Amid the Crowd of Stars

by Stephen Leigh

  “That’s totally different,” Saoirse said.

  Ichiko shook her head. “I don’t see how, but whatever you say. AMI, you heard her—take us on out to Great Inish.”

  With that, the flitter flew out past the statue of the Pale Woman, sliding down along the slope of Dulcia Head and over the waves toward the islands beckoning in the distance, leaving the currach far behind.

  * * *

  Despite her apprehension at the reception they were going to receive on Great Inish, Saoirse found it fascinating looking down on the sea that she’d only known before from the surface. Between Dulcia and the archipelago, the water was dark blue-black and impenetrable, but as they approached the islands the Storm Sea shallowed. A rich pattern of greens and tans began to dapple the water, hinting at the sandy reefs and rocks among which she and the Inish clans had fished over the years. They’d known the hidden landscape under the water only by the way the currents flowed, how the waves broke, or by how deep they had to set their anchors. Now, through clear water, she could nearly see the hills and valleys that lay submerged in the flooded terrain, echoing the steep panorama of the Dulcia Peninsula and the Inish islands. She could even glimpse the ghostly skeletons of boats that had foundered here and there on the rocks around the treacherous Stepstones.

  The sight was beautiful, terrifying, and fascinating all at once, and at least for a brief time took her mind away from worrying about the wisdom of her choice to bring Ichiko to Great Inish despite what her mam and Kekeki had said.

  “Being up here gives you a different perspective on the world, doesn’t it?” Ichiko said into Saoirse’s reverie.

  Saoirse nodded wordlessly. They were passing between the Sleeping Wolf and the largest of the Stepstones, with the water shifting slowly to a deeper aquamarine as they flew over the channel between them. The cliffs and peaks of Great Inish were rising from the water ahead, the clan compounds and the village set high on the rise directly ahead of them and the bright strip of the White Strand along the shoreline below. They could also glimpse Low Inish ahead to the left and High Inish to their right, both islands set well behind the white-frothed feet of Great Inish. Looking down, Saoirse noticed a quartet of currachs spread out near the final Stepstone, nets in the water. Her cousins in the boats were pointing up to them as they passed.

  She also saw large shapes moving in the water to her right, swimming just under the waves: bulbous heads and long bodies with six limbs trailing tentacles. She knew what they were, and Saoirse’s stomach, already unsettled, tightened as acid touched her throat.

  “It’s gorgeous out here in a wild kind of way,” Ichiko was saying. “I can see why—”

  Her voice cut off abruptly and Saoirse glanced over at her to see the control panel flashing an ominous, bloody red. The steady whine of the rotors suddenly changed pitch, and the flitter shuddered around them, canting over so that Saoirse was looking at sky, not sea. “AMI?” Ichiko called aloud. She pressed her fingers together again so that the bright blue light flashed. “AMI?” she said aloud again, and this time her voice sounded panicky.

  “What’s wrong?” Saoirse asked.

  “I’ve lost AMI,” Ichiko said. “Hang on . . .” Oarlike handles made of black metal emerged from below the front panel, and Ichiko reached out to grab them. Saoirse could see the oar handles—to control the flitter?—shaking in Ichiko’s grips, resisting as Ichiko seemed to fight their movements. The flitter leaned over the other way, and Saoirse saw wave tops sliding toward them.

  She knew who had caused this to happen, if not why or how. The shapes in the water, the drones the arracht brought down and wrecked—the “hard false birds” as they called them . . . Her mam’s words also came back to her: “If Kekeki wants to talk to yeh or yeh need to talk to her, all yeh have to do is think hard and focus.”

  Saoirse thought desperately in her head, her lips moving though she didn’t say the words aloud. Kekeki, don’t do this! Please! I know yeh said not to bring the Terran out here, but I trust her, and she knows more about their intentions than I do. Please! You have to stop this!

  In her head, she thought she heard the clicking of the arracht language, but there was no answer.

  * * *

  “I’ve lost AMI,” Ichiko said.

