Spear of Light (46 page)

She grinned, raised the glass in a tiny salute, and took a sip. “Yep. Bitter.”

“Too much?” Manny asked.

“Perfect.”

Wind rattled the windows and Manny grimaced as he led them up the stairs to what was almost certainly the best set of rooms in the house. They sat together on a small covered balcony, with a slim metal rail and four metal seats around a small table.

The porch was in the lee of the wind, although it swept across the back of the hotel and tore loose bits of roofing free and took them away. Manny brought them each a lap-blanket and they curled up, watching the darkening sky. Night-hunting birds and bats began to come out, and down the street a soft yellow light snapped on.

Nona downed half her drink in one long swallow and gave Charlie a look that almost screamed, “please hurry.” Manny also watched him.

Hesitating to talk didn't make the threat any less real, so Charlie took a deep breath and started catching Manny up. “Remember the station I apprenticed on? Desert Bow Station? We were just there. The Shining Revolution has taken it for a base, and they're populating it by stealing people from our farms, and even a few from here. Planning to attack Next's Reach, the new city they're building. Or at least we thought they were Shining Revolution. Nona figured out they weren't really, unless you asked them.
They
thought they were. But they didn't have any direct orders. Just a bunch of guys who had decided to call themselves revolutionaries and come to Lym and do the right thing. They were going to attack the Next just because that seemed right to them. They're thugs.” He didn't sound very coherent, even to himself. He glanced at Manny, who looked solemn. At least he didn't look confused. Charlie kept going. “We went into the desert with them. They had a promise of help, but none came. As far as we could tell, nothing happened like it was supposed to, and the highlight of the night was watching a long line of newly minted Next run by completely unmolested.

“When we returned to the base there were extra ships and sharp uniforms. After I made sure everyone was as safe as I could make them, I went exploring. Sure enough, I found the pilots. I'd swear
they
were real Shining Revolution. They said we have two days until they destroy Nexity, and they plan to make Manna Springs their base.”

Nona finished her drink in another single long swallow. She stared at him, probably trying to decide why he didn't tell her earlier. Hopefully she'd let him explain later.

Manny set his glass down and asked, “Did they mean it?”

“I think so.”

Two more lights flipped on in nearby houses. There were families behind those windows, maybe sitting down to dinner.

“Did you tell anybody else?” Manny asked him.

“I came to you first.”

Nona gave him a slightly frustrated look. “He didn't even tell me until just now. Two days won't be enough notice for the Deep to help us. Or anyone else.”

Manny spoke softly to her. “A few more hours wouldn't have made that any different.”

They watched dark close around the city, no one saying anything. Charlie savored the sound of the wind, which was apparently trying to decide whether or not to whip itself into a regular little storm. Manny looked deeply contemplative. Nona tapped her foot on the floor. She said, “I think I need to find the Historian even more now. I'm going.”

She stood up and started folding the blanket. “Call Satyana, too,” Manny said. “But please don't tell anyone else yet. We need to plan first.”

She set the blanket down. “People have a right to know.”

“Soon,” Manny said. “Maybe even by the time you find your friend. I think he's in Hope. You'll hear the message. Don't panic people before that.”

“I have to tell the Next,” Nona said. “I'd think they'd know . . . they haven't said anything that we know of. You saw them last, right Manny?”

It was Manny's turn to finish his drink. “You can't. Do you know why you weren't all destroyed over in Entare?”

Nona looked impatient. “No.”

“Because the Next could plausibly pretend they didn't know for sure that they were going to be attacked. If they had known, they would have blown you two to bits when they went after the people you were with. They have some crazy no-mercy rule.”

“Well, then.” She smiled. “Doesn't that solve our problems? Tell the Next and they destroy the Shining Revolution and then everybody leaves us alone?”

Charlie felt certain Nona was teasing, but a look of alarm flashed across Manny's face. “That's a lot of death. The Shining Revolution is made up of people like the ones you just went and rescued.”

Nona stopped, leaned down, and kissed Manny on the top of the head. “You're right, silly. I'll even tell Satyana not to tell anyone she doesn't have to. But people will need to prepare. Soon.”

“It would be handy if Satyana sent some ships.”

“Maybe she already has,” Nona said. She slid through the door and closed it behind her.

“What did she mean by that?” Manny asked.

Charlie gave it a long think while he stared at the shifting darks of the sky. “I think she meant we heard a lot about Gunnar Ellensson having ships out here.”

“I don't know what to think about that,” Manny said.

“I don't either.”

Manny stood up and folded the blanket. “At least I already told almost everyone to go away. Now we'll have to see if they do.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

NONA

Nona hurried out of Manna Springs. The town had curled up inside itself to wait out the wind that whipped her loose hair against her cheeks and the cold that forced her to walk as fast as she could.

She didn't stop to check on her embassy.

A young man stood at the edge of town, watching her approach. “Are you Nona Hall?” he screamed into the wind.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Manny told me to give you his power-cycle.”

“Oh. What's that?”

He pointed at a little two-seater ground vehicle. “Can you ride it?”

The power-cycle was essentially black wheels as tall as Nona with bright yellow safety striping, a leather seat, and a control board on a simple mounting stick. “Show me how?”

He took her over and stood shivering beside her, pointing out controls. When he finished, he said, “Get on and ride around here. Start and stop and slow down. I'll wait until you've got that down.”

The craft was amazingly responsive. It had enough strength to get through the wind without much shudder, even when she turned sideways to it. She waved at her benefactor, who waved back and then jogged away. He was probably looking forward to a warm room and something even warmer in his belly.

She chose to ride around the edge of the spaceport to avoid drawing too much attention. Ships loomed and spiked to her left, and the open land around the tarmac made a flat darkness to her right. The wind of her speed mingled with the cold pre-winter wind, bringing goose bumps to the bare skin on her hands and ankles.

