They boarded the shuttle at the tail of the crowd. Moon caught a glimpse of its tubby, boxlike exterior through the airlock’s port: It was a crate, just as Cress had said, with no propulsion of its own. It was drawn down to the planet and shunted back up again just like any other piece of freight, clutched in an invisible hand of repeller-or tractor — beams from one of the planetary distribution centers. A shipping window was a column of no-man’s space thirty meters wide, licking out into the zone of heavy industry between Kharemough and its moons.
On board they were led to tiers of seats above a central floor screen that showed her a view of the planet’s surface, misty with blue and khaki; she tried to concentrate on the solid immensity of it, and not to remember that it was unspeakably far below them. No one drifted weightless out of a seat even here on board the shuttle; the Kharemoughis claimed, with unsubtle pride, that getting rid of gravity was the hard part; they could produce it whenever they wanted to.
The exits sealed, the shuttle broke free from the station’s grasp and began its drop into the tube of force. Moon sat oblivious to the muted conversations, mostly incomprehensible, around her-oblivious to everything but the vision of the planet’s surface rising up to meet them in mid fall An amorphorous, cloud-swirled plate widened into ever clearer detail, while Elsevier’s hushed voice pointed out the burnished blue seas, and the green-ochre of this world’s islands, so huge that they shouldered aside the sea itself. The island centrally below grew until it was all she could see, dividing and redividing into murals of mountain, forest, farmland, all rolling inexorably into morning… and then, before she quite realized it, a slender ring of twilit city laid out in ripples concentric around an immense, shining, treeless plain.
“…landing field,” Elsevier said.
At the final moment she had the feeling that another giant’s invisible hand plucked them out of the air, before they impacted on the glowing grid lines of the field. It swept them aside, into one of the stolid warehouse buildings that peri metered the landing area, and at last set them down.
The crowd of passengers left the warm-colored interior of the passenger terminal. Moon felt her feet tingle as she walked at the pressure of an alien world… or else they tingled with bad circulation. The artificial gravity of the space city was less than she was used to, and this was more; her feet came down like ballast no matter how carefully she moved.
It was barely dawn here on the planet surface, the air was still cool; Elsevier rubbed her arms inside her sleeves. Moon slipped on her own wine-red robe and belted it without protest. The Kharemoughis were a modest people, and Elsevier had warned her that the free ways of the Thieves’ Market did not extend down to the ground. Sunrise opened like a flower in the east, the sky overhead would still be black and starless… Looking up, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the sky. Overhead the darkness was curtained with light, banner folds of green rose yellow gold icy blue; sighing bands of rainbow, rays of scintillating whiteness crowning an enchanted dreamland.
“Look at that, Silky.” Elsevier lapsed into Sandhi as her gaze followed Moon’s up; the words were not praise. “It’s disgraceful.”
“You can say that again, citizen.” Three fellow shuttle passengers, dark, slender native Kharemoughis, stood beside them waiting for a taxi; one of them nodded his helmeted head in disgust. “Pollution-you’d think there no tomorrow was. Ye gods, the sheer tonnage of cast-off junk floating up there. I don’t know how they expect us our job to do. It’s not traffic control any more, it’s a demolition derby.”
“SN—” The second of the three was a woman; she laughed lightly, tapped him not quite playfully on his uniformed shoulder. “These citizens aren’t from around here,” a significant lifting of the eyebrows. “They don’t need by our petty complaints to be bored, do they?”
“Yes, old man.” The third helmet bobbed. “You really do need this vacation. You’re like a bio purist sounding.”
The first man pushed his hands into his belt, looking annoyed.
“What’s wrong with the sky?” Moon pulled her gaze down, reluctantly. “It’s full of light.” The way it should be. “It’s beautiful.”
The first man glanced at her with a frown starting, ended up smiling in spite of himself. He shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. “Ignorance is bliss, citizen. Be glad you’re not a Kharemoughi.” A hovercraft slowed in front of them, and they climbed in.
“Welcome to Kharemough,” Cress said pointedly in Tiamatan, “where the gods speak Sandhi.” He grinned at her.
Elsevier claimed the next taxi; the Kharemoughi Nontech at the controls gave them a group stare of mild astonishment when she asked for the estate of KR Aspundh. She held up a graceful hand, showing him the ruby signet she wore on her thumb. He turned back to the controls without comment and began a long arc around the perimeter of the field.
“What’s wrong with the sky, anyway?” Moon peered out through the taxi dome; the sky was brightening, the aurora faded before the light of day.
“Industrial pollution,” Elsevier said quietly. ‘“Are we forever doomed to repeat the errors of our ancestors? Is history hereditary, or environmental?”“
“Nicely put,” Cress said, glancing back from his seat beside the pilot.
“TJ’s words.” Elsevier brushed the compliment aside like a gnat. “Kharemough was fairly well-off even after the Old Empire fell apart, Moon. They still had some industrial base — though hardship was great here, like everywhere, after they were cut off from the interstellar trade that had supported them. They learned to do things for themselves, but in ways that were cruder and infinitely more wasteful. They suffered the consequences of pollution and overpopulation; they almost destroyed their world over a millennium ago, before they got clean hydrogen fusion and moved most of their industry into space. But now they’ve exchanged their old problems for new ones — not such serious ones, at present, but who knows what they’ll mean to future generations? Cause and effect; there’s no escape from them.”
