Cosmonaut Keep (11 page)

"Don't flash that stuff around!" James hissed in Gregor's ear.

"I wasn't!" Gregor protested, into his grandfather's shoulder. He turned to Lydia.

"Lydia, this is James Cairns, the Navigator, my grandfather."

As Gregor introduced him the old man bowed and kissed the young woman's hand, and groped out over the table with his free hand and stuffed the calculations into his pocket. Lydia, looking straight at Gregor over James's head, observed this maneuver with a wry smile. Gregor covered his embarrassment with a wink.

James sat down, one space down from Lydia. At least he wasn't sitting between them.

"So, Gregor, how's it going for you out on the wild ocean?"

"Oh, fine, thanks." Gregor launched into an account of his recent adventures, and minor though they were they had Lydia gazing at him with her lips parted and her eyebrows occasionally twitching up. James listened, and watched with a more quizzical eye.

"Any new information on the squids?" he asked, when Gregor had concluded with an account of the recent evening when the ship -- Lydia's family's ship -- had come in.

Gregor shrugged. "Nothing but observations, like that one. I'll write it up -- well, one of us who were there will. For what it's worth."

"Indeed." James contemplated the small glass of spirit he'd brought with him, and lit up a joint. Lydia's eyes widened as he passed it to her. She sipped at, rather than inhaled, the smoke and passed it on hastily to Gregor. He drew on it deeply and passed it back to his grandfather.

"Actually," James smiled, "I was inquiring about your research on the little fellas. Not the krakens! As old Matt used to say, they are still a fucking fortean phenomenon."

Gregor glared at him, and the old man turned apologetically to Lydia. "Excuse my language." He passed her the joint again, and again she took the smoke into her mouth, puffed it out, and passed to Gregor.

"I understand 'fucking' and 'phenomenon,' " she said. "But what is 'fortean'?"

"I was about to ask that myself," said Gregor, the lift of the high raising him above his annoyance at the old man's vulgarity.

"Ah," said James complacently, swaying back and forth as he finished off the now diminished roach. "According to the records from our starship, the
Bright Star,
the people back on Earth experienced many phenomena which they could not explain -- for which they could not, one might say, account -- which were catalogued by a man named Charles Fort, and such phenomena came to be called 'fortean.' These phenomena included, I may add, our friends the saurs, and their gravity skiffs, and for all I know to the contrary, the flaming starships. Sorry, Lydia. And strange monsters in the sea. Now, as far as we are concerned, the goddamn kraken or squids or
Archi-
frigging
-teuthys
are still strange monsters in the sea. But perhaps they're more familiar to you and your family, eh?"

Lydia cradled her chin on her interlaced fingers and looked from James to Gregor and back again. The only effect that the weed had had on her seemed to be that she saw the funny side of this blatant attempt to pump her for information.

"Oh yes," she said. "We have ... communion with them. The saurs are with us to translate, of course, but we believe we are talking to the kraken." She smiled mischievously at James. "They are our real 'navigators.' My father is impressed that you have managed to equal their accomplishment."

"If not their feet!" James's pun was lost on her, to Gregor's relief, and at that moment the band struck up at last. Gregor rose and reached out a hand to Lydia.

"May I have the honor?"

"Of course, thank you." She stood up, stepped over the bench in a pink flutter and curtseyed, a gesture with which he was not familiar but which he found charming.

"Have a good time," said James, with woozy benevolence. He shot Gregor a sharp look, not stoned or drunk at all. "I'll talk to you later."

The first dance was measured and formal, more typical of this kind of reception than of Mingulay's native traditions, and Gregor found himself taking the wrong steps. But if Lydia noticed she didn't seem to mind, and after a few minutes the dance's sedate pace allowed them to carry on their conversation.

"Do you and your family actually live on the ship?"

"Oh no." Twirl. "We rent a villa in Nova Babylonia." Two steps back. "On other worlds we rely on hospitality, or on commercial guest-houses." Step forward, half-turn, raise hand, take hand, turn about. "The ship is designed for the krakens, not for us. Much of the interior is permanently awash." Smile, wrinkle nose. "And it smells." Let go, step back two paces. Hold out both hands, step forward twice. "Of fish." Catch.

