Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (13 page)

 
          
The
Bugle
office on
Bluecloud Boulevard
was nothing grand. It was a low clapboard building with a few poky windows
fronting the messy roadway. By the time we arrived there, stars were
brightening in the gloom. I couldn't imagine that daylight would have
improved the looks of the place, though Peli had described the office as
running back a way, with good skylights.

 
          
I didn't get to enter. Waiting for us
outside in deep shadow were two hooded and scarved shapes. One of them was
burly, the other slight. The burly shape uncovered a lantern, producing a pool
of light. The slight figure stepped forward.

 
          
"What was that fire?" The
voice was hushed and soft, though far from diffident.

 
          
"Our little trick," I said,
"to get away unnoticed. Are you Peera- pa?"

 
          
"Yes." Peera-pa gestured at
her henchmate. "I believe you know my friend."

 
          
The big person threw back her hood
and loosened her scarf. Chopped-off pigtails, framing a large girlish face ...
it was Credence. The same Credence who had been boatswain of the
Spry Goose!
Who had tried to steal
samples of the black current for the cult
women.
Who
had marooned Marcialla up a tree, drugged and in danger of her
life.
Credence
who
had deserted in
Jangali, after I foiled her scheme.

 
          
None of which inspired much
confidence, even granted that she'd been manipulated by the Worm.

 
          
"Hullo, little one," said
Credence. "I forgive you, on account of all you have become."

 
          
"That's nice of you. Forgive me
for what?"

 
          
"For ruining
my life as a riverwoman."

 
          
"There might be two ways of
looking at that! Marcialla's career wouldn't have been improved much by falling
out of a tree and breaking her neck."

 
          
"Ah, that was unfortunate. If
only she'd seen sense."

 
          
"Let's hope I don't have to be
persuaded to see sense likewise."

 
          
Peli drew me aside. "Something
wrong?" she murmured.

 
          
Peera-pa, used to conversing in
murmurs, heard her clearly. "Nothing is wrong.
Just old
history.
Yaleen is safe with us."

 
          
"She's safe with
me,
you mean," asserted Peli.
Peera-pa's eyes looked amused.

 
          
I said to Credence, "I suppose
you don't have as much trouble laying your hands on doses of black current
these days?"

 
          
The former boatswain began wrapping
up again. "Hmm, it isn't as easy as all that. The
guild
make
people drink it on the spot. They register names." She didn't,
mark you, say that it was impossible.

 
          
"Shall we go?" enquired Peera-pa.

 
          
"Go? Where? I thought we met
here to discuss my book and Stamno's whereabouts."

 
          
"We know where he is, Yaleen.
He's with friends in Gangee. Your manuscript is safely in our hands. It will be
printed."

 
          
"Soon, I hope! You do realize
that the Godmind is getting ready to zap everybody in the known universe?"

 
          
"For the sake
of awful knowledge.
Yes, so I understand. If that is what must be done
to acquire such knowledge—"

 
          
"Then we're better off without
it," Peli said bluntly.

 
          
"I was going to say that, in
that case, we are a mere span—to the Godmind's league. But still!"

 
          
"Still what?" growled
Peli.

 
          
Peera-pa's voice was silky.
"Still, we have a priestess with us now. We can contact the black current
directly. We can set foot upon the true path of time and being. In return, we
shall publish a certain book right speedily."

 
          
"So that's the deal?" I
said. "Stamno never mentioned any deal."

 
          
Beyond the yellow pool of Credence's
lantern it was black by now. Only a few distant windows down
Bluecloud
Boulevard
showed smudges of illumination, while
the stars above twinkled to themselves alone. I felt disadvantaged.

 
          
Peera-pa spoke gently. "If
anything effective can be done to save our cousins in the sky, you must know in
your heart that the lever to achieve this cannot simply be some spontaneous
outcry by your readers. Most people aren't interested in great truths."

 
          
"They've been interested enough
so far," said Peli.
"In their tens of thousands!
That's what Yaleen's first book achieved."

 
          
"So her second book will have a
similar effect? Pah! If you think that, you're a fool. People wish to save
their
own
souls. Once that ambition
is achieved, why strive further?"

 
          
"We've had some
guarantees," Peli said.
"Though I'm not naming
names."

 
          
Peera-pa chuckled. "Political
promises? Perhaps they'll be fulfilled—if it suits those involved. Really,
what difference can that make? I'll speak more plainly. What possible
difference—other than to salve your own conscience?
Other
than to exonerate Yaleen from any personal guilt in the cosmic massacre?"

 
          
Peli said, "I don't see how
she's to blame.
Any more than me!"

 
          
"Quite. But anyone is to blame
for something awful if they know about it and don't exert themselves to the
utmost to stop it. Or if they adopt the wrong strategy—a strategy which
appears
to be bold, but which is really
a lesser strategy—likewise they are blameworthy. So let's consider strategies,
greater and lesser. To defeat the Godmind means to lock it up everywhere, not
just to check it on one piddling little planet. The only way to do that is to
discover the key which the Godmind searches for;
before
the Godmind finds it. You must search for the key to the
Real—the truth-key. That's why you really sought me out; or else if not, it
ought to be. If Yaleen hadn't sought me out, we should have sought her out
soon."

