“Come, come,” said Yanor, striding forward into the grass. He seemed much more solid against the vivid colors of the landscape. “It is a lovely world, is it not? Worth fighting for?” He smiled. “Let me show you our home, and then we will talk, and you will know how much is at stake.”
* * *
“Promised One?” said Crichton. He had struggled to his feet again, and he was standing in the low light of the mossy chamber shaking his head, which felt no better than it had the last time he’d shaken it. “Look, friend. I’m an astronaut. I’m a scientist. No way am I a Promised One. Even my mother didn’t think I was a Promised One.”
“We beg to differ,” said Pahl mildly.
“Well, there’s sure been a mistake somewhere. The fact that I’m even out in this part of the universe is a mistake. Sorry, but I’m not a metaphorical guy. What do you want with us? I want straight answers, scientific answers.”
Pahl pressed his hands together again and assumed a stance of great solemnity. “It has been prophesied,” he said with reverence, “that a Being would arrive who would be the Promised One. The one to descend into the depths, to journey to the Orb of All, and to let us go Home again! We have sensors that have been looking out for the Promised One, and when they analyzed your ship, they knew the Promised One was aboard. Everything you have said merely confirms that you are indeed the Promised One.”
“What? ‘I have seen the Promised Land?’ ‘Let my people go?’ Who am I supposed to be, Moses? I can promise you I’ve never even seen a bulrush.”
The ghost sighed, a sound like the rustling of leaves over a grave. “Perhaps it is better to show you.” He flowed back to his two companions. Again, the dip of heads. Again, the ectoplasmic conference. The ghost turned. He held up his digits, which rippled like a sea urchin’s tentacles. “Come, Crichton. Come with us, come to our World.”
With a shiver Crichton followed as the transparent aliens turned and floated across the spongy floor. At the far side was a wall criss-crossed with metallic fibres. They did not stop at the wall, but simply floated through the metal, the folds of their outlines sparkling and shivering with light as they disappeared.
Crichton stared at the wall with disbelief. It seemed as solid as it had when the ghosts had disappeared through it, and pushing on it with his hand confirmed that it was rock-solid. He pounded his fist against it in frustration. “Hey, you guys!” he called. “I’m solid! I can’t just walk through things.”
Nothing.
Silence.
Crichton stared at the gray wall. A clammy cold was creeping into his bones, and a sense of something dangerous lurked in the shadows. He could feel goose-bumps forming on his skin.
“Hey, guys! I’m still here. I’m—”
The wall began to open. An irising effect started at the very middle of the wall, and the whole area began to open up, like an inverted metal bloom. The gray peeled away; as soon as the round hole grew to about a metre wide, a shaft of light poured through, illuminating the dank room. It was golden and mild, a sweet sunlight, and as it speared through the dimness, Crichton found his heart lightening.
Slowly the hole opened further. Crichton stepped back and watched. Slowly the panorama unfolded in front of him. It was like something in a painting, framed by the gray metallic grids of the wall. A landscape painting: more than that, a magical landscape painting.
In the foreground of this painting-come-to-life was a meadow of lush grass peppered with color: fuchsia and chartreuse, opal and azure. There were exotic plants, the nearest earthly match for which would be vines and flowers, and rows of strange trees with azure fruits and verdant leaves. After the clamminess of the room, the smell of fresh air was intoxicating. Crichton felt suddenly charged and happy.
Beyond the meadow a gleaming river wound through the countryside, and beyond the river rose mountains. The sight was breathtaking. Crichton’s soul took a deep breath of it all.
“Lovely. It’s … lovely,” he said.
The ghosts materialized below a tree in the foreground.
“We are glad you approve, John Crichton. It is the Now Home. You will be the Bringer of the Yesterday Home and the Tomorrow Home.”
“I like to be useful.”
Crichton eagerly stepped forward into the grass, and as he walked he sent little sprays of floating things like dandelion seedlings drifting into the air. The effect was as though his boots were releasing fairy dust from the turf. He walked over to the ghosts.
