Context (104 page)

I’m home.

It was a feeling which sank down
to the very heart of her.

This is where I belong.

And was this the reason behind
everything? Was she, the first human born in mu-space, the first to feel truly
at home here?

Was it me they were trying to
kill?

But there were two Zajinet
factions involved. Perhaps the one which had taken her here had not been trying
to murder her.

Have I hurt the wrong one ?

Could it be that the renegade had
taken her here to
save
her? That the official ambassador was behind Luís’s
death, and Anne-Louise’s murder?

No...

Amber
...

She made her way forward to a
bulkhead, and sought the passageway which would lead her to the great ship’s
control cabin where the Pilot would be working, interfaced with the vessel’s
systems.

The
woman was slender, naked, lying on her couch, and silver cables hung in
graceful catenary curves, linking her physical being to the ship’s AI core.

‘Pilot Vaachs?’ Ro stood
uncertainly.

The Pilot’s head turned, and
reflections slid across the polished bus-cables plugged into her eye sockets.

‘A normal human being’—her voice
drifted, oddly attenuated—‘would have been driven insane within seconds, awake
in this continuum. I guess it identifies you.’

‘I don’t—’

But the Pilot must have given
some internal command, for the cabin grew transparent to the ship’s
surroundings, and golden paralight flooded the place, became part of the ship,
flowed through Pilot and vessel alike.

Amber space, and stars of black.

It was a realm of wonder.

‘You are Ro McNamara, daughter of
Karyn, and some of us have waited for this day.’

Outside, it stretched forever:

A sea of infinite beauty.

The place where her father had
died.

<>

~ * ~

58

NULAPEIRON
AD 3422

They
were waiting for him in the briefing chamber: Corduven, standing with his hands
clasped behind his back; and Sentinel, his cropped white hair making him look
as ageless as ever, his thick arms folded. Tom had not seen Sentinel since his
abortive recruitment attempt, in the Aurineate Grand’aume.

‘You sent a courier for me, didn’t
you? I mean, back in the Grand’aume.’

Sentinel nodded. His square face,
impassive, gave nothing away.

‘I apologize,’ said Tom. ‘I disregarded
his warning. More than that. I attacked him. I thought he was robbing a young
woman, beside a canal.’

‘I’ve read the reports.’

‘He committed suicide ...’

At the time, the notion of
suicide to avoid torture had been an unreal abstraction; that was before Tom’s
own experience in Velsivith’s acidic cells.

Velsivith. Another death...

There was more Tom had to say,
but it evaporated from his mind.

Behind Sentinel and Corduven a
crystal desk floated; in front of them hung an intricate network diagram, a
tangle of brightly coloured arcs linking explanatory tricons, depicting the
Blight’s disposition of forces in some far sector.

But that was not what caught Tom’s
eye.

Is it true ?

It was tiny, the holoportrait
suspended in mid-air, but her features were unmistakable.

‘That is her,’ said Corduven. ‘Isn’t
it?’

Elva!

Tom could only nod. It was the
moment which culminated five years of doubt-filled searching, but there was no
way to express the yearning and frightened joy which burst like a fragrant
storm through his veins and set his soul on fire.

Elva... You really are alive.

In the head and shoulders
portrait, slowly rotating, she wore a grey uniform with scarlet flashes on the
high tunic collar.

What was she now? An officer in
the Blight’s forces?

‘She’s infiltrated their command
at a higher level’ -Sentinel coughed, then clasped his blocky hands together—‘than
we’ve ever been able to.’

‘Where did you—’ For a moment,
weakness swept over Tom.

Corduven gestured, and a
lev-stool detached itself from the wall, positioned itself behind Tom. He sat
down.

‘Thank you. I...’

What could he say?

It was Sentinel who broke the
silence, softly. ‘We tracked down her brother, Odom.’

‘I met him.’

‘Attended his wedding, yes.’
Sentinel smiled briefly. ‘We learned that. But what you didn’t know was, Elva
had a twin sister. Natural twins, not clones.’

‘But—’

‘She never mentioned it. Of
course. Because her sister Litha was already working deep undercover, for an
organization called the Grey Shadows. You remember it?’

‘I... No.’

‘In LudusVitae’—Sentinel looked
at Corduven, and Tom wondered for a moment whether Sentinel’s allegiance to the
revolutionary movement had been all that it appeared—‘we came across them once
or twice, but they were only ever loosely allied. Sometimes our objectives
coincided.’

‘So they’ve been around for a
while.’

‘Whatever their original purpose,’
said Sentinel, ‘the Grey Shadows have been implacably against the Blight for as
long as we have. Every now and then, one of our couriers might receive warning
of a Dark Fire interception. Twice, captured agents of ours have been rescued
from captivity, though always as part of some other operation against the
occupying forces.’

Elva. You had a sister.

It was obvious that their nervous
systems had been quantum-entangled since an early age. And that it was Elva who
had expected to die, when Litha committed suicide and her consciousness made
the transition to Elva’s body, displacing the original Elva identity—her
thoughts and feelings and memories: her soul—in the process.

And had Elva, too, held back from
expressing her feelings towards him, because she had expected oblivion to
strike at any moment?

Perhaps she had both loved and
hated her sister, knowing that Litha, if she found information of sufficient
value, would be prepared to make that sacrifice without hesitation.

‘... funding from,’ Sentinel was
saying. ‘But it’s always been effective.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Tom tried to focus. ‘I
missed that.’

Corduven smiled.

‘You haven’t,’ he said, ‘asked
the question I was expecting.’

For a moment, Tom could not think
what he meant. Then:

‘Does that mean you know where
she is?’

‘It’s deep in Blight territory.
In Realm Buchanan—if we can still call it that, five SY after the Earl’s
execution. Really deep in the heart of—’

‘You have to send me in.’

Real
fear took hold of him, that after finding out this much he would not be able to
reach her. But Sentinel relented then, transforming the floating diagram into a
holomap into which he pointed.

‘In any other briefing, you have
to understand, Elva Strelsthorm’s whereabouts would not be first item on the
agenda.’ He held up a placating hand. ‘What I mean is, there’s a news item
which may be of immense significance, given the pattern spread of the Blight’s
invasions. There are places it seems unable to manifest itself directly inside,
but now...’