The Wall came on her fast, a dark blob decorated with strings of tiny white lights that moved in mesmerizing patterns. She took the power cycle up over the same twisting path she'd walked the last time she came here alone, the looping thinness of it making her stomach light as air. A sentinel Next didn't move at all as she passed it, although she had the distinct sensation it watched her. It might have been the same one that carried her the first time she came here.

She parked in a large lot near the edge of the Mixing Zone. To her surprise, a tall woman she'd seen in Manna Springs came up and relieved her of the machine, checking off a box on a tiny slate that hung at her waist. Too bad. Maybe she'd have to buy one for herself. The thought made her laugh.

She'd remember to thank Manny.

She strolled quickly through the Mixing Zone, stopping at the door into Hope and giving her name. The wide door swung open for her with no challenge whatsoever. Probably also something to thank Manny for.

Inside, she looked for one of the greeters who helped new people. They were always dressed in bright green, which made it a fairly easy task. As soon as she found one, she asked, “Can you tell me where Dr. Neil Nevening is staying?”

The woman looked down. “He has a restricted list of allowed visitors.”

“Nona Hall,” she said.

“Oh. Yes. Down toward the end, there's a bar named Hope's Lasting Love. Right past it there's the Everlasting Hotel. He's in the penthouse suite.”

“Thanks.”

Hope was busy today. She passed a number of people so fresh and new they were glancing at their slates to check where they were, and one woman who just stood, staring at the Wall as if it were a unicorn.

The hotel was easy enough to find, although she had to give her name to two different security people to get upstairs. She tried to stay patient; at least they were keeping him safe. When she finally stood outside his door, her hand shook as she knocked.

He opened the door himself. He looked exactly like she had last left him, except she'd never seen him outside of his office, which had reeked of the power he held as a member of the High Council of the Diamond Deep. He seemed smaller and warmer without the trappings.

He folded her in a hug, the movement more intimate than any touch she'd ever shared with him. He was a slight man, thinner and shorter than Charlie, with the intensity of a driven academic rather than the sharp glances and careful carriage of a ranger. As always, he wore a mundane brown that matched his hair and eyes, as if he wanted to move through the world as a nearly invisible man.

Nona freed herself from his embrace and backed up a step. “I won't pretend I'm glad to see you here.”

He smiled. “Satyana would tell me the same thing. But perhaps you don't understand. I've never been so certain of a path before in my life.” He gestured to her. “Come, sit down. I'll make you tea.”

She sat on a brown couch that fit the brownness of him. The suite had a small kitchen. He heated water and brought her tea in a pretty little teapot shaped like a fat tharp with stylized eyes, which made her smile. “I half-expected that you'd have that yellow china tea set, the one with the tiny cups.”

“I gave it to Satyana.”

She held her hand out for a cup and said, “She's loved that set since the first day she saw it. But tell me why you chose this, and whether or not you've even been accepted, and when this . . . might happen to you.”

He sat on the other end of the couch, turned toward her. “I haven't been accepted yet. So I don't know when anything might happen. They'll call me any time, they said, or maybe even come to me and interview me.” He smiled. “So I can practice getting my story straight by talking with you.”

“All right.” She blew on her tea and then sipped it carefully. It smelled of the trees here, like something Amfi had made for her once.

“I'm a historian. If I went on the way I have been, especially if I kept my position as a High Councilor, I'd only have access to the history of the Diamond Deep. I'd have only known about Lym from video and news, but I wouldn't have smelled it or tasted it.”

“I've smelled Lym, and I'm not turning myself into a robot. Have you seen a sunset yet?”

“Yes, and a sunrise. Both made me hungry for more.”

“Of course they did.”

“And I'd die. Maybe not right away, but I'm over two hundred now, and so I'm at least middle-aged. Maybe more since I've been sick a few times.”

“I didn't know that.”

“I didn't have any reason to tell you. I've been well a long time. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I
will
die, as will you, as will every human. Even if we take the longevity drugs every day of our lives, we will die.”

“I know,” she whispered. It didn't really bother her. But then she wasn't even a hundred yet.

“But this way I can live history. A new history. I have no idea what the Next are planning, but it's not simply a partial takeover of Lym.”

She leaned closer to him. “Do you know that?”

“Don't you?” he countered.

She thought it through. “I suppose. It is a lot of effort for something they don't really need. The only thing they seem to be really paying attention to is making more Next. Charlie was all worried that they wanted trace minerals, and he told me they even talked about that. But they aren't mining anywhere.” She sipped her tea again, being careful not to burn her lips. “But what do you think they are doing?”

“I have no idea. But that's the beauty of it. I can see the next hundred years of the Deep, and maybe even of Lym, at least if I'm right and the Next leave. But if they do, and I can go with them?” He looked almost like he was drunk on the idea. “I have no idea what they are becoming. But I want to know. I want to know so badly it hurts me, it pulls me.” He paused, looking at her. “I can't even tell you why.”

She snorted, a little taken aback by his raw enthusiasm. “You might just end up spending a thousand years as a grunt on a cold station beyond the Ring.”

“I know.” He sat back. “But I don't think so. And if I have all of the time in the world—think of how much I can understand. That's what history is for, you know. Understanding. It's the deepest way possible into who we are and who we might become. It's the blood of our past, and it colors everything inside of me, every choice I make.”

He had always been such a mousy man. And now? Now he had a dream. That was the only way the new fervor made sense to her. She finished her tea, stood up, stretched, and sat back down. “How are things on the Deep?”

“Tense,” he said. “They're tense everywhere. I tried to set Satyana up to be the next Historian, but I can't tell if she wants it.”

Another strange idea. “She doesn't have your training.”