Moon touched the tattoo hidden under the enameled sunburst collar, looked past Silky at the sea of green foliage beneath them. She leaned away from him as she looked down; knowing he was afraid of her touch, and still secretly repelled by his glistening alien ness They had drifted up and across the narrow band of city — mostly, from what she could see, warehouses and shops of every imaginable kind, not yet stirring to the day; but not many apartments or houses. Now they were rising over open woodland, broken by small park like clearings holding private homes. “I thought you said there were still too many people here, Elsie. They aren’t even as crowded as islanders.”
“There are, my dear — but with so many of them and so much of their manufacturing out in space, the surface dwellers have all the room they want, and can afford. They gather around hubs like the one we just left, that distribute everything they need. The wealthier you are, the farther out you live. KR lives quite a way out.”
“Is he rich, then?”
“Rich?” Elsevier chuckled. “Oh, filthy rich… It all should have been TJ’s, he was the oldest; but he was censured and stripped of his rank for his scandalous behavior. I’m sure he did it on purpose, he loathed the whole caste system. But not KR; he was always a supporter of the status quo. He and TJ didn’t even speak.”
“Then why would he want to see us?” Moon moved uneasily.
“He’ll see us, have no fear.” The enigmatic smile touched her face again. “Don’t let me make you think badly of him; he’s a very good man, he simply lives by a different set of values.”
“All Kharemoughis are intolerant,” Cress said. “Only they’re intolerant about different things.”
“KR came to TJ’s funeral; and he told me that he knew he owed everything he had, and was, to TJ, who had given it all up. He said that if I ever needed anything, I had only to ask.”
“How did TJ die?” hesitantly.
“It was his heart. Passing through the Black Gates puts a strain on the human body, on the heart. And disappointment puts a strain on the heart.” She glanced away, out and down, at the greens and the dusky reds of the rolling forest land. Immense knobs of gray rock pushed up through the trees now, like thick, stubby fingers; houses clung precariously to the tips and sides. “It was very sudden. I hope that I, too, may be taken by surprise.”
They were dropping down again now, into the grounds of a large estate; skimming above paintings laid out on the land in beds of glorious blooms, shrubs trained to mimic strange creatures, fragile summerhouses wrapped in mazes of hedge. The pilot set them down on the flagstoned landing terrace before the main house, a structure the size of a meeting hall, but all curves and hummocks and gentle slopes covered with vines, imitating the land itself. There were many windows, many of them filled with colored glass, repeating the forms and hues of the art gardens. Gaping at the house, Moon saw the great frescoed doors begin to open.
“You want me to wait, citizens?” The pilot hung an arm across the edge of his seat back, looking skeptical.
“That won’t necessary be.” Elsevier passed him her credit card coolly; Moon climbed out with the others.
“Looks like just the spot for a day in the country.” Cress stretched his arms.
“Many.” Silky turned slowly where he stood, looking back and down over the tiers of gardens.
Elsevier led them to the entrance. A dignified middle-aged woman with pale freckles and a silver ring piercing one nostril stood waiting for them; she wore a simple white robe wrapped by a wide sash, covered by strand on strand of heavy turquoise jewelry. “Aunt Elsevier, what an unexpected surprise.” Moon was not certain if the gracious smile that included them all went any deeper than her skin.
“Hardly unexpected,” Elsevier murmured. “One of the inventions that made my father-in-law’s fortune was a system that screens callers electronically… Hello, ALV, dear,” in Sandhi. “How nice that our visits coincide. I’ve a friend your father to see brought.”
She touched Moon’s arm. “I hope he well is.” Moon noticed that she did not use the familiar thy.
“Fine, thank you; but at the moment the physicist Darjeengeshkrad is him consulting.” She ushered them into the cool interior, closing the doors. Light from the stained glass panels on either side fragmented Moon’s vision, softened her sudden awareness of their group incongruity. “Let me you comfortable make until he’s through.” She gestured them on down the hall; Moon noticed that her fingernails were long, and had been filed into sculptures.
She took them through a series of rising rooms into one where the wide, color-banded window overhung the painted gardens. ALV pressed one of a series of controls in the wall inset by the door; a large painting of several Kharemoughis picnicking under the trees became a threedy screen full of arguing men. She nodded toward the mounds of red and purple tapestry cushions, the oases of low wooden tables inlaid with gold and amethyst. “Here you are. The servos will in and out be… in case you anything need. And now I hope you’ll me excuse; I’m going over the tax data for Father, and it’s a dreadful project. He’ll you join, just as soon as he can.” She left them alone with the declaiming debaters on the wall.
“My, my.” Cress folded his arms, wheezed indignantly. “
“Make yourselves at home; steal some silverware.” Family ties meant something on Big Blue. All my parents—”
“Now, Cress.” Elsevier shook her head at him. “I’ve only met the girl — the woman — twice, once when she was eight, and once at TJ’s funeral. She can’t have heard much good about any of us in between. And you know how the highborns are about—” she glanced down at herself, “mixed marriages.”
Cress shook his head back at her, nudged a table leg with his sandal. “This’s fine workmanship, Elsie,” loudly. “We could four digits for a couple of those stones upstairs get.”
She hissed disapprovingly. “Control yourself. Moon?”
Moon started, turned back from the window.
“Didn’t I tell you it was beautiful here?”
Moon nodded, smiling, without the words to say how beautiful.
“Do you think you could stay, and be a sibyl here?”
