The Namura Stone

by Andrews, Gillian

  The orthogel around her darkened. “I did.”

  “And did the others get away?”

  “I can find nobody else trapped with me here. Many of my cells are gone, too, together with nearly all of my brain. I am very sorry that you were not saved, Diva. There was some sort of shock wave, which split me in two. I couldn’t get both parts out.”

  She stretched her neck up proudly, and managed a smile. “The others are safe, and the Dessites will not get their hands on this part of you. That is all that matters.”

  “You know that is not true.”

  “It is a worthy cause to die for. I am proud to have been a part of it all.”

  “I would have preferred to save you.”

  “I know, Arcan. Don’t feel bad; it is not your fault and at least I shall have died fighting. I am glad. I wanted to live up to my name.”

  “Can you feel the pressure of the Dessite minds?”

  “Yes; they are very strong. Will we have to resist for long?”

  “Just a few more seconds. Can you do it?”

  Her shoulders went back, and her eyes flashed. “Of course I can. I am the girl who fights.” Diva took a deep breath. “It’s just … I … I keep thinking of Six.”

  It seemed hard to let go of everything they had shared together. There was a dull ache of protest in her heart, which seemed insistent on showing her image after image of the Kwaidian as he grew from a boy to a man. Her throat hurt. She tried to give a twisted smile, but her eyes were glistening, and Arcan saw her blink furiously.

  “He will miss you.”

  “I know. It will be hard for him.”

  “Diva?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am glad I have known you. You are all extraordinary beings, even though you are transients.”

  “I am the one who should thank you. I am glad I met you, too.” Her throat hurt. “Goodbye, Arcan; I thank you for these extra years you gave me.”

  “Goodbye, Diva. It has been a privilege to know you.”

  She allowed herself to think again of Six, just for a moment. She whispered something and closed her eyes.

  Then she stiffened her back and straightened up, facing forwards like a true meritocrat should at that inescapable moment of death – to welcome its touch. She lifted her head and took a deep breath; the one she knew would be her last, the one she should savour. She breathed out slowly through her lips and gave one last, slow smile of wry acceptance.

  A blazing, brilliant white flash blossomed out from the centre of the remaining orthogel in the chamber. It vapourized everything which came in its path, everything within a radius of 15 metres.

  Diva’s body was instantly incinerated by the force of the blast.

  THE OTHER BUBBLES tumbled over and over, their occupants being thrown around like flotsam in a mountain torrent in spring.

  Grace had lost sight of Ledin, and her eyes were worried. She clawed herself upright as the movement slowed and began to look around her. They were in the lake on Valhai, she realized. Arcan had brought them home.

  The bubble she was in shimmered, and she felt new orthogel take its place.

  “Grace, are you all right?” It was Arcan.

  “Yes! Yes, I am. You? The others?”

  Arcan was uncharacteristically silent.

  “What? What is it? Arcan? ARCAN?”

  “I … I …” The bubble around her turned black.

  Grace bit her lip. Her heart had missed a beat. “L-Ledin?” she ventured.

  “Is here. So are Six, Tallen and Bennel, though Bennel seems unable to stand upright.”

  Grace went white. “… And … and Diva? What about Diva?”

  Arcan was silent.

  Grace looked confused. “Diva is … is not here?” She thumped her hands against the sides of the bubble. “We must go back! We can’t leave her behind! Arcan! Whatever are you thinking of?”

  “We can’t go back. There is nothing to go back to.”

  Grace covered her mouth with her hands. “You mean …?”

  “The explosives detonated. Diva will not be coming back.”

  Grace sat down with a thump on the floor. Her legs had failed her unexpectedly. She stared at them, uncomprehending. Then she looked around her at the orthobubble, as if asking Arcan to rectify his last words, as if hoping against hope that she had misheard. She gazed at the still blackness surrounding her, and something in that very stillness told her that she had heard him aright. She put one hand to her throat, stricken, her face crumpled, and she began to cry.

  “I am sorry, Grace. I am transporting all of you to Xiantha. Six is unconscious. I think he knows that she is gone.”

  Grace still had her hands over her mouth, but she managed to nod. “Yes. Yes, of course. Take me to him, please. He will need me. I … I … h-he will need help. We … we will look after him. But … oh, Arcan, how did it happen?”

  Arcan darkened again and then explained how he had realized that the namura stone might allow them all to escape. “—But it was too much, too fast, and the namura stone was too solid.” He told her about the canths and the trimorphs losing their dimming effect on the mindwall. “There was only a tiny portion of the barrier I could tunnel through, and I had to do it as quickly as I could. There was no time left to be careful. Perhaps I was too fast, perhaps the namura stone was too solid, perhaps the mindwall too strong. For whatever reason, there was a shock wave which rent everything apart, and Diva was carried backwards – to the part of me which was not able to tunnel out.”

  Grace swallowed. “I see. I suppose it was lucky you could get any of us out.”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t help.”

  “No. No, it doesn’t. Are … are you going to be all right, Arcan?”

