from behind.

  He shrugged as he glanced back. Katayoun smiled at him crookedly, a streak of something on her cheek. Just her smile lifted a load from his shoulders. He reached out and carefully wiped away what he guessed was butter with his thumb.

  “No,” he said. “If I turn up the gain, I get a wall of static. If I turn it down, silence. I don’t understand what I missed.”

  She took his hand and tugged. “It can wait, Henri Baudin,” she said determinedly. “You’ve been there since breakfast. It is now lunch and you need to eat.”

  He let himself be pulled aftward. The little yacht was cramped at times, but also compact and well organized. Katayoun took him off the bridge and led him past the office and the bathroom, into the kitchen.

  The smell of freshly steamed vegetables in butter and garlic greeted him. He collapsed into the chair, suddenly aware of his exhaustion. And his hunger. Henri attacked the bowl like he was being timed.

  Empty, he looked up and blinked, realizing he wasn’t alone at the table.

  Gods, her smile made him warm. The twinkle in her eyes, however, promised mischief.

  “Better?” she asked, still eating her vegetables. And probably actually taking the time to taste them.

  “Sorry,” he managed. Even he could hear the raggedness in his voice.

  “Henri, we’ve been out here five days,” she said. “And you have barely budged from that chair, and then only to either crawl into the sensor array, the bathroom, or bed. You need a break.”

  “It’s there,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  “I know,” she said, “but it can wait.”

  She finished her own bowl and stood.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  Henri stood for a moment and watched her walk out of the room. Across the hallway, the door to their cabin was open and the lights turned down. She reached out as he crossed the threshold and pulled him to her.

  She spun them around as she kissed him, and then pushed him backwards onto the bed. He sat and watched her kneel and pull off his slippers.

  “Lie flat,” she commanded, standing and climbing into bed with him.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, sliding across the bed. The covers had already been turned down.

  She joined him, still fully clothed, pulling the quilt up to cover them as she snuggled into his side.

  Henri considered movement, but she caught his hand before he got anywhere fun and laid it back against his chest.

  “Sleep,” she commanded.

  Sleep? How could he sleep? The machine wasn’t working. The wiring must be wrong. The sensors were just blank, or a solid wall of static, much like the cosmic background radiation.

  Beside him, Katayoun’s breathing slowed. One hand reached across his chest like a fluttering butterfly to hold him tight. His own arm circled her back to where he could feel the warmth of her skin.

  He let her warmth flow into him. The darkness finally broke through and claimed him.

  Ξ

  He floated in silence. In space.

  It should be cold. Looking down, he saw a planet below him, as though he was in an invisible starship. Perhaps he was the starship. Perhaps he was Aquitaine, his little yacht, named after his favorite district on Bayonne.

  Was this was Suvi had seen? What it had been like for her? How amazing to swim in space, surrounded by nothing but solar wind. To sail the celestial skies.

  With a thought, he cast his vision skyward. Overhead, a bright star dominated the cosmos. Henri squinted his eyes and the blinding white light faded to a warm orange glow, cooler that Bayonne’s star, or Ballard’s. Closer as well. Life here required a planet far more intimate than the hotter places. But even here, it would be frequently warm, dancing on the inner edge of the habitable zone.

  He looked to the skies, trying to find other stars, but the single star overhead seemed to block him. Each time to turned, she was there, haughtily dominating the conversation, unwilling to share his attention with any other woman.

  He had known women like this in the past. Proud, arrogant ladies, often stubbornly insecure, desperately neurotic for acceptance and attention. Who knew the stars were just as bad?

  Henri reached out a hand and held hers. Her flesh was cold in his, but he could feel his warmth flowing outward. She relaxed, basking in his glow even as she lit the night sky.

  With his other hand, he shaded his eyes, blocking out her glare that the other ladies of the night could call his name. They were there, quiet in the distance. Blonds and brunette and redheads and ravens. The whole night was alive with them.

  Henri moved outward, leaving the orbit of the planet far behind him. The star nearby faded. He still held her hand, but his eyes were elsewhere now, seeking the depths of darkness.