Moon’s smile faded by halves. She shook her head, moved slowly back into the room and settled onto a pile of cushions. Elsevier’s eyes followed her, but she couldn’t answer them. I can’t answer any question! She pointed at the screen, changing the subject, as Elsevier sat down beside her. “Why are they angry?”
Elsevier peered at the gesticulating speakers, concentrating. “Why, that’s old PN Singalu, the Unclassified’s political leader. Bless me, I didn’t know he was still alive. It’s a parliamentary debate; there’s an interpreter, so that temperamental young dandy on the right must be a highborn. They can’t speak directly to each other, you know.”
“I thought the Unclassifieds didn’t have any rights.” Moon watched the two men face each other burning-eyed from their podiums, across the neutral ground of the droning, shaven-headed interpreter. They ran over the tail of his words to answer each other, while he repeated what they had already heard, like children arguing. Looking at them she couldn’t tell one from the other, wondered how they knew for themselves which one was the inferior.
“Oh, they have some rights, including the right to representation; it’s simply that everything not specifically given to them is specifically forbidden. And they aren’t allowed enough representatives to change the laws. But they keep trying.”
“How can they run a government at all; I thought the Prime Minister was out in space?”
“Oh, he’s on another level entirely.” Elsevier waved a hand. “He and the Assembly represent Kharemough, but they represent the days when Kharemough was first making contact with the other worlds that became the Hegemony.” Kharemough had thought that it was rebuilding the Old Empire in microcosm, with the help of the Black Gate. But in fact they came nowhere near the Old Empire’s technological sophistication, and they had learned in time that real control over several subject worlds wasn’t practical without a faster than-light star drive Their dreams of domination were swallowed up in the vastness of space; until they could regain a star drive they would have to be content with economic dominance, a kind the rest of the Hegemony was willing to support. But the Prime Minister and his floating royalty continued as they had begun, a symbol of unity, although not the unity of empire. They traveled from world to world, accepting homage as virtual gods — seemingly ageless, protected by time dilation and the water of life from the precession of the universe outside.
“And they’re always welcome, of course; because, ironically, they’re nothing but a harmless fantasy.” The voices of the debaters, and the tempers behind them, had been rising while Elsevier spoke; her sudden gasp echoed the stricken silence that suddenly fell, half a continent away, in the hall of government.
Moon saw the look of wonder that spread over the worn-leather face of the old man… and the utter disbelief on the face of the arrogant young Tech. Even the interpreter lost his glaze, sat openmouthed between them, looking left to right. “What?” she said, and Cress echoed it.
“He didn’t wait; he didn’t wait for the interpreter!” Elsevier pressed her hands against her cheeks with a cry of delight. “Oh, look at that old man! He worked all his life for a moment like this, knowing it would never come… And now it has.” There was a rising sigh of noise from the hall; the young Tech turned and walked off camera like a man caught in a trance. Someone wearing gray robes and a mantle of authority took his place, calling for order.
“What happened?” Moon leaned forward, hugging her knees with absorbed tension.
“The Tech forgot himself,” Elsevier breathed. “He addressed Singalu directly — as an equal — instead of through an interpreter. And in front of millions of witnesses!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Singalu is now a Technician!” Elsevier laughed. “One way to rise in rank on Kharemough is for someone from a higher level to raise you to it, by addressing you as an equal before witnesses. And that’s what happened.”
“What if Singalu did it? Would the Tech become Unclassed?” Moon watched the wiry, feather-haired old man clutch the podium, weeping unashamedly, grinning through his tears. She felt her own throat tighten; beside her Elsevier wiped at her eyes.
“No, no, the Tech would merely have had him arrested…” Elsevier broke off as the man in gray crossed the platform to Singalu and embraced him stiffly, offered congratulations face to face. “Oh, if only TJ could have this moment seen, this shared—”
“And would he equally in the dark moment share, when the young man who it caused home tonight goes and poison takes?”
“KR?” They turned together toward the voice at the door. Moon saw a once-tall man, stooping now under the weight of years — even though Kharemoughis held off old age more skillfully than any people who didn’t possess the water of life. She blinked, looked at him again, but a second look did not remove the brown parchment of his skin, and even his loose caftan could not disguise all the marks of age. But this was TJ’s younger brother… how could he have aged so badly?
“Yes, KR,” Elsevier sat back, smoothing her skirts. “He would that moment also share. Even though the young fool brought it on himself; even though you people take ‘death before dishonor’ far too lightly. Do you share in old Singalu’s joy, too?” The familiar thou did not replace the formal you with Aspundh, either.
He smiled, on the edge of good-natured laughter. “Yes, I do. He’s himself both smart and capable proven, over the years — and this proves again that our system for intelligence and initiative selects; despite all that TJ did it upside down to turn, promoting every lowborn who at him smiled.”
“KR, how can you that say? You know the highborns their purity like virgins protect! No one would your father raise up, one of the most brilliant minds of his generation.”
“But I’ve raised up been.” He shrugged benignly. “My father was satisfied; he knew it would come, in time.”
“When there was enough credit in the bank to pay for adopting some respectable ancestors,” Cress said.
Aspundh’s expression remained placid; Moon guessed that he did not speak Tiamatan. “It’s a highly scientific structuring of society, perfectly suited to our technological orientation. And it works — it raised us up out of the chaos of the pre space era forever. It’s us a millennium of stable progress given.”
“Of stagnation, you mean.” Elsevier frowned.
He gestured indignantly. “You can still that say, after living on the most advanced world in the Hegemony?”
“Technically advanced. Socially you’re hardly better than On dinee.”