Warm caught hands, delicate and bony and fluttery and alarming as little songbats. The music stopped. She curtseyed, he bowed.

"So where in the ship," said Gregor, in a voice which to him sounded rather strained, "do you actually travel?"

"In the skiffs, of course. We ride them out to the ship -- which may be on the sea or in space, depending on the locality -- and off again, as you saw the other night. Sometimes we have to wade around within the ship to check and secure the cargo. So for the journeys we dress rough, not like this." She plucked at her skirt, smiled. "But that's all before and after. The journey itself takes no time." She snapped her fingers. "Like that."

They sat down again, beside their neglected plates. James had wandered back into the crowd, perhaps tactfully leaving them alone. Gregor was uncomfortably aware that he'd be back, or that he'd corner him somewhere and impart some urgent family message. Lydia began to eat, quickly and deftly, interspersed with chat. Gregor munched more slowly; less used to this kind of socializing, he was for most of the time reduced to gestures and nods and grunts, as he listened to Lydia talking about the other worlds of the Sphere. It had never struck him quite so forcibly before how much similarity underlay their diversity, all their different words written in the same alphabet of DNA. They were no more different, ultimately, than continents on a single planet -- or rather, their differences were an extension of that kind of reproductive isolation, as though all their continents and oceans were features of a single enormous world. Their model, and the common origin of their organisms, was distant, unreachable Earth.

Wherever he ate seafood, which was often, the thought that there was something subtly wrong with eating squid -- even such as now lay on his plate; tiny, non-sentient relatives or ancestors of the kraken -- swam to the surface of his mind. It was almost as bad as eating monkeys. But in the warmer climes and worlds, people did eat monkeys. Lizards, too, for that matter. He decided that this was a thought it would be unkind to share.

Lydia dabbed her lips with a napkin and glanced at her empty glass.

"More?"

"Yes, please. White."

Gregor made his way through the now much-denser crowd and past the now livelier dancing, on the fringes of which earnest discussions were going on between the visiting traders and their local counterparts. He felt a tremor permanently radiating outward from his solar plexus, the arrow's target. Dizzily he contemplated that he had fallen in love, a most unfortunate experience, but one which like any other illness could only be lived through, or died from. So taught the Scoffers, but at this moment -- and this itself was a symptom -- Gregor was unable to conceive of ever again being anything but a believer.

As he passed one of the tables he caught sight of a third cousin, Clarissa, who sat there unselfconsciously suckling her newest baby, and he paused to greet and congratulate her. They talked for a few moments, exchanging family gossip, while Gregor admired the infant.

"What lovely tiny toes she has," he said, tickling them under a lacy hem.

"Why do men always say that?" Clarissa asked, smiling. "And it's a boy. Owen. That's his moistening-gown." She looked up hopefully. "The ceremony's tomorrow, in the North Street Meeting-House. Would you like to come along?"

"I'll do my best, Clarissa," he said, and after some more chat continued on his way to the drinks table.

He'd picked up a couple of filled glasses when his elbow was gripped.

"A moment, Gregor."

"Oh, hello again, Grandpa."

The old man smiled. "Don't go making me feel old. You're old enough now to call me James."

Gregor dipped his head. "I'll remember."

"I see you're in a hurry," the Navigator said, still holding Gregor's elbow like the Ancient Mariner. "So I'll make it quick."

Just as he'd expected, Gregor found himself backed into a corner.

"Yes, go ahead," he said, holding up the two glasses and pointedly not drinking.

"That girl you're talking to -- for gods' sakes don't give her any hint about the family business, about what the Great Work actually is."

"I haven't." He thought for a moment. "And I don't know, anyway."

"Good." James grinned slyly. "I've glanced over what you handed me, Gregor, and I have to say it's good work. Damn sight better than anything your uncles and cousins have come up with. Now, we need to get on with it a bit urgently. I know you have research and responsibilities of your own, but is there any chance you could spare some time to help me out?"

