by Janet Morris
“Dock in three minutes,” Maref announced. M’tras did not seem to hear.
“Tell me!” he said, straightening up, his brows drawn down over his eyes. “Go ahead. What has occurred?”
“You spoke with Dellin. Khys or one of his council appeared to take him to task for what you have done. Seeing that he knew nothing, that one gave him a demand for my return and a threat of retaliation. Dellin was never very brave. He wants out. I cannot see how Dellin came to know of you, but I would call it some machine-aided determination.”
“I thought you were talentless while wearing that collar,” he said softly his eyes crinkled.
“I guessed,” I said. “I know Khys.”
He bit his cheek a moment. “I wish I did,” he said. “Sparkling air, yet. He can do that?” He surveyed the hover, as if looking for Khys behind him.
“Two minutes,” said Maref dryly.
“And so much more I doubt that you could conceive his limits.”
He awakened his belt, I thought I saw something spinning among the lights.
“Could he,” he said very clearly, “destroy something—say, this ship—from his present position upon Silistra, without mechanical aid?”
“And therefore, indefensibly, to a machine culture .... Yes, surely, though he might hesitate to do so with me aboard.”
“Might?” His belt suddenly quieted, as if sharing the concern that froze him.
“He has what he desired from me—a male child. He would spend me, doubtless, if the prize was dear enough.” I did not believe a word of it, but I wanted M’tras to take the falsehood, camouflaged so lavishly with truth.
“One minute,” said Maref.
IV: The Gulf of Alternate Conceptions
Ijiyr was the name of the instrument M’tras played. The sound of it, coaxed by dextrous fingers, toned sonorous around the cabin. Crystalline, piercing, thick as running water came that quarter-tone composition, for a time that was not long, but so meaningfully filled it stretched eternity.
As he put it by upon the table, a sad yearning filled me, to be again where those sounds had winged us. He had taken me with him, where the music spirits go, out of cabin, of confinement, to a place where I bore no band of restraint, nor the heavier weight of my Shapers’ heritage. Brought almost to tears by the melody’s beauty. I could only sit a time, breathing. M’tras himself was quiet, loose-muscled, leaning back in the cabin’s marsh-gray chair.
I sat in the other, which was green-toned and mercifully inanimate. Between us was a burnished table of some metallic-seeming substance. The cabin was sectioned, diffusely lit, windowless. Between the two sleeping slabs was a partition, subdivided, that served food, information, entertainment.
One wall offered a panoramic view of the Western Forest. I had asked M’tras, had been told that the Western forest was the greatest natural wonder upon M’ksakka. It looked like any other forest save that the colors, beneath a gray-brown sky seemed dull. The tree shapes, if you looked at them closely, were not quite right by Silistran standards. The opposite wall held some rather soothing Torth wall sculpture, four pieces that meshed the space between them, light green, into an integral part of the artists’ conception. The cloud-toned wall held the door, with its red-glowing, oblong palm-lock. Across from it was the entry into the cabin’s washroom, flanked by storage units, doored and drawered with the warm, dully burnished metal. That same metal floored and ceilinged the cabin, pedestaled the table and sleeping slabs securely in place. The covers and hanging that might be drawn for privacy around the slabs were a rich brown velvet.
I had gone and sat upon one of those slabs, despairing of ever learning to sleep so high off the ground, upon such a squishy, uncertain surface. The pills that had calmed my stomach were wearing off, as was the drug’s attendant easing of my nerves. When, I wondered, would Khys reclaim me? I hugged myself, cold, frightened.
M’tras had not troubled me, but gone to his slab and gotten the ijiyr from its case. Trilling some tentative scales, he had been unsatisfied, clicking, his dark fingers running agilely upon the lucent keys. He placed it upon the table, gone to rummage in the storage drawers. When he returned with a tiny cube and a brace of tools, my curiosity had drawn me to the thing, lying silent, as long as my forearm, upon the metal. It was a keyboard and stringed instrument both, with a tiny and complex square of exposed wiring, under which were dials and switches.
He ministered to it, concentrated, intent. Thrice he touched a string, twice reset a red-switch.