He sighed. “Why do I feel that I’ve this conversation before had?”
Elsevier lifted her hands. “Forgive me, KR — I didn’t come politics to argue, or your time or mine to waste. I’ve to you in your apolitical capacity come; and I’ve brought someone who your guidance needs.” She got to her feet, drew Moon up from the cushions.
Moon stood numbly, staring as KR Aspundh came forward on slippered feet; staring at the darkly gleaming trefoil suspended on his chest. “A sibyl! He can’t be!”
He stopped, with a solemn nod. “Ask, and I will answer.”
Elsevier reached up and unfastened the enameled collar, slipped it from Moon’s throat, uncovering the matching tattoo. “Your sister in spirit. Her name is Moon.”
Moon’s hands flew to her throat; she turned away, hiding the sign of her failed inspiration as though she had been caught naked in his presence. But Elsevier turned her back firmly, lifted her chin until she looked into his eyes again.
“You honor my house,” Aspundh bent his head to her. “Forgive me if my behavior has you disappointed, and made you ashamed that you came.”
“No.” Moon dropped her eyes again, spoke awkwardly in Sandhi. “You have not. I’m not… I’m not a sibyl. Not here, this is not my world.”
“Our vision is not by time or space limited; thanks to the miracle of the Old Empire’s science.” He came forward, searching her face as he came. “We can anywhere answer, any time… but you can’t. You’ve tried, and failed.” He stopped before her, gazing evenly into her astonished eyes. “Anyone could that much see; it doesn’t any special insight take. Now why? That’s the question you must for me answer. Sit down now, and tell me where you come from.” He lowered himself onto the cushions, using a tabletop for leverage.
Moon sat down, facing him across the table; Elsevier filled in the circle with Silky and Cress. “I came from Tiamat.”
“Tiamat!”
A nod. “And now the Lady no longer speaks through me, because I left my — my promises unkept.”
“The ‘Lady?’ ” He glanced at Elsevier.
“The Sea Mother, a goddess. Maybe I’d better how we came to be here explain, KR.” She pressed her hands together, leaning forward, and told him how it had happened. Moon saw a furrow deepen between Aspundh’s white brows, but Elsevier was not watching. “We couldn’t her back take, and we needed an astrogator through the Gate to get. Because Moon was a sibyl, I — I used her,” a slight emphasis on used. “She had only just a sibyl become, and since then she hasn’t into Transfer been able to go.” The fingers twined, twisted.
A high-albedo mechanical servant appeared in the doorway, moved to Aspundh’s shoulder with a tray of tall glasses. He nodded, and it set the drinks down on the table. “Will there anything else be, sir?”
“No.” He waved it away with a hint of impatience. “You mean you her in Transfer for hours left, unprepared? My gods, that’s the kind of irresponsible act I’d of TJ expect! It’s a wonder she’s not a vegetable.”
“Well, what were they supposed to do?” Cress interrupted angrily. “Let the Blues us take? Let me die?”
Aspundh looked at him, expressionless. “You consider her sanity a fair trade.”
Cress’s gaze dropped to the trefoil at Aspundh’s chest, moved to Moon’s tattooed throat, but not to meet her eyes. He shook his head.
“I do.” Moon watched Cress’s profile soften as she spoke the words. “It was my duty. But I — I wasn’t strong enough.” She took a sip from the tall, frosted glass in front of her; the apricot-colored liquid effervesced inside her mouth, making her eyes tear.
“Since you’re me this now telling, I would you call one of the strongest-minded — or luckiest — human beings I’ve ever known.”
“Am I?” Moon cupped her hands against the soothing burn of the cold glass. “Then when will I stop being afraid back into the darkness to go? When I feel it over me start to come, the Transfer — it’s like dying inside.” Another swallow, her eyes blurred. “I hate the darkness!”
“Yes, I know.” Aspundh sat silently for a moment. “Elsevier, will you for me translate? I think it important will be that Moon every word perfectly understands.”
Elsevier nodded, and began to give Moon the words in Tiamatan as Aspundh spoke again: “Tiamat is — undeveloped. Do you understand where you go when you’re thrown into the darkness? Do you understand why sometimes you see another world instead?”
Elsevier shook her head at Aspundh as she finished. “That’s why I her to you brought.”
Moon looked toward the window, searching the air. “The Lady chooses…”
“Ah. So on your world your goddess is in charge — or you’ve always believed that she is. What would you say if I told you that your visions weren’t a gift from the gods, but a legacy of the Old Empire?”
Moon realized that she had been holding her breath, let it out suddenly. “Yes! I mean, I — I expected it. Everyone here knows I’m a sibyl; how could they know? You’re a sibyl; and you’ve never heard of the Lady.” She had long ago stopped seeing the Sea Mother literally, a beautiful woman with seaweed hair, clad in spume, rising from the waves in a mer-drawn shell. But even the formless, elemental force she had sometimes felt touch her soul would not have left Her element or journeyed so far. If in fact she had ever even felt anything, beyond her own longing to feel… “You have so many gods, you off worlders She was too numbed by loss and change to feel one more blow. “Why do you have so many?”
“Because there are so many worlds; each world has at least one, and usually many, of its own. “My gods or your gods,” they say, ‘who knows which are the real ones?” So we worship them all, just to be sure.”
“But how could the Old Empire put sibyls everywhere, if no god did? Weren’t they only humans?”
