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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: A Working of Stars
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For a good enough contract, sure, he’d pop out of the Void close in over Eraasi, and risk having one of the big fleet-families take him for an unlawful intruder and respond with force. He’d gotten his latest contract through the sus-Dariv, and
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
was listed with their fleet for the duration of the current voyage, but that wouldn’t help much if a trigger-happy guardship captain decided not to bother with asking for his papers.
All the
Fire
had aboard this time was mixed-lot bulk cargo: transport, not trade, most of it, and not big enough to warrant a fleet-family’s direct attention. Independents like Len handled the small jobs, and the urgent ones that couldn’t wait for a convoy or a fleet courier, but the star-lords would come down hard on any pilot they suspected of working without a contract—“in the grey,” as the slang term had it.
“Hard times, old girl,” Len said to the
Fire
, as the ship-mind chewed its laborious way through the calculations for normal-space emergence. “Hard times. You and I, we were born too late.”
There had been a time, not more than a generation or so ago, when a family working in the grey could gather enough ships (by trade or purchase or outright capture) to put a
syn
- or even a
sus
- in front of their name and have it stick. Len had daydreamed of it himself in his boyhood, back when he was the space-happy one among all the cousins. He’d pictured himself taking the family out of the groundside shipping and transportation business and into the stars, making them syn-Irao and star-lords and a fleet-family in Hanilat. Then he grew up, of course, and understood that those days were gone.
He took the figures the ship-mind ground out for him and entered the series of commands that would pass them to the
Fire’s
navigational console. “Emergence in five,” he said, and keyed in the final sequence. There was only the ship-mind to hear him, but he’d learned to observe the formalities during his training days, when he’d served as hired crew aboard fleet-family ships.
A little while later he felt the disquieting inner sensation of Void-emergence pass through him like an oily wave. The distinctive hum and vibration of the
Fire’s
passage changed in response. Even if he’d somehow managed to sleep through the emergence, he would have known, by the sound and by the feel of the ship around him, that
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
was moving through normal space.
It was eight hours before he heard the distress signal. He had the
Fire’s
search-and-scan routines set to a tripwire sensitivity these days—a lowly contract-captain couldn’t be too careful. They repaid him this time with a clamoring alarm and, when he put the signal onto ship’s audio, a voice:
“This is sus-Dariv’s
Garden-of-Fair-Blossoms,
” it said, and the synthesized clarity of its pitch and elocution raised up all the fine hairs on the back of Len’s neck. The only thing in space with a voice like that was a ship-mind, and if the ship-mind alone remained able to put out a signal, something very bad had happened aboard
Garden
-
of-Fair-Blossoms
“If you are receiving this transmission, know that we are in distress and call for aid. We beg of you, make all speed to our location at—” There followed a warbling noise that Len recognized as the
Garden’s
ship-mind transmitting its reference coordinates directly to the ship-mind of whatever vessel might be listening. Then there was a pause, and the message started all over again.
Len hit the Transmit button on the
Fire’s
communications board.
“Garden-of-Fair-Blossoms,”
he said. “This is contract carrier
Fire-on-the-Hilltops
. Try to hold on—I’m coming as fast as I can.”
He turned back to the navigation console. For once, the
Fire’s
ship-mind had behaved itself properly. The false-color display now included a flashing amber dot—the
Garden’s
reference coordinates. He contemplated the symbolic representation briefly, then checked the alphanumeric readout and tapped in his course-query. More numbers and letters came up in reply, and the false-color display shifted, then shifted again after a second query and a second response.
After the third query, he said aloud, “I think you’ve got it this time, old girl.”
The
Fire’s
ship-mind didn’t have an internal speaker. Instead, the alphanumeric display at the navigational console reset itself to zero, then said, THIS COURSE CONTRADICTS PREVIOUS EXPRESSED PREFERENCE FOR NORMAL SPACE RUNNING DURING ERAASI APPROACH.
“That was then,” he said. “And this is now. I’m not going to drag my feet through normal space on my way to answer a distress call, and neither are you.”
 
