Ceremony

Chapter Thirty

I

Ruhaack had become the site of the new dam cloisters of several Communities bombed out of TelleRai. The city was a welter of construction. TelleRai itself had been abandoned. It was no longer healthy.

The Reugge had been awarded possession of the former Serke cloister. The reconstruction and refurbishing begun during Marika's administration were finished. The Reugge Community was back to business as usual-as much as it could be.

The Redoriad were building their new main cloister in one of Ruhaack's satellites. Construction was far advanced from what it had been at the time of Marika's last visit.

Though Marika had departed the immediate equation, the two orders remained closely allied. For a time, soon after the bombs, there had been talk of a merger. The main talkers had been Marika's enemies, who wished to keep her from taking control. Nothing had come of it. Marika's supporters and other conservatives within both Communities had scuttled the proposal.

The same conservatives supported the alliance, though. It had proved of great benefit to both orders. The Reugge, particularly, were now considered a force to be reckoned with in everything.

Marika nervously stalked around a hastily prepared apartment. Kiljar, now most senior of the Redoriad, was coming to see her. She felt like a pup again, as unsure of herself as she had been when first she had arrived at Akard.

"I shouldn't have locked myself up in Skiljansrode," she told Barlog. "Not so thoroughly. I've lost something."

Grauel entered. She looked sour. "Bagnel the tradermale is here, Marika." Which explained that. Grauel never had approved of Bagnel. "And the Redoriad say that mistress Kiljar has departed the Redoriad cloister."

"Good. Good. What of Bel-Keneke?"

"She will be here soon, I think more out of curiosity than because you implied that you were about to call in her debt to you."

"Fine."

Both huntresses considered her. She continued to pace.

"I spent too long in the safety and nonpressure of Skiljansrode," she explained again. "I have lost my edge. I am not comfortable being Marika. The weapons ... I feel almost silly carrying them. But they were our sigil. Going around armed, making dramatic gestures. We are too old. I'm almost ready to become one of the Wise."

Grauel snorted. "Maybe in another twenty years. You're still hardly more than a pup." She spoke thus in defense of herself. She was much older than Marika, but she was not ready to lay down her huntress's role.

Barlog said, "I think I understand, Marika. When I am out in the cloister I too get the feeling that the world has left me behind."

Grauel agreed. "I encountered young voctors who didn't know who we are. Or were, perhaps I should say. Not that we were ever that famous. But there was a time when our being Marika's bodyguards meant a lot more than it does now."

"It slips away," Marika said.

"It hasn't been that long, Marika."

Bagnel arrived first. A group of baffled novices delivered him to Marika's door. A male in the cloister? Impossible. They were scandalized. They had heard stories about the bizarre doings of this silth called Marika, but had not believed them before this.

Marika was amused.

"Well," Bagnel said as the door closed behind him. "The living legend herself. Where have you been, Marika? We agreed to fly together at least once a month. One day there wasn't any more Marika. No message. No excuse. No apology. Nothing for years. Then out of nowhere a typically peremptory summons. And here I am, though I should have requited indifference with indifference."

It took Marika a moment to realize he was teasing, that he was glad to see her. "You're looking a little gray around the fringes, Bagnel."

"I have not had the privilege of taking an extended sabbatical. My brethren would gray the fur of a statue." He looked troubled.

"What is it?"

He glanced at Grauel and Barlog, as always disturbed by their presence. "Are they immortal?"

"They are as safe as ever, my friend. The Redoriad will join us presently, though I do not expect her immediately. Most Senior Bel-Keneke will wait till Kiljar has arrived before she makes her own entrance." She did not add that the room itself was safe, for she, Grauel, and Barlog had made independent sweeps in search of the sort of listening devices Marika herself had once used habitually.

"Nothing really remarkable. Just the persistent element that wishes the sisterhoods ill. It has been growing stronger recently. Nothing to be concerned about, mind you. Just aggravation enough to keep me on edge."

Marika considered him closely. "There's more than that, isn't there?"

"You read me better than ever. Yes. I have found evidence that those who fled have not broken entirely their ties to their homeworld. Evidence that they are in contact with those who are driving me gray."

"What?" A tendril of fright touched Marika. "How can that be?"