 
          
"You certainly fancy
yourself!" said Peli. "What do you know about any of this, compared
with her?"

 
          
"We know how to look for the
key, and where." Peera-pa slid two fingers under her scarf and whistled
into the night. Hand-lanterns appeared ahead of us, and behind. Hooded shapes
approached. Peli flinched, but since there were at least half a dozen newcomers
she subsided.

 
          
"We shall go into the
hinterland," Peera-pa told us. "We will go to our private
place."

 
          
"What, by night?" I tried
to keep a light tone to my voice. "Isn't that carrying discretion a bit
far?"

 
          
"We know our way, Yaleen. And at
our private place there's a person you should meet. As to carrying, why,
Credence will carry you. You can sleep in her arms. She's tireless."

 
          
"What if I prefer being carried
by Peli?" I said this, not so as to burden Peli, but simply to check that
Peera-pa's plans included her.

 
          
Apparently they did. "Peli might
stumble on a root. We don't want you hurt.
Or tired out by a
bumpy journey."

 
          
"I guess riding Credence is a
change from her telling me to swab the decks. . . . Say, how long is this
journey going to take?"

 
          
"We shall arrive by dawn."

 
          
"And get back when?"
demanded Peli. "Donnah's guards are going to take this town apart."

 
          
"With teeth
and claws.
What a delightful notion. Alas, they won't learn much. That's
why we need to go inland—and quickly. Your silly bonfire may already have
alerted them. Come!"

 
          
"There doesn't seem a lot of
choice," I said. There wasn't, either. And maybe, maybe, Peera-pa's plan
was the right one.

 
          
Credence scooped me up in her arms.
She arranged me so that my head rested on her shoulder.

 
          
At quite an early stage during our
subsequent journey—down some winding track through pitch-dark forests—lulled by
her surprisingly smooth motion, I nodded off.

 
          
What woke me hours later was the
noise of Peli falling asleep. The ingredients were a thump, a crash, and loud
confused moans.

 
          
A black army of tree-masts and a dark
crowded canvas of foliage sailed overhead against a livid sky. Dawn was almost
upon us. Where was I? What was going on? Moans were going on.

 
          
"Whazzit?"
I groaned, blinking and stiff.
"Peli!"
I
cried.

 
          
Black figures milled around the
source of the noise—which became ripe, weary curses. A shape was hauled out of
coaly shadows.

 
          
"S'nothing." Credence
yawned in my face. "No crisis."

 
          
"Peli!"

 
          
The shape blundered in our direction,
shaking off the arms which tried to guide it, or restrain it.

 
          
"Where are you, Yaleen? You
cried—" Peli stopped short, just near me, and clutched at her nose.
"Oof!" It was too dark to see if she was bleeding.

 
          
"I'm here, Peli. I'm okay. What
happened?"

 
          
Peera-pa's voice: "She fell
asleep on
her feet, that's
what."

 
          
Peli mumbled, "We must have
tramped a hundred leagues this night."

           
"Hardly!"

 
          
"I was dreaming. Then:
wham."

 
          
"She walked into a tree."

 
          
"I feel half-dead."

 
          
"That's a pessimist's view. Try
to feel
half-alive,
instead. We'll
arrive soon. Once we're there, we can all get some shut-eye."

 
          
As full dawn crept closer,
progressively more light soaked down through the trees. In consequence the
contrast between brightening sky overhead and the dark forest of our journey
diminished. Soon the sky was no longer obvious. The visible canopy of foliage
now hid it.

 
          
The track which we were following led
through a medley of coarsewoods interspersed with occasional ashen groves of
ivory- bone. The path hugged a meandering stream. In places where undergrowth
was dense and scratchy, the path
was
the stream. We quit the guidance of this brook at a bend where a fallen
jacktree sprawled rotting across the water.

 
          
Soon we came upon a huge boulder
splotched with lichen. Behind, as if emerging from an invisible door in the
rock, a pavement commenced: an actual pathway of flagstones. Our party fairly
trotted along this pavement for a third of a league, winding between the
trees. Then ahead the forest parted, opened up.

 
          
The pavement led into a long glade.
Close at hand, a low stone bridge crossed the narrowest point of a marshy mere;
above the sedges the air was fuzzy with gnats. Beyond stretched a great sward
of voluptuous velvety moss, purple and violet as eggplant skin. That dark moss
defied the light blue of the open sky above. It seemed to blot up the shafts of
low sunshine lancing through the treetops—so that it still might have been
night throughout the glade, except that you could see everything plain as day.
Here was
midnight
magically made
visible, as some nocturnal rodent might see it.

 
          
The sward rose up towards ... a
little palace!
A palace which stood out against the moss like
a precious Aladalia ornament upon a pad of velvet.