Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (36 page)

He gave a faint nod, and allowed himself to be led away, waiting as she locked the door to the dark room carefully. The sunlight was a warm welcome after the chilly bleakness of the shelter. Diva was waiting for them outside with those refugees who had agreed to travel into the uninhabitable zone.

Diva and Six looked at each other, and Diva indicated the various hundreds of waiting Kwaidians.

“No going back now, Six,” said Diva solemnly.

“No,” he said slowly. “No going back now.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” she went on, “we seem to have started a revolution.”

He gave a small shrug. He didn’t care. “All I wanted to do was to rescue Eight,” he said. “I was too late.”

“I know.” The Coriolan girl touched his arm. “But at least nobody else will suffer here.”

Six looked at the place he had hated in his mind for so many years. “We should set fire to it,” he said savagely.

“We can’t. We have left people inside.”

“Then the Elders will be able to start it up again.”

“They might,” agreed Diva. “But they might just find that things are changing around here too. Let’s wait and see.”

They signed to the waiting refugees, and began the slow march towards the mountains. Progress was slow, but freedom was something to be savoured by all the inmates they had liberated. They breathed in the cold Kwaide air with excitement. It seemed to fizz through their veins, and make their blood dance. They walked lightly.

Except Six, whose footsteps were heavy. He trudged on through the miles, foot after foot. He had failed again. He hated the Elders. He hated Kwaide. Mostly, he hated himself. This didn’t feel like a revolution to him. It felt like a wake. He ploughed on through thick depression. The way seemed endless.

THE SKYRISE WAS absolutely deserted after the departure of the other three. Grace found herself wandering around the huge area like one of the famous lost animas of Xiantha. After two days of pointless perambulation she decided to go bare planet again, to see Arcan in person. She was longing to get out of the skyrise, to set foot on the planet’s surface again.

She found her excitement growing as she made her way down to the first level in the ortholift. It grew more once she had donned her bodywrap and clipped the first mask pack into place over her face. She navigated the metallic steps which led her down the enormous rexelene blocks which protected the skyrise from seismic activity.

Already the traces of their last visits to the surface of the planet had been wiped away, obliterated by the soft winds and the particulate sand they carried with them. She bent down to pick up some few grains of the silvery sand. It was beautiful, she thought.

She turned her attention to the sky above her. Inky black, with a touch of slate, it hung massively overhead, both oppressive and liberating at the same time. The brilliant violet planet of Cian was high in the sky today. More than half of its orb was illuminated by Almagest, giving a vibrant lune of colour in the darkness.

Grace felt she had come home. Her presence in the skyrise was that of a stranger, but here … here she felt alive. Here she felt as if she belonged. Slowly she began to walk towards the ortholake, reveling in every moment away from the skyrise, enjoying her natural lack of exophobia.

The mountainous region lay in front of her, way beyond the lake, and it was a grey jagged line cutting across the dark horizon. To her left a faint glow showed her the break-off where the dark side of the planet met the permanently illuminated light side, where the food for the Sellite community was grown.

At last she was half side-walking and half slipping down the sandy shore to the ortholake. After everything that had happened recently it was almost a surprise to see the lake lying there so peacefully. The silvery black surface showed her that Arcan was totally recovered from the illness he had contracted when he escaped the Sellite bombing, taking them all to what they had thought was the safely of Coriolis. It had turned out to be almost fatal for the orthogel entity.

The lake must have been aware of her proximity, for, starting just in front of her, a ripple of sheer electric blue travelled out along its surface into the distance. This was followed by another ripple of magenta and then one of a vivid emerald green. Finally a huge fountain of all those colours sprang into place in front of her, towering up to a height of at least three stories.

Grace clapped her bodywrapped hands together. “Thank you, Arcan,” she said.

“I am happy to see you here.” The fountain dissolved again into the surface, which shimmered, both in her eyes and somehow in her head.

“Yes. It is very different. One thing is to see you as an individual bubble which can talk, and another is to come out here and see you as you really are – you are overwhelming!”

“Naturally you would think so.”

“Can you take on any form you want?”

“Like this?” And the surface of the lake in front of her began to bulge upwards. The dark colour became speckled with iridescent light and the lake grew and grew until an enormous globe hung above it, then began to spin on its axis faster and faster until the specks of light all merged together into lines of solid colour flashing on her retina.

Grace clapped again, transformed by the show. “Amazing!”

The globe subsided. “Not really,” it said. “This sort of thing is trivial for a hyperfluid.”

“What is trivial to you is a big deal for me!”

“Yes, I know.”

“It is nice to be able to talk to you directly too, instead of having to sign with fingers.”

“Quicker, certainly.”

“Are you happy, Arcan?”

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

“No-o. Just wondered, that’s all.”

“I am awake now. Before I was … unaware. Now I am aware, I am progressing. That is the definition of happiness, is it not?”

“Is it?” Grace gave a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“I am continually amazed at the enormous amount you transients don’t know, and yet you are still able to survive.”

“We are a superior species.”

“To what? A vaniven? A Xianthan peacock? Only barely.”

Grace prickled up. “Only barely?” she echoed.

The lake glittered. “You have many genes in common with both those species,” he pointed out.

“Is that how you think of us, Arcan? As vaniven?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, good!”

“The relative sizes would be all wrong. No … you are much smaller than a vaniven would be. Are there no really small animals in the system?”

Grace thought. “The ants – small insects – on Kwaide?” she hazarded. “They are about,” she indicated a tiny length with thumb and forefinger, “this long.”