"It is easy enough. It is not difficult at all to slip a darkship through to the surface, to some remote rendezvous. Especially when I have no advance warning."

"Then it isn't over."

"It never was. You knew that. The Serke just fled to a safe place. I suspect their overall goals had to change somewhat once they were driven off the homeworld, simply by force of circumstance, but there was no reason for them to give up trying to seize control of everything."

Marika paced, mused, wondered that the Serke had gotten so entangled in a brethren scheme that they had allowed themselves to become the tools of their own destruction.

Bagnel added, "Unfortunately, nobody takes the threat seriously anymore. They have been quiet, so are forgotten. Nobody even hunts them now, except as a convenient side flight on a trip to the starworlds. But if they were hiding anywhere convenient they would have been found already."

"They aren't strong enough to try a comeback," Marika said. "Even with help from their supposed aliens."

"You think not?"

"If they were, they would have tried. Right? They have not. Therefore they are not."

"Irrefutable logic."

"Smart, Bagnel. I suspect they have no support from any alien-if one even exists. If one does, that relationship must be less intimate than we once thought. In my reflections I have begun to suspect that they may have no direct contact at all."

Bagnel looked startled.

"Yes?" Marika asked.

"You continue to amaze me."

"How have I managed that now?"

"You just struck close to the picture we have developed by questioning prisoners and others who may be in the know one way or another. What seems to have happened is that they did make a contact, but they could not deal with the alien because the alien was alien-though from other things we have learned they don't seem that alien. If you are following this."

"I'm trying."

"Apparently being unable to deal with the alien, they stole, possibly by killing the alien and appropriating everything that belonged to them. So it's possible they're hiding from the alien race too."

"If you are going to go rogue, why do it halfway?" Grauel asked. "Marika, mistress Kiljar is about to arrive. I hear the novices shuffling in the hallway."

"We'll talk more later, Bagnel. I'm happy to see you have become so important among the brethren. I cannot think of anyone more deserving."

Bagnel snorted derisively. II Kiljar, too, had aged, but she had been old when Marika had seen her last. She was shocked by what time had done to the Redoriad. Kiljar had lost large patches of fur, and what remained was mostly gray or white. She had lost a lot of weight, too, and begun to stoop, but her eyes remained brightly intelligent.

More than age, long-term ill health had diminished the Redoriad most senior. She had to walk with the aid of a cane. One side of her body was partially paralyzed. She responded to Marika's horrified glance with a lopsided expression of amusement. "A stroke," she explained, slurring her words. "Weakened the flesh but did nothing to the mind. I am recovering slowly."

"Could the healer sisters not ... ?"

"They assure me there is nothing more they can do without killing me. That seems too heroic a measure to effect a cure."

"At least you have been able to take it in good part."

"The hell I have. I resent it. It angers me so much I go into howling rages against the All. They think me quite mad at the Redoriad cloister. But none have yet found the courage to try ousting me from first chair. They think I am dying anyway. They spend their time trying to outmaneuver one another so as to stand at the head of the pack when I go. But I am going to disappoint them. I am going to outlive them all. You look good, Marika. I suspect that a few years beyond the edge of the world were just what you needed. You seem less driven, less saddled by doom."

Marika looked at her sharply, surprised that Kiljar read her so easily.

She suspected one unconscious reason she had isolated herself was because of self-doubt, an inclination, following the destruction of TelleRai, to credit those sisters who called her Jiana and doomstalker. Four sequential destructions of the place she called home, with those who dwelt there, was enough to make anyone ask questions.

"The most senior is approaching, Marika," Barlog said from the doorway.

"Leave it open. Sit somewhere." Barlog still had difficulty getting around, all these years after recovering from the wounds she had suffered at Maksche.

We have all been injured and left crippled, Marika thought. In the heart if not in the flesh.

Bel-Keneke arrived. Marika reached back in time to find greetings appropriate to a most senior of the Reugge. There had been no formalities, no ceremonials, no obsequies, observed at Skiljansrode. Marika held them in contempt because she considered most of them unearned.

