Ceremony

Chapter Forty

I

"I do not think this journey is wise, Marika," Bagnel said. "Still, if you must go, take me with you."

"Not this time. This is going to be a far journey. Every pound of weight will have to be useful."

Grauel and Barlog were startled. Barlog asked, "Does that mean you are leaving us behind too?"

"I'm sorry. This time, yes. I must go without you. I will be taking extra bath and supplies instead. Do not look at me that way. I will behave and be careful."

She had no trouble finding herself a double set of bath. Bath from all the dark-faring sisterhoods journeyed to the starship in hopes of spending some time on her darkship. Bath who had served with Marika were much in demand. Somehow she opened hidden channels in their minds, and strengthened them immensely, so that many became immune to the weaknesses plaguing most bath, and a few even found that with her guidance they could grow enough to become Mistresses of the Ship themselves.

There were times when Marika had to resist pressures to become a teacher and trainer of dark-faring silth. "Can you imagine me an instructress?" she complained to Bagnel. "Spending the rest of my life developing crews for the Communities?"

The notion had amused him.

Pursued by his displeasure and the unhappiness of Grauel and Barlog, Marika left the starship on her first far flight of exploration.

Double-crewed, she could make vastly extended flights, hopping as many as twelve stars before having to take a rest landing. She needed that capability if she was to venture beyond the dust cloud into that vastness on the other side, to satisfy the exploration bug that had been tormenting her since she had discovered those endless shoals of stars.

It was to be a voyage of terrible moment.

She was in the seventh hop of her second twelve-star run out from the edge of the dust. For this venture distance was her principal concern. She wanted to see how far she could travel before conscience and dwindling stores compelled her to turn back. A fever of excitement rolled along with the darkship. The bath were animated by the emotions surrounding the doing of a thing never before tried. Instead of becoming increasingly uneasy as they ventured even farther from home, the opposite was true. Every hop outward raised the level of excitement.

The darkship dropped out of the Up-and-Over, and even before Marika regained her equilibrium she knew that they. had made an enormous discovery. Listen!

Awe gripped the bath.

The void reeked with electromagnetic radiation. It was not natural. In moments Marika detected a world in the star's life zone. A satellite network surrounded it. The space of that system sported moving objects that could be nothing but ships. Closed ships of the sort built by tradermales and others who did not have the talent. She nudged the darkship inward, caught ghosts and sent them ahead.

The creatures of the system were the creatures of the alien starship.

Marika turned toward the nearest ship, reaching with the touch. She could get no response. The creatures were deaf to the touch!

She considered climbing back into the Up-and-Over, to make a hop to planetary orbit.

The bath inundated her with a babble of touch, urging her to be more cautious in her thinking.

They were right. She knew little about these creatures. The one contact they had had with meth had proven disastrous. She continued to drift, probing with ghosts.

The world ahead was not the alien homeworld, that was evident immediately. It had all the roughness and wildness of a colony, like the world the crippled starship orbited. The aliens were numerous, but they occupied only limited areas-those apparently most hospitable to their species.

The colonies had the rough new look of settlements perhaps only a few decades old. Marika saw much that looked familiar, and as much more that she did not understand. She allowed the bath to ride the back of her thoughts to get their reactions to what she saw, but they were more baffled than she. They had not studied the information gained from the derelict and they had not lived on the frontier at home.

Everything supported Bagnel's conviction that the alien was not just deaf to the touch but ignorant of its existence, and equally ignorant of those-who-dwell, the otherworld, and what, for want of a better term, meth called the silth ideal.

They are a bunch of tradermales, Marika thought.

Males and females appeared to be equal in number and status, though that was difficult to determine while riding a ghost. They lived in simple structures easily understandable by meth, but the guts of the planet contained far more complex installations that recalled those of the rogue brethren she had seen during the last sweep. Those places were not places to live.

She had to communicate with the creatures. But how?

Fear grew down deep inside her, a knot that tightened yet swelled like a cancer, feeding on the fear already gnawing at the bath and tainting the aura of touch around them. The primitive in all of them wanted to flee from the monsters. It insisted that she forget she had found them. Grauken, grauken, grauken, it chanted.

This is silly, she sent. Are we pups, to be terrified of the unknown? Are we going to whine at sounds in the dark? The dark is the time of the silth.