  “Yes. Only a small part of my cells were trapped and destroyed, thanks to all of you. I will require a period of recuperation, so I will leave you all on Xiantha and then come back here to try to get back to normal. The visitor, who travelled to Enara, says that the Ammonites merely showed the Dessites where to find me as a gesture of goodwill. They are still in discussions about whether to make a formal agreement with the Dessites, and they have decided to do nothing more until that has been resolved. So we have time. The

  Dessite mindwall lost any possibility of a link to this system with the explosion, which means that at least we don’t have to worry about them, for the moment.”

  At last Grace took her hands away from her face. She felt as if her own heart was stabbing at her; it was still physically difficult to breathe. She was devastated, but through the cold shock that was making her whole body shake uncontrollably she knew she had things to do. “Very well, Arcan. I … I will tell the others.”

  “Thank you.” Arcan’s voice seemed to come and go, rather strangely. “I would appreciate it. Please tell them how sorry I am. How much … how very much I would have liked to save Diva.”

  Grace gave the saddest smile of her life. “I will tell them. I promise.”

  The depths of the lake on Valhai vanished, and Grace was deposited in front of the canth keeper. The hot Xianthan sun was shining down on the canth farm, and there was a ring of canths circling them. She looked around her. Four other bubbles had gently deposited their contents on the ground.

  Grace took a deep breath, and then she walked unsteadily towards them.

  Chapter 12

  A WEEK HAD passed since that fateful journey back from Dessia. Grace picked Temar up from his cot and gave a sigh. She didn’t like the sound of the news she had just received from the canth keeper. She handed the baby over to Tallen, who had agreed to take care of him for the day, went outside to find her canth, and pulled herself up into the saddle. She wondered if Tallen would know how to look after such a young child, even though she had left everything
ready. Then she gave a shrug. She had no choice; she had to go.

  It didn’t take many hours to travel across the Great Plain to the canth farm near Eletheia, and it was pleasant to be in motion. She found that her brain was silent during the trip; a welcome change from the last week. She hadn’t been able to sleep, hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t been able to function. She had thought trying to recover from the episode on the orbital station had been tough, but she had been wrong. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

  Losing Diva had been like losing herself. She missed the sarcastic comments, the huge vivacity, the proud stance, the refusal to bend to anybody’s will. Grace’s whole soul missed her friend, and it was hard to go on without her. She rode across the Great Plain, which seemed dulled. The sun had no heat and the warmth of Xiantha was quite insufficient to evaporate the perpetual chill around her heart.

  The miles slipped by; the closer she got to the farm, the more Diva was in her mind. The Coriolan girl might have been there with her, making one of her quick remarks, or laughing about something. More often, she would have been frowning terribly with those eyebrows of hers, or teasing Six, or …

  Grace’s thoughts trailed off, a huge lump in her throat having made even breathing hard. She forced down a rasp of air and blinked quickly several times, trying to make the tears go away. They did, but they left a harsh, raw pain which made her screw up her eyes and look away from the sun.

  It was so hard.

  It was so hard to be without Diva.

  It was so hard just to go on living, even with a new baby.

  Then something spooked her canth. It tossed its long neck and its head came back towards her, nearly hitting her on the nose. It pirouetted for a moment. She came out of her reverie with a bump, nearly falling off.

  It took her a minute or two to calm her canth down, and she was grateful to it. This was a time to think about the living, not the dead.

  They continued together on the dusty track across the wide open expanse of the Great Plain. Eletheia could just be seen now, on the horizon, but Grace skirted it, heading to the north, to the canth farm.

  WHEN SHE ARRIVED, the man who spoke to canths hurried out of his small house to greet her warmly.

  “Girl who found the past,” he said, “thank you for coming.”

  She slipped down from the saddle and smiled. “How is Bennel?”

  “He is progressing. I think we will be able to send him to you at the Emerald Lake soon. Vion says that the damage to some of the muscles is healing, although he may walk with a slight limp. He has been very lucky; a few seconds more traction of that severity and the damage would have been permanent.”

  “I am glad to hear it. I will come to see him, after … afterwards.”

  The canth keeper bowed. “I understand. You will find Valhai Six in the eighth corral.”

  Grace walked past gate after gate of the corrals, which formed an inner circle onto the main area in front of the small house. In each, some of the canths were standing by the gate, watching.

  She opened the gate of the eighth corral and walked away from the house, down the large paddock until she was out of sight of the rest of the farm.

  There were many trees dotted around the dry paddock, and canths were resting from the hot Xianthan sun under some of the larger Eletheian trees. Grace narrowed her eyes as she walked, trying to spot one particular canth.

  She found it right at the far end of the paddock, standing close to the railings. Diva’s seal brown canth was on its feet, head up, staring into the distance, seemingly examining the huge, jutting peak of the dark Xianthe.

  Grace herself looked in the same direction. She shuddered slightly; she still hadn’t forgotten her fall. Then she gazed around. She found was she was looking for under a nearby temaris tree.

