In the distance, something the size of a small ship moved away from them impossibly fast, hugging the ground and leaning into a curved path, moving with arced certainty across this world of the Praveen.
Chapter 14.
Ansti was at peace, serene in his command of the ship and its vehicle mentor. Traversing the Praveen world had presented no problems so far. Their presence had been detected and questioned quickly; the first urgent messages were flashed at them across wide band media. But crucially there was no attempt to hinder their passage. For a while they had been tracked by a small group of small, fast, craft that would have been reconnaissance forces sent in advance of an attack in the territory of another species. The Praveen watched but did not attack, and astonishingly all but one of the craft had soon peeled away and left them alone. Shortly after a new message was broadcast offering assistance to the trespassers if required and urging them to respect life and property as they traversed the Parveen world.
Now the messages had stopped and the remaining craft sailed high above them, simply keeping pace and observing. This was what had been expected by a group of the planners. The Praveen tended to adapt to most events with a level of tolerance and acceptance that left other species breathless in wonder. Now there was a very large and fast moving new object on this world of theirs. So be it. It will be watched. Warnings will be sent and it will be avoided. If it did no harm then no harm would befall it. The universe was full of things that could not be controlled, so, it was reasoned, adapting to them was the only sensible course of action. Trying to control them was as hilarious as it was futile.
Ansti and the crew had plotted a course sympathetic to the Praveen view of universal life. It skirted around population centres, avoided agricultural and manufacturing areas, and as argued by Tannen, even respected the lines of Praveen eco-aesthetics. That consideration had added a full local day to the schedule and had been hotly contested by crew members fearful of enemy spies on the Praveen world. A full day it was argued, was time to observe them and lift a ship to alert the barrier world to this strange new phenomenon. Others, including Ashur, had asserted that what was lost in time would be gained in unhindered passage. It seemed he was right, and the ship-vehicle persuaded this world to accept its weightless velocity without a hint of natural or sentient objection.
Ansti’s mood was helped by an uneventful transit. No par-born had drifted ghost like into his space, and there had been no decent into disembodied still-life. He had passed the stretched moments just as he had many times before — running mental preparations and exercises to keep his pilot focus. A small part of him was disappointed that there was no encounter and no chance to probe again for answers, but his curiosity was outweighed by his relief. So far, the mission was progressing as planned, and the capability of the ship was as remarkable traversing light years as it was traversing continents.
As they travelled Ansti felt the ship growing in him. Systems and commands came to him more reflexively, and his interactions with the vehicle were less clumsy. He thought less and willed more, and as his connection with the ship grew so did his comfort with it. He began to miss a ship’s mind less and enjoy his new found direct contact with the power and presence of this new thing. He was becoming converted to a new paradigm, being seduced by the certainty of it. If Ansti did not yet love this new partnership he had at least moved beyond loathing it. Ansti did not admit this to anyone. He did not even fully admit it to himself yet. It was a victory for Ashur that he was not ready to accept, even within the terms of their new understanding. He simply could not let Ashur be so right so quickly, or let himself feel so wrong so easily.
Sleep became a necessity at times. Ansti took rest when he could, entrusting the ship to the vehicle and the oversight of both to a nervous Tannen. Tannen managed the sensors and guidance from remote stations just as a pre-solar age vehicle would have been guided. Ansti resisted the urge to tease Tannen about this ancient interaction, sensing his vulnerability and disquiet at being asked to undertake this task; a task for which he felt unprepared and unworthy. In reality he needed to do little more than watch for new events. The vehicle took them unerringly on the course they had planned and the Praveen continued to watch with benign interest. The periods of sleep and rest were never long, and often broken with anxious, flashed queries from Tannen. Ansti bore the unnecessary interruption with patience. He knew, as did Tannen, that any serious intervention would require his skills, and it was better to be cautious than caught off guard.
In the brief times of rest Ansti occasionally relaxed enough to let his mind wander. He wondered what kept the rest of the crew busy while he guided the ship. The ship told him there were still over thirty others on board. Some he had met — they were the military planners and old soldier diplomats that turned Ashur’s schemes into action — but he had little to do with the rest and even less insight into their role. They were certainly not needed to keep the ship functioning. Even this mindless husk had enough wits to maintain and repair itself, and what the ship lacked in IQ, the vehicle made up for. All it lacked was a will, and the decisive intuition of a mind that had evolved, and Ansti provided that. Ashur would never have entrusted the entire mission to Ansti of course. So were the other crew members his prison wardens? It seemed a very large number of guards to imprison one man, especially as he was a voluntary participant in this task.
Ansti was winding down the corridor that led from his room to the pilot’s couch, when an unfamiliar member of the crew had approached him. She was young and not exactly pretty but neither was she unattractive. She’d smiled and put a hand on his arm to stop him, and Ansti had halted. It occurred to him that his status on board might attract admirers and he prepared himself to be propositioned. He had not had a sexual encounter since starting the journey and now he toyed with the options. What she said confounded his imaginings.
She spoke in slightly hushed tones as if revealing a secret “I know your sister” she said.