Silth had contacted alien creatures many times before, on the starworlds claimed by the dark-faring orders. Nothing evil had come of those meetings.

The trouble was that these creatures were not savages, as all those others had been. These creatures represented a potentially real threat. They boasted weapons like none any meth had imagined before the Serke had encountered their starship.

She selected a ghost with great care. She tamed it well. Then she slipped it into the control section of the nearest alien ship, into the electronics there, commanded it to switch a comm screen on, then used the ghost to imagine herself appearing upon that screen. It was something Bagnel had postulated as possible in one of their rambling conversations, but something she had not tested for practicality.

She did not have the skill to do more, except to show her paws raised and empty of weapons. She clung to the picture for ten seconds, then had to let it go. The effort to hold it took too much attention from the darkship and her awareness of the surrounding void.

After resting, she sent another ghost, just to observe. She found the aliens extremely excited.

She was near their ship now, but they had not spotted her. Her wooden darkship was as invisible to their radar as it was to that of the brethren.

Her bath begged her to withdraw now. They had seen enough. They did not want to suffer the same fate the aliens of the starship had.

Marika ignored them. She swung in close to the alien ship and with half her mind kept a strong ghost in their control center, there to strike if they panicked and attacked her. They remained oblivious to its presence.

She took the darkship in so close they could not help but see her. When her ghost revealed that they had done so she waved politely and again showed them her empty paws. She wondered what they would make of the rifles she and the bath carried slung across their backs.

The aliens did not know what to make of her and the darkship. They babbled at one another. They pointed at screens where she appeared. They argued. Their vessel trailed spurts of electromagnetic energies.

Marika reached with the touch, searched mind after mind, found every one closed and deaf till she located a pup she guessed to be three or four years old. To that one she sent her message. I am Marika. I come in peace. We have searched for you long and long, since we discovered one of your voidships years and years ago. She tagged on a strong picture of the crippled starship, emphasizing the characters painted upon its exterior.

She did not expect the pup to understand her message, except that she was friendly, but she hoped those characters might attract attention. She tried to impress the pup with the importance of relating the fact of the touch to its elders.

She withdrew and watched. Aboard the ship, they went to their battle positions, but made no threatening move. She maintained her position beside them, being careful to do nothing to panic them. Once again she reached out to the confused pup.

In time it related its experience to its elders, who immediately discounted it. Marika gently prodded the pup to draw a picture.

It did not have the motor skills of a meth pup its own age. It was a long, hard job getting it to draw the alien starship with its hull characters plain enough to recognize. But, finally, it did create something recognizable. Marika prodded it to approach its elders again.

One who seemed to be Mistress of the Ship, despite being male, examined the picture. Marika judged that some part of her message had gotten through. She raised a paw again, gathered ghosts, and went into the Up-and-Over. She hurried homeward, pausing only when she had to rest her bath.

II "You really found them?" Bagnel asked.

"Yes. It was a colony world like this one. Only more so, because they were moving in, actually making the world their home."

"It must have been far away. You were gone a long time. I worried. You tempted the All. There were those who visited who were tempted by your absence."

"They know better than to yield to that temptation. Bagnel, I am more excited than I have ever been."

"So I see." That very fact seemed to frighten him.

"They weren't hostile-just astonished. I don't know if they have encountered dark-faring races before, but they've surely never encountered anyone like us. They seemed unable to believe what they saw."

"You think they'll come here now?"

"I don't know. I left bait, but I don't know. Have you made any progress deciphering their language?"

"Some. On the simplest level. That tape you're so fond of, for example. We can translate most of what the creature says, but that doesn't tell us much. The tape is exactly what it appears to be, a report to anyone who finds the ship. It implies that there is a lot more information stored in the ship's data banks, but we can't get to them without the unlocking codes, and we don't have any idea how to decipher those. The books we've found, once we realized what they were, all proved to be technical manuals. They are valuable, but so far they have proven much more resistant to translation. It has been suggested that they are written in a language other than the one the creature spoke."

"Maybe they have castes with secret languages. Like the brethren."