ERAASI: HANILAT ENTIBOR: ROSSELIN COTTAGE
 
R
ain had fallen since before sunset on the grounds of the Hanilat Institute of Higher and Extended Schooling. No surprise there—the city was in the deep middle of the winter wet, and heavy, wind-driven rains came on schedule every afternoon.
Today’s downpour had only intensified with the fall of night. Someone not familiar with the Institute’s paths and walkways might have gotten lost looking—as Kiefen Diasul was looking—for Quantret Hall. Quantret was built in the same old but not ancient style as most of the Institute’s other structures, and the buildings all had much the same size and outline in the wind-lashed dark. The sign near Quantret’s front entrance, set well back from the street and half-overgrown with night-blooming clingvine, was scarcely visible even in daylight.
But Kief was no stranger to the Institute grounds. He had come to Hanilat as a young man scarcely out of his basic schooling, and had studied the stargazers’ disciplines at the Institute for more than a full hand of years; he had first trained as a Mage in the Institute’s own Circle. He remembered the fastest way across campus from the Ten Street transport stop to Quantret Hall: down the brick-paved Long Diagonal, around the side of the tall brick Thalassic Studies Building, then across Quantret’s back parking lot and down the three concrete steps to the little door that led directly to the sub-basement.
The Circle had met in Quantret Lower Level B when Kief was a student, and according to his researches, it met there still. Esya syn-Faredol was the First now. She had been only an unranked Circle-Mage when he left. Well, so had he been, but he had gone to the Demaizen Circle after that, and she had not.
The Institute’s Circle worked the
eiran
to promote safety and tranquility on campus, a low-key and not especially demanding task. Demaizen, on the other hand … Demaizen’s Mages had crossed the gap between the homeworlds and the rest of the galaxy, walking through the Void and marking a path for starship navigators to follow. That had taken a great working, paid for in blood and pain and lives. If the Circle here on campus had ever done such a working, neither tradition nor official record made any mention of the fact.
There was a puddle of muddy water at the foot of the steps. Kief halted on the last step above the puddle, and set down his daypack on the wet concrete. Then he shed his long weather coat and draped it over the slick metal handrail. The Mage’s working robes that he’d been wearing underneath—and that had made his public transport ride a stuffy ordeal—tumbled free and fell loosely around him. He felt suddenly cooler, almost cold, and told himself that it was the result of taking off the sweltering coat.
Kief bent and unfastened his daypack. Inside the pack lay an ordinary ship-combat hardmask, done up in smoky grey plastic and black enamel. He took out the mask and put it on.
The harsh glare of the incandescent lamp over Quantret Hall’s rear basement entrance dimmed to a muted glow. Kief drew in a long breath of satisfaction between his teeth. The hardmask had been a matter of practical necessity at first. In the work he and his Circle did for Natelth sus-Peledaen, it was not always convenient for his face to be seen and recognized. Only later had he become aware of the other advantage that the mask conferred: In the diminished light, the silver threads of the
eiran
stood out clearly, a dense network of them, looping and interweaving in a pattern as familiar to him as the lines on his own palm.
Garrod’s working. The last, great working of the Demaizen Circle, still ongoing even though the Old Hall at Demaizen was nothing but rubble and the Mages themselves were dead or scattered across the galaxy.
All but me,
Kief thought.
Anyone else would say that I’ve done well since then. I have another Circle; I am a power that not even the sus-Peledaen can ignore; but Demaizen will not let me go.
Tonight, though, would see his old Circle’s hold on him broken, and the pattern of the great working ripped asunder for good and all. So far as Kief knew, nobody on Eraasi had ever tried to do what he was planning to do, once he got to the room in Quantret Hall’s subbasement where the Institute Circle met—nobody else had even considered the possibility of doing it, and there had been Circles working on Eraasi for as far back as history and legend ran.
That he could think of it at all, Kief supposed, meant that he was not entirely sane. This possibility failed to surprise him; he sometimes thought that he hadn’t really been sane, at least as his younger self would have understood the concept of sanity, since the day the Old Hall burned.
It didn’t matter. If he failed tonight, he would be dead, and his mental health or lack of it would soon be forgotten. And if he succeeded—
If he succeeded, then everything would change.
Kief unfastened the staff from his belt and held it loosely at the ready in his right hand. With his left hand, he pushed open the subbasement door.
The door opened onto a stairwell. Light came from an amber-colored Emergency Exit sign bolted to the wall. Through the dull grey faceplate of his hardmask, Kief saw how the glowing silver threads of the
eiran
had followed him in here, too. He grimaced behind the hardmask.
Soon
, he told the pattern of Demaizen’s working.
I’ll be rid of you soon
.
He started down the stairs. Five steps … ten steps … twelve. The door at the bottom was locked. He struck it once with his staff, lightly, and it swung open.
The corridor on the other side, like the stairwell, was a dark space lit only by the amber glow of the Emergency Exit sign. The darkness didn’t matter; Kief had been here many times while he worked at the Institute, and he knew the way. He let memory take him past the first doorway, and the second, before stopping at the third.
This time it was no light tap he gave it, but a full-strength blow, backed up with all the power at his command. The door ripped open and slammed against the wall on the other side.
The room within was as he remembered it from his Institute days: black floor tiles, with a large circle of white tiles set in the middle; walls and ceiling also dead black; thick white candles burning at the compass points outside the circle; and inside the Circle, Mages kneeling in meditation.
None of them were masked, of course. They had no need, here in their safe meeting place, of the anonymity a hardmask could provide, and their bare faces were pale white blurs inside the hoods of their robes. He spotted Esya at once, in the First’s position, and stepped across the boundary of the white circle to stand in front of her.
“Esya,” he said.
She hadn’t yet gone deep into the working; the sound of her own name was enough to rouse her. She lifted her head and looked at him across the ring of kneeling, black-clad figures. He could tell from her face that the hardmask wasn’t enough to conceal his identity. She’d always had a good memory for voices and postures.
“No more names,” he said before she could speak. “We have business together first.”
She wet her lips. Kief remembered that habit of hers, too, and knew that it masked a surge of apprehension. The Circle’s routine had been unexpectedly broken, and Esya had never dealt well with unscheduled change.
“What kind of business?” she asked.
“I’ve come to offer you a choice.”
“A choice?”
“Yes,” he said. “Either you give me your Circle, or we can make a working together, you and I, and let the
eiran
decide.”
“Why should I do either one?”
“Because you’re not strong enough to hold the Circle once they begin to doubt,” he said. “And they’re doubting you right now.”
She didn’t answer, and he knew that she was testing the
eiran
and the temper of her Circle, trying to judge for herself whether he spoke the truth. Kief knew what she would see. The Institute’s Mages were barely more than dilettantes these days—maybe they’d give their lives to a working if the cause was dear enough to them, but not for the sake of Esya syn-Faredol.
But he had liked Esya more than a little, once upon a time, and for a few moments longer he allowed himself to hope that she would take the easier way. Then she rose from her kneeling position and stepped into the middle of the Circle with her staff in her hand.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll work it out together, as the universe wills.”
He strode forward and passed between two of the kneeling Mages to meet her in the center of the ring. “As the universe wills.”
 
