Vale of Stars (31 page)

“—the Assembly made it very clear they are only too happy to postpone action again until this matter of the sea creatures is settled. So I want to go out there to figure it out so we can get back to the business at hand.”

Sirra blinked. Sea creatures? What was Grandonly talking about?

Lawson again. “You still don’t agree that we can learn something from these things?”

“Oh, sure, Law, but they’re not going anywhere. The Domers, on the other hand, might be doing any number of things. They are not static like this problem before us. The only reason I submitted to the will of the Assembly is that it is possible, however domed unlikely, that something about these creatures will help us in our inevitable military campaign. And if there is a chance of a military advantage coming of this, however slight, I’ll agree to wait. For a short time. We should be able to figure out if these creatures can offer us anything immediate rather quickly. If not, I will return to the Assembly, and I
will
have my way.”

Sirra had not heard this part of her Grandonly before—she was very serious. Sirra knew that if her Grandonly ever spoke to her that way, she would jump at her voice so fast she might leave her skin behind. But what was all this talk about sea creatures and attacking the Domes? There was—

“Madame Prime? We have a small, and very young, security breach,” Mr. Kahlman said, and something in his voice told Sirra that he was looking right at her. She slowly turned her head, eyes wide, and met Kahlman’s unreadable gaze not three meters from her.

“What’s the matter, Sirra?” Yallia asked, coming around the table and kneeling in front of her. “Can’t you sleep?”

The temptation to use sleeplessness as an excuse, especially when it was being provided by her Grandonly, was almost too much for Sirra. She nodded slightly, then shook her head.

“I wanted to hear what you were talking about,” Sirra said quietly.

Yallia sighed. “How long have you been there?”

“I heard that you are going to see some fish. And maybe use them to fight the people in the Domes.”

“Long enough,” Lawson’s voice floated through the dimness.

Yallia threw a disapproving look over her shoulder, then looked back at her grandclone. “Listen, Sirra. You heard us talking about a secret. You can’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“Can I come with you?”

Yallia’s shoulders slumped. “What? No, dear. I have to go by myself.”

“Please?”

Franc Kahlman got up from his seat and approached Sirra. “Young lady, your Grandonly asked you a question. Do you understand that what you heard in here is confidential? Secret, I mean?” he added quickly at Sirra’s look of confusion.

“Can I tell my onlymother?”

“You mustn’t tell anyone, dear. It’s very important.” Yallia grabbed both her hands to emphasize the point.

“Okay, Grandonly. I’ll try.”

Kahlman sighed softly. “Madam Prime, I submit we have a new problem. I am not sanguine about her sudden new status as an illuminata,” he said, his inflated vocabulary leaving Sirra far behind.

Sirra could not understand the words, but her intuitive sense served her well. “I’ll try, Mr. Kahlman. I really will. Buy why is it such a secret? Are you in trouble, Grandonly?”

Yallia shook her head and looked up at Kahlman. “I agree, Franc. But what can we do? Keep her under house arrest until I get back?” Yallia’s disgust at the idea was clear even to Sirra.

Kahlman did not answer but looked thoughtfully at Sirra.

“Arrest?” Sirra squeaked.

Yallia patted her hands. “No, not like that,” she said vaguely. She looked at Kahlman for a moment, then muttered, “I suppose she could just come with me. There’s no danger, really.”

Lawson exploded, “What? You can’t take her with you! Yallia, for Ship’s sake, think about it! What if—”

Yallia stood up and let go of Sirra’s hands simultaneously. She whirled to face Lawson, her expression alone silencing him. “What if what? We’ll be out on a boat. We’re not going to do any diving or blockade running, Law.”

“But….” Lawson stammered his objection, his arms waving in the air before him, trying to indicate danger where his words could not.

Yallia smiled at him in a way that made Sirra uneasy—she felt jealousy well up in her as her grandonly paid that kind of attention to him. Yallia stepped closer to him. She spoke softly so only he and Sirra could hear, and Sirra got the impression that she herself was not meant to listen. “Law, I understand what you’re trying to say. But I haven’t been tested yet—we don’t know whether I’m pregnant. But even if I am, you don’t think two days’ growth will hinder me? If there’s a baby in there, he or she is about as big as the head of a pin. Your gallantry is noted, Law, but it is also about a thousand years out of date.” Still, she smiled and resisted the urge to touch him on the cheek. She backed away and said in her normal voice to the rest of the Originals, “Sirra and I will go on the research vessel.”

