The Pilots of Borealis

by David Nabhan

  Rittener was speechless. Daiyu took his silence in contrived puzzlement. After an uncomfortable pause she asked, almost exasperatedly, “That’s exactly what you wanted. This suits you well?”

  “The match is on Terra—and it’s being held, even now?” Rittener asked.

  “Yes, on Terra,” Daiyu answered, not bothering to respond to the other question.

  “There might be a small problem is all,” Rittener reminded her. “I have a sentence of death waiting for me on Terra.”

  Daiyu brushed her hair back slowly with both palms; she was thinking. “Yes, that’s right. That does present a problem, doesn’t it?” She put her finger in the air as though she just realized something. “But here’s a worse problem.” She half-smiled at the joke to come, even though it was at his expense. “Perhaps not worse from your point of view of course,” she said, referring to the Terran ruling, “but what good is a pilot to Borealis who can’t fly at Terra?” She wasn’t Borealis’ high foreign minister because her iambic pentameter thrilled. She was as sharp-witted and skilled in statecraft as any retainer who’d navigated the stormiest waters in any regal court. “Would you fly only on Tuesdays and Thursdays also? Is Titan or Mars also off your itinerary?”

  Now she gave a biting riposte. “Really, Mr. Rittener, to turn down a seat on this council and to offer instead your services as part-time pilot is . . .” She paused. The worst was yet to come and required the advertisement. “It’s absurd.” She said it both literally and to signal to her fellow councilors that this béte-noire could be handled.

  Clinton tried to parry; it was automatic after so many duels. “What you said about my name, I think I might like the idea of going by Clinton-Rittener, with a hyphen. Are hyphens allowed?” He immediately both regretted and wondered why he’d said it. Daiyu spoke the next quickly, sharply.

  “That sort of cheek I find infuriating. Now you’ll listen and closely, and provide me with an answer devoid of everything save complete sincerity or you’ll be reading a transcript of the rest of these proceedings in immediate custody. You’ve come to Borealis with about the same effect as a comet striking. I congratulate you, putting yourself in the center of what will doubtlessly turn out to be a great watershed in human history. I don’t know if you belong there, but I do know that you’re not going to simply dust yourself off and just stroll away.”

  She walked him down a simple path of inescapable logic. “You came to Borealis to be a pilot. Stanislaus has already inscribed you. Pilots compete. I’ve just given you the venue of the next match. This is where and when you’ll fly and you will acquit yourself equal to the state you represent.”

  No one was daring to even breathe, either in or out. Daiyu, having her say, softened her gaze perceptibly and leaned back. “Of course, you’ll need diplomatic immunity. Envoy-at-large is the lowest-ranking status I can confer that yet carries with it that protection and entitles you to take part in the negotiations as well.” She looked side to side at all the councilors then back to Rittener. “You accept?”

  Now Clinton chuckled out loud, a soldier’s laugh, but a friendly one, the kind people make when faced with life’s ironies. His mind had composed a comical synopsis of the proposal. “I’ll be an envoy-at-large, condemned to death on the Ring, and under accusation on Borealis for sedition. None of that will be noted in the credentials, I assume?”

  Daiyu understood and appreciated the wit. “That’s not to mention how the Terrans will take it. Their sense of humor isn’t usually that keen.” She added a response to what was on everyone’s mind. “To harm a Borelian diplomat though would mean war. I assume they’ll honor your credentials; they’ll have to, won’t they?” She used the tone of someone who really didn’t know the answer herself.

  “Or not?” Admiral Albrecht volunteered, interrupting again. His timbre was easily understood. From his point of view it mattered very little if Rittener were to return or meet his end by arrogantly presenting a get-out-of-jail-free card to the Terran authorities.

  “You accept?” she asked again.

  “If survival is reacting to the future in advance,” Clinton admitted to her, “here I must tell you that I am blind to see a thing.”

  “If you’re paraphrasing Sun Tzu, that’s still neither a yes nor a no.”