Ansti had stood for a moment re-adjusting his mental landscape and feeling the tickle of rising libido vanish. There had been a pause while he digested those few words. “What? You know Nuri? Suns, she’s alive?”
The woman nodded as Ansti continued “But she must be a generation older than you and worlds away from here. How do you know her?”
The woman smiled sheepishly. “She was my teacher. She didn’t call herself Nuri, she had a new name, a Tash-eh name, but she spoke of you.”
Ansti flinched “A Tash-eh name, what possessed her to take a Tash-eh name? That doesn’t sound like my sister.”
The woman looked anxious, her smile stayed but her eyes expressed concern. “She was partnered with a Tash-eh man. They were a couple, and she took his name and changed her first name as is their tradition.”
Ansti stood staring at her for moments, processing this news. A stranger was telling him that his sister was a collaborator with the regime he was about to overthrow, a regime whose moral code he loathed. Denial fed his incredulity.
“I think you have made a mistake, Nuri is a nutritionist not a teacher, and she knows that to speak of me in front of the enemy would destroy her and me. She’d never even met a Tash-eh male when I left, and I know she had absolutely no wish to. Did this woman actually mention me by name?”
The woman looked worried and stepped back a little, an unconscious retreat from the encounter she had started.
“No, not by name, but she spoke of a brother who fled the war and was either dead or in hiding. She described him, had pictures. He looked like a younger you.”
Ansti was reeling. Could Nuri really have been so careless with such potentially murderous information? He doubted it, and he doubted she could find affection for a male of the people that she had regularly condemned. Like all his family, she knew of the Tash-eh creations and reviled their ethics, politics and science. Ansti could not believe this woman had met his sister. It was a mistake and this youngster was foolish to accost him with her assumptions, a
nd send his emotions tumbling.
“Tell me about her, describe her to me.” Ansti let a little steel slip into his voice, becoming more convinced that this was a mistake and he would soon reveal the stupidity behind it.
“She’s almost as tall as you. She likes to decorate her hair… brown eyes… slim, and she has a mark on her lip — a scar.”
Ansti had been prepared to say that this vague description could be any woman out of millions, but the very last observation had stopped him. When Nuri was young she had fallen and hit her lip on the edge of a rock. The impact had split her lip wide open, and despite her parents urging and friends taunting she had never had the simple repair that would hide the scar that formed afterwards. She wore it like a medal; a symbol of her identity. She liked the fact that people would stare and ask her questions about it, and Ansti suspected, she used it like a lure to attract lovers.
Cold sweat prickled on his face and under his arms. It could be a coincidence, but that scar and the general description did sound like her. Ansti probed deeper, wishing for some of Ashur’s skill at interrogation.
“What was she teaching — nutrition?”
The young woman’s face broadcast discomfort and she broke eye contact with Ansti. A mumbled reply was lost as she looked down and away from his gaze. Ansti reached forward put a finger under her chin and lifted her head in a gesture that was both tender and threatening. Ashur could not have taken a position of power more effectively. The woman was clearly scared, her expression deeply troubled. Her answer would not please Ansti and they both knew it.
“She teaches in a government school, directly I mean, face to face not through a patch.”
Ansti felt an inward smile. That did sound like Nuri. She had always loved to be different — and the fact that it made life harder for herself and her students would in her eyes be an added benefit. He could imagine her regularly condemning what she had once called junk-knolwedge; facts, thoughts and feelings pumped directly into a person without the natural process of learning. Nuri would be proud of him now as he struggled to absorb mission data the old fashioned way.
His smile leaked out and the young woman caught the hint of it and responded, sensing a turn in his mood and a more positive opening in the conversation.
“She’s a good person. She’s helping to heal wounds…”
With those words Ansti, felt a flood gate threaten to burst open, a gate he had kept shut for years. Love and longing rushed into him, and he suddenly ached for contact with his old life, and his family. He wanted to know that his sister was alive and well and missing him, and more than ever he wanted to express the grief, loneliness and fear he had kept locked away lest it betray him . He shook a little as he felt these emotions fill him, and moved again to keep them in check in a reflexive swallowing of feeling that challenged his training and met his present need. Ansti had easily established himself as the psychological adult in this conversation. He wanted to use that now as an interrogators tool. He was more skilled at this than he gave himself credit for.
Ansti spoke slowly through a blank expression, “Yes, she’s a good person, and what did she teach you?”
The young crew member took a deep breath and muttered “Reconciliation Physics”.
Ansti had expected many things, but not this, and the news was deeply disturbing. Reconciliation Physics was the process of uniting the scientific language and concepts of two or more species. It was a means of blending the world views of races whose senses and concepts were literally alien to each other. At a very basic level it created a common language to bridge sensory differences. The classic conundrum used to explain this science to humans was a Praveen example. The Praveen explained most things in terms of sound. So, a reconciliation physicists job to was to find ways to communicate the sound of everything human. They explained the sound of light, wine, pain and many other paradoxical ideas. Amongst allies it was a tool for great good, but between conqueror and oppressed it was usually a tool of the oppressor. It was a weapon to reshape the minds of the conquered. If his sister was a teaching this under enemy occupation it would make her a collaborator.