“What about my friends?”
“They are here now as well.”
“I need to see them.”
“When the time comes. First, you must help us.”
Crichton sighed. This all would be fascinating under other circumstances: the idyllic landscape of fields and mountains, the winding stream, the scent of the flowers on the warm breeze. But now all he wanted was answers.
“OK. You’ve got my attention. How am I supposed to help you?”
“We need you to do a very simple thing,” said Pahl. “We need you to go into a certain chamber and gather some items for us.” The ghost leader looked around at his companions, whose expressions were of the utmost solemnity. “We have been waiting for you to come and do this for so long.”
Crichton looked from one face to the other. “You’re making it sound so easy. What’s the catch?”
The womanly ghost, Igai, stepped forward. “Our ship has lost all engine capacity. And so after you get these items for us, we will need to take your ship.”
A jolt of alarm shot through Crichton. The peril of the situation seemed so at odds with this peaceful landscape, the warm sweetly scented wind, the luxuriant carpet of blossoms.
“I cannot give you our ship,” he said.
The lead ghost looked at him as if with great sadness for one who understood so little. “The passage of centuries has damaged our engines beyond repair,” he said. “Our faster-than-light drive is useless. We have been drifting in space, helpless, for untold millennia, until you brought us your ship. In return for our passage, we can take you home, or give you eternal life. Do either of these interest you?”
CHAPTER 11
Zhaan meditated.
Meditation was usually like a fresh pool of luxurious warm water for her. Not as blissful, perhaps, as the photogasms she experienced when exposed to certain kinds of light, but far more soothing and peaceful.
She sat on the side of the bridge under the arch of one of Moya’s great copper-colored ribs, quietly settled. To someone who was standing beside her, it might have seemed as though Zhaan was sitting in a pool of silence. But not to Zhaan. Being over eight hundred cycles old and having a body derived from a flora-genetic background had its rewards. For one thing, when she tuned into her plant awareness, she never failed to note all the details around her that simply slipped by when she was in her more outwardly aware mode.
Now, for instance.
As she meditated, she kept her hand closed around a radi, a small Delvian crystal and one of the few things from her homeworld that she still possessed. It was a sparkling clear crystal shot through with Delvian sunlight: and if one looked closely enough, the very eye of the crystal held a spot of intense blue. Zhaan liked to think the blue was Zhaan herself in the sunlight of her garden on Delvia. The crystal had been incubated in the fertile earth of her homeworld and hardened in a cycles-long bath of dried buh leaves, so that the crystal had the rich elusive scent of Delvia itself.
As she sat, the warmth of the radi in her hand, she was aware of subtle noises that were not only calming but profound. The dominant ones now were the hum and whoosh of Moya’s inner systems beating out their synchronous beats. Pilot had been correct—Moya was content. Whatever kind of sedatives those invading probes had jabbed into Moya, they were marvellously effective. With all the barbarous things that the Peacekeepers had done to this Leviathan, this living ship, this beautiful being, there had been much pain echoing through her. Her own work with Moya had eased that somewhat
. Alas, there had still been pain in the ship—until now.
In control, Zhaan let herself drift past the harmonious and synchronized chuffs and flutters of Moya’s energies right into the perfume, the delicate jasmine-and-talc scent of the buh leaves.
As her meditation deepened, she sank into her own past and the past of the thousands of cycles of Delvian ancestors, thriving and growing in the fruitful soil of the planet. Straight on went her perceptions, winding around the scents of the fillgran plants and pushing on through the olfactory into the gustatory. Mint and age, java-mort and kaki-leaves. Past these joys into soul, past and past again, deeper than cutaneous sensory arrays, through photon awareness to a more primal memory.
Zhaan gathered up like a storm of lilies. She harmonized and focused, she blended and burst. Up and out, up and out, forward, backward, null-tomorrow, nano-yesterday, microts upon microts … Here is Zhaan … not-Zhaan …
She could see thousands of cycles into the past, back to the infancy of Delvia, when its inhabitants had barely begun to pierce the veils of esoteric understanding, and when their primitive technology made it perilous to venture beyond their own solar system.
