The Crystal Variation (52 page)

Which was folly of another sort.

The lady extended her free hand and cupped the gentleman’s smooth golden cheek, stretching high on her toes to do so. She sank back, and the gentleman released her hand with a gentle smile.

“The skies are clear,” the lady said, tucking both hands into the full sleeves of her gown.

“A passing circumstance, I assure you,” the gentleman answered, making a show of looking upwards, hand shading his eyes.

“Rool.” The lady sighed.

He brought his gaze down to her face, one copper brow arched ironically.

“It is not,” she said sternly, “a joke.”

“Indeed it is not,” he replied, and there was no irony in his voice. “We shall be discovered soon enough, fear it not. Our challenge is to appear genuine in our flight, while neither losing our pursuit nor altering aught that might also alter what has been set in motion.” He smiled. “The choice is made; we cannot prevail. I swear it.”

The lady’s pale lips softened briefly as she looked up into his face.

“The modifications will stand the test,” she said seriously. “Are you able? Are you—
willing
? It might yet be undone.”

“No!” His voice was sharp, the smile fled. He gripped her shoulders and stared down into her eyes. “It is only the certainty that the modifications
will
stand that gives me hope of the final outcome.” His lips quirked, and he dropped his hands.

“You see what I am brought to—a slave who clings to his prison, and treasures his jailor above himself.”

The lady laughed, high and sweet.

“Yes, all very well,” the gentleman murmured, and tipped his head, considering her out of earnest blue eyes.

“We
will
diminish,” he said. “At best, and with everything proceeding as we wish.”

The lady swayed a half-bow, scarcely more than a ripple of her gray robe. “Indeed, we will diminish. Is the price too high?”

The gentleman closed his eyes, and extended a delicate hand. The lady caught between her tiny palms.

“I am . . . a poor creature, set against what I once was,” he whispered. “We choose, not only for us, here, as we are and have become, but for those others, for whom we have no right to choose.”

“Ah.” She pressed his hand gently. “And yet, if we do not choose for them, we are parties to their destruction—and to the destruction of all, even those who never understood that a choice existed. Is this not so?”

He sighed, mouth twisting into a smile as he opened his eyes. “It is. Don’t heed me—a passing horror of being trapped by that which is malleable. And yet, if one certain outcome is necessary . . .”

“Yes,” the lady murmured. “The luck must not be disturbed, now that it has gathered.”

“The luck swirls as it will,” the gentleman said, slipped his hand from between her palms. “Well, then. If we are both reduced to hope, then let us hope that the agents of luck proceed down the path we have set them on. The one is bound by honor; the other—”

“Hush,” the lady murmured. “The lines are laid.”

“Yet free will exists,” the gentleman insisted—and smiled into her frown. “No, you are correct. We have done what we might. And once they pass the nexus, the lines themselves conspire against deviation . . .”

The lady inclined her head. “Our case is similar. We may not deviate, lest we unmake what we have wrought, and destroy hope for once and ever. If—”

She checked, head cocked as if she detected a sound—

“Yes,” said the gentleman, and his smile this time was neither pleasant nor urbane. “Shelter against me, love. It begins.”

The lady put her back against his chest. He placed his hands upon her shoulders, fingers gripping lightly.

“Stay,” he murmured. “We cannot risk being missed.”

Scarcely breathing, they waited, listening to sounds only they could hear, watching shadows only they could see.

“Now,” breathed the lady.

And they were gone.

Two

TWO

Spiral Dance

Transition

“Landomist, is it?”
Cantra spun the pilot’s chair thirty degrees and glared down-board at her copilot.

Jela spared her a black, ungiving glance, in no way discommoded by the glare.

“I gave my word,” he said mildly.

She sighed, hanging on to her temper with both hands, so to speak, pitched her voice for reasonable, and let the glare ease back somewhat.

“Right. You gave your word. Now ask yourself what you gave you word
to
, exactly, where they-or-it are now, and with what harrying at their heels.”

Jela gave his screens one more leisurely look-over, like there was anything to see except transition-sand; released the chair’s webbing and stood, stretching tall—or as tall as he could, which wasn’t very.