“They were.” He reached out to the bowl of sugared fruits in the mil table center. “But in some ways they had the power of gods. They III could travel between worlds directly, in weeks or months, not years — they had hyper light communicators and star drives And yet their Empire fell apart in the end… even they overextended themselves. Or so we think.”
But even as the Empire fell, some remarkable and selfless group had created a storehouse, a data bank, of the Empire’s learning in every area of human knowledge. They had hoped that with all of humanity’s discoveries recorded in one central, inviolable place, they would make the impending collapse of their civilization less complete, and the rebuilding that much swifter. And because they realized that technical collapse might be virtually total on many worlds, they had devised the simplest outlets for their data bank that they could conceive of — human beings. Sibyls, who could transmit their receptivity directly to their chosen successors, blood to blood.
Moon’s fingers felt the scar on her wrist. “But… how can someone’s blood show you what’s in a — a machine on some other world? I don’t believe it!”
“Call it a divine infection. You understand infection?”
She nodded. “When someone is sick, you stay away from them.”
“Exactly. A sibyl’s ‘infection’ is a man-made disease, a biochemical reaction so sophisticated that we’ve barely begun to unravel its subtleties. It creates, or perhaps implants, certain restructurings in the brain tissue that make a sibyl receptive to a faster-than-light communication medium. You become a receiver, and a transmitter. You communicate directly with the original data source. That’s where you are when you drown in nothingness: within the computer’s circuits, not lost in space — or with other sibyls living on other worlds, who have answers to questions the Old Empire never thought to ask.” He lifted his glass to her with an encouraging smile. “All this verbalizing makes me dry.”
Moon watched the trefoil turn against the rich, gold-threaded brown of his robe; saw her own turning silently, exiled, on a hook in an air-conditioned room somewhere high overhead. “Is it the disease that makes people go mad, then? It’s death to kill a sibyl… death to love a sibyl—” She broke off, touching the cool stones along the table edge.
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what they say on Tiamat? We have that saying too; though we don’t take it literally any more. Yes, for some people infection with the ‘disease’ does cause madness. Sibyls are chosen for certain personality traits, and emotional stability is one… and of course a sibyl’s blood can transmit the disease. So can saliva — but usually the other person must have an open wound to become infected. Obviously it isn’t ‘death to love a sibyl,” with reasonable care, or you wouldn’t have seen my daughter today. I suppose the superstition was fostered in order to protect sibyls from harm in less civilized societies. The very symbol we wear, the barbed trefoil, is a symbol for biological contamination; it’s one of the oldest symbols known to man.”
But she heard nothing after—”It isn’t death to love a sibyl? Then Sparks… we don’t have to be apart. We can live together! El sevier!” Moon hugged the old woman until she gasped. “Thank you! Thank you for bringing me here — you’ve saved my life. Between the sea and the sky, there’s nothing I won’t do for you!”
“What’s this?” Aspundh leaned on his fist, bemused. “Who is this Sparks ? A romance?”
Elsevier pushed Moon away to arm’s length and held her there gently. “Oh, Moon, my dear child,” she said with inexplicable sorrow, “I don’t want to have to hold you to that promise.”
Moon twisted her head, not understanding. “We were pledged, but he went away when I became a sibyl. But now, when I go back I can tell him—”
“Go back? To Tiamat?” Aspundh straightened.
“Moon,” Elsevier whispered, “we can’t take you back.” The words rushed out like a flight of birds.
“I know, I know I have to wait until—” She beat the words away.
“Moon, listen to her!” The shock of Cress’s broken silence stopped it.
“What?” She went slack in Elsevier’s grip. “You said we would—”
“We’re never going back to Tiamat, Moon. We never meant to, we can’t. And neither can you.” Elsevier’s lip trembled. “I lied to you,” looking away, searching for an easy way, finding none. “It’s all been a monstrous lie. I’m — sorry.” She let go of Moon’s arms.
“But why?” Moon brushed distraughtly at her hair, strands of cobweb tickling her face. “Why?”
“Because it’s too late. Tiamat’s Gate is closing, becoming too unstable for a small ship like ours to pass through safely. It… hasn’t been months since we left Tiamat, Moon. It’s been more than two years. It will be just as long going back.”
“That’s a lie! We weren’t on the ship for years.” Moon pushed up onto her knees as comprehension melted and ran down around her. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I should have done it at the beginning.” Elsevier’s hand covered her eyes. Cress said something to Aspundh in rapid Sandhi.
“She isn’t lying to you, Moon.” Aspundh sat back, unconsciously separating himself from them. Elsevier translated his words dully. “Ship’s time is not the same as time on the outside. It moves more slowly. Look at me, look at Elsevier — and remember that I was younger than TJ by many years. Moon, if you returned to Tiamat now you would have been missing for nearly five years.”
“No… no, no!” She struggled to her feet, wrenching loose as Cress tried to hold her down. She crossed the room to the window, stood gazing out on the gardens and sky with her forehead pressed hard against the pane. Her breath curtained the glass with ephemeral frost, making her eyes snow blind “I won’t stay on this world. You can’t keep me here! I don’t care if it’s been a hundred years — I have to go home!” She clenched her hands; her knuckles squeaked on the glass. “How could you do this to me, when you knew?” turning furiously. “I trusted you! Damn your ship, and all your gods damn you!”
Aspundh was standing now beside the low table; he came slowly toward her across the room. “Look at them, Moon.” He spoke quietly, almost conversationally. “Look at their faces, and tell me they wanted your life to ruin.”