 
The Void-walker Maraganha had spoken to Arekhon in fluent—if strongly accented—Eraasian, so he had assumed, perhaps irrationally, that she could speak Entiboran as well. He discovered his mistake later that same day when he took her into the town nearest Elaeli’s summer cottage in order to purchase some locally made items of clothing. Maraganha’s voice shaped words that Arekhon didn’t understand or even recognize, and the
eiran
twisted like snakes in the air around her, making meaning.
“Denli tappak, amjepin bi veppis?”
Do you have one like this, but without the bead trim?
The shopkeeper didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “Are these more like what you’re looking for?”
Maraganha looked at the indicated garments and smiled. “
Ea
.”
Yes.
Outside the shop, Arekhon said, “How did you do that?”
“It’s a knack,” she said in Eraasian. “You could probably do it yourself if you tried. Most people don’t even notice it’s happening.”
“Most people aren’t Mages and Adepts. What language was that?”
“Standard Galcenian,” she said. “It’s not my birth tongue, but it’s the one I was speaking when I picked up the language trick. One bit of knowledge sticks to the other.”
Arekhon said, “I’ve heard of Galcen.”
“Don’t tell me that place already thinks it’s the beating heart of the civilized galaxy.”
“I’m afraid so,” he said. He thought of asking her how she had come to learn the languages of Galcen and of the homeworlds, but not of Entibor, but something in her manner suggested that he wouldn’t get an answer if he tried. He tried another line of inquiry instead. “How long from now is Galcen still thinking that?”
“That’s not a good question to ask,” she said.
“Because too much knowledge of the future is dangerous?”
“Because all the Entiboran dates I’ve ever heard of are in regnal years,” she said. “I don’t know enough of your local history to match them up with anything standard. So any answer that I give you runs a big risk of being nonsense.”
“I see.”
“Also, too much knowledge of the future is dangerous.”
“Then I’ll suppress my curiosity,” Arekhon promised her—he might as well be virtuous, he reflected, since Maraganha plainly had no intention of revealing anything. He changed the subject. “Are you ready to go looking for Mages,
etaze
?”
“Call me Maraganha. Too much deference, and I start wanting to jump out of my own skin.”
“Maraganha,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered. “Let’s go.”
 
 
Iulan Vai waited in the rain and shadows outside the town house of Theledau sus-Radal, watching the night wind drive the raindrops slantwise in the glow of the streetlamps. The wet-season nights in Hanilat, which those local to the district found chilly, felt comfortably warm to Vai, who had come of age in Eraasi’s high subarctic forests. Nevertheless, she wore a hooded cape of unlined watertight material—not so much out of deference to the weather as to the custom of the city—as well as a half-mask in stiff black cloth. That, also, was a custom of the city these days. The wearing of masks had come into vogue during the civic unrest of a decade earlier, and while the fashion had subsided among the greater middling class of people, those who lived at the extremes of Hanilat society—street urchins as well as star-lords—still kept the practice alive.
For Vai, the mask was also a necessity of her name and calling. It would not do for a passerby to catch a glimpse of her features and recognize one of the supposedly dead Demaizen Mages. Someone might spot her lurking masked and hooded near sus-Radal’s doorstep, but if they did, they would say nothing and hurry on. She might be a sneak thief looking for a purse to snatch in faceless anonymity, or she might be a sus-Somebody on her way to a lovers’ tryst. These days in Hanilat, prudent people asked no questions.
When the road was clear of loiterers and passersby, and had been so for long enough that casual watchers at the darkened windows of other houses could be presumed to have grown bored and moved away, Vai drifted—still in shadows—up to the sus-Radal’s door.

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