Bel-Keneke, too, had changed, though now she seemed more secure in her role than when last Marika had seen her. "You can dispense with the ceremonials, Marika. I know they do not come from the heart. You are looking well." She ignored Bagnel and merely nodded to Kiljar. "You should be seen here more, Marika. There are times when we could use your slant on the world."

"I will be seen more," Marika said. "That is why I have come back."

"Direct as always. So. We are all here. Let us get to it. Tell us about the grand project you want to attempt."

Marika prowled while Bel-Keneke seated herself. Barlog, in the background, in her customary array of weapons, looked increasingly uncomfortable. Marika gestured for her to sit, as she had directed earlier.

She did not sit herself. She could not. She was about to broach the result of many years of thought and felt shy about doing so. It was not the usual sort of Marika idea, full of fire and blood and doom for enemies of the Reugge. She was afraid for its reception.

She moved to the center of the room and stood there with her guests watching from three directions. She ordered her thoughts, ran through calming mental exercises. Finally she attacked it. "I have an idea for stemming the snow and cold."

"What?" That was Bel-Keneke, who was least accustomed to Marika's ways. But the others looked at her askance.

"A major engineering project that might allow us to turn back the ice."

"Major?" Bagnel murmured. "You have a gift for understatement, Marika."

Kiljar said, "If you managed that you would be immortalized with ... "

"It is not possible," Bel-Keneke said. "You are talking about halting a process of such a magnitude that ... "

Bagnel added, "Perhaps we ought to hear her idea before we tell her it is impossible."

Marika gave him a nod of gratitude. "Excuse me, mistresses. I know it would be a large project and extremely difficult, but it is not impossible-except perhaps in that it presumes the cooperation of all the Communities and all the brethren bonds, working toward one end. Achieving that will be more difficult than the actual engineering and construction."

"Go on," Kiljar said before Bel-Keneke could interject negative comments.

"Review: The problem is that insufficient solar energy penetrates the dust and falls upon the planet. The solution-my solution-is to increase incident radiation."

"Do you plan to sweep the dust up?" Bel-Keneke asked. "Or to stoke the fires of the sun?"

"Not at all."

"Why so negative, sister?" Kiljar asked. "Do you feel threatened because your predecessor has come out of hiding?"

Marika ignored the sparks. Those two old arfts never had had much use for one another. She said, "We collect solar energies that are flinging off into the void and redirect them toward the planet. We do that by constructing large mirrors."

"Large mirrors," Bagnel said.

"Very large. Wait. I admit there will be difficulties. The orbital mechanics of our situation, because of the presence of so many moons, will make maintaining stable orbits for the mirrors difficult. But I have been studying this matter for some time. It is not impractical. If we can install the largest mirrors in the planet's leading and trailing solar trojan points and keep them stable ... "

"Pardon me," Bagnel interrupted. "The idea is not original, Marika."

"I did not think it was. I assumed the brethren had thought of it long ago and had not brought it up because it was in their interest to have the weather help destabilize the social structure. It was no coincidence that the inclination to rebellion grew stronger as the cold crept down. I believe the factors behind the planning failed only because they got overeager."

"You are, perhaps, half right. In such an engineering program the brethren would have required the same level of cooperation you already mentioned. We would not have gotten it. There is, too, the sheer magnitude of the thing. I have heard that the necessary mirrors would have to be thousands of miles across. If you mean installing them in the trojan points where the sun's gravity and the world's balance, rather than in the lunar trojans, they would have to be almost unimaginably huge to reflect enough energy to make a difference."

"Those are the points I mean, as I said. The main mirrors would require less stabilization there. But, as you say, they would have to be more huge than anything any meth has imagined. I picture them on the order of five thousand miles in diameter."

"I fear you underestimate considerably."

"Utterly impossible," Bel-Keneke said.

"Let her talk, sister," Kiljar countered. "Marika is no fool. She would not have brought this up had she not worked most of it out already. If she says it can be done, then she has done enough calculation to convince herself."