  Ichiko could see from the puzzlement on Saoirse’s face that she understood nothing of the terrible implication of those three bare words. “Hang on . . .” Ichiko told her rather than trying to explain—there wasn’t time for anything else. Ichiko’s head was strangely empty and quiet with her AMI impossibly disconnected from both the flitter and Ichiko’s mind. The emergency manual controls had automatically deployed. Ichiko reached for them, frantically trying to remember the lessons she’d had five years ago on Earth and wishing she’d taken the refresher course Luciano had suggested when she’d initially received permission to go down to First Base. “There are four basic controls: roll, pitch, yaw, and throttle. The right stick handles pitch and roll, the left one throttle and yaw, and there are trim buttons on each that you’ll use to balance the controls . . .”

  She remembered that much, but she also remembered crashing the simulator three times in a row before she finally learned how to control a flitter manually and was permitted to fly one on her own. The memory came back as she grabbed the sticks, moving them too aggressively so that the flitter began to tilt back and forth dangerously.

  She cursed under her breath, trying to calm herself, trying to bring the flitter back into equilibrium, giving more power to the rotors to pull them back up before they struck the waves that now looked dangerously close.

  You promised Saoirse that you wouldn’t crash . . .

  The controls were trembling and shivering in Ichiko’s hands, as if actively fighting her efforts. The flitter spun once, causing Ichiko to shout aloud, her stomach lurching.

  You promised . . .

  “Come on, come on,” Ichiko muttered: to the controls, to herself, to the flitter. She managed to stop the spin, but the flitter wanted to turn right, and there was nothing there but empty sea and the cliffs of the Sleeping Wolf’s head. She pulled at the controls, trying to bring them back around, hoping she could land the flitter somewhere, anywhere, on Great Inish, or at least hit the water softly enough not to kill them and close enough to land for them to swim to safety. There are floatation vests under the seats . . .

  But even as she started to tell Saoirse to grab hers and put it on, the control panel flashed green, the flitter settled, and the manual controls retracted from Ichiko’s stunned hands. “AMI?” Ichiko asked aloud, too unsettled to even try to think to her.

 

  “I was going to ask you exactly that.”

 

  “Tell me about it.” She glanced at the seat next to her, where a pale-faced Saoirse was staring out the windshield of the flitter toward the sea. “Saoirse, are you okay?”

  Saoirse swallowed once, hard. Her head came up, her gaze found Ichiko’s, and she nodded. “I think so. AMI’s in control again?”

  “Thankfully,” Ichiko said. “I’m not sure that I could have . . .” She stopped. “Well, let’s not talk about that. Saoirse, do you know what just happened to us?”

  Saoirse shook her head. She rubbed at her short blonde hair and took off her glasses. She cleaned them as she spoke, not looking at Ichiko. “Neh, I don’t.”

  The shortness of the answer, the way her cheeks were coloring, and Saoirse’s avoidance of eye contact as she spoke made Ichiko suspect she was lying or that she knew more than
she was willing to say. She also noticed that Saoirse was showing no signs of nausea or discomfort at all after the terrific shaking and jostling in the flitter. But she decided not to press the young woman, not after the near disaster. She looked ahead to Great Inish.

  “Where should we land?” she asked. “I think we should do that as soon possible.”

  Where Stars Walk Upon A Mountaintop

  THEY LANDED ON THE White Strand near the path up to the village. They had, of course, been noticed by several of the clanfolk as they approached and descended. The little ones were the first to reach them as Saoirse and Ichiko stepped from the flitter. The children gathered around them, chattering, touching the sides of the flitter (and trying to get in), reaching out to touch Ichiko, then snatching their hands back as they felt the tingle of the bio-shield around her. Gráinne was among them. “Hey, Ichiko,” she called out. “Dia duit.”

  “Dia duit, Gráinne,” Ichiko answered, and they all laughed at her pronunciation and accent.

  “You know her, Gráinne? She’s a Terran,” one of the children shouted out.

  “She looks like she’s about to break in half,” said a Clan Craig boy.

  “Do they all look ugly like her?” asked another.

  “No,” Saoirse answered, unable to repress her grin despite the acid roiling in her gut. “The Terrans all look very different from one another. Ichiko is from a country called Japan; I can show yeh where that is on a map of Earth, if yeh like.”

