Epiphany of the Long Sun (84 page)

"We're the cargo?" Staring up at Sciathan, the newcomer tapped his own chest. "Me, and everybody I know?"

"That is it with precision." Sciathan nodded emphatically. "Abanja and Siyuf also. So you see that I would not chill Auk. It is our duty to preserve the Cargo, not to chill it."

"Mainframe told you to do this?"

"To preserve the Cargo? Yes, always." Sciathan's voice dropped. "It is increasingly difficult. The sun no longer responds well, not even so well as in my father's day. Heat accumulates, another difficulty, because the cooling no longer functions efficiently. Mainframe may be compelled to blow out the sun. Is that how you say it? Interrupt its energy. It has warned us, and we have done what we can to be ready."

The newcomer put down his tumbler. "You're getting me dizzy enough without this." He rose, stepping to the small barred opening in the iron door. "Hey! Peeper!"

"You think that I am deceiving you. You will seek to have me removed."

The newcomer turned to face him. "Cost me two cards to get this pad, and now I scavy you're cank. It's getting too hot, you said. The whole whorl's getting too hot."

Sciathan nodded. "There are other difficulties, but that is worst."

"So you're going to shut off the cooling-"

"No, no! The sun. Until the
Whorl
can be cooled. I will not do this, you must understand. I could not. Mainframe must, if it must be done. It will be a terrible darkness."

"Cause the whorl's getting too hot." The newcomer strode to the window. "You take a look out there. That's snow."

"You will not credit me." Sciathan sighed, studying the newcomer's coarse, bearded face for some sign of belief "I cannot condemn you, but you have fed me and been kind. I would not deceive you. It was difficult to make the winter this year. Mainframe struggled, and we flew many sorties."

"It had to make winter. Mainframe had to make it?" The newcomer pointed to the window. "I always figured winter was just natural."

"Nature is a useful term for processes that one does not understand," Sciathan told him wearily. "Once already the sun has blown out because Mainframe was trying to make this winter. This was not intended."

"Yeah. I heard about that." The newcomer sounded less argumentative. "Then the sun came back, only real bright for a minute. It set fire to some trees and stuff. A cull I know asked Patera about it. Caldé Silk. He said it was another god talking and he knew which one, only he didn't say."

"It was not a god," Sciathan asserted. "It was the sun's restarting. Restarting must be at maximum energy."

"Anyhow, that's not why you're here." The newcomer pulled his tunic over his head, revealing a red wool undershirt that he removed as well. "Mainframe told you to find this cully Auk."

The warder's face appeared in the opening in the door. "What you need?"

"I want you to go to Trotter's for me," the newcomer told him, and handed him two cards. "You tell him any friends of mine that come in, the first one's on me. Have him tell 'em I'll be back real soon, and I'll see 'em at the Cock. You got it? You got to go straight away."

"Sure. You too hot in there?"

"I got a itch is all. You tell Trotter, then maybe I'll have another little job for you."

When the warder had gone, Sciathan began, "Is it known here… I do not wish to offend religious sensibilities."

"You won't," the newcomer told him, "cause I ain't got any. I got religion, and that's different."

"Is it known that all the gods are Mainframe?" Sciathan awaited an explosion with some anxiety; when it did not come, he added, "Equally is Mainframe all gods. Mainframe in its aspect of darkness, which in this tongue is termed Tartaros, issued my instructions."

After knotting its sleeves around one of the bars, the newcomer pushed his undershirt out the window. "You know, I wish you'd told me that sooner, Upstairs."

He picked up his fork, bending its tines with powerful fingers. "What's your right tag, anyhow?"

"I am Sciathan. And you?"

"I ain't going to tell you, Sciathan. Later I will, only not now, cause I scavy it might slow us down. You know where the keyhole is in this door? About where it is, anyhow?"

Sciathan nodded.

"Dimber. Look here. See how I twisted the one funny and bent the other two up out of the way? I want you to stick your arm through the peephole there. I could maybe do it if I was to rub butter on my arm, but you can do it easy. Sort of feel around for the keyhole with your kate, that's the funny-looking one. When you find it, stick your kate in and twist."

Sciathan accepted the fork. "You are saying this will open the door. You cannot know it."