She was in such depths of antiquity that Zhaan felt her grasp on memory weakening. She squeezed the crystal harder, as if she could gather the strength of the planet from it.
Down, into the past … She saw the crude Delvian rocket that had first been sent out to greet visitors from the stars. She saw a huge alien ship like a featureless moon newly afloat above Delvia, and a ramp extending from that ship to the Delvian emissaries, just as it had been extended to Moya. She could feel enormous yearning from those aboard the alien ship—a yearning for true sunlight and the rich Delvian soil. A yearning to go home. And a bitter, devouring aloneness.
She felt dizzy with the power of the memories, and fragile, as if she might slip off the edge of consciousness. She tried to steel her mind to remember.
The touch of cerulean night … the caress of antiquity …
The yearning of alien minds on a sparkling soulscape of light and dark …
A spiral staircase leading down to never never and up into …
She felt a strong tug on her consciousness, as though she were being pulled to some place south of oblivion. The yearning, the aloneness—were those in the past, or in the present?
She started to de-escalate the rite, to step down from the heights of memory and understanding, and once again she felt the tug, pulling her off in another direction. Should she close down her enquiry into the secrets of the Nokmadi, or throw herself open to them? She might never again have the opportunity to penetrate the secrets of this vessel, this new world, this jagged rift in space.
She took a deep breath.
Here I am, she thought. Take me.
And the dark and the light took her and wrenched her and carried her down.
* * *
D’Argo looked at the drifting clouds of fairy-dust thrown into the air as they walked through the thick grass. He was grinning.
Aeryn watched the big creature as he stopped and took a huge, fulfilling breath of the fresh air. He looked invigorated, as though he were wearing Peacekeeper stim-boots and had just pressed for a hype-jab.
“This is good,” he said. “This is … beautiful. I almost didn’t know how much I missed being on solid land.”
Aeryn shook her head, determined to fight the feelings that were enveloping her too. “You planet-huggers. Damn if I can see what you get out of tufts of vegetation and rock hanging off a pile of dirt.”
Yanor said, “This is no planet, nor is it simply a ship. It is more than either: it is our World. Sometimes we call it the Now Home. Welcome.”
Aeryn looked out at the impossibly serene landscape and then back at the strong, slim figure of Yanor. “Great. The Now Home. We’ve got one of those riddle-wrapped enigma puzzles, huh?” she said. “More mystery. Just my cup of wak-tea.”
Yanor turned and looked at her with those penetrating green eyes. He definitely appeared more substantial now, more solid—and yet there was still the smoky moil inside him, moving clouds of translucence.
“We must travel now,” he said simply. “You will see the World and understand why we need your help. And then, I hope, you will give it.”
“And Crichton?” pressed Aeryn.
Yanor folded his hands. “Crichton and his companions are some way ahead. They dare not stop and wait for us. Time is of the essence. If we set out now, however, we may be able to catch up with them.”
Aeryn looked at D’Argo, who had a wary expression on his face. D’Argo grimaced. “If we set out now, that will be because you have agreed to tell us what we need to know,” he said forcefully.
“I understand,” said Yanor. “The meeting-place is up ahead, and there the answers will become clear.” He began to walk through the thick grass of the meadow. D’Argo and Aeryn looked at each other for a moment; then Aeryn set her jaw and started after him.
D’Argo turned and took a last look behind them. The panel they had stepped out of was nowhere to be seen; around them was nothing but meadow and forest, lush and fragrant. Almost too lush and fragrant. The twin suns had made their way almost imperceptibly farther up from the horizon, and the sky was still a piercing blue.
D’Argo touched his Qualta Rifle and followed Aeryn.
