Heart Journey (25 page)

“Ah. Thank you.”

Del grasped both forearms with Ruis. “Good to see you again.”

Elder shook his head. “Ever since we’ve seen those fabulous maps, Ship has been nagging me to get you here for a consult to reconcile its own charts.”

He stepped back and patted her on the shoulder, turned, and led the way to the interior. The iris door wheeled shut after them. Raz laced fingers with her.

“Greetyou, Helena D’Elecampane,” the Ship said. Its voice didn’t sound like just one person to Del.

“Ah, you have a composite voice,” Raz said.

She should have known he’d pick up on that.

“You have a companion, D’Elecampane?” Ship asked.

As if it didn’t have video and audio and already knew who Raz was.

Raz turned to a point and bowed. Following his gaze, Del noticed the camera.

Bands of rainbow light flashed through the curving metallic corridor, running up and down the tube.

“Stop that,” Ruis Elder snapped. “It’s rude to body scan visitors, especially since you know who the man is. You have his work transcribed in your archives.” Elder sighed. “Cerasus Cherry, please meet the Ship,
Nuada’s Sword
.”

Raz bowed again. “A pleasure indeed.” He used one of his mellow actor’s voices.

“Greetyou,” the Ship said, with a grudging note in its tones, then continued. “You are not of the genetic heritage of one of
my
colonists.”

“No,” Raz agreed easily. Del noted that he was holding his body in that casual way that meant he wasn’t casual at all. “My Family is descended from colonists of
Lugh’s Spear
.”

A loud whispering hiss whirled through the corridors like dry and crackling autumn leaves caught in a wind scraping against buildings. “I am the last starship, the only one who survived.”

“Everyone knows that, Ship,” Captain Elder said, tromping with fast paces down the hallway to the area Del was most familiar with, one of the chambers where the Ship kept its maps.

“My Captain was more skillful than poor
Lugh’s
was, set me down right here near the coast and river just as planned. A fine place for colonists. My sentience remained entire and grew.”

“
Lugh’s Spear
was less intact, more fragmented after the generations of travel at the time of landing,” Raz said. “Her Captain was extremely skillful in getting her down to the planet with only one breach of the hull. And the land he chose was good, fertile, between Fish Story Lake and the Deep Blue Sea.”

“The land may have been fertile, but it was weak and collapsed beneath
Lugh’s Spear
, burying it within weeks of the landing. Then the location of
Lugh’s Spear
was lost,” Elder said.

“People have looked for it but never found it,” Del murmured.

Raz sighed. “My ancestress kept a journal of her life and the landing and the trek to Druida after the cave-in of the land under
Lugh’s Spear
. But the diary, too, was misplaced. That can happen over four hundred years.” Now Raz was stiff.

“The Tabacin Diary!” the Ship said.

“Yes, that was her name before she adopted ‘Cherry.’ ”

“I knew that,” the Ship said.

“Of course you did,” Captain Elder soothed.

“I am recalling your Family legends,” Ship said.

“What?” Raz said.

“One or two were entered into my database a couple of centuries ago.”

Raz swallowed. His eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yes. I believe I was consulted for information on your Family and
Lugh’s Spear
because the journal went missing.”

Raz made a noncommittal sound.

The Ship continued, “It was said the diary described the exact location of
Lugh’s Spear
.”

“So we were told,” Raz said. His face was stiff as if he covered anger or shame on behalf of his Family. He glanced back over his shoulder the way they had come, and Del knew he was considering leaving, even though he was still curious, and the Ship had tempted him with information.

“I thought you were interested in speaking with Del about her new maps,” Elder said.

“Maps, yes.” The Ship was distracted by the Captain’s change of topic. “My maps
must
be updated. That is of primary importance.”

“As opposed to old Cherry legends,” Raz murmured in Del’s ear. If the Ship heard him, it ignored them. Captain Elder threw them a humorous glance over his shoulder as he rounded a bend in the corridor.

“We’ll get back to that,” Raz said, his brows lowering in determination.

One more thing that weighed heavy on Del, that she hadn’t considered when she first went searching for her HeartMate. Raz was close to his Family.

“Maproom Two, Del,” Captain Elder, now out of sight, called.

She and Raz were lagging. She because her head was throbbing with problems, Raz because he was craning to see everything.

“Maproom Two,” she muttered herself, knowing that it would soon be her turn to argue with the Ship.

C
aptain Elder showed them to a chamber with metallic walls. Del
blinked to see all her new maps hung, the individual ones and the two huge ones that compiled the work of her last five years.

“Fabulous,” Raz breathed.

“They are the best charts since the colonists have landed,” Captain Elder said.

“There is a discrepancy in this map”—the Ship pulsed a green glow around it—“and one of the maps you did fifteen years ago.” The one next to it was backed by a blue glow. Del strode up to the older chart and nearly winced. Her early work. A little crude.

“You’re right.” She traced the outline of a lake that had become larger on her newer map, touched a point. “There has been an increased flow in the river. There’s an underground spring and a fault opened more.” She stopped and cast her mind back to the first time she’d seen and mapped the area.

Since it was just off the road to Gael City, in a location where there were noble estates, current charts were always wanted. “I did the first map in the spring, and the second last year.” Before she’d met her HeartMate and had fully mastered the 3-D holos that now projected out from her later maps like they were miniature terra-forming projects. From the corner of her eye she saw Raz studying one that she’d done lately.

“Thank you,” said the Ship. “And the elevations on this chart”—the glows had faded from behind the maps she was standing before and the backlight came from one across the room—“are not congruent with the maps I have.”

