“I know her; she’ll come.” If she thinks her lover is in danger, she’ll come. “You’ve served
me well—” she realized that she had forgotten the man’s name, and did not use
it, “trader. You deserve to be well rewarded.” Gods, I must be getting old . The smile altered slightly. She
pressed a sequence of lighted keys on the chair arm. “I think you will find
that the debts for your new cargo of trade goods have all been canceled.”
“Thank you,
Your Majesty!” She watched his sagging face jiggle as he made obeisance, hating
the sight of the ugliness that age inflicted, even while she took pleasure in
the awareness of her own invulnerability.
She
dismissed him, not even cautioning him to keep this meeting to himself. He was
a distant but loyal kinsman; no matter what he might wonder about his strange guardianship
or the stranger object of it, she knew that he would never ask, or betray.
Particularly not when he was paid so well.
She rose
from her seat in the small private room when he had gone, and went to the
doorway, drawing the white inlaid panels aside. She found Starbuck waiting
there, not quite expected, in the wider hall beyond it. With him were his
Hounds—the amphibian hunters from Tsieh-pun, ideally suited to the work of
outwitting mers. The Hounds stood in a cluster at the far side of the chamber,
tentacled arms waving as they grunted at each other in desultory conversation.
But
Starbuck stood leaning with his usual public insolence against a massive
Samathan side table very close on her left ... very close to the door. She
wondered whether he had been listening; decided that he probably had, decided
that it probably didn’t matter.
He was
hooded and still in black, but instead of his court costume it was a
utilitarian thermal suit hung with equipment for the hunt. Light caught on his
sheathed killing knife as he straightened up. He bowed to her with rigid
propriety, but not before she saw the searching look and the questions in his
dark eyes.
“Are you
leaving already?” She gave him nothing but the coldness of her voice.
“Yes, Your
Majesty. If it pleases you.” She detected the faint assumption of a ritual
between equals.
“It pleases
me very much.” Yes, flinch, my
overconfident hunter. You are not the first by many, and you may not be the
last . “The sooner you go, the better. You hunt the Wayaways preserve this
time?”
“Yes, Your
Majesty. The weather is clear there and should hold.” He hesitated, came toward
her. “Give me luck in the hunt—?” His hand caressed her arm through the film of
cloth.
He lifted
his mask, and she drew his face toward hers with her hands, giving him a kiss
that was a promise of greater rewards. “Hunt well.”
He nodded
and turned away. She watched him gather the Hounds and go looking for life and
death.
7
“Input—”
An ocean of air ... an ocean of stone. She was flying. Moon gaped with a stranger’s
eyes at the vaulting walls of striated rock that funneled her out into the
canyon lands an immeasurable vastness of eroded stone like scrimshaw lace,
stained violet, green, crim son, gray. She was trapped in the maw of a
transparent bird, an airship in flight; dials and push buttons and strange
symbols blinked and clicked on the panel before her. But she was held in stasis
by her trance, and she could not reach them, as the ridge of purple stone rose
like a wall into her headlong flight.
The ship
banked steeply on its own, clearing the ridge and plunging into a deeper chasm,
leaving her giddy. Something on the panel flashed red, bleeping critically as
her altitude stabilized once more. Where she had come from, where she was
bound, where this lithified sea existed, were mysteries she would never be able
to answer; along with who, and how, and why ... Overhead the sky was a
cloudless indigo, blackening toward the zenith, lit by only one tiny, silvery
sun. She could not see water anywhere ...
“Input—”
An ocean of sand.
me well—” she realized that she had forgotten the man’s name, and did not use
it, “trader. You deserve to be well rewarded.” Gods, I must be getting old . The smile altered slightly. She
pressed a sequence of lighted keys on the chair arm. “I think you will find
that the debts for your new cargo of trade goods have all been canceled.”
“Thank you,
Your Majesty!” She watched his sagging face jiggle as he made obeisance, hating
the sight of the ugliness that age inflicted, even while she took pleasure in
the awareness of her own invulnerability.
She
dismissed him, not even cautioning him to keep this meeting to himself. He was
a distant but loyal kinsman; no matter what he might wonder about his strange guardianship
or the stranger object of it, she knew that he would never ask, or betray.
Particularly not when he was paid so well.
She rose
from her seat in the small private room when he had gone, and went to the
doorway, drawing the white inlaid panels aside. She found Starbuck waiting
there, not quite expected, in the wider hall beyond it. With him were his
Hounds—the amphibian hunters from Tsieh-pun, ideally suited to the work of
outwitting mers. The Hounds stood in a cluster at the far side of the chamber,
tentacled arms waving as they grunted at each other in desultory conversation.
But
Starbuck stood leaning with his usual public insolence against a massive
Samathan side table very close on her left ... very close to the door. She
wondered whether he had been listening; decided that he probably had, decided
that it probably didn’t matter.
He was
hooded and still in black, but instead of his court costume it was a
utilitarian thermal suit hung with equipment for the hunt. Light caught on his
sheathed killing knife as he straightened up. He bowed to her with rigid
propriety, but not before she saw the searching look and the questions in his
dark eyes.
“Are you
leaving already?” She gave him nothing but the coldness of her voice.
“Yes, Your
Majesty. If it pleases you.” She detected the faint assumption of a ritual
between equals.
“It pleases
me very much.” Yes, flinch, my
overconfident hunter. You are not the first by many, and you may not be the
last . “The sooner you go, the better. You hunt the Wayaways preserve this
time?”
“Yes, Your
Majesty. The weather is clear there and should hold.” He hesitated, came toward
her. “Give me luck in the hunt—?” His hand caressed her arm through the film of
cloth.
He lifted
his mask, and she drew his face toward hers with her hands, giving him a kiss
that was a promise of greater rewards. “Hunt well.”
He nodded
and turned away. She watched him gather the Hounds and go looking for life and
death.
7
“Input—”
An ocean of air ... an ocean of stone. She was flying. Moon gaped with a stranger’s
eyes at the vaulting walls of striated rock that funneled her out into the
canyon lands an immeasurable vastness of eroded stone like scrimshaw lace,
stained violet, green, crim son, gray. She was trapped in the maw of a
transparent bird, an airship in flight; dials and push buttons and strange
symbols blinked and clicked on the panel before her. But she was held in stasis
by her trance, and she could not reach them, as the ridge of purple stone rose
like a wall into her headlong flight.
The ship
banked steeply on its own, clearing the ridge and plunging into a deeper chasm,
leaving her giddy. Something on the panel flashed red, bleeping critically as
her altitude stabilized once more. Where she had come from, where she was
bound, where this lithified sea existed, were mysteries she would never be able
to answer; along with who, and how, and why ... Overhead the sky was a
cloudless indigo, blackening toward the zenith, lit by only one tiny, silvery
sun. She could not see water anywhere ...
“Input—”
An ocean of sand.
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