“What is it?” I asked when at last he sank into the gray chair and pulled the instrument into his lap.
“An ijiyr. I think with it,” he had said, sinking his chin to his chest, his right hand striking the first chord. I do not remember sitting down. Only the sound that took life and inhabited the air, do I recall. The scale he employed pivoted, metamorphosed, engaged. He joined modes in ways I had never before imagined. That level of sophistication in music is oft inaccessible. M’tras was eloquently, spiritually direct. Upon Silistra, a musician of such stature would have been high-chalded, a dharener among his kind, But he was not of Silistra. He was some kind of mechanized Slayer, about the business of Bipedal Federation. I felt momentary disgust, that they would waste such a talent, as I looked at him, his spirit slow returning from its outward fight, his jaw and neck aglitter with moisture.
“You should not do else but that,” I said to him honestly.
He clicked, eyed me without turning. “I am no planner,” he said cryptically. “I haven’t the stamina to play that much.” Then he did turn, put his elbows upon the table, resting his face in his palms. “I have this feeling you and I keep talking just to the left of each other—we think we’re communicating, but we’re misapprehending, and it’s getting worse.”
“The gulf of alternate conceptions.” I nodded. “We have no contexually agreed upon symbols for what might be expressed—there are none in M’ksakkan, certainly.” I recollected twice, since the hover had discharged us into the great gleaming tube leading inship, that such had occurred. Once he had asked me what type of restraint Khys’s band put upon me. As my ears cracked clear, in the enclosure that had come to be around us, I had tried to answer. When the metal doors slid back, exposing a yellow, bright-lit corridor, he held up his hands in defeat, conceding that since we could not determine a common concept of either time or space, we could not sanely try to discuss events pertaining to them. Then, as the M’ksakkans who had manned the small craft left us, in that central hub, many-legended, which gave access to every level of the huge craft, he had asked me if I would watch the ship take sail. And I had refused, venting my distaste and discomfort at being inside a machine, my life dependent upon the perfect function of a number of tiny nonsentient devices.
“And how would you get across the void?” he had demanded, somehow hurt by what I said.
“By my will, if I so choose,” I had snapped defensively.
And he had laughed derisively, saying that he would like to see it. I assured him he most probably would, stung by his disbelief. We kept, in common accord, a long silence that ended only with his music.
“What does your alternate conception dictate that I call you?” he said, poking his ijiyr. It whispered a tritone. He straight-fingered the strings, sliding down an octave. “Well-Keepress?” He tasted it, surely his preference, his tone rich with connotation.
“Dhareness, if you will. Or Keepress, though long past is that. Or crell, or saiisa, I care not. My given name, when I have borne it, has most times seemed sufficient.” I thought of that time as crell when even my name had been stripped from me, at Chayin’s hand. Near to five years it had been since I lay back upon the high couch of Astria to service whomsoever the moment dictated. “You may,” I said in a much-softened tone, “if you choose, call me Estri.”
“I would like that,” he said, his voice a stream coursing gravel, his eyes upon his hand upon his instrument. “I would make this as pleasant as possible for you,” he be
gan hesitantly. “I haven’t yet bound you, or hurt you, though you proved yourself deserving of both when you killed M’kinlin.” He looked up from under his brows, head still bent. “I don’t know if I believe all this supernormal stuff, but seeing you, I believe a lot more of what I’ve heard about Silistra.”
This, I knew, was the moment. “I would be indebted to you if you would keep me from Dellin’s hands,” I said upon my softest breath, letting my fingers twist in my lap, biting my lip. “He has reason, perhaps, to abuse me.” I trembled.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me gruffly, “this is my project. I have to be able to return you to your couch-mate.” He grinned, that he had used the proper term. If one would seem less a danger, seek aid against some small threat.
“You must be sure of your safety, to wait upon him,” I observed.
“If I left him there, knowing of us, I’d be a fool.” He sighed, sat back in his chair. “Your friend Khys gave us a time limit within which to return you. My guess is, he’s pretty busy right now, and that he’ll wait. If he’s got all that power, he’ll take you when it’s convenient. If not, I don’t have to worry.”
