The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

She wrapped the cord around his waist.  “The ship is ready.  Your main concern is weather.  The Western Sea is uncrossable in winter.” 

“It's not that I want to delay.”

“Of course.  So much depends on it.  Your brother may be the only one who can stop the Romans.”

He's not my
– but Matt had surrendered that battle long ago.  Though their extensive gossip network assured that virtually every Britanian knew of every detail of every conversation he'd had on the island,  they still hadn't grasped the concept of an 'archival clone.'   

She knelt and measured his inseam.  She didn't physically touch, she kept an appropriate distance, but it was disconcerting to Matt because he knew that a typical Britanian woman would have registered some hesitation.  Savora treated it as just another measurement. 

“Done!” She arose and gave a direct look.  “It is very important for you to cross the Western Sea as soon as possible.  Before the weather changes.”

Savora sharply strode away, leaving Matt with the afterimage of penetrating, dark eyes.

“Ivan,” he subvocaled.  “Do you notice anything about Savora?  I realize that's vague, but . . . anything?”

Ivan replied, “I did not detect a mentor.”

“There's something about her.  Like I already know her.”

“She bears a strong physical resemblance to your friend, Synesthesia.”

“She does?”

“Here is a comparison.”  Ivan provided a pop-up window in Matt's field of vision, displaying images of the two women.  Hair styles were slightly different, but yes, the eyes – the same intensity.

Matt willed the window shut.  “The Star Seed Project membership genome files were used to create the planetary gene pool.  There's even that woman at Fish Lake who looks like Mom.  So I suppose it had to happen that I'd meet someone on this planet who looked like Synth.”

“You are nonetheless troubled by the coincidence.”

“She's looks like Synth, she's smart too, and her personality is like Synth, in that she's so . . . . “

“Bossy?”

“What?  No!  Where did you get the idea that Synth was 'bossy?'”

“Several mutual acquaintances have made that or similar comments to you. 'Bossy' was the term your friend Random used in reference to Synesthesia.”

“Synth wasn't bossy.  She didn't try to force you to do what you didn't want to do.  She just was really smart, so she'd figure out what you wanted to do and tell you before you had time to think of it yourself.”

“That explanation resembles a passage from an entry that she posted on her blog.  Would you like the exact wording?”

“No thanks, but I agree with her.  Kind of.  Anyway, what troubles me is that you'd think that after centuries of genetic mixing, the genes for her looks would detach from the genes for her brains and personality and they would all go separate ways and it would be statistically unlikely for them to reunite again in the same person – and even more unlikely that I would ever meet that person.  I realize I'm basing this on just one meeting, but for Savora to be so much like Synth – well, it's improbable.”

“Matt, do you suppose it is possible that Savora is in fact your friend Synesthesia?”

Matt had considered the possibility, but he shook his head.  “Ivan, by now, Synth is a cloud of pure energy – or whatever it was Ascenders were trying to be.  And since she quit the Star Seed Project, how would she even get to Ne'arth?”

“We have been gone many centuries from Earth.  Perhaps there have been improvements in interstellar transportation.  Perhaps she traveled by wormhole stargate or hyperdrive starship.”

“Let's not get into fantasy.  Besides, you would have informed me if there was a scent match, right?”

“It is possible that Synesthesia could have altered her scent for purposes of disguise.”

“If Synth came to this planet and wanted me to know it was her, she would tell me, and if she didn't want me to know, she would have taken a completely different form so that we'd never guess.”

“Matt, as your neural implant matrix, I am obliged to ask personal questions about your emotional state in order to better serve.”

“You're going to ask whether I still have romantic feelings toward Synth.”

“Yes, Matt.”

Matt grinned. “Well, she's smart and pushy – but I've met someone who's smarter and pushier.”

“Noted.  Matt, do you wish to resume your search for Carrot this afternoon?”

Even while talking about Savora, in the back of his mind Matt
had
been thinking about Carrot; indeed, he realized, it was almost as if he had talked so much about Savora in order to avoid thinking so much about Carrot.  He wasn't quite sure, however, as to why. 

“I don't know what to say to her yet,” Matt concluded.  “It's like I want to see her so badly, that I'm afraid to see her.  Does that make sense?”

“According to my psycho-therapeutic application, your feelings are confused about the nature of your relationship and the confusion is resulting in fear of saying or doing something wrong, and your response to the fear is procrastination and avoidance.”

“Your psycho-therapeutic app is wise.  Anyhow, it's getting dark.  I can see Carrot tomorrow and maybe then I'll know what to do.  Let's grab some food and sleep, okay?”

As he ate a meal at the meal hut, he reflected: 
Introverted
.  Yes, maybe there was some truth to that even now.  He needed people – desperately so – yet at the same time, even on a new planet, somehow relationships often ended up depleting him.  He sensed it was his own fault, something inside him that had been wired or programmed wrong by his genes at birth.  If he could ever figure out how that worked, he thought, it would change his life more dramatically than even going to another planet had done.   

As he returned to the village and staggered into his hut, he realized that he was very tired.  He asked Ivan to stop stimulating him awake, and before he could ask to be knocked out, he was out.

He was awakened the following morning by a tap at his door.  A messenger brought a note from Prin, that the representative of the Leaf was waiting.  Layal packed him a breakfast of bread and cheese, which Matt gulped down on the road as he hurried. 

When Matt arrived at the hangar, Prin introduced him to Colonel Krobart, whose scowl deepened as he inspected Matt's optic blue jump suit. 
Garish
, Matt thought, seeing the echo of Savora's remark in Krobart's squint.     

“So this is the famous Wizard,” Krobart said.  “Very young.”

Matt was speechless, and so it was Andra who rescued him: “Shall we start the flight?”

