Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (94 page)

Diva grinned. “We’ll have you back at the Emerald Lake for rest and recuperation in a jiffy!” she said. “If ever I saw a perfect place to cure something, that was it!”

Grace’s face lit up. “Oh, yes,” she breathed, “yes! That would be perfect, wouldn’t it? The next time you see me I shall be up and about – I only hope we can say the same for the visitor!”

LUCKILY, THE VISITOR responded well now that his ship was back in outer space, and by the time Grace was able to sit up in her hospital bed, he was conscious, if not able to manage the video camera just yet.
 

Grace herself was feeling much better. She had a slight setback when she realized how difficult it was going to be to dress herself, but the good news was that she was out of that bed at last. When the others arrived back from the south of Xiantha, she was ready. She received a visit from the canth keeper with pleasure.

“And how are you, Girl who fell?” he asked.

“‘Girl who fell’?”

The canth keeper inclined his head. “I am sure that the instant when you were pushed out of the cage must have been a defining moment for you?”

Grace nodded several times. “It certainly was!”

“Then it will have changed you. In Xiantha you are already known as the girl who fell. You will want to use the new name now.”
 

Grace thought about it, and then smiled at the man. “Perhaps I will,” she admitted.

Six and Diva burst in, full of the journey they had taken. Grace listened quietly to them, just enjoying being a part of their enthusiasm. She looked down at her hands. Apart from the gaps where whole digits were missing, the rest of her fingers were still almost black. And she had stared at her face in the mirror that morning with dismay. The nose was still there, true, but it was a sorry sight. The whole thing was still a dark brown colour, and there were blisters and lumps all over both nose and face. She had looked away again quickly, unable to contemplate the sight. Her friends were talking to her, though, and saying nothing. What did that mean? Couldn’t they see what she looked like, or were they trying to be tactful? Whichever it was, it wasn’t working. She felt as conspicuous as a Xianthan roach under a flashlight.

Cimma, Ledin and Arcan transported in, and they all stared at her.

Cimma smiled, Ledin frowned, and Arcan shimmered.

“Good, Grace. I see that you are feeling a little better,” Arcan told her. He was probably unaware that her looks had changed at all, she thought. Such things were no doubt beneath a creature that had lived over thirty thousand years. The thought made her smile inside, despite herself. What possible importance could one scarred and discoloured nose have on that scale?

“Those hands are looking a lot better already,” said Cimma, after a brief inspection, moving across the room to give her a hug. “That’s my girl! I have to say I was more worried than I cared to show.”

Only Ledin examined every inch of her face. “It isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he said. “Those blisters will only last for a week or two, and it looks to me as if you will only have the slightest of permanent discolouration on your nose. Not bad at all!”

Grace opened her eyes wide to stop any tears. “It is horrible!” she said.

Ledin’s gaze rebuked her. “It will go,” he said. “You should know how lucky you are there. All you will be left with is a slightly browner nose. And that is not so bad.”

Grace gave a sniff, cross with herself for not showing more bravery. “No. Sorry. Of course it is not so b-bad. And I am p-pleased that the f-fingers are mending so quickly.” She put out one arm to bring the canth keeper back into the conversation. “Anyway, the canth keeper and I were just talking about names. He thinks mine has changed.”

Six shifted uncomfortably. “How can a name change?” he asked.

The canth keeper raised a polite eyebrow. “How can it not?” he replied. “My own name has recently changed too. I have had an experience that defines me better than ‘man who keeps canths’.”

Diva put her head on one side. “And what is that?”

“Our shared experience on the Xianthe. Although my job continues to be the canth keeper, and you may address me as such if you like, I am currently known as ‘the man who speaks to canths’, and I am honoured to tell you all that I am now panchromatic.”

“So how do you know your own colour?” Six was curious.

“We examine our previous experiences and remember our feelings. This helps us to progress always in the right direction for our particular persona and colour. It is quite possible to be a panchrome and a shop keeper or a cart driver, but if being a shop keeper was not right for you, you should move on to a different persona, until you attain the highest colour you can. I have been very, very lucky to have accompanied you all on your journey, and so have attained the highest possible level. I am indebted to you.” He bowed low to all of them.

“And what percentage of Xianthans reach panchrome?” asked Diva.

“About one in ten thousand.”

“And they are the only people on Xiantha who take the decisions?”

The man who spoke to canths was shocked. “Naturally. They are the only people without an agenda. They have reached contentment. Who else could possibly take the decisions? Anybody non-panchromatic may have interests of his own to promote.”

Six pursed his lips. “So what happens to a thief who is happy stealing? He could be a panchrome, too, couldn’t he?”

Grace gave him a disturbed look, and Diva raised an eyebrow.
 

Six spread his hands. “Just saying, is all!” But he looked slightly abashed, nonetheless.

The man who spoke to canths smiled and shook his head. “If the other Xianthans don’t agree with his colour they close their eyes as he passes, so as not to see his false colours!”

“Oh, brilliant!” said Six. “That would be like giving him an invitation to steal more, wouldn’t it?”

“Then more people would close their eyes as he passed. And more, and more, until nobody in the planet would ‘see’ him.”

“Then he would be a lonely thief, but also a very rich one!”

“Nobody can live entirely alone. The punishment has always been most effective. That sort of thing hasn’t happened here for many, many years.”