"There is no evidence of that, Marika. Our principal difficulty is that we have no one trained for the kind of work we're having to do. The skills needed have to be found by trial and error. It is a slow business. And the language we are dealing with is not precise. We have found a number of words that, while identical in print, can possess multiple meanings. There are also words that, when spoken, sound the same, but appear differently in print. It isn't always possible to guess what they were trying to say."

"All right."

"Excitement running down?"

"No. Never, now. The gateway to the future is open. Before long we are going to be inundated with dark-faring sisters, all eager to pass through it."

"I know. And I don't look forward to that."

"Oh?"

"Silth will be silth, Marika."

"What do you mean?"

"It will be the same old story. Flocks of darkships will race out there and try to make first contact in order to lock up the benefits for their particular sisterhoods."

"Not this time. The All has decreed the impossibility. In order to reach these aliens one has to cross a desert of stars. There is no silth but I who has the strength to manage that crossing. The bath who accompanied me will attest to that. And even if one such did exist, no one but me knows the way. My bath didn't have the training to recall the sequence."

Bagnel appeared doubtful.

"Believe me. Call it chance or the will of the All. The alien's whereabouts is my secret. If the sisterhoods wish to participate in whatever comes of the contact, they had better try hard to keep me alive. You might let that drop occasionally, especially in your reports, just so the fact isn't overlooked or forgotten."

"Of course." He seemed amused. "You will play your games with the whole race, won't you?"

"With the most seniors, yes. There are times when I enjoy manipulating them. But don't you ever tell anyone I said that."

"I don't need to. They know already. Are you going there again? To that alien world?"

"Of course. But not right away. I'll let you know when. One thing I'll need from you is some simple messages prepared in their language."

"Why don't I go with you?"

"Who's getting bitten by the adventure bug at this stage in his life?"

Bagnel pretended to look around. "Who are you talking to?"

"Nobody here but me and thee, old-timer. Of course you can go. I hoped you would ask because I did not want to conscript you. It will be our grandest flight ever. Something they can write epics about."

"Epics are for silth. I don't care about epics. I want to see these aliens. I want to smell and touch them."

"You'd better find us some way to communicate."

"On the most basic level that may prove easier than you imagine. Assuming you can transport the equipment. Dare you trade bath for equipment?"

"Not really. The desert of stars is too wide."

"Suppose you spied out an alternate and easier route?"

"No. I won't do that. If only one is believed to exist, and that only within the confines of my mind, then my hold remains firm. Should it ever become necessary to transport large masses of equipment we'll have the Redoriad loan us High Night Rider."

"That would not make them happy."

"They haven't been happy with me for years. That doesn't concern me. They have earned their unhappiness. You will have to excuse me. I must go see Grauel and Barlog and smooth their ruffled fur. They are extremely displeased because I left them behind and they missed out on a memorable mission. Though they would have been just as displeased had I insisted they fly off with me on one of my mad exploratory jaunts. With those two I can't win."

"You should ... "

"Don't even suggest it. They are my pack. Damn it, Bagnel, they are as good as my dams. I have known no other since before I first met you."

"Go. I will not pretend I understand the relationship between you three."

"We don't either. But it keeps us alive." III A year passed before Marika dared take the time to visit the alien world again.

Her discovery had excited the sisterhoods into a scramble. Till it waned she stood fast, guarding the treasure already in paw. She shook her head often that year, unable to believe grown silth could behave so, that they would so stubbornly cling to old values and ways in the face of a screaming need to adapt to altered realities.

Bagnel did not believe her when she informed him that she was ready for the trip. "I will pack my things when I see you step into the airlock."

"This is the real thing this time." There had been false alarms before, times when she had changed her mind at the last minute. "There are no schemes afoot, here or on the homeworld." Though it was difficult to manage from so far away, she had kept her small group of dedicated antirogue silth operating and had used them to acquire intelligence about other plots as well. "I am going this time."

He awarded her a doubtful look.

"Really," she said. "It's under control. Grauel and Barlog can hold it down here. Everyone is preoccupied elsewhere. Do I have to make the trip without you?"

"You jest. Try it. You will find your darkship on a tether with me reeling it in."

Adding Bagnel and the equipment he needed made the journey much more difficult. Marika stretched herself farther than ever before-and was surprised to find that she could stretch that far.

She continued to develop endurance and strength. And those bath who remained with her did so too.

Even so, she entered the alien system uncertain she could manage the return.