She forced her unwilling eyes back to the three still sitting at the table — one face inscrutable, one bowed with shame, one winking with the track of acid-drop tears. She did not answer; but it was enough. He led her back to the table.
“Moon, please understand, please believe me… it’s because your happiness is so important to me that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.” Elsevier’s voice was thin and brittle. “And because I wanted you to stay.”
Moon stood silently, feeling her face as rigid and cold as a mask. Elsevier looked away from it. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” Moon forced the words out past frozen lips. “I know you are. But it doesn’t change anything.” She sank down among the pillows, strengthless but still unforgiving.
“The wrong has been done, sister-in-law,” Aspundh said. “And the question remains — what will you do to repair it?”
“Anything within my power.”
“Our power,” Cress said.
“Then take me home, Elsevier!”
“I can’t. All the reasons I gave you are true. It’s too late. But we can give you a new life.”
“I don’t want a new life. I want the old one.”
“Five years, Moon,” Cress said. “How will you find him, after five years?”
“I don’t know.” She brought her fists together. “But I have to go back to Tiamat! It isn’t finished. I can feel it, it isn’t finished!” Something resonated in the depths of her mind; a distant bell. “If you can’t take me, there must be a ship that can. Help me find one—”
“They couldn’t take you either.” Cress shifted among the cushions. “It’s forbidden; once you leave Tiamat, the law says you can’t go home again. Your world is proscribed.”
“They can’t—” She felt her fury rising.
“They can, youngster.” Aspundh held up his hand. “Only tell me, what do you mean, ‘it isn’t finished?” How do you know that?”
“I — I don’t know.” She looked down, disconcerted.
“Just that you don’t want to believe it’s finished.”
“No, I know!” suddenly, fiercely certain. “I just don’t know-how.”
“I see.” He frowned, more with consternation than disapproval.
“She can’t,” Cress murmured. “Can she?”
“Sometimes it happens.” Aspundh looked somber. “We are the hands of the sibyl-machine. Sometimes it manipulates us to its own ends. I think we should at least try to learn whether her leaving has made any difference, if we can.”
Moon’s eyes fixed on him in disbelief, like the rest.
Cress laughed tightly beside her. “You mean it — acts on its own? Why? How?”
“That’s one of the patterns we’re still trying to relearn. It can be damnably inscrutable, as I’m sure you know. But anything able to perform all its functions would almost have to possess some kind of sentience.”
Moon sat impatiently, only half listening, half understanding. “How can I learn that — whether I have to go back?”
“You have the key, sibyl. Let me ask, and you’ll have the answer.”
“You mean… No, I can’t! I can’t!” She grimaced.
He settled onto his knees, smoothing his silver-wire hair. “Then ask, and I will answer. Input…” His eyes faded as he fell into Transfer.
She swallowed, taken by surprise, said self-consciously, “Tell me what — what will happen if I, Moon Dawntreader, never go back to Tiamat?”
She watched his eyes blink with sudden amazement, search the light-dappled corners of the room, come back to their faces, to hers alone—”You, Moon Dawntreader, sibyl, ask this? You are the one. The same one… but not the same. You could be her, you could be the Queen… He loved you, but he loves her now; the same, but not the same. Come back — your loss is a wound turning good flesh bitter, here in the City’s heart… an un healing wound… The past becomes a continuous future, unless you break the
Change… No further analysis!” Aspundh’s head dropped forward; he leaned against the table for a long moment before he looked up again. “It seemed to be — night, there.” He took a sip from his drink. “And the room was full of strange faces…”
Moon picked up her own glass, drank to loosen the invisible hand closing on her throat. He loved you, but he loves her now.
“What did I say?” Aspundh looked toward her, clear eyed again, but his face was drained and drawn.
She told him, haltingly, helped on by the others. “But I don’t understand it…” I don’t understand it! How could he love… She bit her lip. Elsevier’s hand touched hers lightly, briefly.
“You could be Queen,” Aspundh said. “Your loss is an unhealing wound. I think you had a true intuition… your role in a greater play has been left unfilled. An inequality has been created.”
“But it’s already happened,” Elsevier said slowly. “Doesn’t that mean it was meant to happen?”
He smiled, shaking his head. “I don’t pretend to know. I am a technocrat, not a philosopher. The interpretation is not up to me, thank the gods. Whether it’s finished or not is up to Moon.”
Moon stiffened. “You mean — there is a way I can go back to Tiamat?”
“Yes, I think there is. Elsevier will take you, if you still want to go.”
“But you said—”
“KR, it isn’t possible!”
“If you leave immediately and use the adaptors I’ll provide, you’ll get through the Gate safely, and before Tiamat is cut off for good.”
“But we don’t have an astrogator.” Elsevier leaned forward. “Cress isn’t strong enough.”
“You have an astrogator.” His gaze moved.
Moon stopped breathing as all their eyes reached her at once. “No!”
“No, KR,” Elsevier said, frowning. “You can’t ask her to endure that again! She couldn’t if she wanted to.”
“She can — if she wants to enough.” Aspundh touched his trefoil. “I can help you, Moon; you won’t have to go through it unprepared this time. If you want your old life back, and your power as a sibyl, you can — you must — do this thing. We can’t face down all our night fears; but you must face this one, or you’ll never believe in yourself again. You’ll never use the precious gift you carry; you’ll never be anything at all.” The sharp voice stung her. He folded his hands, resting them on the table.