“You could probably do with a stretch yourself,” he said, giving her wide, concerned eyes. “All that tricky flying’s soured your temper.”

In spite of herself, she laughed, then released the webbing with a snap, and came to her feet, stretching considerably taller than him—and Deeps but didn’t it feel good just to let the long muscles move.

Jela rolled his broad shoulders and grinned at her.

“Feel better?”

She gave him the grin back, and relaxed out of the stretch.

“Much,” she said cordially, there being no reason not to. “And now that I’m returned to sweet and reasonable, maybe you could apply yourself to being sensible. Did you or did you not hear the lady say it was a
sheriekas
lord’s fancy we’d caught?”

“I heard her,” Jela answered calmly. “I also heard her say she and her mate were going to draw it away, and give us a chance to do what we’d agreed to do.”

“What you agreed to do,” she snapped. “
I
didn’t agree to anything.”

The inside of her head tickled at that, and she caught a brief scent of mint, which was what the seedpods grown by the third member of the crew smelled like. She sent a sharp look to the end of the board, where Jela’s damn’ tree sat in its pot, leaves fluttering in the air flow from the vent.

Or not.

“Our orders,” Jela began—Cantra cut him off with a slash of her hand and a snarl.

“Orders!”

“
Our orders
,” Jela repeated, overriding her without any particular trouble, “are clear.” He tipped his head and added, at a considerably lesser volume, “Or so they seem to me. You’re a sharp one for a detail, Pilot. Do you remember what she said?”

Damn the man.

“I remember,” she said shortly.

“She said,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “
You, the pilot and the ssussdriad will proceed to the world Landomist. You will recover Liad dea’Syl’s equations which describe the recrystallization exclusion function and use them in the best interest of life
. Do I have that right, Pilot?”

She’d’ve denied it, if there’d been room, but Jela wasn’t too bad with a detail himself, when he cared to apply himself.

“You’ve got it close enough,” she allowed, still short and snappish. “And the fact that you were pleased to give your word on it don’t make the rest of us daft enough to fall prey to the gentle lady’s delusions.”

“She and her mate are our allies,” Jela said, like it made a difference. “We shared the tree’s fruit. She trusts us to carry out our part of the campaign.”

Cantra closed her eyes.

“Jela.”

“Pilot Cantra?”

“What do you think the
sheriekas
lord is going to do with yon pretty children when they’re caught?”

“Interrogate them,” he said promptly.

Well now there was a sensible answer, after all. She opened her eyes and gave him a smile for reward.

“Granting the
sheriekas
have a fine arsenal of nasties at their beck,” she pursued, bringing the Rim accent up hard, “it seems to me likely that Rool Tiazan and his sweet lady will say all they know of everything, and a good number of things of which they have no ken, among it being one soldier, who gave his word to travel straightaway to Landomist for to liberate some ‘quations in the service of all those who’re enemies of the Enemy.” She drew a careful breath, seeing nothing in his eyes but her own reflection.

“Stay with me now. Where do you think that canny cold lord will next turn its care, having heard the
dramliza
sing?”

“Landomist,” Jela said calmly.

Cantra felt the glare rising and overrode it with another smile, this one showing puzzled.

“So, knowing that, you’re wanting to follow these orders as you style them, and have the three of us down on Landomist, nice and easy for the
sheriekas
to find?”

“I gave my word,” Jela said, which brought them full circle.

Once again, a ghostly taste of mint along her tongue. Cantra snapped a look down board, and flung out an arm, drawing Jela’s attention to his tree.

“All the care and trouble you’ve gone to for that damn’ vegetable, and now you’re wishful of putting it in the path of mortal danger? You done caring what happens to it?”

Whatever reaction she might have expected him to deploy against such a blatant piece of theater, laughter—genuine laughter—was among the last.

Head thrown back, Jela shouted his delight. The tree, for its part, snapped a bow, leaves flashing—and no way the vent had put out a gust strong enough to account for that.

Cantra sighed, hitched her thumbs in her belt and waited.