“What happens at the end of the time limit?”
“If we don’t return you?” Softly, plucking tiny high notes. “He’ll relieve us of our most distant moon, Niania.” His eyes searched my face, his own expression uncommitted. “That moon is populous,” he added. “The destruction that such an unprecedented occurrence would wreak is incalculable. There are the other two moons to consider. And upon M’ksakka, earthquake, flooding, possible volcanic eruption, axial realignment, violent turbulence—too much to conceive.” I only sat and looked at him. I was not shocked, as he seemed to be. “Could he, realistically, do such a thing?”
“Before the battle of Amarsa, ’695, even I could have done it.” I raised my arms above my head, stretched, wriggling. “Of course he can. It is easy to just unmake something, especially something large. Harder it is to take a thing and change it, leaving all else around it unchanged. Did he choose to take such drastic measures, he would, I am sure, contain all side effects. Khys has a great reverence for life. He would not kill so many as you project.”
M’tras shielded his eyes with a spread hand. “You think he’ll do it, then,” he said from under it. “You think he can do it.”
“I have never known him to break his expressed word,” I said solemnly. “Give me back to him now, and you might avoid all that will otherwise follow.”
“I can’t do that. I have great deal at stake. I need time.”
“Khys has given you time,” I whispered, wishing he had not done so.
“I don’t believe any of this,” he spat. “I can’t believe it. I’m sitting here actually considering aborting a project because some back-space monarch threatened a not-much-saner local officer who is long overdue for a rest: ‘Divest you of your smallest moon’ was the quote I got! It’s unreasonable to demand that we stretch our credibility that far.” He rose and paced, stopped before me.
“What did your computer say?” I asked
“Can’t get a sane answer out of it, either. The basic information we fed it has shown up faulty. I’m going to have to tear down the program and start again. All I want the bastard to do is negotiate! Behave like a civilized being, that’s not too much to ask, is it?” He glowered down upon me, his hips jutting forward. “Is it?” he snarled.
“Losing,” I said, craning my neck to meet his eyes, “is not in Khys’s conception.”
He looked at me with evident disgust. “I don’t know who you people think you are,” he said through curled lips, as the partition between the sleeping slabs began chiming. His boots slapping the steel floor, he hurried to it, palmed its face, and flopped down upon the velveted slab before it.
“What!” he snapped at the partition. “It better be good.”
“Uh ... we have collection on Dellin, dock fifty-seven minutes.” The partition spoke in Maref’s voice. “Systems check out fine. Your favorite toy thinks it needs alternate instructions, having aborted when the probability low you specified was reached. The boss wants to talk to you. We’re rigged right to jump, and holding.” I found myself halfway to the slab, stopped, crossed the distance.
“#67-a4-32. It’s a Systems A reel I brought with me,” said M’tras, his belt as jitter-lit as the partition, where a small replica of Maref’s face chewed its lips.
“Wait. Got it,” said Maref, pleased at whatever he saw offscreen. A blurred figure passed behind his head, was gone. M’tras patted the slab beside him. I perched there. “And where”—Maref grinned—”will that take us, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My place. Wide elipse. Orbit only,” said M’tras, in the tone of one who will hear no argument, sprawling more widely upon the slab.
Maref raised one tiny eyebrow. “You’ll clear it?”
“My presence clears it. But I’ll call the lady and confirm, gladly.”
“Fine with me,” he said, miniature eyes roving. “Having any success?” They stopped upon me, well-replicated M’ksakkan blue.
“Some,” M’tras said. “I’ll let you know later.”
“You ought to spend some of that charm on you-know-who. She’s feeling resentful, usurped. This side trip won’t help.”
“It might save her unfortunately extended life,” he said. “I’ll call you back.” And the face was gone, the screen panel retracted, replaced by what I had first seen there: an attractive arrangement of geometric light forms.
M’tras stretched hugely, muscles sliding under the black, clinging uniform. I wished I had retained my seat at the table. What might lurk there, beneath the cloth? His appraising glance was unmistakable. I hoped he was not barbed, as are the men of Katrir, or overly acid-bearing, as are the Oguasti. He was from a world with which I was not familiar. What microorganisms might he bear within him?