  Ichiko, still surrounded by the young ones, looked at Saoirse and smiled. “It’s so gorgeous here,” she said. “The view is stunning. I just wish I could smell the air.”

  “Saoirse!” The familiar voice and its accusing tone wiped the smile from Saoirse’s face. Saoirse looked up to see her mam striding toward her across the sand and pebbles, an angry scowl fixed on her face. Saoirse leaped from the flitter to intercept her before she could reach Ichiko, still surrounded by children.

  “Mam,” Saoirse said, “I know what yeh told me, but I had to make a choice and I did.” She could see Ichiko looking at them curiously and she lowered her voice so only her mam could hear. “Kekeki knows. I spoke to her through the plotch. She agreed to let us come.” She thought it best to leave out the part where they almost crashed into the sea. Then, more loudly as she gestured at Ichiko: “Mam, this is Dr. Ichiko Aguilar. She’s the Terran I told yeh about. She’s interested in learning more about us out here in the archipelago.”

  Saoirse watched conflicting emotions wash over her mam’s face as she swiveled to face Ichiko, who bowed slightly, her hands clasped together.

  “Banríon Mullin, I’m delighted to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you and Great Inish from Saoirse. Your daughter and I have become good friends over the last several cycles, and she’s been very helpful to me. Thank you so much for allowing me to come out to the archipelago. I appreciate it, and I know everyone on Odysseus will be interested in your history and the society you’ve built here. And please call me Ichiko; Dr. Aguilar sounds so formal.”

  Her mam was staring at Ichiko, and Saoirse was afraid of what she might say. Muscles tightened around her mam’s eyes and mouth, then relaxed slightly. “Saoirse’s talked quite a bit about yeh also, Ichiko,” she said. “It’s good to be able to put a face to the name. And yeh can call me Iona rather than Banríon.” She glanced quickly to Saoirse and back. “But we weren’t expecting yeh so soon . . . and not in that machine of yers.”

  Saoirse didn’t dare look at Ichiko. She kept her gaze on her mam. There was an uncomfortable silence for a breath, then Ichiko spoke again.

  “I’m very sorry if my arrival inconveniences you, Iona. That certainly wasn’t my intention. If this is the wrong time, then I can easily return to First Base and come back some other cycle . . .”

  “No,” her mam snapped with another sharp look at Saoirse. “Yer here, and yer welcome. Is yer machine safe here on the Strand?”

  “It should be as long as you don’t mind it being here—it looks to be well above the tidal line, and it’s set to automatically return here on its own should it be washed away in a storm,” Ichiko told her. “The flitter’s locked so no one can get into it, and even if they did, I’m the only one who can fly it.”

  “That’s good,” Iona replied. “Then let’s go up to the compound where we can all be comfortable. We can talk there, and I’ll have Rí Craig and the Clan Craig seanns come over to our compound so they can meet yeh as well. Gráinne, why don’t yeh escort Ichiko up to the compound and get her settled? I’m sure she has lots of questions she’d like to ask yeh. We’ll follow directly. Saoirse, if I can talk to yeh for a moment . . .”

  Ichiko gave Saoirse a questioning look; she could only shrug in reply. Gráinne started to take Ichiko’s hand, then drew her hand back before she touched her. “C’mon, Ichiko,” she said. “It’s a bit of a walk. If I were yeh, I’d fly up there rather than walking, but yeh heard Mam. So tell me, why’s yer skin such a funny color and yer eyes so odd-looking. Yeh look like yeh don’t eat enough, either . . .” Gráinne was chattering away as she led Ichiko toward the village path, with a clot of the other young ones surrounding them. The Banríon said nothing until Gráinne and Ichiko and the other children were well out of earshot, then she turned to Saoirse with the anger back on her face.

  “Is yer head stuffed entirely full of mince, girl?” Iona said. “Did yeh not hear me when I said this Terran woman couldn’t come to Great Inish? Did yeh not hear what Kekeki said?.”