Prin opened a window and began shouting orders both inside and outside.  Andra climbed into the gondola and reviewed the pilot's pre-flight checklist with Savora.  Bok had to be shooed away.  Krobart grumbled as he ascended the steps, and grumbled more when he saw Andra at the wheel.

“You have a woman steering,” Krobart said.  “This is most unconventional.”

Prin looked like he had a sharp comment, but instead resumed giving orders. 

After weeks of flight tests, launching the ship was routine.  The hangar doors were swung wide and the mooring lines were loosed.  The ground crew, a core of expert regulars swollen to a small mob gathered from volunteers around the base, towed the airship from the hanger to beneath the open sky.  Taking position at the rear of the control room at the fore of the gondola, Matt watched how swiftly and efficiently Savora moved between gauges and controls as Andra called the checklist items. 

Prin hollered out the window at the ground crew tending the engines, and they spun the props at Andra's call.  The twin blades of the engine propellers growled and whirred into blurs.  The ground crew hands released the mooring lines.  The bags of external ballast were dropped and the ship ascended.   

The roofs of huts sank below their feet.  The roof of the hangar, which was only a tethered sheet of Sarkassian silk, rippled in the breeze of their prop-wash  The cluster of buildings that formed the base became encompassed in a single gaze.  With their ascent, the forest seemed to encroach and swallow the signs of habitation. 

“Everything looks so small!” Krobart exclaimed.  Aware of their stares, he quickly donned his scowl again.    

“Let's take her over the village,” Prin said to Andra.  “True bearing one-forty, quarter-throttle.”

Andra spun the piloting wheel and nudged the engine levers, her ears trained by Geth to detect the proper pitch.  Savora's eyes swept the gauge boards in a methodical pattern, all business-like, oblivious to the scenery. 

They puttered past the base fence, across the field and over the tree tops.  Heading south, they steered above the Oksiden Road.  The waters of Fish Lake glistened in the dawn light and winding snakes made of the smoke of the village cooking fires intertwined in the clear sky.  The road to the east disappeared into the Dark Forest, and above the haze in the northeast, the Fuji-like cone of Mount Skawful simmered.      

“One can see everything,” Krobart said.  “Amazing!”

The fields were spotted with harvesters, who dropped their baskets and waved as the shadow of the airship swept among them.  Matt, the only one who wasn't busy, waved back until he realized that Krobart was watching him. 

Prin consulted his clipboard.  “Let's go to cruise.  Three-quarters throttle, heading due north.”

Andra swung to the new heading and eased the power levers.  The engines purred as the ship ascended to avoid the hilltop trees. 

“Faster than a horse in gallop!” Krobart exclaimed.

He was grasping the bulkhead rail so hard that his knuckles were white.  Matt wondered how he would react to a trip in an aircar.  At least they were making a positive impression.  Krobart had to realize that the airship was worth funding. 

Prin supervised the test flight maneuvers and operations:  ascend to X meters, descend to Y, right by forty-five degrees, left by ninety, replenish and release ballonet pressure, adjust trim, ahead full speed, come to dead stop.  Andra flew with a grace and fluidity that made the ship seem alive. 

“Pitot static tubes within five percent tolerance,” Savora reported. 

She smiled back at Matt from the gauge panel.  Matt glanced at the gauge readings and Ivan confirmed that her calculation was correct.  Yet she was not holding the compensation value graphs.  Had she memorized them?

After that, he watched her pore over the navigation charts and plot their course with dead-on accuracy.  In theory, a person without a computer could have done the work.  She consulted the barometer to estimate altitude, then triangulated distance between landmarks to time ground speed.  Her fingers shifted the slide rule as if she had been born to it, though Matt was certain that no Britanian merchant's girl had seen a slide rule before he'd introduced them to the planet a few weeks earlier. 

“Why are they running?” Krobart demanded.

They followed his gaze to a village below.  The harvesters had been out in force, but they dropped their baskets upon sight of the ship and instead of waving they were fleeing into the woods.

“We haven't been up this far north before,” Prin said.  “They've never seen the ship before and don't know if it's friend or foe.”

Krobart's jaw dropped.  “You mean they fear us!”

“They'll get used to us in time.  Word travels almost as fast as an airship on this island.”

Krobart nodded.  “We'll need to paint a leaf on the side.  To let them know the ship belongs to the Leaf, and that the Leaf is protecting them with it.”

“I've always wondered,” Andra said.  “Why is your organization called the 'Leaf?'”

“Because the leaves of a tree sustain the tree, and cover it.”

“The tree being, I assume, Britan.”

“Exactly.  A leaf derives energy from the sun, and gives power to the tree.”

“I thought your organization was democratic,” Prin said. 

“It is.”

“Yet if by 'tree' you mean the people of Britan, then isn't it the case that the Leaf derives power from the people, rather than the other way around?  That's how democracy is supposed to work.”

Krobart's smile faded.  “The Leaf is the will of the Britanian people.”

“So you hold elections?”

“Elections are encumbrance at this time.  Also, every patriotic Britanian recognizes that the leadership of the Leaf supports their best interests.”

Prin muttered, “I see.” 

After three hours by the ship's chronometer they returned to the base.  The ship glided over the airfield and the mooring lines were caught by the ground crew.  Krobart, Prin, and Matt disembarked onto the landing field while Andra and Savora secured the ship and conducted it back into the hangar, locking props and reattaching ballast bags. 

Krobart's face was aglow as he watched the great doors close.  “Simply amazing!  I must send a report immediately!”

“So we're approved for funding?” Prin asked.

“Most definitely!  With the aid of this ship, I dare say that we'll be able to mount an attack against Londa itself and drive the Romans from Britan for good!”