Infinity's Shore (102 page)

A sudden breeze rushed at him, whistling with force from the ship's interior.

Stale air. Stinky, stale, dank, wonderful air.

Gillian

T
HE BAD NEWS WAS NOT EXACTLY UNANTICIPATED. Still, she had hoped for better.

As the Jophur ship finished adding another swarm of decoys to its prison chain, the cruiser shifted its attention elsewhere, accelerating to pursue the next chosen group.

Soon the truth became clear.

Streaker
's luck had just run out.

Well, they chose right this time
, she thought.
It had to happen, sooner or later.

Streaker
was square in the enemy's sights, with seven mictaars of hyperspace yet to cross before reaching safety.

The Sages

T
HERE ARE OTHERS ON JIJO NOW
, PHWHOON-DAU thought, knowing that even eight would not be enough for long.
In time, the new dolphin colonists must be invited to join.

I have read in Earth lore about cetaceans and their glorious Whale Dream. What music might we make, when these strange beings add their voices to our chorus?

And after that, who knew? Lorniks, chimps, and zookirs? The Kiqui creatures the dolphins brought from far away? A mélange of vocalizations, then. Perhaps a civilization worthy of the name.

All that lay ahead, a glimmering possibility, defying all likelihood or reason. For now, the council was made of those who had earned their place by surviving on Jijo. Partaking of the world. Raising offspring whose atoms all came from the renewing crust of their mother planet. This trait pervaded the musical harmony of the Eight.

We inhale Jijo, with each and every breath.

So Phwhoon-dau umbled in the deep, rolling vibrations of his throat sac.

We drink her waters. At death, our loved ones put us into her abyss. There we join the patterned rhythms of the world.

The presence that joined them was at once both familiar and awesome. The council felt it throb in each note of the flute or myrliton. It permeated the clatter of the glaver's rattle, and the wry empathy glyphs of the tytlal.

For generations, their dreams had been brushed by the Egg. Its soft cadences repaid each pilgrimage, helping to unite the Commons.

But during all those years, the sages had known.
It only sleeps. We do not know what will happen when it wakes.

Was the Egg only rousing now because the council finally had its missing parts? Or had the cruel Jophur ray shaken it from slumber?

Phwhoon-dau liked to think that his old friend Vubben was responsible.

Or else, perhaps, it was simply time.

The echoes steadily increased. Phwhoon-dau felt them with his feet, reverberating beneath the surface, building to a crescendo. An accretion of pent-up power. Of purpose.

Such energy. What will happen when it is liberated?
His
sac pulsed with umbles, painful and mightier than he ever produced before.

Phwhoon-dau envisioned the mountain caldera blowing up with titanic force, spilling lava down the tortured aisles of Festival Glade.

As it turned out, the release came with nothing more physical than a slight trembling of the ground.

And yet they all staggered when it flew forth, racing faster than the speed of thought.

The Slope

T
O NELO—STANDING IN THE RUINS OF HIS PAPER mill, exhausted and discouraged after a long homeward slog—it came as a rapid series of aromas.

The sweet-sour odor of pulped cloth, steaming as it poured across the drying screens.

The hot-vital skin smell of his late wife, whenever her attention turned his way after a long day spent pouring herself into their peculiar children.

The smell of Sara's hair, when she was three years old … addictive as any drug.

Nelo sat down hard on a shattered wall remnant, and though the feelings passed through him for less than a kidura, something shattered within as he broke down and wept.

“My children …” Nelo moaned. “Where are they?” Something told him they were no longer of his world.

To Fallon—staked down and spread-eagled in an underground roul shambler's lair, waiting for death—the sensation arrived as a wave of images. Memories, yanked back whole.

The mysterious spike trees of the Sunrise Plain, farther east than anyone had traveled in a century.

Ice floes of the northwest, great floating mountains with snowy towers, sculpted by the wind.

The shimmering, teasing phantasms of the Spectral Flow … and the oasis of Xi, where the gentle Illias had invited him to live out his days, sharing their secrets and their noble horses.

Fallon did not cry out. He knew Dedinger and his fanatics were listening, just beyond this cave in the dunes. When the beast returned home, they would get no satisfaction from the former chief scout of the Commons.

Still, the flood of memory affected him. Fallon shed a single tear of gratitude.

A life is made whole only in its own eyes. Fallon looked back on his, and called it good.

To Uriel—interrupted in a flurry of new projects—the passing wave barged through as an unwelcome interruption. A waste of valuable time. Especially when all her apprentices laid down their tools and stared into space, uttering low, reverent moans, or sighs, or whinnies.

Uriel knew it for what it was. A blessing. To which she had a simple reply.

So what?

She just had too much on her mind to squander duras on things that were out of her control.

In GalTwo she commented, dryly.

To Ewasx—moments later and half a light-year away—it came as a brief, agonizing vibration in the wax. Ancient wax, accumulated over many jaduras by the predecessor stack—an old traeki sage.

Involuntary steam welled up the shared core of the stack, bypassing the master ring to waft as a compact cloud from the topmost opening.

Praised be destiny.…

Other ring stacks drew away from Ewasx, unnerved by the singular aroma tics, accented with savage traces of Jijoan soil.

But the senior Jophur Priest-Stack responded automatically to the reverent smoke, bowing and adding:
Amen…

Lark

L
ARK, YOUR HAND!”

He trembled, fighting to control the fit that came suddenly, causing him to snatch the amulet from around his neck. He clutched the stone tight, even when it began to burn his flesh.

Crouched behind a set of strange obelisks—their only shelter in the spacious Jophur control room—Lark dared not cry out from pain. He fought not to thrash about as Ling used both hands to pry at his clenched fist. At last, the stone sliver fell free, tumbling across his lap to the floor, leaving a stench of singed flesh. Even now, the heat kept building. They tried backing away, but the stone's temperature continued rising until a fierce glow made it hard to see.

“No!” Lark whispered harshly as Ling dived toward the blaze, reaching for the thong. To his surprise, enough was still attached for her to grab a loop and whirl it once, then twice around her head, as if slinging a piece of flaming sun.

She let go, hurling Lark's talisman in an arc across the busy chamber, toward the center of the room.

Dismayed whistles ensued, accompanied by waves of aromatic stench so overpowering, Lark almost gagged.

“Why the hell did you—” he began, but Ling tugged his arm.

“We need a distraction. Come on, now's our chance!”

Lark blinked, amazed by the power of habit. He was actually
angry
at her for throwing away his amulet, and
even had to quash an urge to go chasing after the damned stone!

Leave it, and good riddance
, he thought, and nodded to Ling.

“Right, let's go.”

Dwer