"Ah, I suppose so," Gregor said cautiously. James evidently took his assent as much firmer than it was.

"Thank you," he said. "Let's make it tomorrow." Gregor's involuntary look of dismay was met with another sly grin. "And it would give you a reason to come up to the castle."

"Well, seeing you put it that way ... " Gregor frowned for a moment. "Tell you what. I'll arrange to meet Lydia, if she wants to see me, at some time and then arrive a couple of hours before that to see you. Probably late morning -- I'm going to Clarissa's latest offspring's wetting first, if I'm up to it."

"Excellent!" James finally let go of his arm, and Gregor made his escape.

Elizabeth, after tactfully and politely extricating herself from, in succession, the company of the Garnets, a deep conversation with Tharovar and Salasso, and a dance with one of Gregor's cousins whom she'd two years ago had a fling with, finally caught sight of Gregor's progress around the side of the room. She pressed after him, but by the time she saw him again he was back at the table and talking with Lydia, and it did not take more than a few seconds' observation of both their faces for her to realize that she was altogether too late.

She turned away before either of them could see her. Not that there was much risk of that. Seeing no more of the rest of the crowd than they did, she walked out, at first slowly, then with increasing speed after she'd grabbed her coat from the steward at the door. There was no rain and it was not a cold night, for spring, but she shrugged the oilskin on, buttoning it and wrapping her arms about herself as she walked away from the light and music, the coat's heavy length crushing the fragile skirts underneath it, and she didn't care. Her feet hurt in the shoes as she clattered along the castle's long driveway, and she didn't care. The hell with all that, her boots and breeks would be comfortable enough; she wouldn't meet Gregor again in anything else.

The starship shone on the water like a misshapen moon. She didn't hate the girl -- too elegant and delicate and innocent a creature to dislike. No, it was Gregor, the unseeing, unfeeling bastard, with her own attention in his face every day, and who responded to it with friendly familiarity, as though she were one of the lads; she hated him.

6

____________

Trusted Third Parties

"You know," Jason said, munching fried slice and looking around the union cafeteria, "this place is not terribly secure. As in, physically." He waved his hands at the wide windows, one of which was propped slightly open.

"Tell me about it," Jadey grouched. "Back home, a union office -- or anything kinda oppositional like that -- would be a lot more
defensible."

We'd set the business meeting up as a working breakfast for eleven A.M., to which I'd invited Jason, Tony, and Alec Curran, all of whom had useful skills, were unlikely to betray us, and were Webblies themselves. Not that there was any necessary correlation between these three facts, mind you. I had discussed the two old programmers with Jason first -- guardedly, on the phone -- and he'd assured me that they were sound.

The cafeteria was pretty busy at this time in the morning, mostly with the support staff and Webbly volunteers -- the union was proud to have not a single full-timer or paid official. Those who weren't engrossed in their own conversations were watching the video wall, where some daytime TV host had set up a discussion between the Pope, from his home in Rome, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, from her home in Harare, Zimbabwe. The host's attempts to pry open some theological differences on the question of alien life were bouncing off a commendably firm Christian united front. The Church, one gathered, had always believed that superhuman, but not divine, intelligences lived in the heavens above us.

Curran made dangerous gestures with his fork, to hold our attention until he succeeded in swallowing. He turned to Jadey. "It's like this," he said, in a maddening tone of patient explanation. "We
could
turn this place into a fortress, but what good would it do? If the state ever decided to crack down on us, it could bring overwhelming force to bear. There's no way we could beat the state at the violence game. Violence is what it's good for. What it's not so good at is spreading ideas around, and it's ultimately ideas in people's heads that make them decide whether or not to use the guns in their hands. The state is good at applying force, but not at legitimizing force. So as long as most people believe we're not doing any harm and should be left alone, we have a good chance of being left alone. Turning ourselves into an armed camp would cut against that, even assuming they'd let us do it."

"I was thinking more about physical infiltration," Jason replied mildly. "Smart dust and stuff."