Spear of Light (23 page)

Once they reached agreement, they all chose to stay in the braid and to float in each other, to accept and love and hope with each other.

We are alive now still dreaming singing speaking of being alive if you speak of life you have it and we are only a little like we were one and many one and two such space of remembrance.

They would not be able to do this again until they came back together.

It took a very long time to separate.

Yi felt content and vaguely frightened. He had not been even a little frightened for a very long time, and it set all of his senses alight so that he heard everything anyone said in silence or out loud and the scrape of feet and the rustling as Chrystal searched for clothes.

It felt good to make their own choices.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHARLIE

Except for Gerry, Charlie had been by himself for the two weeks since he left Hope. After only one day wandering the empty station alone, he had started back to work. Regardless of who was shooting at him, Lym needed its rangers and Lym's creatures needed to be watched over. He sent the day's itinerary to his skimmer, climbed in, ran through his startup sequence, and felt the skimmer hum to life under his feet. He nudged it up and away, over the station fence, and turned toward the ocean.

Ragged Beach was aptly named: a long line of sand broken by protruding rocky promontories and jagged cliffs and, here and there, wild jetties of teardrop islands in long strings. Mostly he flew high over it, avoiding the periodic strange wind-eddies near the rocky shore. Even though most of the beaches were pebbles, here and there bright sand or black sand beckoned in smooth, inviting patches.

He recorded animal sightings every few minutes. Rock goats with kids, playing on the edges of a scarp he was sure he couldn't climb. He spotted two species of raptors and a mated pair of nightmeals, carrion-eaters with beautiful black-on-black wings. After an hour, he set the skimmer to long, low circles while he counted a school of rainbow fish. Only fifteen minutes later, he spun in slow circles above a family of shelled swimmers twice his size, called pilongs. They had long heads that rose like snakes out of the water and wide, flat flippers. He spotted five of them together and flew low enough to take multiple pictures. When he sent one back to Gerry, she gave him a thumbs-up sign.

They had done so much here. Lym thrived. But already, before it was entirely healthy again, before it was wild enough to live without daily care, it faced risks he couldn't mitigate.

The forest proved uninteresting and completely normal, which pleased him to no end. The rakuls had moved on, or remained hidden. Still, it left him feeling as if he had done some good and was back in a proper relationship with the planet. After he parked, he hummed to himself as he walked up the path to the dispatch station.

The door opened, and Cricket came tumbling out, greeting him enthusiastically. Sometimes he took her with him, but she seemed to have as much fun keeping Gerry company as going with him. He scratched her behind the ear, massaged her spine, and had just started working on her rump as Gerry came out. “Dinner's ready. We have news.”

A little trill of hope filled him. “From Nona?”

She shook her head, but she looked excited. “Amfi. She's been sending a few people out to the other gleaner bands, collecting information. I'll tell you what she found after you sit down.”

He laughed, washed his hands, and found two of the work tables had been set with steaming bowls of fresh vegetable stew and seeded muffins. “Did you make these today?”

“I did. Enough for visitors.”

He sipped at the soup. “Peppery. It's fabulous. Who's coming?”

“Two of the rangers are coming back. Alinnia and Susan. They're done with Kyle.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. The soup will be best tomorrow.”

He smiled at Gerry wanting to be sure the two women rangers knew she could cook before they got back. A piece of normalcy in a crazy time. “That's great news. But what does that have to do with the gleaners?”

“Nothing. Here it is, though: Amfi says that they've found a whole base on Entare. Near Palat, but not near enough that it's visible from there. A fucking base. She says ships go up and down from there. It's not Next, she says. It's people from the Glittering. But they can only be coming because of the Next.”

“How would . . .” He stopped with his empty spoon in the air. “The Port Authority has to know. They're allowing it.”

“Maybe Desert Bow Station? Jean Paul. I need to get to Jean Paul. He might know some of this.”

“You haven't seen him since the night Kyle tried to kill Amfi, have you?”

“Once.” He allowed himself a few bites of soup so it wouldn't get cold. “He came to Hope once. He wanted to be sure I was okay. He said he's trapped at the port, and will come back as soon as he can. I guess I just took that at face value.”

“Would he join a fight against the Next?”

“No.” Charlie dipped a piece of muffin in the stew. “Maybe he's in town.”

She gave him a sharp look. “Manna Springs isn't safe for you yet.”

“Alinnia or Susan could go.”

“I don't think they're coming in here just to take orders.”

He laughed. “I'll think of something.”

She made an exaggerated, severe face at him. “Finish your dinner first.”

“Yes ma'am. At your service.”

After he finished putting away the dishes, Charlie walked Cricket under a black blanket of sky scattered with stars and stations. “I don't know, girl,” he told her, “but I think that there's more lights up there. That can't be good.”

The tongat looked up at him briefly and mildly, as if to say, “So what? Right now, right here, it's just us two, and we're everything we will ever need.”

He grinned at her and went on talking as if she had said it out loud. “If we don't do something, it won't be just us. So we have to, girl.”

Cricket sensed some small animal rustling in the bushes and pricked her ears.

“That's the difference between me and you,” he said. “You're blessed lucky enough to live in the moment.”

She glanced at him.

“Go,” he whispered, giving her a signal to chase.

She leapt away.