Ansti could not reconcile his own conflicted feelings. The woman being described to him did sound like Nuri, but her actions did not. Could she have changed so much and found a place with the enemy? Did her love for a Tash-eh man blind her to the politics of oppression? Ansti stood, hands on hips, breathing deeply and looking down at the young woman. She sensed his confusion, moved closer and whispered.
“Ansti, some of us have been talking. We have doubts. We don’t want to hurt them, not like this. It is too… brutal.”
Ansti raised his eyes and stared through dark, tense brows. Mistrust stirred in him, but he said nothing, willing to let her condemn herself with her next words. He was ready to judge her and act as he found. She was placing herself in peril, and bravely or foolishly she did not stop.
“The Tash-eh are different from us, and they hurt us, but they are not all bad. Ansti, the war was a mistake, and we lost, so our pride is damaged. We were prisoners for a while, and some still feel it. But… the Tash-eh have done good as well. You haven’t been home, and perhaps you could not go, but life is almost normal. If only they would let us pilot again. It is the one thing they utterly suppress. They say we were a danger to ourselves and other races, and that the government hid truths from us. They say that there was a plan to militarise space. Many at home, and some here believe that. My ambition is to pilot like you Ansti. I feel it deeply. I know I could do it, but I am prevented from even taking the first empathy tests, and that makes me deeply angry at them. That is wrong.”
She paused, searching Ansti for encouragement or reproach, looking for a clue as to how to proceed. Ansti offered none. He held himself still and silent, only his glowering expression betraying the turmoil he felt and the growing rage starting to boil within him. Two words orbited him, and began to attach themselves to her image; ‘traitor’ and ‘liar’. She, believing her own rhetoric, stepped further into the trap of his silence.
“We were born to pilot Ansti. You know that. It denies us our right and our heritage to prevent us from partnering ships. They must miss us don’t you think, the ships I mean? It is wrong to keep this from us, but life goes on. We are not destroyed, in fact we thrive now. Ashur is fighting a war that ended before I was born. I came here because I want the freedom to pilot, for myself and others of our people. I even fought them for a while. I found a resistance group and planned to hurt their politicians and soldiers, and subvert their teaching. I was caught on my first mission, and your sister led the programme to reconcile my feelings with the reality of life with the Tash-eh. She showed me good things about Tash-eh life, and was honest about our failings. Then, Ashur rescued me, and others in the group and brought us here. I came here to fight for the freedom to pilot, but Ashur’s way is so disproportionate. It will bring more destruction and oppression. Ansti, it’s not worth it. Freedom at any price will make us the oppressor. Don’t take us to Tash-eh Hruun, find another way, like Nuri did. You can convince Ashur to stop. He needs you.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor and the young woman turned away, leaving Ansti in interrupted shock. He had assumed the crew were all behind Ashur; hand picked for their skill and zeal. Now he had seen a rift, and one had been created in him. Doubt rushed in again. So much of this mission felt wrong, and while his anger labelled her traitor, there was integrity and naive honesty about her. Yet he remembered the war. There was no kindness in the Tash-eh onslaught, no sense of regretful necessity. It brought destruction, fear and death on a massive scale. He remembered his own desperate flight away from them and fleeting glimpses of shattered lives, and bodies in streets, the corpses still smoking from the weapons that felled them. They had attacked and killed his people, his family. He needed no one to tell him that they should pay for that outrage. He reached for the reassuring heat of revenge and felt it glowing in him still, but now there was an unsatisfying hint of d
oubt. What would happen to Nuri if Ashur won? Would she be the target of some other’s revenge? Would a new cycle of war and tragedy be started?
Ansti turned, the footsteps were Tannen’s. “Sun-shit Ansti what’s keeping you? We’re closing on the jump point. We need you plugged in. Come on!” Ansti opened his mouth, the first sounds forming that would identify the young woman as a traitor, an obstacle to the progress of right and might. Tannen stood there with a hand on his arm reinforcing his words with a pull. He felt Ansti resist, saw his troubled expression, and misinterpreted it.
“Are you OK? We’re all scared Ansti. This is a critical jump and there will be a fight. Don’t worry, you can do this and we have power. More than they can suspect. We will win Ansti.”
Tannen was clearly convinced and ready for action. Ansti, held his words and let himself be cajoled into movement toward his place in the ship. As he walked he thought, ‘Yes. Tannen, I’m scared that we will lose, and now I am also scared that we might win.’
Chapter 15.
People had showed suns the beauty of their worlds. They spoke of oceans, skies, and mountains. They described culture, art and science. They patiently spent decades communicating their affinity with places born of a sun but not part of it, places in which humanity thrived. Other races did the same, enthusiastically telling the makers of their worlds about the richness of sound, vibration, texture and scents, of the diversity of species roaming the landscape, of the cities that were thousands of years old and now so integrated into the environment that it was hard to tell what was natural and what was built.
The Man Who Talked to Suns Page 19