Yanor led them through the meadow and down a gentle slope towards the stream. They could hear the water babbling and see the stones along the shore. A well-worn path opened up before them, paralleling the path of the stream, and Yanor joined it. At each step his feet seem to rise above the path for a moment and then sink down again.
They walked for a few minutes in silence. Aeryn allowed herself the luxury of relaxing just a bit. But it was easy to let something like relief sweep through your bones and blood when you had such warmth and fragrance to walk through.
Despite what she’d said about planet-huggers, Aeryn always had to admit that certain aspects of planet’s surfaces she always found intriguing, even comforting. Although this was not, strictly speaking, a planet’s surface—it must be a space within the sphere, Aeryn calculated—it had all the elements of one, from mountains to streams, and it seemed a very attractive one as well.
The path traced its way along the river for some time, and they drew closer to the forest ahead. The trees were dense with small red berries. Shrubs with drooping branches grew to waist-height, and when they brushed past them the leaves gave off a faint odor of something wild, something that made her pulse race. The colors and the fragrances had a heady intensity.
Eventually they emerged into a clearing in the woods, the ground leafy and dappled with sunlight. For the first time Aeryn could hear the singing of birds, although whichever way she turned in the dense forest, she could see none in the trees.
Yanor came to a halt, and D’Argo drew along side Aeryn. And slowly, before their eyes, a meeting-place shimmered into existence.
CHAPTER 12
“Pilot!”
“Yes, Rygel?”
“Pilot, would you please present a request to Moya for me?”
“Of course, Rygel.”
“Would you tell her to do something about these ridiculous DRDs?”
Rygel XVI, the great and glorious, eternal object of adoration, highest and most venerable power of innumerable realms, etc., etc., lay upon the cold floor.
Near him hovered his ThroneSled, looking more than a little wobbly and uncertain.
His acolytes were clustered around him, clambering over him. They had his robes engaged in their gears, and when he tried to pull away from them, they were heavier and more resistant than they looked. Their exploring eyestalks tickled, their little wheels gouged. They seemed totally out of control and, what was worse, they simply would not let Rygel up.
“Moya does not give orders to the DRDs, Rygel.”
“Look, I don’t care if it’s the Grand Vizier of Rumley Nimkin Major who gives the orders—they’re going crazy, and
I want them to stop!”
One of the DRDs started to bump him in the side. Others started to push at him with a little back-and-forth scouring motion.
“I am not familiar with Rumley Nimkin Major, Rygel. It appears the DRDs are attending to you.”
A DRD started nuzzling his foot.
“Stop that!” cried Rygel. “That’s…”
He kicked at the DRD, but it clung to him and its nuzzling motion was making him feel ticklish.
“Yoooooooohoooooheeeeeeehaaaaa!” cried Rygel. “No, no, please! Pilot! Moya! Stop it … please … oh my … oh dear … Stop this thing!” He tried to twist away from the DRDs, but they had him surrounded, and kicking and flailing didn’t discourage them in the slightest. Their shiny yellow carapaces shone in the light as they swarmed around him. “Stop it now!” cried Rygel, almost out of breath.
“Rygel?” said Pilot. “Are you all right?”
“Please … no … noooooooo!” Another DRD had fastened itself to Rygel’s other foot and was proceeding to work on it, applying some sort of maddeningly ticklish electrical current to it. Even as he writhed, a whole slew of DRDs whirred and chittered through the door to aid their fellows in this important operation.
Pilot cleared his voice. “Rygel? They have determined that there is maintenance necessary to your neurostructure, and so they are performing stimulus-node massage to encourage energy flow,” he reported.
“My neurostructure is fine! Why won’t they stop when I tell them? Oooooh … Ah … Oooooh! Eeeeee!”
“They will only take orders from the mental communications networks you have established,” said Pilot, looking down at the console that constituted his interface with Moya. “Your voice no longer has authority clearance.”
“My voice … ahhhhhhhhhh … they won’t obey my voice?” cried Rygel. “It’s … ooooooh … a voice that has commanded billions! If I can’t use my voice, I can’t use the furze!”
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