  “I’m quoting my father,” he told her in Mandarin. Daiyu, Borealis’ top diplomat, and yet like any other billions of Chinese, had a whole series of terribly vivid images in her mind about the murdered ambassador. That day in Shanghai was the beginning of the end of everything she had known of her childhood China. Her face flushed involuntarily.

  “We are all blind to some extent,” she allowed. “That’s the business of the foreign service—to go and see.

  “And if you’re citing your father,” she said this in Mandarin, “then I believe I already have your answer.”

  Rittener nodded. “I accept.”

  “Good flying, then, Clinton Rittener.” She’d gone back to the same sweet and friendly tone, the same smile, as from the start.

  “One more thing.” She acted as if the addendum wasn’t that important. It was though.

  “The Object, what do you think it is?”

  He answered in Mandarin since this couldn’t be an official question. The Borelian Council knew more about the Object than everyone else in the Solar System combined. It had to be a personal query.

  “It’s the end of something, and the beginning of another.”

  FORTY-TWO HOURS LATER THE state’s ferry, Pegasus, passed through a momentary aperture in the Gravitonic Shield with a bearing for the Terran Ring. She’d make quick work of the short journey, pulled harder and faster by Earth’s gravity the closer she came and pushed from behind by a laser emitted from an orbiting solar collector that tracked the frozen volatiles in her stern, converting the waste sludge into useful jets.

  Clinton-Rittener, Borelian envoy-at-large, was one of the official passengers listed on the transit manifest. He’d been given a bare-bones briefing, and in his experience that usually turned out to augur that he’d unfortunately been the most informed person in the room. What troubled him more than that was who was leading the delegation. It wasn’t Daiyu, Borealis’ foreign minister; it was Stephanangelo, the one councilor who until now hadn’t even been informed where square one was. Indeed, he was an important magistrate and on paper as high-ranking a representative as could be sent. He was also something of an engaging buffoon, and Rittener realized that the Council’s choice boded ill for any real diplomatic breakthroughs.

  “Neither confirm nor deny; keep them guessing.” He shared this astute game plan with Rittener several times while elaborating little beyond it. At least this much was plain though. Clinton was tasked to find a way to meet with one of Borealis’ operatives on the Terran Ring, a pilot by the name of . . . Adem Sulcus.

  “Do you know anything about the man?” Stephanangelo asked.

  “Our paths have crossed in the past,” Rittener replied.

  How, where, or when that might be accomplished however was hardly spelled out. Rittener’s retinue was equally thin: two Nepalese bodyguards, twin brothers from Earth. Ram Dahadur Limbu was the clever, taciturn, reserved one, and Tam Dahadur Limbu, the outspoken, good-natured, but fairly slow-witted sibling. They weren’t citizens of Borealis, nor were they resident aliens. As Gurkha warriors in the direct service of the Council, they held a special and singular status: perioikoi. Borealis used the selfsame term that ancient Hellenic city states conferred upon indispensible members of their communities, vested with all protections and rights but still not quite full citizens.

  For the Gurkha there were some caveats that went the other way round too. In taking their oaths they insisted on the phrase, “excepting in any assaults against her Majesty, the Queen,” as they swore their allegiance. Borealis had no plans, conceivable or otherwise, for an offensive against Buckingham Palace, and acceded to the addendum. That they still hadn’t forgotten their pledge to England’s sovereign
was proof that the loyalty of the Gurkha was legendary. They were the most fearless, steadfast, ferocious fighters in existence. Rittener was assigned only two of them, but he reckoned that would be quite enough. They’d be with him every single moment spent on Terra, so for now left him alone gazing out Pegasus’ port viewing window as it filled with Earth and the Terran Ring. It was a colossal and awe-inspiring sight as they grew toward their true sizes.

  “All the pilots will refuse to fly if you’re arrested.” Nerissa took a seat next to him and delivered the news, trying to cheer him. “There’s not one who isn’t willing to turn it into an interplanetary incident if that happens.” She’d obviously seen to this herself.