Moon shut her eyes, and the blackness swallowed her whole. But it isn’t finished yet. I was meant to be something more! And he was meant to be with me. He can’t be lost, he wouldn’t forget me; it isn’t finished… Sparks ’s face burned away the darkness like a rising sun. It was true, she had to do this; and if she did she would know that she had the strength to solve any problem. She opened her eyes, rubbed her trembling arms to still them. “I have to try.” She saw the half-formed grief in Elsevier’s deep-blue eyes — and the half-formed fear. “Elsie, it means everything to me. I won’t fail you.”
“Of course you won’t, dear.” A single nod, a ghost of smile. “All right, we’ll do it. But KR—” she glanced up. “How will we back again without her get?”
His own smile twitched with secret guilt. “With false papers, which I shall also provide. In the chaos of the final departure on Tiamat, you’ll never noticed be, I’m sure, even — Silky.”
“Why, KR, you secret sinner.” She laughed weakly.
“I don’t it amusing consider.” His face did not. “If I teach this girl all that a sibyl should know and then send her back to Tiamat, I will an act of treason be committing. But in doing this I obey a higher law than even the Hegemony’s.”
“Forgive me.” She nodded, chastened. “What about our ship?”
“It will a fitting monument in space to my late brother’s impossible — dreams be. I told you that you’d never for anything want, El sevier. Do this thing, and you’ll never again need to smuggle.”
“Thank you.” A spark of rebellion showed in her eyes. “We were planning to retire, anyway, if this last trip hadn’t such an utter disaster been. This gives us one more opportunity our wares to — deliver, after all.”
Aspundh frowned briefly.
Cress unfolded his legs with leaden effort as the others began to stir. Looking at him, Moon found him looking at her; his glance hurried on, caught at Elsevier like an orphan’s hand. He grinned, badly. “I guess this is good-bye, then, Elsie?”
Moon stood up, helped him to his feet while the realization registered around the table. “Cress—”
“Consider this my payment on the debt we owe you, young mistress.” He shrugged.
Elsevier turned to Aspundh, but Moon saw his face tighten with refusal even before the question formed. “It won’t be hard for him another ship to find; astrogators are highly in demand in your-trade, I’m sure.”
“There are smugglers and smugglers, KR,” Elsevier said.
“You mean they might not all a ship with a man blacklisted for murder want to share?” Aspundh’s expression turned to iron.
Moon let go of Cress’s sleeve.
Cress flushed. “Self-defense! It’s in the record, self-defense.”
“A drugged-up passenger challenged him to a duel, KR. The man would him have killed. But the rules don’t any exceptions make… Really, do you imagine that I’d a ship with a murderer share?”
“I can’t even why you married my brother imagine.” Aspundh sighed in defeat. “All right, Elsevier; though you press my promise to you near the breaking point. I suppose I a shipping line somewhere own that can an astrogator take on.”
“You mean that? Oh, gods—” Cress laughed, swaying like a reed. “Thank you, old mas— citizen! You won’t sorry be.” He glanced at Elsevier, a long, shining glance full of gratitude.
“I hope not,” Aspundh said; he moved past Cress to Moon’s side. “And you won’t me sorry make either, will you?”
In his eyes she saw the grim reflection of what her failure would mean, not to herself alone, but to the others. “No,” firmly.
He nodded. “Then stay with me for the next few days, while the ship is readied, and let me you all a sibyl should know teach.”
“All right.” She touched her throat.
“KR, must she—”
“It’s for her own good, Elsevier — and for yours — that I her here keep.” He lifted his head slightly.
“Yes… of course.” Elsevier smiled. “You’re quite right, of course. Moon, I—” She patted Moon’s hand, looked away again. “Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Never mind.” She went on toward the door, not looking back to see Moon’s outstretched hand. Silky followed her wordlessly.
“Well,” Cress grinned, half at her, half at his feet. “Good luck to you, young mistress. “You could be Queen.” I’ll tell them I knew you when.” He kept her gaze at last. “I hope you find him. Goodbye.” He backed away, turned and went out after the others. Moon watched the empty doorway silently, but it remained empty.
Moon sat alone in the garden swing, giving it momentum with the motion of her foot. Overhead the night sky sang, a hundred separate choirs of color transfiguring into one. Moon rested her head on the pillows, listening with her eyes. If she closed them she could hear another music: the sweet complexities of a Kharemoughi art song drifting out through the open doors onto the patio, the counterpoint of insects chirping in the shrubs, the shrill and guttural cries of the strange menagerie of creatures that wandered the garden paths.
She had spent this day like the ones before it, practicing the exercises that disciplined her mind and body, watching the information tapes that KR Aspundh gave to her, learning all that was known to the Hegemony about what sibyls were, and did, and meant to the people of their worlds. The sibyls of this world attended a formal school, where they were sheltered and protected while they learned to control their trances — as she had learned, more uncertainly, from Clavally and Danaquil Lu on a lonely island under the sky.
But besides the rigorous basic discipline, Aspundh and the other sibyls of the Hegemony learned about the complex network of which they were a part, the vast reach of the Old Empire’s technological counter spell against the falling darkness. They understood that the Nothing Place lay in the heart of a machine somewhere on a world not even a sibyl could name; and the knowledge gave them the strength to endure its terrifying absence, which had nearly destroyed her with her own fear.
They learned the real nature of their power: the capacity not only to ease the day-to-day burdens of life, but to actually better it; to contribute to the social and technological growth of their world more profoundly than even the greatest genius — because they had access to the accumulated genius of all human history… if only their people had the wisdom, and the willingness, to make use of that knowledge.