"Sure I do. I seen the key when he was letting me in, and I know how these locks work. I know how everything works soon as I see it, so get cracking. I don't want to keep 'em waiting outside."

Slowly, Sciathan nodded again. "Then you will be free, and I free to pursue my search for Auk, but clothed as I am, and ignorant of the customs of this city."

"We're going to take care of you," the newcomer told him briskly. "Clothes and everything, and we'll teach you how to act, all right? Do it!"

Standing on tiptoe, he was able to thrust his arm through the space between two bars. The strangely bent tine scratched the door for the lock plate, then scratched the lock plate for the keyhole. "I am fearful that I may drop it," he told the newcomer, "but I will try to -" He had felt the bolt retract. "It is unlock!"

"Sure." As Sciathan withdrew his arm, the newcomer pushed the door open. "Come on. There's a couple mort troopers on the outside door already, so we best bing. Wrap that blanket so they can't see your kicks."

He led Sciathan along the corridor and down a stair to a massive iron door. "They ought to of had 'em inside too," he whispered, "only they figured it was all rufflers and upright men, so nothing would happen. It don't matter what's afoot, it gets queered when some cully figures nothing's going to happen."

"I understand this," Sciathan told him; and wanted to add:
Yesterday that was I
.

"Only that's the way I'm figuring too, 'cause I got to. They'll have slug guns out there, and if we beat hoof they'll pot us sure. So we're going to walk easy going out, and just keep going till we're 'cross the street. And maybe nothing will happen. If they holler or say something, don't you stop or even look back at 'em. You got it?"

"I will try. Yes."

"Dimber." The newcomer pressed his ear to the iron door. "Long as you do, you don't have to worry. We'll take care of the rest."

There followed a lengthy silence; at last the newcomer said, "Pretty quiet out there. Get set."

The motion of the door seemed much too quick as Sciathan stepped, half blinded by winter sunlight, through the doorway at the newcomer's side. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed the towering woman whose thick sand-colored greatcoat his blanket brushed.

The wide street was freezing mud, rutted by the wheels of carts and wagons, and almost empty. Snowflakes whirled before his eyes, a few sticking to their lashes.

"You two!" a woman's voice bawled.
"Halt!
"

So fast that it seemed sure to strike them, a black vehicle swooped toward them, roaring like a storm. He was airborne once more, out of control and without wings. For an instant he saw the startled face of a man in black with whom he collided full tilt, after which something huge and heavy struck his back.

A bang-like a slamming door-and the roar mounted to a deafening crescendo. Acceleration pushed him backward into two obstacles he did not at first realize were the shins of the man in black. As though by some mysterious device of Mainframe's, the roar was muffled; above and behind him the newcomer growled, "Just the one shot. Pretty good."

A new voice, that of the man in black, said, "Even one is too many."

And then, as the pale hands of the man in black and the muscular hands of the newcomer lifted him onto a padded seat, "Welcome to Our Holy City of Viron, in the names of its people, its patroness, the Outsider, and all the other gods. I'm sorry we couldn't do this with less violence and more ceremony. Are you hurt? I'm Caldé Silk."

Sciathan wiped his month with his fingers, finding to his surprise that it was not bleeding. "I am somewhat bruised, but from blows and not from this escaping. I am Sciathan." Beyond their enchanted tranquility, snow swirled and homely blank-faced buildings raced like camels. He blinked, looking from this pale Cargo to the newcomer and back. "Are we safe?"

"For the time being at least," the pale Cargo called Caldé Silk assured him.

"I am your prisoner, instead of that of the tall women?"

Caldé Silk shook his head. "Of course not. You may come and go as you wish."

The newcomer added, "Anyhow, we like you."

Sciathan smiled; it was very good now to smile, he found. "Then I am free to search again?"

"Yeah," the newcomer told him, "only it ain't going to take you long. I'm Auk."

Making Peace

"G
ood man!" Oreb assured everyone at the table.

"This is Sciathan." Silk indicated the tiny man on his left. "Sciathan landed near the Trivigaunti camp on Thelxday, with four of his fellow Fliers-I believe while the parade was still in progress. The Trivigauntis shot three of them and captured him. One escaped."