“Of over four centuries ago. Let’s see yours.” She waited until the wall turned into a screen and a map was projected on it. The thing was fuzzy and colored oddly. “From space?”

“Yes,” the Ship answered.

She waved a finger. “Move it fifty degrees west.” The ship did and Del saw the blue green curve of the planet. A little more green than she recalled seeing from charts made by the Ship. The wrong color. “Ship, is this a viz
you
made?”

The Ship hummed. “Accessing data.” There was a short silence, and it said in a slightly higher mass voice, “My memory of the origin of the chart is not available.”

“Very agitating time,” Captain Elder soothed. “Entering a planetary atmosphere after centuries, with physical deterioration of all Ships, and the unfamiliarity and excitement of the crew.”

“Discovery Day,” Raz murmured. “Such an eventful day would tax any being to keep track of every little detail.”

The Captain smiled at him. “Exactly.”

Del nodded, rocked a little, heel to toe. “Ship, show me the entry path and planetary circling of
Arianrhod’s Wheel
. That data should be recorded as a greater priority to you and may still be in your memory.”

The chart shrunk until it was a full planet, rotating, a streak of bright yellow appeared.

“Now show your trajectory and
Lugh’s Spear’
s
.
”

Bright blue showed as the well-known path of
Nuada’s Sword
circling the planet, landing where it was now, on the edge of the continent, the western boundary of Druida City. Then a bright green streak appeared, circled, and landed between Fish Story Lake and the Deep Blue Sea.

“
Lugh’s Spear
.” Raz’s breath sighed out. “Could we find exactly where it landed and was lost from this?” He’d gone tense with excitement beside Del.

“The data has deteriorated over the centuries,” the Ship admitted.

Del said, “The landing streak is wide, too wide to figure out an exact location, I think. And the margin of error—”

“Is too great,” the Ship said. “I never knew the accuracy of these trajectories. Nor the accuracy of
Lugh’s Spear
and
Arianrhod’s Wheel
’s measuring instruments. Also their comm systems may have distorted the data.”

“All the ships were relaying information to each other,” Captain Elder said. He laid a hand on the wall. “Massively busy time.”

“Yeah,” Del said.

Raz came behind her until his body brushed hers and took her mind off charts and maps and planets and the exciting and significant event of Discovery Day. Her body pulsed with longing. She was becoming used to him, to sex—loving.

He set his left hand on her waist and reached out with his right to trace the touchdown of
Lugh’s Spear
, the ship in which his forebears had arrived. “Captain Hoku of
Lugh’s Spear
fought to make a good landing in a good area. Panic among much of the great crew. Calmness on the bridge. The set down rougher than he’d thought. The ship breaks. Atmosphere pours in. So does glorious sunlight.” His finger stroked the end smear of
Lugh’s Spear
’s trajectory.

Del turned in his arms. “That’s from your Family stories?”

He blinked, shook his head, lips curving. “Yes.”

“Good stories,” Captain Elder said.

“We don’t have that one in our databanks,” Ship fretted. “It must be from the lost diary. We would like to hear everything you recall of such stories. No one ever tells me everything. Humans keep secrets. Then they die with them.”

“A cheerful thought,” Captain Ruis said.

“Both
Lugh’s Spear
and
Arianrhod’s Wheel
had casualties. I had none.” The walls around them rang with the pride in Ship’s voice.

Captain Elder winced, then touched the end point of the green path. “
Arianrhod’s Wheel
broke in more than one place when it landed in what became Chinju, was cannibalized later.” Again he touched the wall of his sentient home.

“It had not developed intelligence,” the Ship said, and all three humans sighed again.

“We don’t have many here in Druida City that arrived on
Arianrhod’s Wheel
,” Captain Elder said.

Nuada’s Sword
continued, “They were more skilled craftspeople, only a couple were of the FirstFamilies who financed the colonization. That ship was the least well built.
I
was and am the one who developed intelligence during the voyage. I carried most of the FirstFamilies, and the DNA of Earthan animal and plant life.
Arianrhod’s Wheel
had the best libraries of Earthan crafts and technology.”

“And
Lugh’s Spear
?” asked Captain Elder.

“
Lugh’s Spear
carried the most information regarding the type of psi powers of the original colonists, both those in the cryogenics tubes and that which the crew developed during our long flight.”

“What treasures we would find on
Lugh’s Spear
!” Raz said.

“It would make the discoverer wealthy beyond all imagination,” Captain Elder said.

He’d know. He and
Nuada’s Sword
had become incredibly rich since he’d become the Captain.

“We were talking about my maps and discrepancies.” Del reeled them back on topic. She tapped the first yellow path. “See, it’s
Arianrhod’s Wheel
that had the trajectory to feed you the information about that first map we discussed.”

“Very well,” the Ship said.

“That all the discrepancies you have?” she asked the Ship.

“Yes,” the Ship answered, but she got the feeling that
this
sentient starship was brooding on the blanks in its memory.

Raz cleared his throat. “Ah,
Nuada’s Sword
?”

“Yes, Cerasus Cherry?”

Raz shifted even closer and Del knew it was because he was nervous . . . and she gave him comfort. Nice. “My father and I share a hobby of making miniature models of yourself,
Lugh’s Spear
, and
Arianrhod’s Wheel
. It’s occurred to me that the plans and specifications we have may not be correct. Is it possible—”

“You
do?
” the Ship said.

“Yes.”

“Models. Plans. Another thing we could market . . .” Captain Elder said.

“I will give you our plans as you wish. In what proportions?”