"Thank you, Kiljar. Yes. The idea first occurred to me while I was still a novice, many years ago. There were too many other demands on my attention then, so I did not pursue it. Later, when I retreated to Skiljansrode, I did have the time. It is the major reason I have remained out of touch so long. I will admit that I have not done all the calculations necessary. The orbitals require calculations all but impossible with pencil and paper. But the brethren once developed a system for rapid calculation, else they could not have orbited their satellites. I am hoping that the system, or at least the knowledge to replace it, survived the bombing of the Cupple Islands. That system, skilled labor, the metals, technology, and such would be required of the brethren. The Communities will have to lift the materials into the void-and contribute the talent where necessary. Skiljansrode will provide the reflecting material."

"A grand stumbling block in the scheme as the brethren worked it out," Bagnel said.

"As I see it, we would need a web of titanium metal-work-or possibly one of golden fleet wood if that proves either impractical or the titanium cannot be produced in sufficient quantities-supporting an aluminized plastic surface no thicker than a hair."

"It's a possibility," Bagnel said. "I am amused by the notion of wooden satellites. But that is neither here nor there. Discounting for the moment all the other problems, where do we get this plastic? The same notion occurred to those who toyed with this among the brethren. They were unable to produce such a plastic and were reduced to thinking in terms of a heavy aluminum foil that proved too brittle in actual trials. The breakage ran better than fifty percent."

"We have developed the plastic already. You will be amused to learn that it is a petroleum derivative. I felt I had to have that before I broached the larger idea."

Bagnel began to look truly interested, not just speculative.

"Two main reflectors, as I said, to provide a steady, gross energy incidence. Then smaller ones, in geocentric orbit-and lunar trojan orbit-with which we can fine-tune the amount of energy delivered. With which we can deliver extra energy to specific localities. For instance, to keep threatened crop lands in production. We will want more energy in the beginning, anyway, to initiate the thaw cycle."

"It is crazy," Bel-Keneke said. "You have gone mad in isolation."

"It's not impossible at all," Bagnel countered, now so intrigued he forgot to use the formal mode. He got up and started pacing and muttering to himself.

"Do you really believe in this, Marika?" Kiljar asked. "Have you convinced yourself that, despite the obvious problems, it can actually be done?"

"My conviction is absolute, mistress. I have yet to find an insuperable barrier, though there were more problems than I at first expected. Yes, it can be done-if the Communities and the brethren are willing to invest the resources and the energies."

Bagnel's pacing took him to a window. He stared out at the frigid world. The most seniors watched him uneasily. "You have done it again, haven't you, Marika?"

"Done what, Bagnel?"

"You have overturned everything. And bigger than ever before. No wonder you had to take a few years off. You needed that long to wake the earthquake."

"What are you talking about?"

"Three meth are going to leave this room with your notion fixed in their minds. All three are going to find some reason to consult others about it. Those others will tell others. The news will spread. In time it will have reached those for whom it will represent an almost religious opportunity for salvation. It will become impossible for us, brethren and Communities alike, to do anything but attempt it, even if it proves impossible. For the alternative will be destruction at the paws of outraged bonds who will believe themselves betrayed."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am saying you have let a devil loose. That you proposed this with no thought for the social implications. I am saying that you have made undertaking the project mandatory simply by stating that you believe it is feasible. I am saying that such a project will reshape society as well as weather. I ask you to think about what you are asking."

Taken aback by his vehemence, Marika said, "Tell me."

"You are asking that the brethren be restored to grace. You are asking two dozen dark-faring Communities to join forces in one grand project instead of flying off in all directions, spending half their energies sabotaging and one-upping each other. You are proposing a project of such vast magnitude that bond meth will have to be given technical training because the brethren available to do the work are not numerous enough. You are letting devils out. Those are things I foresee just off the top of my head. More thought would produce more, surely. And the project is bound to have repercussions that cannot be foreseen at all-some just because of its scale. Did none of this occur to you?"

"No. I was not concerned with anything but the practical considerations." Marika took a turn at the window and thought of Jiana the doomstalker, reflecting on the fact that destruction need not be physical, as it had been with the Degnan packstead, Akard, Maksche, and TelleRai. She turned. "You really think so?"

"Yes."

"Given that, do you think it would be worth the effort?"

"Actually, I do. Because the alternative is a longer, slower, more certain doom. This cooling cycle is going to continue till the whole planet becomes too cold to support life. The permafrost line is within three thousand miles of the equator today. It shows no inclination to slow its advance, though I am sure it will in time-after it is too late for us. I suspect that we dare not waste many more years or for the meth it will be too late for anything but awaiting the end. Which will not come in our time, of course. But it will come."