  He remembered where he was, who he was. His eyes were not to be trusted, as there was either light or darkness here. Instead, he moved into the silence and opened his ears.

  The lady behind him was loud, but he focused forward, pointing his ears away from her like a cat. There were other voices now. Soft, but serene and powerful. The interstellar darkness was alive with song, even as it was bereft of light.

  Each lady sang a single pure note, just as he had imagined. He turned his head right and left, carefully keeping the silence intact, lest that closest lady drown the rest. They were faint. He could only barely hear them. But they were there.

  Henri suddenly understood.

  He took his one ear, pointed into the night and transformed it into dozens, scores, hundreds. Each lady singing got one, a personal performance in a private opera house, with him the only guest tonight.

  He knew that would not last. The secret of the stellar opera was clear now. Obvious, in fact, but he understood now why the ladies of the night had kept their secrets for so long.

  Ξ

  “Better?” Katayoun asked as his eyes opened. She had been snuggled up close, but she was suddenly above him, eyes glittering down.

  Henri blinked away the darkness and the cold of interstellar space. This was his cabin. He was human. He was here.

  He nearly cried with the sudden loss, understanding now what had been taken from Suvi.

  To be able to fly between the stars, to see the beauty of deep space, and then to have it all denied you. She was a prisoner, sentenced to gravity.

  “Better,” he agreed. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Dinner’s ready,” she replied.

  “Really?”

  Hours?

  “You looked like you needed it,” she said with a quick kiss. “At first, you were extremely restless and cold. Then you relaxed and got so warm I had to move away from you, my own portable space heater.”

  “I found it,” he said as he slid over to the edge of the bed and stood up. He luxuriated for a moment in her warmth, her solidity, her love, as her arms wrapped around his back.

  “Hmm?”

  “The answer. The stars. I can fix the sensor array and it will work.”

  “What did we miss?” she said.

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Henri Baudin, I quit my job to follow you into space on the craziest Don Quixote mission anyone ever heard of.”

  “Yes, but these windmills really will turn to dragons, Sancho Panza,” he said, pulling her close. “I built one sensor array. It works. But it only finds the one gravity well we’re sitting in. That’s what it does.”

  “What is it supposed to do?” she said, looking into his eyes with a serious mien.

  “I need a whole scale of them,” he said. “When I find one star, I filter it out of every other array, like putting shades on a lamp, and the rest will appear.”

  “Huh
?”

  Her dimples were so much cuter when she was confused.

  “I’m sitting next to the trumpets,” he said. “They are too loud for me to hear the violin. But if I wash out the brass, the woodwinds become clear.”

  “So can you fix it?” she asked with a hopeful grin

  “No,” he said, resigned. “I need to redesign it up from scratch on Ballard, build it, and then find some hot astro–navigator babe to help me tune it.”

  “Did you have one in mind,” she asked with a lascivious grin, “or were you needing to acquire a whole harem?”

  “Wait,” he said, “that’s an option?”

  “No,” she pulled him close and kissed him. “I plan on being all you can handle, mister.”

  “You have certainly succeeded there, my love,” he reveled in her kiss. “Now, you promised me dinner, wench?”

  Twelve

  This was not her turf. Katayoun knew that. But she also knew that it had to be like this. There was no other way to handle it. And she wasn’t a woman to let things slide. Take them on, take them down.

  She would never tell Henri about this. That much was certain. She would ask the other for the same courtesy. This was between women. That was how it had always been handled.

  She felt strange entering the immersion booth. It was hardly cramped, compared to the space she had been sharing with him for the last month on little Aquitaine. A room, perhaps three meters wide and two deep, done in neutral brown and white tones meant to elicit calm.

  A chair. Comfortable enough, but not too comfortable. It would let you relax while you talked, while not compelling you to stay any longer than necessary.

  She was sure she wouldn’t need it.

  Nor the table beside it. She had brought nothing to drink that she might rest on it. Nor an object to show someone on the other side. That person already knew everything that needed to be seen.

  This would be short. Perhaps poignant. Certainly definitive. It was in her nature.

  “Are you there?” Katayoun asked quietly.

  “I had hoped we might talk privately, Katayoun Szabolcsi,” Suvi replied.