They were alert this time, though so much time had passed. Perhaps they were watching for something else. Whatever, although she rode the wooden darkship, they soon detected her. Ships hurried to meet her. She sent a covey of ghosts ahead to probe their temper.

She was disturbed by what she saw. She sensed only nervousness and fear. As a precaution she gathered and held ghosts enough for a fast climb into the Up-and-Over.

She let the darkship drift directly toward the alien world. Starships took station around her, having some difficulty keeping position because they were not as maneuverable as a darkship. She pushed in and assumed a high orbit, then had the senior bath pass the bowl of golden fluid. She wanted to be ready to flee.

A return, though, would be far easier if she had a chance to rest her bath before departing.

Her discomfort increased as she examined the starships and cataloged the array of weapons trained upon her as she sensed the fear and disbelief filling the ships. She probed mind after mind and could not find one receptive to the touch. These creatures were all adult, and all voctor.

Throughout the system ships less heavily armed were scurrying toward cover.

Why? What could they fear from one darkship? Had they had contact with silth before, to their dismay? Did they know what had become of the lost starship after all?

She reached back to the bounds of the system and, yes, there was a great black ghost patrolling the brink of the deep. It seemed there was a black wherever intelligence paused, one monster to a star system. She stroked that thing and sensitized it to herself so it would answer more quickly if she had to summon it.

She signaled Bagnel. It was time to try talking.

Bagnel fiddled with his communicator until she lost patience, ordered the strongest of her reserve bath to the tip of the dagger, had her take over as Mistress of the Ship. The bath had experience, but she did not want control while they faced a potential enemy. Marika had to insist.

She joined Bagnel. "What's the problem? Won't they respond?"

"I don't know if they are ignoring me or if I just can't find the right frequency. It should not be so difficult. I began with the range of frequencies used on the derelict."

Marika sent a ghost into the nearest ship. The creatures there were clustered around their communications screens. She returned. "You have their attention. Maybe they just don't want to answer. Keep with it."

Bagnel made a face. He was as frightened as any of the aliens. "Right now I think I made a mistake coming out here. This isn't the same as talking about it. Well, here's something." His tiny vision screen had come to life. A female alien looked out at him. The communication speaker squeaked.

Marika said, "Run your tape."

Bagnel snapped, "Marika, mistress the ship, will you? Let me alone. I know my task."

"I'm sorry." But apology did nothing to soothe her frayed nerves.

This could be the greatest moment of meth history. Its success or failure rested squarely upon her-and yet it might be entirely outside her control. The aliens might panic.

Bagnel had prepared a tape that began with a simple print message protesting the peaceful intent of those aboard the darkship. That looped ten times, then followed with a copy of the last message left by the folk of the derelict alien.

When that ran Marika was inside the nearest starship with a ghost, watching. The message stirred considerable response, but not of the sort she expected. Well, they were aliens. She had no cause to expect them to respond as meth might.

A message came back once Bagnel finished sending. It arrived too rapidly for him to follow. He used a tiny light stylus to letter a response on the screen of his communicator, asking them to go much slower. Then he requested permission to set the darkship down on the world below.

Again the response was too swift to yield any sense. Again Bagnel relayed his request for a slower information feed and permission to set down.

Permission came in the form of a map with a landing site indicated by a pulsing point of red light. Marika soon matched the map with the face of the world below. The site indicated was near the largest of the alien underground installations, in a barren area.

There was a grim, deadly feel to that region. The area hummed with modulated electromagnetic radiation. A rapid scout with a ghost revealed scores of weapons similar to those that had destroyed TelleRai, all mounted upon huge rockets.

Marika began to have doubts about making contact with these creatures.

But they had no grasp of the otherworld, no suspicion that it existed. If the worst happened she could call down the great black. She extended her touch to it again, shocked it, attuned it to herself more closely, until she was certain she could summon it if that became necessary. "Continue trying to get sense from them as we go down, Bagnel." She returned to the tip of the dagger, resumed control, dropped away from the alien ships.

They paced her to the edge of atmosphere, then turned away.

For a time Marika dropped alone, but when she reached 150,000 feet aircraft began arcing past her, and lower down they began circling. Bagnel observed them with awe. They were like no aircraft he knew. Their airframes were long and slim. Their long, narrow wings were rooted far back on the fuselage and angled forward, so that the craft looked almost like the head of a trident. They seemed to be rocket-powered.