Marika looked at Bel-Keneke and Kiljar. "Mistresses?"

Kiljar said, "I approve pushing ahead. Tentatively. Trusting your judgment, Marika, and that of your friend. I will want to see more solid data before I approach my Community with the proclamation that this project is the only way we can save our world."

"I understand. Bel-Keneke?"

"You are outside my expertise. You know that. All I know about the void is that it is cold and dark out there. I do very much share the male's social fears. I foresee great troubles and terrible changes. But I am in your debt, and I respect the opinion of mistress Kiljar. If you can convince her, I will follow her lead and back you."

Marika walked back to the window and stared out at the chill landscape. Once Ruhaack had been warm and lush. Now it was barren, except where meth had planted vegetation adapted to a near arctic climate. After a moment she turned.

"Bagnel may be right, about the social upheaval. I plead guilty to failing to consider that aspect. But we are in a corner from which there is no escape. There is no future without trying. If the race is to survive, we must pay the price."

She was amazed that the most seniors were so agreeable. Perhaps the world had grown more desperate than she knew.

"Bagnel, can the brethren provide the necessary calculators?"

"We call them computers. Yes, we have them. We may have to develop a breed designed specifically for the project, but that would not be an insurmountable problem. A matter of increasing capacity, I expect."

"What about the engineering? Do you have anyone capable of designing the mirrors?"

"That I cannot say, but I can find out. Given adequate time, I am sure, someone-more likely many someones-could be trained. I will find out and let you know."

"So that is that. We are agreed. We go ahead a step."

III Marika gaped at Bagnel. "Eight years? Just to get the materials together?"

"It's a big project, Marika. I think that's too optimistic a figure, myself. It assumes total cooperation by all the Communities in providing the labor we'll need for getting the titanium out, building new plants to process the ore and metal, building new power plants to provide energy for those plants, and so on and so on and so on. I told you it would reshape society. And it will. My guess is that we'll be extremely fortunate to get even one mirror functional within ten years. There will be hitches, hang-ups, problems, delays, personality conflicts, bottlenecks, shortages ... "

"I get the picture."

"The word is spreading already, just as I forecast. I keep running into brethren who know before I consult them, though I swear everyone to silence when I do consult them."

"We expected that. We chose to live with it."

"I have another scenario for you. In this one your old enemies get wind of the project. As inevitably they must."

"You think they would try to sabotage it?"

"I am certain they'll try. Wouldn't you? The cold is on their side."

"Then we must neutralize them."

"How, when no one has been able to find them?"

"No one has tried hard enough. A truly major effort ... "

"There. You're talking about diverting energies from your project. Which means having to stretch it out a little."

Marika sighed. "Yes, I guess I am."

"You see? One thing affects another."

"We'll do what we have to. Are you ready to face Kiljar and Bel-Keneke? And beyond them, a convention of all the Communities?"

"I believe so."

"Good. Because Kiljar is failing and I believe that to have a chance the thing has to get rolling before she dies."

"Arrange for me to see her. I'll sell her."

"Just give her the truth. Let it argue for itself. You cannot mislead her. And she'll have to sell it to others on its provable merit."

"Of course. That's understood. Did you happen to notice that I flew down here in a Sting? We haven't flown together for a long time."

"I did notice that. And I was thinking of stealing you and it if you didn't come up with the suggestion yourself."

"This afternoon, then? After I have seen the most seniors?"

"Yes. Don't let them intimidate you. They may try, just to see what you're made of."

"Those old artfs? Not likely. Not when I have to deal with my factors and bond masters every day."

Bel-Keneke and Kiljar needed very little convincing. They had done their own investigating. "I am amazed," Kiljar admitted. "The response among the Communities has been almost messianic in intensity. They believe you are going to show them the pathway into a new age, Marika."