He stared up at the lights, wondering which were friend and which were foe. Maybe Lym didn't have any friends anymore.

When Cricket returned to his side, still slightly excited, he told her, “Time to go.” As far as he could tell, whatever had attracted her attention had managed to hide; there was no blood, fur, or feathers stuck in her mouth.

Twenty minutes later he had sweet-talked Gerry back to the rooms he shared with Jean-Paul so she could sit by the fire. Since he'd come back, her hair was clean and combed and she'd managed to find time to wash her uniforms and get enough sleep so the gaunt, frightened look had left her face.

He finished building up his stack of wood and told the stove to start it up. He watched, always pleased as the punk and then the kindling and then the smaller of the branches caught.

He called Nona, leaving a message.

About half an hour later, she called back. He put her onto a video screen so that Gerry could share in the conversation.

Nona wore casual pants and a baggy sweater and looked like she might be almost ready for bed. She had initiated the call from her formal desk, which was clean of anything at all except a cup of tea. She smiled when she saw the connection come up. “You're in my favorite room.”

He laughed. “That's so that you remember it and come out here when you can.”

“If I went out there, people would notice you're there.”

“Someday it won't matter. Maybe someday soon.”

“Do you think so?”

He shrugged. “How do I know? But everything feels about as stable as a rock on the edge of an eroding cliff right now.”

“Like it might all blow up?”

“What are you learning?”

She sighed. “Not much. Something's up for sure—there's more encoded traffic, but none of my programs can break it, not even the stuff Satyana's been sending me. I saw three strangers in town today. That's more than I've seen all week. But I can't get a good handle on it.”

They were fairly sure the connection between them was secure. “Do you know anyone at the Port Authority?”

“I had some drinks with that woman who warned us on the first day—Farro. She didn't say much about anything important, although she was nice. She made it clear that everyone who works for the Port is really busy, and she seemed to be pretty proud of being that busy. I was afraid to ask her any direct questions, since I didn't want to scare her off. Next time.”

“Have you see Jean Paul?”

“Farro said he can't leave.”

“Speaking of leaving or not, any chance of you visiting here soon?”

She looked wistful. “The next three days are already packed with meetings. I do have permission to visit Manny, though.”

That gave him pause. “Permission from who?”

“From the twins who run this place. Jules and Amanda. I did them a favor and had a case of chocolate stim brought down. It cost a fortune, but it gave me permission to go to Hope for a day.”

“Clever.”

She sighed. “Not really. After they gave me permission, they sent me a letter for Manny. So I think I could have saved the chocolate.”

“Do you know what's in the letter?”

“It's sealed.”

He stood up and poked at the fire, bringing it higher and brighter. “But afterward, you'll come up here? Or we can meet by a waterfall somewhere?”

Her face softened, and she leaned in toward the camera. “Let's go to the falls you showed me on the first day, the one where it was too cold for me.”

He remembered that. He'd taken her to a place where stream after steam freed itself from a glacier and flowed joyously toward rivers and the sea. He could fly her down to see the rock pools they created as well. It was a very, very private place. “Deal. And you won't even have to bring me chocolate.”

“That's good. I don't have much left. Next shipment. But I am thinking of getting out and touring some. Going and seeing what's happening on the farms.” She looked hopeful. “Maybe you can meet me?”

“I think I can free myself for a few days.”

They made small talk until it became awkward, which didn't take all that long with Gerry there listening. In spite of the company, he said, “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

It was harder to have her here and yet not with him than it had been for her to be on the Diamond Deep.

CHAPTER THIRTY

YI

Yi sat beside the beach again, waiting again.

He had told the Jhailing that they were leaving, and the Jhailing had asked him to come and talk. He didn't mind; he feared the ocean, but it also held a deep fascination for him. Waves rolled in, hesitating briefly at the shield but continuing, rolling, rolling. They must have rolled in forever on this beach, years and years and decades and centuries of waves. Each had its own small raw power. Yet wave on wave on wave transformed coastlines.

The beach was a wonderful place to turn up his senses, to hear the susurrations and wash and backwash of foam, the moment that water crashed upon water as a wave curled to breaking, the call and reply of birds, the rattle of small, smooth stones, the breaking of bubbles in the sand after a wave receded.

He had heard the waves here sometimes swelled to four meters in fall storms, but there hadn't been any so far this year. He wanted to be here when one came in, to stand on the beach and hear the waves boom into the shore.

The Jhailing spoke to him before he could see it.
Thank you for coming.

It had not sounded like a casual invitation.
Thank you. I trust you were not damaged in the attack?

Not at all.

Yi wanted that. To be even more free than he was becoming, to live even if a body failed, to live risk free.
You are not angry that we are leaving?

It came and sat beside him. It had chosen to look as human as he had ever seen a Jhailing look. Its skin was still silvery and metallic, but it had sized itself to him. From a distance, they would look like two humans.
You will return?

Of course.
Yi looked at the being next to him, and he felt its years much the same way he had felt the sea's history. The Jhailings and the Colorimas came from among the first Next. Perhaps they even remembered the banishment.
We will be careful. We do not plan to go to Manna Springs.

We will not allow the Shining Revolution to harm us. They are an echo of the forces that banished us before.

I hadn't thought of it that way.

We will not be banished again.

Yi contemplated.
That attack didn't have a chance to hurt you.