Marika was impressed too. Nothing like them existed in the meth technical arsenal.

At fifty thousand feet she resumed exploring the assigned landing area. Already it was thick with aliens, all of them come up out of the ground and all of them armed. Again she wondered if she had stepped into something nasty.

At last the darkship touched down after she had floated a moment, seeing if the mob would rush her. The aliens surrounded the darkship, but kept their distance and held their weapons casually. She hoped that was a good sign. She touched the bath. Keep your rifles slung. Do not unsettle them. I will guard us through the otherworld. But see you to assembling your own protective ghosts. Bagnel. Be circumspect in your communications. Do not give them something for nothing.

Meth and alien eyed one another till an alien senior stepped forward. Marika was mildly surprised. This one was male. He presented a bare palm as he approached.

Marika replied by raising both paws, then indicated Bagnel. Bagnel put his communicator aside, produced pen and paper.

"How well have you learned their language?" Marika asked. Not well at all, she knew, but she had to say something to vent some of her nervousness.

"Not well. I don't know if it's the right one. What I'm hearing spoken here doesn't sound like what we've been hearing aboard the starship."

Marika fought to keep her ears from twitching, though she was sure the aliens could not read her body language.

The alien senior examined what Bagnel printed out so laboriously, frowned, summoned another alien. They chattered briskly. Then the second alien wrote something upon paper he carried. Bagnel studied it for a long time.

"Problems, Marika."

"What?"

"I am almost convinced that these creatures do not use this language. Or if they do, I am using it entirely wrong. But if I understand what this note says, then our starship belongs to their enemies."

"Trouble?"

He shrugged.

"Make it clear that we are enemies of no one. In fact, try to get across the notion that we do not quite understand what an enemy is. Also tell them that we never saw those starship folk alive."

"That is a lot to get across at a reading-primer level."

"You're a genius."

"I wish I had your faith in me."

"You can do it."

"I'll try. That's all I can promise."

"And tell them that all that deadly hardware makes me nervous. Tell them who I am."

"You expect them to understand or care?"

"No. But if you do it right they might be impressed."

"You expect too much of me." He resumed writing in curiously blocklike letters, passing small sheets of paper after each few sentences. "I'm telling them who I am too."

"Of course."

It was slow work. The strange-colored sun of that world moved. It, too, was slow, as the world moved more slowly than that which had given Marika birth. Not, she reflected, that she was much familiar with sunrises and sunsets anymore. How many of the homeworld's sunrises had she seen in the last twenty years?

The bath began to relax. Several stepped down from the darkship and began prowling. Marika reached with the touch. Remain alert. Do not allow any of these creatures to place themselves between you and the darkship.

Their response did not go unnoticed. Bagnel said, "They're full of questions about us. Especially about how we can take a ship through the void while exposed to the breath of the All."

"We have questions about them too," Marika said. "Evade. Ask them about them. There's something not right here."

"I am. I'm not stupid, Marika. But neither are they. I am certain they intend to be evasive too."

Marika grunted. She was growing more unsettled by the minute. Rest! she sent to the bath. We may need to get out of here at any moment. There was a wrongness here that had little to do with these creatures' alienness.

She shrugged. Maybe she was imagining it. She climbed aboard the darkship while Bagnel struggled on, rummaged through a locker, and found the photographic equipment he had brought. She loaded a camera and began photographing the alien beings.

They became very agitated.

"Bagnel, what's the matter with them?" Some had begun shouting and shaking weapons.

"I'm trying to find out. Stop bothering me." After a minute he said, "They don't want you taking photographs."

"Why not? They've been photographing us."

Bagnel exchanged notes rapidly. It did seem to be getting easier for him. "They say this is a secret installation. They want no photographs to leave the system."

"Oh." Marika settled on the arm of the darkship and considered the implications for a moment. "Bagnel, what do you think of them?"

"I'm not sure. I have the feeling they're hiding more than we are. I have a growing feeling that they may be more trouble than they're worth. I am trying to be neutral but I find myself beginning to dislike them."