“Does your race have a compatibility index number?” I said, as he continued to stare meaningfully at me.
“.8888, if it eases your mind.” He chuckled. “Come here.”
It did ease me. Physiologically he was no danger, I presumed to think. “Hadn’t you better finish your business?” I temporized, rising from the slab edge. Blur-fast, his hand reached out, imprisoning my leg just above the knee. Cruelly he pressed the nerves there. I moaned, sank down upon the slab, my fingers unable to loose his grip. He took his hand away, tapped his belt, silent. I wriggled upon the plush, feeling the slide of silk against it. Rising, he slapped casually at the partition, just below the geometric display. A woman’s face cleared upon the screen even as it moved forward. Behind her tawny head was deep blackness, and the stars. I shivered.
“It took you long enough,” she said without preamble. Pale eyes avoided me with determination. Around her mouth were shadowy brackets of flesh. She twitched one. “I wish you’d tell me first, in the future, before you countermand my orders!”
“If I did that, you’d likely not have one. I’m concerned with timing. That means exactly the right move at precisely the right time. Not three seconds’ error can I allow. You can’t even talk that fast, let alone think. Do what I say, and don’t bother me, and we’ll be rid of each other soon enough. I don’t like this any better than you.”
“I ought to countermand, and you can walk home from M’ksakka!” she raged.
“If this project blows, there might not be a M’ksakka,” said M’tras, squinting.
She snorted, twitched her mouth again. Into the screen came a many-ringed hand bearing a gemmed stylus. She pursed her lips upon it, gnawing contemplatively. I saw her seek her dignity, pull it around her like a palpable cloak. The stylus and the blunt-fingered, bejeweled hand bearing it, were withdrawn. Then it reappeared.
“You there!” she blared, pointing the tooth-marked instrument at me.
I flinched. M’tras covered his lower jaw with his hand,
“Yes?” I acknowledged, throwing my hair over my breasts.
“You ki
lled one of my people. When they finish with you, you’re mine. And I assure you, you’re going to wish you were dead!” And the screen depicting her suddenly livid face went blank. I pushed my hair out of my eyes. My fingers rubbed my temples, and they were clammy. Behind the woman had been the stars. I had taken some comfort in this larger ship. It seemed solid, like a building upon stolid earth. But it was just a slightly bigger craft, floating precariously in the ever-dark.
“Now, don’t get sick again,” he growled, as I slumped forward, my arms pressed around me. “She can’t touch you. It’s nothing, don’t cry.” M’tras rubbed my back.
“Why don’t you just imprison me? Do whatever you’re going to do and get it done?” I gulped for air, shaking spasmodically. His hand upon me stilled.
“Sure, leave you alone. That’s all I need. I’m responsible for you. I acquired you. I have to hold onto you long enough to use you.”
“How long can this go on?” I wailed it aloud, though softly, of a sudden anguished, so far from home, in a band of restraint. I pulled my legs up against me, my arms around my knees, soles on the slab.
He found some obscure humor in my discomfort, shaking his dark head, chuckling. Rising from the slab, he carefully divested himself of his blinking belt, wedging it securely between cushion and wall at the slab’s head.
“It will be,” he said as his clothing swelled a puddle of black upon the burnished floor, “about three days until we orbit my home world. ‘This’ can go on, doubtless, that long. Khys’s ultimatum gives us twice that.” He turned to face me: .8888 normal; wide-sprung ribs, short-coupled torso, ridged belly. His arms and legs were long, his neck and middle fully sheathed in muscle upon large thick bones. His sex seemed to the eye unremarkable, adequate, awake in its lair of black curling hair. I was not in the least interested. I have, I thought, been away from the couch too long. My tastes have become overly rarefied. There was nothing wrong with this man who stood before me. He at present held my life, he would at any moment have my use. And I was mind-locked. My body felt only numb and cold, though it could not, surely, have been the wind from the abyss. Not here, not under these circumstances; it could not have followed me here. I fought to find the present, my flesh, to stand upon the moment, peg the time, as befitted a Shaper’s daughter.