“A good decision, if I may say so, Madam Prime. We hardly need a cover story now—you and your grandclone are going to the Bitter Sea for a day of, shall we say, ‘girl talk.’” Kahlman said, a small smile on his face. He looked at Sirra and winked so quickly the girl was not even sure it had happened.

The meeting broke up. Yallia turned to Sirra and said, “Now go to sleep, little one. I’ll wake you early in the morning before everyone else is up and we’ll go sailing. All right?”

“Thank you, Grandonly. I’m sorry if I messed everything up.”

“No. It’ll be fun,” Yallia said. “Now, off with you,” she turned Sirra around and swatted her playfully on the backside.

Sirra giggled and made as if to leave, but she could feel eyes on her back. She turned her head to see Lawson staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face. For a moment, Sirra got the impression the man was fighting inside himself, as if he wanted to say something but at the same time did not want to say it.

Then the moment passed and she started to go. On her way out, she bumped into Kahlman.

“Excuse me, Mr. Kahlman.”

“Excuse me, little one,” he said, patting her on the head, and he left. Sirra still did not know what to make of him. He seemed sometimes to be nice, but other times he seemed…like a computer. Like he was always working problems in his head.

She shrugged and headed upstairs to her room. She did not know how she was going to sleep.

*   *   *

Khadre gave the tiny cabin on the skiff another worried look. Was that a bit of grime in the corner? She moved towards the suspicious smudge, her lower lip firmly caught between her front teeth. No, it was a shadow.

“Khad, please,” Viktur said, his tone far past exasperation now. He was working topside, watching Khadre through the opening to the cabin below.

“Just giving the room a once-over,” she said, her eyes darting from corner to corner.

“Tenth-over, you mean.”

“It’s not every day we have the Prime Original here, you know. I just want to make sure everything’s in order for her.”

“You gonna sweep the ocean, too?”

Khadre stuck her tongue at him. Despite appearances, she was thrilled at the prospect of taking Yallia aboard and showing her their discovery firsthand. If all went well, she and Viktur would finally get the recognition necessary to continue their studies. The Family had made little secret of their priorities—marine research ranked near the bottom of a very long list. If she thought about the matter hard enough, she knew she would discover that warfare was increasingly becoming the main focus of the Originals. But Khadre preferred not to think that hard. Instead, she concentrated on the mission ahead. Perhaps, somehow, their discovery could avert a war. She did not know how, but as a scientist, a
pure
scientist, she believed that knowledge ultimately led to peace.

“There they are,” Viktur said, pointing from his vantage point topside.

Khadre scrambled out of the cabin and nearly tripped on the top stair.

“Easy, killer,” Viktur said, laughing.

“What do you mean, there ‘they’ are? Who’s with her?” Khadre squinted into the predawn gloom and made out two figures—an adult and a child. She gave Viktur a worried look and leaped lightly off the skiff onto the pier.

“Madam Prime?”

Yallia emerged from the fog, her right hand grasping the strap of a knapsack slung over her shoulder, her left holding the hand of the little girl at her side. She nodded gravely to Khadre and said, “Hello, Khadre Seelith. This is my granddaughter Sirra. I would like her to come along.”

There was little doubt that Yallia did not expect a refusal, and Khadre immediately responded with more enthusiasm than was sincere. “Sure! Hello, Sirra. I’m glad you could come. Would you like to see the fishies?” She bent down to the girl and thrust their faces close, as if the girl was hard of hearing or mentally deficient or both.

Sirra blinked at her. Khadre knew how foolish she looked, but she could not start over and reintroduce herself to the girl. To her relief, however, Sirra smiled brightly, and Khadre felt the little girl take an instant liking to her.

“Fish,” Sirra said. “There’s no such word as ‘fishies.’ Or ‘fishes,’ either,” she added.

“Actually, there is such a word, Sirra. ‘Fish’ can mean one fish or many fish of the same kind. ‘Fishes’ means many fish of different kinds.” Khadre said, smiling. She, too, liked the little girl, even if she could not say why.