  “Of course I heard both of yeh, Mam. But—”

  “Then why is she here? Oh, never mind,” she snapped before Saoirse could form an answer. “Where’s Angus and Liam?”

  “We flew over them as they were leaving Dulcia Harbor. They should be here before Low Fourth, I expect. Maybe by Low Third, if the winds are good.”

  “Did they know what yeh were planning?”

  Saoirse shook her head. “No, Mam. This is all on me,” she admitted. “I didn’t tell them beforehand; I just left a note. I . . . I was afraid Uncle Angus would be angry and try to stop me.” Saoirse lifted her hands toward her mam. She sniffed away the tears that were threatening. “Mam, I wasn’t lying. Kekeki knows what I did. She, or the arracht, tried to wreck the flitter as we passed the Stepstones. I don’t know how they did it, but we were out of control and about to smash into the water. I remembered yeh telling me that Kekeki could hear me, so I called out to her. Here.” Saoirse tapped her forehead. “I told her that Ichiko wasn’t a threat and that she might be able to answer the arracht’s questions about the Terrans, and . . .” Saoirse took in a deep breath. “They stopped whatever they were doing, Mam. They saved me and they saved Ichiko. They know what I did, yet they let her come here when they could have ended it. They made that choice.”

  Iona looked at the flitter as if it were responsible for what Saoirse had done. Her lips pressed together, tightening the lines of her face. “Then I’ll thank the Spiorad Mór that the arracht have more sense than my own blood-daughter, who should have known better.” Then, with a sudden movement, Iona pulled Saoirse to her, arms tightening around her. “Yer safe an’ that’s enough for now,” she said as she hugged Saoirse, her breath warm on her ear. “But don’t think I’m still not fuming at yeh for making a right bags of things. This still isn’t over.”

  With that, Iona released Saoirse. “C’mon,” she said. “Yeh shouldn’t keep yer guest waiting. And yer damned well going to be responsible for her while she’s here.”

  * * *

  The meeting room in the Clan Mullin compound was packed and fragrant with tree strand smoke from the pipes many of the adults were smoking. Rí Keane of Clan Craig was there, bald-headed and white-bearded, with a face that age and weather had molded into hard, cracked leather. Ichiko sat at the only table in the room between Rí Keane and Banríon Iona. Most of the elders of both clans sat or stood wherever they could—though general
ly near to the table which also held the food as well as the jugs of poitín which were lubricating the throats and heating the bellies of those in the room. Saoirse sat alongside her mam, trying to smile as Ichiko as well as herself were barraged with questions. The obvious ones had been asked more than once in different forms: Will the Terrans allow anyone from Canis Lupus to return to Earth when they leave? When will the decision be made? Who makes the decision? When will we know?

  To that, Ichiko responded with variations on the same answer she’d given Saoirse: “At this point, no definite decision’s been made, and in any case, it’s Captain Keshmiri who has to say yes or no, not me.”

  There’d been some grumbling at that, but everyone’s curiosity about the Terrans kept the conversation flowing to other subjects.

  Not long after Low Third had rung from An Cró Mór, the highest point on the island, Saoirse saw movement at the door. Her Uncle Angus and Liam entered, peering through the pipe smoke that wreathed the room. Saoirse pressed her spine to the back of her chair. Angus nodded to Iona, then his gaze found Saoirse and Ichiko; he frowned though he said nothing directly to Saoirse. “I see yeh reached Great Inish safely, Dr. Aguilar. I’m glad, though yer method in getting here was . . . untraditional. But I can tell that the Banríon has made yeh welcome, so I’ll be doin’ the same.”

  “Thank you, Rí Angus,” Ichiko answered. “I’m glad to hear that, and as I’ve told everyone here, you should call me Ichiko. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your island in the three or four cycles before I have to leave. And I’d certainly like to see how it feels to be in one of your currachs.”

  “I’d be pleased to take yeh out,” Angus answered. “Though yeh could have come out here in one rather than in yer flying machine.” That statement was accompanied by another stern glance at Saoirse.

  “No doubt that’s what I should have done,” Ichiko answered, also peering quickly in Saoirse’s direction. “I’ll remember that for the next time.”