"Yes. There's something in the air here. An aura that reminds me of those places where rogues hide. Did you ever get down into one of those underground ... No. Of course not. We may have made a mistake, coming here without looking at them more closely first. But keep talking. See what comes of it."

"Stall?"

"Some. But learn whatever you can. I want time to rest the bath." She touched the silth again, ordered them to rest. They boarded the darkship, stretched out near their stations, performed rituals of relaxation, went to sleep. Marika pushed herself into a half sleep, leaving everything in Bagnel's paws.

The sun of that world eventually set. The aliens kept the landing site brightly illuminated. Some of the curious drifted away and were replaced by others. Always there were weapons in evidence. Marika went past half sleep into little naps several times. Bagnel continued valiantly, facing the same aliens who had come to the fore at the beginning. The speed of communication continued to improve.

Soon after the morning sun rose Marika asked, "Have we learned anything significant?"

"They're rogues of a sort. They have tried again and again to explain, but the situation is beyond my comprehension. It's something like what we would call bloodfeud, only every member of their society is a participant. Without choice. There are cognates with the Serke situation, in that one group is trying to take territory from another, but the motives make no sense."

"I did not expect to understand them that way. What else?"

"I have established that their society includes nothing like sisterhoods or brethren, or even our bond working castes. Their thinking vaguely resembles that of the brethren who joined the Serke in exile. It may have affected the thinking of those rogues back when they first entered the derelict."

"We suspected that."

"They have no consciousness of the All, the touch, nor any silth skills, except as the contrivance of fantasy. Their words. I have betrayed nothing by mentioning such skills because they refuse to believe they can exist. They call such skills superstition and directly accuse me of lying. They believe, and fear, that we are greatly advanced beyond them technically."

"What is their interest in the ship we found?"

"It belonged to their enemies. They suspect it was searching for their hiding places. They aren't interested, really. It vanished long ago by their standards. They're very interested in us, though. They have never met another dark-faring race. I suspect they would like to find a way to manipulate us into helping them in their struggle."

"No doubt. Just as the Serke would have enlisted them. But I have no interest in that. Especially if they're rogues. We're going to leave, Bagnel. I made a mistake. These are not creatures with whom I care to be associated. Our search will have to lead elsewhere. Did they tell you much about their enemies?"

"They're very reticent on the subject."

"That is understandable." She extended her touch, wakening those bath who remained asleep. She sent the strongest to their stations. The senior passed the bowl. Wearily, Bagnel continued his exchange. Marika said, "You will make certain you are soundly strapped down. You are exhausted and I may be forced into violent maneuvering."

"They want to know what we are doing, Marika."

"Express our regrets. Tell them we have decided that we made a mistake in pursuing this contact. Tell them we do not wish to become embroiled in the affairs of an embattled race. Tell them we are going home. Then get aboard and strap down." She passed the bowl to him, let him sip, then consumed what remained and took her station at the tip of the dagger. Strap securely, she sent to the bath.

Bagnel concluded his final note, passed it over, and climbed to his place at the axis. The aliens did not understand until Marika lifted the darkship.

They began shouting and running around and making threatening gestures.

Marika ignored them.

There were a few wild shots from handheld beamer weapons. They came nowhere near.

Marika took the darkship up fast.

She could not climb nearly as swiftly as the alien aircraft. A flight overtook her before she reached fifty thousand feet. She was in no mood to play. She sent ghosts to still their engines. They fell toward the surface. Their pilots eventually left the craft to float toward the ground on parachutes.

Rockets leaped up. Marika was prepared for them. She stopped them long before they neared her. After a dozen tries the aliens stopped sending them.

Above, voidships moved to intercept her. She did not want to make enemies needlessly, but they seemed determined to stop her, and that she would not permit.

She reached out to the fringe of the system and summoned the great black. It came to her struggling, wriggling, protesting, never having encountered silth before. She held it in abeyance, not loosing it till the starships fired upon her.

She silenced three ships in fifteen seconds, then shifted her course. Dimly, she sensed Bagnel laboring over his communicator, sending crude messages, trying to assure the aliens that the meth meant them no harm, that they wanted nothing but to return home and forget the whole thing.

The strike of the great black paralyzed the aliens' decision makers long enough for Marika to reach orbital altitude and gather ghosts for the Up-and-Over. Bagnel was apologizing for their having defended themselves when she climbed into it.