Sirra said, “Oh!” and looked up at her grandonly with glee.

Khadre caught the glance and took a chance. “You already knew that, didn’t you?”

Sirra laughed openly. “Yes, I did. Can we go on the boat now?”

Khadre looked at Yallia. “Are there any more preparations to make?”

“Not from me. I am ready to leave as soon as you are,” she said, her tone indicating that she expected the moment of departure to be right away.

“Then take my hand, Sirra, and we’ll go aboard,” Khadre said, holding her hand out to the girl. Khadre straddled the skiff and the pier and helped Sirra step aboard, then looked uncertainly at Yallia. “Do you need—should I—” Khadre said, her hand neither at her side nor extended far enough out for Yallia to hold.

“I think I can manage,” Yallia grumbled, then boarded without holding Khadre’s hand. She looked around the skiff with an air of disdain. Sirra had introduced herself to Viktur, who had started giving her a tour of the vessel. “Tell me about your safety precautions,” Yallia barked.

Khadre coughed. “We have a signal beacon that broadcasts our position to a monitoring station on land, and we have some emergency rafts, rations, emergency medical supplies—”

“No life jackets?”

“Life jackets?” Khadre blinked. “Well, no, ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t really drown in this water, ma’am. The salt content is so high that a person floats quite comfortably without effort. The real danger comes from cold, not drowning. And we have chemical warmers for that.”

“Hmm.” Yallia did not seem satisfied.

Khadre looked at her in exasperation. “I can probably fashion some life jackets if you want, ma’am.”

“Eh? No, I was thinking about something else. Your beacon. What would happen if you turned it off?”

“Well, the station would not know where we were. Unless we radioed in.”

“Surely they would have some idea. You know where you are going to find the creatures, yes? And the station knows it, too, right?”

“I believe so. There is pretty tight security, but I think Del, our station monitor, knows.”

“Then we will turn off the beacon. If you need to inform your partner at the monitoring station, do so.”

Khadre swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.” She squeezed past Yallia, who seemed disinclined to move, and climbed up to the conning platform. She activated the skiff’s radio and told Del of the change in plans. He accepted the new data without comment, wished her luck, and switched off.

“Grandonly!” Sirra called from the bow, “Look! I think the sun’s coming up!” The morning had grown gradually brighter, and the green-grey fog had diffused the light of Epsilon Eridani to an emerald glow.

Viktur bent down and whispered something to Sirra, who giggled and shouted again, “Cast off mooring lines, you swabbie!” She looked at Viktur who, laughing, gave her a thumbs-up. “You want to drive the boat?” he asked her. Sirra’s eyes grew into saucers and she nodded vigorously. Viktur and Sirra started towards the conning platform.

Khadre happened to be looking at Yallia after Viktur’s exchange with Sirra, and saw the Original attempt, unsuccessfully, to suppress a smile. Khadre felt warmth course through her, and it was only then that she realized how tense she had been with Sirra on board. The old woman was powerful and knew it well. Until the moment she smiled at her grandonly’s antics with Viktur, Khadre had wondered if the formidable woman had a softer side. Now she knew, and the knowledge simply added another level of awe to Khadre’s attitude.

Khadre climbed down from the conning platform and untied the ropes from the starboard cleats, throwing the rope onto the pier. Khadre saw out of the corner of her eye Yallia watching her and thought she saw grudging admiration in her expression. When Khadre finished untying the ropes, she pushed off from the pier with her foot and called out to Viktur, “We’re clear!”

Viktur engaged the screws and the boat started forward. Sirra held on to the helm, eyes fixed ahead, while Viktur stood behind her, judiciously holding onto the wheel under Sirra’s right hand.

“Look, Grandonly! I’m driving!” Sirra shouted.

“You sure are,” Yallia shouted back. She turned to Khadre. “How long until we reach your creatures?”

“About two hours.”

Yallia nodded and continued to watch Sirra at the helm. Khadre followed her gaze. The girl seemed oddly comfortable there, even though she had probably never been on a boat in her short life. As the women watched, Viktur said something to Sirra, and she released the wheel. Viktur threw a few switches and took Sirra’s hand to lead her down from the conning platform.

“We’re on auto now,” he explained. “I thought Captain Sirra would like to see the drone.”