“Then now I know why the Xianthans closed their eyes when they saw the coffins which held Xenon and Atheron!” exclaimed Diva. “I thought they were praying!”

“No. They couldn’t bear to see such loss of colour.”

“Will that happen to the Xianthans who helped them here in Eletheia, and in the south, in the orange compound facility?”

The canth keeper closed his own eyes for a moment, just the thought of such unacceptable behaviour clearly making him uncomfortable. “They will be judged by a court of panchromes. Their actions could have involved the whole planet in a war. They took decisions which were inappropriate for any Xianthan who values his colour. That is the major crime here. It can be a capital offense, although since interplanetary confrontation was averted the punishment will not, in this case, be so extreme!” He looked kindly at them, and bowed again. “Well, I must go. The Sellite Delegation will be waiting for me to greet them at the spaceport, and then we will all have to give evidence at the inquiry. I wish you all the best with your recovery, Girl who fell! We will install tridi here in your room so that you can give due testimony at the trial.”

ANY HOPES GRACE might have had about hiding her injuries while testifying had evaporated. Her face was magnified by the tridi screen to six times its normal size. There was no point trying to hide her nose at that resolution. She tried to make herself forget such vain considerations, put her chin out, and began to describe what had happened
 

Six, who had been the first to give evidence, was squirming uncomfortably on a hard chair in the auditorium with the glum expression of one who had been suffering for far too long already. Diva had sunk back in the place next to his after giving her own testimony in a clear voice, and was now watching as Grace took the stand, a worried expression on her face.

Grace stared into the tridiscreen, but was really reliving the journey around the Xianthe. She told them of her capture after trying to escape on the canth, of the frantic journey on the magsled, of being tied and bundled into the cage, and of parts of the conversation between her two captors. Finally she had to describe what had happened when Atheron and Xenon had opened the cage door and thrown her out on the Xianthe. Her voice had been calm up to that point, but now it broke as she had been forced to remember that last moment of the betrayal of her brother, and the first moment of her fall.

Ledin, listening in the gallery while awaiting his own turn to declare, had found himself biting his lip and looked down to see his own hands had clenched into fists. He rather regretted Atheron and Xenon’s abrupt departure from this world, he found. He would have liked to help them on their way personally, never more so than at that precise moment. He looked over in Six’s direction, and their eyes met, finding themselves in perfect agreement.

Cimma and Ledin were only required to confirm the testimony given, and Cimma was right; the Commission of Ethical Correctness immediately stood up and had her testimony disbarred. She sat down again with an expression of utter disdain for her former compatriots.

Diva nudged Six. “How do you think it is going?” she whispered.

“Terrible! If I have to sit for much longer on this wooden chair I don’t think I will be able to walk when I get up!”

“No, you fool! I meant, how is the hearing going?”

“Oh. That.” He shrugged. “Don’t know really. Haven’t been paying much notice since Grace’s testimony.”

Diva gave him another, much more vicious, elbow in his ribs.

“Ouch! Now what have I done? Honestly, Diva!” He rubbed his side, and frowned back at her.

“Shhh! I’m listening!”

Six, with a martyred air, turned around to garner some male sympathy for such cavalier treatment. He caught Ledin’s eye and they exchanged a ‘women!-well-what-can-you-expect’ look, which helped to soothe his battered pride. He shuffled again on the chair, gave a wounded sigh, and made an effort to listen to the rest of the testimony.

The canth keeper was on the stand now. He was explaining that their attempt to ‘reach’ the canths had met with success, and Six could see that his words had caused no little excitement amongst the Xianthans present. The fact that they had been able to communicate with the canths had whistled around the planet like a spring wind, but the details had been unknown until now. It was considered to be one of the most important historic moments on the planet, and Six noticed suddenly that the auditorium was packed with the multi-coloured tunics of the local people, who had crowded in to hear this testimony first hand. They were following the Xianthan’s evidence with almost reverential silence.

The man who spoke to canths finished describing their contact and went on to describe the scene they had found in the Lightning Corner platform, with the metal gate hanging open. At this point one of the commissioners from Sell got to his feet to cross examine.

“Why do you think the two men in the cage were struck by lightning, and not the girl who was falling? Surely she was the one most exposed?”

The canth keeper inclined his head benevolently. “You may not understand,” he said, “but those two men had lost all their colour; it was natural that they should be the ones struck by lightning.”

Applause for these words broke out throughout the auditorium, but the Sellite commissioner appeared bemused. “I do not understand.”

“The girl who fell was at risk, but the lightning chose the two men. If they had not been hit by that ray, it is clear that she would have been. Their death saved hers.”

Six blinked. He hadn’t realized that. Of course Grace must have been in danger of being struck by lightning. How stupid of him!
 

“Well, at least Xenon did one good thing in his life!” he whispered to Diva.

“He must be turning in his coffin!”
 

“How long is this thing going to go on?”

“How am I supposed to know, nomus? You will just have to put up with it, like everybody else.”

“Excuse
me
, your ladyship! If you can sit comfortably on these chairs you really must have a royal rump!”

“Oh, shut up, will you? I want to hear what the other declarants have to say.”

There was a parade of visitors, who declared that they had either seen the two men take Grace into the cage, or that they had seen the blackened remains of the two men when their cages stopped at the lightning corner, and then the last witness, the ticket collector, took his place.

“You are the man who sells tickets?” asked the Sellite head of commission.