  Rittener was unconcerned with that and just tapped the Borelian diplomatic badge he was wearing. It was real.

  “They’re not going to arrest me but they’re not going to let me off a leash either.” Clinton wasn’t so sure about the rest, changing the subject but doing it awkwardly. “I may need you to do something for me on the Ring.”

  Nerissa waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

  “And, that would be?” she invited him to explain.

  “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know myself just yet.”

  Nerissa pretended she understood. “So you want me to do something for you, have no idea what it is, but I should tell you I’ll do it?” There was a petite smirk that accompanied the asinine appraisal.

  “For your country?” he joked.

  Rittener agreed it sounded ridiculous when put that way but reminded her that there’d be no square centimeter on Terra where they’d be able to say a word, exchange a note, or do anything else without being seen and heard. “I may need your help and we’d best have a way to communicate that.”

  “Alright, then,” she concurred reasonably, “how will we do that?”

  “Well, you’ll just know. It will seem natural that way,” Clinton said simply. “That’s the best way.”

  With that she looked him over closely, letting him see her do it. Her eyes moved down the long scar on his face. She let him see her do that too. “You’re putting a lot on my powers of perception, aren’t you?” He realized her eyes were on his face, on the interesting but damaged parts.

  “If my course of action is natural,” he explained, “but yet brought about unnaturally, you’ll know I’m asking you to do something vitally important.”

  “Unnaturally natural? What a contradiction in terms,” she chided. “That’s an oxymoron.”

  Clinton smiled. “That’s a wonderful word, in many languages. It’s a valuable and powerful word too. May I tell you something about it?” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “They say it’s a key to training the mind. There’s a practice pilots supposedly learn in the Outer. It begins with forcing your mind to think in doubles, like oxymorons.”

  Nerissa had heard, of course, of esoteric yanta. She was both genuinely impressed and eager to know more. It gave a palpable thrill to think the man in front of her might know more about it than almost anyone. “Once they’ve mastered doubles they add permutations, variations, and other chains—all in the mind—building on each other,” he revealed.

  “Can that really be done? Why would anyone train to do that?” she asked.

  “It confuses alpha waves.” He sidled closer to share the true reason. “Just as importantly, it confuses sensors.” He answered the other too. “They say there are some who can.”

  She had summoned just enough pluck to ask him about the scar, but veered off at the last.

  “You’re one of them?” she asked instead.

  He laughed as if the question were silly. “I’m an envoy-at-large of Borealis, a former yuan shuai, high marshal, of the coalition of Jiangsu, Shanxi, and Fujian. Unfortunately, everything there is to know has already been broadcast about me.”

  She doubted that. She had never entertained it and was convinced of it now. Her mind was forming an oxymoron of its own about this engaging, interesting charmer, someone who’d seen everything—including, against all sense or reason, genocide, his scars plainly declared.

  “There’s a certain uncertainty about you, Clinton Rittener.”

  He liked that. “I knew you’d be a fast learner.”

  “Teach me then,” she said.

  The starlight played across Clinton’s face through the viewport at an odd angle. For a moment he looked almost frightening, the patchwork on his face visible. A movement to the side and he came back, almost the way he’d looked in his youth; fine hair, strong cheeks, cleft chin. He nodded his assent.

  “You’re a pilot. It’s allowed.”

  For the rest of the transit they remained at the observation port, Rittener initiating her into the beginning mysteries of the arcana perfected in the abysmal loneliness of the Great Outer. There were secrets said to exist out there and nowhere else in the universe. Even someone like Nerissa felt special to be permitted to hear of it—and from such a man as her guide.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHISPERED EQUATIONS