“That is more like it.” Arcan appeared pleased. “Then I think of you as ants. Yes. The ratio between our brains would be similar to that of your brain and about a thousand ants.”

“You mean you see me as a thousandth the size of an ant?”

“That would be about the right proportion, certainly.”

“You make me feel so important.”

“Good. Even though you are small, you are quite useful, I find.”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence.”

“My pleasure, Grace.” Sarcasm was totally lost on the orthogel entity.

Grace said goodbye and began her solitary trek back to the skyrise. A thousandth of an ant, she thought to herself. Are ants happy? No wonder he doesn’t understand my questions. I’m surprised I can communicate with him at all.

The dark shadows of Valhai soothed her on her way back to the skyrise. She lingered as long as she dared before going back inside, and used up all the mask packs before reluctantly leaving the planet’s surface.

GRACE HADN’T RECEIVED any non-virtual visitors since the expulsion of the rest of her family to Cesis, so the sound of the main ortholift was a surprise. She hurried to the reception area, to find Vion waiting for her.

She felt a sudden flip of her heart, which appeared to be trying to reposition itself in her throat, and she could feel heat in her face, which could only mean that she was going red.

“Y-you! … I wasn’t expecting anybody.” Her hand had gone to her throat automatically.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said Vion. He walked up to her slowly, hesitated, and then held out his hands upright towards hers, in the traditional Almagest way of greeting. She stepped across the remaining magmite between them and let her fingers touch his.

For a brief moment nothing happened, and then something akin to an electric shock travelled right through Grace and welded her to the floor. Her heart gave another leap inside its ribbed cage, and she felt her face flush even more.

Vion was looking at her peculiarly, but had made no move to withdraw his hands. His eyes seemed darker than usual.

She came to her senses, and snatched her hands back. “H-hello,” she breathed, still unsure of just what had happened.

“Grace,” Vion replied, realizing suddenly just how quickly she had grown up. His hands were burning as if they had been scalded. This was not good. Definitely not good. He sighed. “I just wanted to see how you were getting on. I know you are on your own now.”

“Oh, fine,” she said mendaciously, “absolutely fine.”

“Good. I heard Cimma had gone too – to Kwaide, I mean. Are you sure you are not finding all this very solitary? I wouldn’t like you to get too isolated. That would not be good for you.”

“Do you care?” she asked him.

“My job is to care.”

Grace was still feeling confused by the effect of their hands touching. “Don’t worry about me, Vion, I will be fine. I am working hard to help Arcan, remember.”

“Right, then.” He backed away, and moved through the membrane separating the ortholift from the receiving chamber in the skyrise. “See you.”

“See you, Vion. Thanks for the visit.” Grace leaned up against one of the magmite walls, and closed her eyes. What was that? What had happened?

VION THOUGHT ABOUT that feeling for a few days, and then resignedly sought an interview with his father.

“I would like to go to Coriolis
now
,” he told his parent without further preamble.

His father frowned. “The Coriolis plan is on standby for at least the next year,” he said. “It won’t be necessary to implement the initial phase until we hear the results of the next meeting with the orthogel entity.”

“I think we should go now. If we wait it may be too late. We can find out a lot of things in the next few months, and that would give us an enormous advantage over any other Sell houses thinking of relocating there.”

Vion 48 narrowed his eyes. “Is there something you aren’t telling me, Vion?”

Vion 49 shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I just think it would be the best thing to do.”

Vion 48 thought for a long moment. His son had got himself into some sort of trouble, that was evident, and it seemed to him better to let him escape to Coriolis, if that was what he was determined to do. And it was true that there might be great advantages in being the only Sellite house to establish a base on the Sacran planet. He contemplated the reaction of the Investigative Committee for Ethical Correctness. It would be tricky to get authorization, but … there would be ways around that. “Very well,” he said finally. “I will let you go.”

“I thank you, Father. I will make sure that my stay on Coriolis is productive for our house.”

“You had better,” his father replied severely. “I already told you how I feel about our house remaining a full and honourable member of Sell.”

“You have made your wishes quite clear, Father.”

“Good. I would really rather not put that threat into effect.”

Since the threat had involved shortening his son’s life by approximately sixty years, Vion was in complete agreement with his father’s sentiment.

His father went on, “I shall expect you to set up a lucrative medical centre on Coriolis, and prepare a detailed volume of the endemic diseases, together with local treatments and the ways in which these treatments can be superseded by our techniques.”

“Yes, Father.” Vion backed out. He had won permission to abandon Valhai, but it didn’t make him feel particularly happy. It felt a little too much like running away for his taste. And there was an interview he was definitely not looking forward to.

GRACE WAS SITTING in splendid isolation in the 48
^th
floor voting chamber, half her attention on the tridi screen, and the other part remembering long gone days when the other three high chairs in the room had been filled. It was not a time she had particularly enjoyed, but it seemed sad that now there was only one person attending the votations – and that person had lost the right to vote on any Sell matters. Her finger hovered over the predis button which would register her as present to vote. But there was no point pushing it. Idly, she traced a pattern in the layer of dust which had settled on the console, and tried to concentrate on listening to Mandalon’s explanation of some new space freighter engine. She wondered if Vion would come on another non-virtual visit. It had been five days now, and she had heard nothing from him. It almost seemed as if she had imagined the strong attraction there had been between them.

A light flashed near the predis button, telling her that somebody desired a private communication with her. It had to be Vion – nobody else in all Valhai would even contemplate communicating with her.

She accepted the connexion, and then frowned slightly as she caught sight of Vion’s face. The doctor looked uncomfortable.