"It must be timing," Bagnel remarked. "Purely a matter of timing. Everyone is just frightened enough, just certain enough. Ten years ago no one would have taken the project seriously. Conservative elements would have killed it. But now the world is in desperate need of a hope, and this one fills the need. I find extremes of enthusiasm everywhere within the brethren. All the factors and masters, once they examined the data, showed uncharacteristic excitement. Even some who were very suspicious before. It has softened the appeal of the rogues tremendously. There have been almost no incidents at all this past month."

Bel-Keneke added, "I have consulted a number of senior sisters from a number of orders. My experience has been the same everywhere. Tremendous enthusiasm, discovering a hope where none was thought to exist, except in that the dark-faring sisterhoods might have established a few feeble colonies upon the starworlds. How long the enthusiasm will persist I cannot tell. Seldom has any meth devoted herself to a project for as long as this will require."

"There will be problems," Marika agreed. "The project will hurt some orders more than others. It will draw attention and energy away from the starworlds. None of those sisterhoods will be pleased by that. I do have a suggestion, though it may not prove popular."

"Yes?" Kiljar inquired.

"We could survey all the sisterhoods, including those without rights in the void. Then conscript every sister capable of serving aboard a darkship out there. We could even retrain some of the strongest bath as Mistresses for workships. We would then have to depend less heavily on those sisters normally preoccupied with the starworlds. Too, we will have to lift the ban on the brethren so they can participate as fully as possible. That is an absolute necessity. We will get nowhere without them because of the traditional silth resistance to becoming involved in physical labor. Also, ships of the sort that were associated with Starstalker before she vanished would be valuable if we could build them. That would ease our dependence upon a very small supply of void-capable Mistresses of the Ship."

Bagnel said, "We should be able to develop construction ships. I have suggested that it be given some thought. I doubt that anything we came up with would be as good as those rogue vessels, but because some saw them we know what has to be done. There are problems, though, Marika. Fuels. Energy. We're right down to it now, and you may not want to hear this. The fact is, one way or another, we have to tap the resources of the Ponath. It is going to take a tremendous amount of energy to produce the necessary titanium."

"You were going to look into the possibility of producing it in orbit, in solar-powered factories."

"I was and I did. There are no adequate titanium ores available anywhere in the system other than right here on the planet. I'm sorry. The girderwork will have to be produced down here and lifted into orbit."

Kiljar asked, "Who will manage all of this? Consider the politics. It will be an alliance of all the Communities and the brethren, and will represent and include most meth bonds. With that many interests, there is no hope of working in harmony for the time required. Many sisters will not tolerate taking orders from old enemies or from competitors in other orders. None will take directions from brethren, even where brethren are the competent experts. None will work with bonds as though they are equals."

"Setting this in motion will require a formal convention, as Senior Kiljar has said," Marika said. "Most of that will have to be fought out there. One possibility would be for the Communities to elect a most senior of most seniors for a fixed term and give her absolute powers and a group of judges to enforce them."

"The smaller sisterhoods would object strenuously," Kiljar said.

"Then, perhaps, a continuous convention in which grievances can be aired as they arise, given the understanding that work must go on uninterrupted."

Bagnel snorted derisively. "No, Marika. I see time stretching and stretching already. Nothing ever gets done while silth argue. The arguing has to be done before. During, there can be nothing but the project."

"Just how critical is the time frame?" Bel-Keneke asked. "Is there a time of no return? Of too late? We will be inside this dust cloud for millennia."

"I do not know exactly, mistress," Bagnel said. "One thing we will have to do is chart the density of the dust, just so we can estimate such things. I do know that we do not have millennia. Even now, tapping the petroleum in the Ponath will demand the creation of new engineering techniques. The longer we wait, the deeper the ice. And the greater the difficulties. Everywhere."

"No matter what we do there will be problems," Bel-Keneke mused. "No matter what else, then, we have to keep muddling ahead. An inch gained now may mean a foot saved later. Any progress will be better than none."

Kiljar said, "Our first trial will be assembling a convention capable of acting. That chore I will assume myself, being, you will admit, somewhat more tactful than any of my fellow conspirators."

Marika was startled. Humor? From Kiljar? You never learned everything about anyone.

Bel-Keneke remarked, "If the project takes twenty years instead of eight, so be it. The Reugge are committed."

Marika turned from one more look at the icy world. "Bagnel, I believe you promised to take me flying. Let's do it."