Potto nodded, his round, cheerful face minored in the waxed and polished wood. "And he escaped yesterday with your help. I won't congratulate you on that operation, just on its success. We could have managed it much better."

Halfway down the table, Spider concurred. "Shag, yes!"

"It was hastily improvised," Silk admitted. "We knew only that Sciathan had come to find Auk; we couldn't even guess why he wanted him. Fortunately Generalissimo Oosik was able to get through to the Guardsmen on duty in the Juzgado-"

Loris interrupted. "They've been replaced."

"That's good. I'm glad nothing worse was done to them. On Generalissimo Oosik's instructions, they pretended that they had arrested Auk, and he was able to bribe a turnkey to put him in Sciathan's cell. Quite frankly, we thought it likely that Auk would leave him there after he had talked to him, at least for the time being. We were extremely reluctant to worsen our relations with the Trivigauntis."

Silk scanned the faces beyond Hyacinth's. Maytera Mint looked angry; Bison, beside her, angrier still. Oosik, eager and expectant, a slug gun across his lap; he had wanted both councillors killed, and might conceivably have a subordinate stationed somewhere to kill them.

"If things had gone as we expected," Silk continued, "the rest would have been easy. Auk would have been escorted out by Guardsmen, and Siyuf's sentries would have assumed that he had been questioned and was being released.

Auk himself said, "Only I couldn't. We got to get to Mainframe. That's him and me and everybody that's going with me." He glanced at Quetzal and Remora, seeking support.

Potto smiled more broadly than ever. "I congratulate you again on the outcome. It was all we could wish for and more. Just the same, our enemies retain four propulsion modules, and three undamaged pairs of wings."

Hyacinth said loudly, "You're the enemy!"

Maytera Mint shook her head. "They were the enemy, up to Thelxday night. Now we've been betrayed, and we're no longer sure. I doubt that the Trivigauntis are either. We're all Vironese here, everybody except the Flier. If Councillor Loris is really here to make peace, we ought to welcome it."

She closed her eyes. "I do. Echidna, forgive me!" On the other side of the table, Remora nodded emphatically.

Silk asked, "Have you come to make peace, Councillor Loris? Councillor Potto?"

"Our azoths have been confiscated." Potto giggled. "I was searched! Me! It was absolutely hilarious, but calling this a peace conference is funnier."

"I didn't say it was a peace conference," Maytera Mint snapped, "I implied it could become one. It should, if there's any chance for peace. As for taking your weapons, His Eminence and I went to parlay without any, and you know what you did to us. Because of that, this parley is being held on our ground with us armed and you disarmed. I will insist upon the same arrangements for any future parleys as well."

Loris snarled, "Your troops are melting away as we speak!" to which Potto added, "It was worth it to see your face, my dear young General, when I threatened you with the teapot. I'd do it again, just for that. But you have no right-"

Oosik interrupted him, drawing his needler and holding it up. "Here is one of my weapons. It will kill me, or General Mint, or even Caldé Silk. Do you want it?" He laid it on the polished tabletop between them, and gave it a push that sent it past the middle of the table.

While Silk counted three beatings of his heart, no one spoke. Potto stared at the needler before him, and at last shook his head.

"Then do not complain to us about your weapons," Oosik told him.

Silk rapped for order. "Like you, Generalissimo, I do not believe that Councillor Potto is entitled to complain about the loss of his weapons. We are entitled to complain about the projected loss of ours, however, and I'm not at all sure that Councillor Potto-although he is inclined to be proud of his information-knows about that. Councillor Loris seems to be less than current with regard to General Mint's volunteers."

He addressed Potto directly. "Councillor Loris said they were melting away. Colonel Bison reports that they've melted altogether. We had to hurry it, and hurry it we did. Do you know why?"

Loris said, "He doesn't, but he'll never admit it. I'm not so pigheaded. Why, Caldé?"

Silk nodded to Bison, who said, "Generalissimo Siyuf has ordered the Guard to collect our peoples' slug guns and store them in the Juzgado." Bison leaned forward, his eyes on Loris and his face tense. "It was exactly-exactly!-the right order to split the Guard and our people, and she didn't even try to route it through Generalissimo Oosik. She sent it to the individual officers in command of the brigades."