  TERRA HAD SPARED NO expense for the state dinner to be held to welcome the Borelian pilots. It was held in a majestic dining hall within the Borelian diplomatic sector, lavishly decorated in the style of Bhutanese architecture of the Himalayas. Ethan Van Ulroy and many great officials, magnates, jurists, athletes, and other crème of Terran society were in attendance. Everyone was gathered in an enormous yet splendid anteroom—much, much too large to be considered a foyer, but with clever design tricks made to seem cozy and inviting nonetheless. Even permanent thick mist was created to hang as the same ceiling one might see trekking along the Gangtok Pass on the ancient Silk Road between Sikkim and Lhasa. Rittener had seen the real passes, holding the ground at Nathula and Jelepla. He wasn’t there touring, but this was a good approximation as far as his memory could tell. The vestibule was laid out to resemble the courtyard complexes that sprang up around dzongs, the fortress-monasteries. Soon the massive gates to the hall would be opened and an incomparable feast would be served. For now this elite company simply drank, entertained themselves, made and lost supporters and rivals—and kept their hopes up that history should be made at this banquet, as it had at so many others.

  The Terran Ring had responded in kind, earlier in the day, to Borealis’ embassy headed by the maladroit Stephanangelo. Dante Michelson and his aide-de-camp, Van Ulroy, not only were missing, but there wasn’t present a single liaison with the Chief Archon’s office. In their place, Secretary of State Grace Karis was hosting, equal in every way to Stephanangelo’s ineptitude.

  Madame Karis was quite an elderly lady. Even though she’d been cosmetically re-done a dozen times, nothing could hide that. She was attractive though, in her way, the best an octogenarian beauty might accomplish. There was unfortunately no way to rekindle youthful sparks in the eyes though and certainly none to recharge the mind. Hers had never been a strong one, and hadn’t aged well. She was famous now for contradicting herself within the same breath while talking in circles. It was said that adversaries sometimes capitulated to her in negotiations simply by virtue of the tide of incongruities she’d spout, and for such great lengths. There was reason in all of this. Under Dante Michelson’s rule it was the Archonate with whom one did business with the Terran Ring. The state department was relegated for use as a stop gap for those the Archonate deemed next in line to meet another branch of their bureaucracy: defense. War, for the Terran Ring, began at State. If it was Madame Karis waiting across the negotiating table it meant Terra had judged coming to terms impossible. It signified The Ring was busy solving the problem in other ways as their foreign minister babbled away for as long as it took.

  Rittener was aghast; Stephanangelo took it in his stride. “She’s Cypriote, you know. We have the same temperament.” It was true, the lady had Greek and Turkish blood; Stephanangelo’s was from a neighboring island, Sicily. “We’re both Mediterranean,” he told Rittener. “We should be able to sort something out.” Terra and Borealis both had
their wish as two great bunglers walked each other around in circles for many hours, bringing a great dizziness to all forced to participate.

  Clinton Rittener came to understand now that the Terran Ring and Borealis were going to actually have a go at each other, after all. It sent an anxious feeling through him, one that made him more determined to somehow find a way to hear what the Terran mole, Adem Sulcus, had to say.

  FEW FAILED TO NOTICE when Sadhana Ramanujan entered the grand reception—that in itself beyond unexpected—and without saying a word to anyone else, made straight for . . . Clinton Rittener. She parted a path of open-eyed and closed-mouthed aristocrats as she went. Rittener’s status, whether pilot, diplomat, or fugitive, Terra was pleased to leave unclear. Officially, he was simply being ignored. So when Sadhana made her way to arrive in front of him she didn’t need to cut in line. No one was daring to bend an elbow with this particular enemy of the state. She didn’t bother looking him over too closely; for identification purposes he looked like hardly any other man alive. She was a scientist, however, so she couldn’t restrain the perfunctory challenge.

  “Clinton Rittener, I presume?”

  Rittener was less concerned to answer her and more anxious to signal to his guard that this woman posed no threat—for God’s sake!—and that her obviously bellicose approach and stance should be simply disregarded. He, of course, recognized her for who she was; the Gurkhas only spied an angry Indian lady drawing near and threatening. Fate intervened and froze the men in their spots.

  “I am Sadhana Ramanujan. Your forces destroyed my family’s haveli in the Chettinad.” She then slapped him, well and hard, right across the face. It made a loud sound, and set off a cacophony of gasps that moved over the crowd like a wave.