  “Why have you come?” The voice which greeted her was cold and unfriendly. It grated.

  Grace walked over to the tree and sat down in its shade. “Six,” she said calmly. “How are you?”

  The shape under the tree shifted. “I don’t need you.”

  “I think you do.”

  “Leave me alone. All of you. You don’t understand.”

  “Six, you have to eat, have to drink.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, do I? ‘Have to’? Who says?”

  “You cannot stay here.”

  He gave another jerk of his head, mocking her. “Stop trying to be mother, Grace. Just let me be. I have things to do. I don’t want anybody hanging around. Go back to your nice husband and your nice baby. They are alive; they need you.”

  Grace gasped, and then her face darkened, and she got angrily to her feet. “How dare you!”

  Six looked surprised. “What?”

  “Try to make me feel guilty because Ledin is still alive. That was a pretty nasty thing to say!”

  There was a silence. Then, “I suppose it was.” He looked away.

  Grace’s heart contracted, feeling for him. “You have been here for days. You have to come away.”

  “I must stay here.” He turned on her, his face bare, stripped of all social niceness, the bones forming hard lines across his factions, his pain clear for anyone to see.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I told you to go away!” He gave her a push, and she stumbled, falling onto her back on the dry dirt.

  “Six!”

  “What? Go and look after your family, Grace. They need you. I don’t.”

  Grace stared at the dishevelled figure in front of her. Six was filthy. He certainly hadn’t washed for days, and he looked substantially thinner. She doubted if he had eaten anything. His eyes were rimmed with red, and the shadows beneath them were translucent, the skin bruised and blue. He looked at the end of all resistance; he seemed utterly lost.

  She walked up to him and enfolded him in her arms. He resisted for quite some moments, and then relaxed suddenly, allowing her to hug him close to her. There was a long pause, and then he rested his head on her shoulder and started crying, like a small child.

  “She hasn’t come, Grace.”

  “I know. Shh!” She rubbed his back.

  “Her canth is still alive, still well. Why is her canth still well?”

  “I don’t know.” She hugged him even closer. His anger dried up his tears, and he pulled back to stare at her.

  “She isn’t gone, you know. She will be a trimorph. I haven’t lost her altogether. I am waiting for her. I am waiting for her canth to die.”

  Grace nodded. “I know. But her canth is still well.”

  His face crumpled up. “How can that be? I don’t understand. It should have died with her. You know it should. Why won’t she come?”

  Grace stepped forwards again and put her arms around the skinny figure. “Shh! There, there!”

  But the moment had gone. Six almost pushed her away, his face stricken. “She hasn’t come. I have to wait for her here. I won’t leave. I want to see her.”

  “But Raven needs you. —And we have to go to the funeral, on Coriolis. Six, you can’t stay here. You know you can’t! You have to come with me.”

  “I have lost her, Grace. I have lost my way.”

  “I know. I know you have. But you can’t stay here. I won’t let you.” Grace thought for a moment. “It is what Diva would want.”

  For a split second, he looked eager. “You think?” But then his face dropped. “I have to be here. She has to be a trimorph. I can’t lose her altogether. Surely you can see that?”

  Grace sighed. “I don’t know if she will be a trimorph. Even Arcan doesn’t know.”

  “Arcan!” His voice was full of loathing. “This is his fault.”

  Grace took a deep breath. “Arcan saved the rest of us.”

  Six looked do
wn. “He didn’t save her.” His voice thickened so much that it broke on the last word.

  “Six, he couldn’t save her. There was some sort of a shock wave, something which rebounded off the tunnel and split him in two. Diva was in the part which stayed. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “I saw her, you know.”

  “In the bubble? Did you?”

  “We must have both been caught up at the edge of separation. It all seemed to pause, to hover for long moments in limbo. There were fires, selwaves, shining lights. It all stopped, and then she was carried backwards, and I was carried forwards. I couldn’t do anything! I was trapped in the bubble! I couldn’t get out. I didn’t help her.” His figure doubled over, bending as if from a great weight. “Why did it have to be her, Grace? Why wasn’t it me?”

  Grace looked down at Six, who had become a shadow of the person she knew in just a week. There was no answer to that. She stretched a hand down to touch him on the shoulder. It was all she could think of to do.

  Six shrugged her hand away. “I’ve fought all my life, Grace, and never given up, but the thought of facing the future without Diva …” his voice broke, “… just leaves me drained. I don’t have anything left inside.”

  Grace stared at the seal brown canth, which had now begun to forage idly amongst the sparse grass in the large corral. It certainly looked healthy. She frowned. Six was right; that was odd. Then she gave another sigh. But it didn’t change anything.

  “Get up, Six.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. You have to. You can’t let them have a funeral for her on Coriolis without your being there. Or are you going to let Raven go on her own?”

  Something stirred behind the dimmed eyes, Grace noticed. “— Because its odds on to a vaniven that Tartalus will be there.”