And they were taught the nature of their unnatural “infection,” how to use its potential to protect themselves from harm, how to protect their loved ones from its risk. A sibyl could even bear a child. The artificial virus did not pass through the placenta’s protective filters — ensuring the birth of children who might not share their mother’s temperament, but who would have more chance than most of becoming sibyls to a new generation. To have a child… to lie in the arms of the only one she would ever love, and know that they could be all to each other that they had ever been…
Moon sat up, startled out of her reverie by the sound of someone coming toward her across the patio. But he loves another now. The memory of the thing that separated them now, more than just a gap of distance and time, hurt her abruptly as she saw KR Aspundh approaching.
“Moon.” He smiled a greeting. “Shall we our evening stroll take?” Every evening he walked down through his gardens to the small building of pillared marble in the heart of a shrubbery maze, where the ashes of his ancestors rested in urns. The Kharemoughis worshiped a hierarchy of deities, neatly extending their view of a stratified society into the realm of heaven, and incorporating the pantheon that watched over the Hegemony’s other worlds. On its first tier were a person’s revered ancestors, whose success or failure determined their child’s place in society. Aspundh paid homage devoutly to his own ancestors; Moon wondered if a father’s success made it easier to believe in his divinity.
She got up from the swing. Each evening she joined him on his walk, and in the privacy of the gardens they discussed the questions her day’s studies had left unanswered.
“Are you warm enough? These spring evenings are chilly. Take my cloak.”
“No, I’m fine.” She shook her head, secretly defiant. She wore the sleeveless robe she had picked out on the threedy shopper’s-guide show. She had the feeling that even the sight of a bare arm embarrassed these people; she resented being forced to wear more than she wanted to, and so she wore less.
“Ah, to have a hardy upbringing!” He laughed; she felt a small frown form. “You’re not your lovely smile tonight wearing. Is it because tomorrow you back to the spaceport must go?” They began to walk together, Moon controlling her strides to match his slower steps.
“Partly.” She looked down at her soft slippers, the pattern of the smooth stones underfoot. Silky would spend hours crouching over them in fascination… She would even be glad to see him again, more glad to see Elsevier; to escape from the stifling perfection of this world’s artificial beauty. She looked forward to these evening walks, but during the day KR was preoccupied with business and ALV oversaw her studies, making certain that discretion was maintained while a young girl of questionable background stayed in her father’s house. ALV treated her respectfully, because of the trefoil at her throat; but ALV’s very presence could turn her every move into a clumsy stumble, a spilled bowl, a broken vase. ALV’s relentless sophistication made mispronunciation fatal, questions gauche, and laughter unthinkable. This was a world afraid to laugh at itself, afraid of losing control — control of the Hegemony, control of Tiamat.
“Do you feel that you more time need? I think there’s little more I can you teach… and time is critical now, unfortunately.”
“I know.” A startled creature spread its ruff of winking scales and shrieked in their path. “I know I’m as ready as I can be. But what if I’ll never ready enough be?” She had felt her belief in herself and in the trefoil tattoo she wore, the power that it represented, slowly reform as she learned the truth; but still she had not been able to begin an actual Transfer, for fear that a failure now would mean failure forever.
“You will ready be.” He smiled. “Because you must be.”
She managed a smile of her own as affirmation echoed in her mind. There were some things about the sibyl network that even the Kharemoughis couldn’t explain — anomalies, unpredictabilities — as though the all-knowing source of the sibyls’ inspiration was somehow imperfectly formed. Some of its answers were so involuted that no experts had ever been able to make them clear; sometimes it seemed to act toward ends of its own, although ordinarily it only reacted. This time it had chosen to act, and chosen her as its tool… She wouldn’t fail; she couldn’t. But what was her goal, if Sparks no longer wanted her? To get him back. I will. I can. She tightened her fists, not letting it go. We belong to each other. He belongs to me.
“That’s better,” Aspundh said. “Now, what final questions will you of me ask? Is anything still unclear?”
She nodded slowly, asking the one question that had troubled her from the beginning. “Why does the Hegemony want it on Tiamat a secret kept, that sibyls everywhere are? Why do you the Winters tell that we evil are, or crazy?”
He frowned as though she had broken some particularly strong taboo. “I cannot that to you explain, Moon. It’s too complicated.”
“But it’s not right. You said that sibyls vital were — they only did good things for a world.” She realized suddenly what that said about the Hegemony’s intentions; realized how much more she had learned here than simply what she had been taught.
Aspundh’s expression told her that he realized it, too, and regretted it — because he was powerless to stop it. “I hope I haven’t done, and shan’t do, too great a harm to my own world.” He looked away. “You must to Tiamat returned be. But I pray that it no grief to Kharemough brings.”
She had no answer.
They left the fragrant pathway through the flowering sillipha, wound into the topiary maze until the marble shrine appeared, reflecting pastel skylight, at its hidden heart. Aspundh went on into the shadowed interior; Moon sat on a dew-damp marble bench to wait. The scent of propitiatory incense reached her on the rising breeze; she wondered what prayers KR Aspundh spoke to his ancestors tonight.
Birds whose colors would be strident in the daylight fluttered down into her lap, pastel and gray, murmuring placidly. She smoothed their delicate feathered backs, remembering that it was for the last time; that after tomorrow there would be no peaceful gardens, but only the Black Gate… She rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling the night’s chill.