Jela’s laughter finally wound down to a series of deep-in-the-chest chuckles. He raised a hand and wiped the tears off his cheeks, grinning white and wide.

“Mind sharing the joke?” she asked, keeping her tone merely curious.

For a heartbeat it seemed like he was going to engage in some further hilarity at her expense. If he was, he controlled the urge, and waved a shaky hand in the general direction of the tree.

“Pilot, that tree is more soldier than I’ll ever be. It held a planet against the
sheriekas
, all by itself, when it wasn’t any thicker than my first-finger, here. It knows the risks—what we stand to gain, what we stand to lose. None better, I’ll bet you—and I’m including the
dramliza
in that set.” Another swipe of fingertips across cheeks to smooth away the last of the laugh-tears. “Ask it yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

Behind her eyes, unbidden, came a series of pictures. A green, tree-grown world, and the shadows of wings overhead in the high air. Then came a feeling of oppression, as the grass dried, the wings vanished and the first of the very Eldest trembled, wavered—and crashed to the drying earth.

The pictures went on, elucidating the trees’ muster, as they fought a delaying action, first in groups, at the last one or two alone, as the world dried until only sand was left. The rivers evaporated, the sea shrank to a trickle, and still the trees held the enemy away by will, as Cantra understood it to be—and by won’t.

It was a campaign doomed to failure, of course, and the last few soldiered on, their life force stretched thin. The feeling of oppression grew into a tangible weight, and the winds whipped, scattering sand across the corpses of trees, which was all that remained—save one.

Cantra’s throat was closed with dust, thirst an agony. She felt her sap falling and knew her death was near. She was too young, her resources too meager, and yet she bent her energies to her last task, and produced a pod, so the world would not be left unprotected—then waited, singing thin and defiant against the Enemy’s howl of desolation.

But what came next was not death.

Rather, a new form took shape out of the wind and the sand—not a dragon, yet with something dragon-like about it. It, too, opposed the Enemy. It, too, was dying. It proposed a partnership of mutual survival, that they might together continue to fight.

The tree accepted the proposal.

There was a stutter in the storylines, and there was
Dancer’s
bridge, clear enough, and the
dramliza
on their knees, heads bowed, the echo of the question in her own head, and the answer, damnitall, that she’d made it.

In the matter of allies, you need to ask yourself two things: Can they shoot? And will they aim at your enemy
?

Quick as a sneeze, then, the tree cut her loose to fall back into her own head so fast and so hard she gasped aloud.

Cantra blinked and focused on Jela. He had the decency to show her a calm, disinterested face. A mannerly man was Jela, soldier or no.

“All right, then,” she said, and was pleased that her voice sounded as calm and disinterested as Jela’s eyes. “There’s two of you agreed to cleave to madness. The fact remains that
I
never gave
my
word.”

“Now, that’s very true,” Jela allowed. “You never did give your word.” He turned his big hands up, showing her empty, calloused palms. “Belike the lady thought we’d all stand as crewmates. But if you’re determined not to risk yourself—and I’ll agree that it’s not a risk-free venture—then there’s nothing more to say. I will ask you the favor of setting me and the tree down someplace we’re likely to catch public transport to Landomist. I’d rather not call attention to us by coming in on a hired ship.”

Almost, she did him the favor of returning a shout of his earlier laughter. She strangled the urge, though, and gave him as serious and stern a look as she could muster.

“I could do that,” she said. “I’m assuming you have a plan for getting at those equations, locked up tight as they are in Osabei Tower.”

“I do.”

Cantra sighed. “And that would be?”

He tipped his head, making a play-act out of consideration, and finally gave her an apologetic grin, as false as anything she’d ever had from him.

“It’s my campaign,” he said, “and my word. The way I see it, you’ve got no need to know. Pilot.”

It was said respectful enough, and in any case wasn’t anything more or less than the plain truth. Nothing to notch her annoyance up to anger—so she told herself, and took a hard breath.

“Ever been to Landomist?” she asked, keeping her voice light and pleasant.

“Never,” he answered in the same tone. “I don’t get deep Inside much.”

“Understandable. That being the case, you might not be familiar with the Towers?”