The Summer Queen (26 page)

“You’ve shown yourself worthy of the honor, Gundhalinu,”
Savanne said. “The ... scars of the past have been erased by your discovery of
the stardrive—”

Estvant turned, frowning, to silence Savanne with a look.
The Governor General coughed and flexed his hands.

“Yes,” Estvarit said brusquely, “you have been chosen to
join the inner circles because of the discovery you made at Fire Lake, and all
that it implies—and I don’t mean awards or honors or any other superfluous
symbolism. I mean the real, raw courage and the intelligence obviously required
of anyone who could survive World’s End, and come out of it not only alive and
sane, but with the truth about it. The past is meaningless, now, because you’ve
changed the future for all of us, as well as for yourself. I don’t have to tell
you that.”

Gundhalinu passed back the medal without responding. He
folded his hands in front of him, feeling surreptitiously for the marks on the
inside of his wrists, the brand of a failed suicide, that he had had removed at
last after his return from World’s End.

“And because, instead of holding your knowledge for ransom,
you gave it freely to the Hegemony.” The Chief Justice’s eyes searched his
face. “Gundhalinu, the petty prejudices and the narrow-minded cultural biases
of nations or worlds have no place in our organization. We serve the side of
Order, against the Chaos that always threatens. I sense that you share that
vision. And you have proven that you have the capacity to make a genuine difference.”

Gundhalinu hesitated, studying the other man’s face in turn,
with eyes that had judged a lot of liars, and knew they were too often
indistinguishable from honest human beings. But there was no hidden revulsion
in this man’s eyes, for what he had done to himself in what seemed now like a
former life .... The Chief Justice was not simply the most powerful man in the
Hegemonic government on Four, he was a Tech, a member of the highest level of society
on Kharemough, their mutual homeworld. He could not have suppressed his
response—would not have bothered to—unless what he said was true.

Gundhalinu had always had a sense that Estvarit was a man
who deserved his position, a man of uncommon integrity; but now he actually
believed it. “Yes,” he said at last. “That is what I feel, too.” His ordeal at
Fire Lake had taught him many hard truths. But the hardest of them all was the
bitter knowledge that what he had believed all his life—what being a Tech on
Kharemough had always let him believe—about himself as the ultimate controlling
force in his life was a laughable lie. He controlled nothing, in the pattern of
the greater universe. And yet that utter negation of his arrogant
self-importance, which had made him blame himself for circumstances beyond his
control—which had made him believe he was better off dead—had, in the end,
freed him. He had witnessed the precarious balance between Order and Chaos in
the universe, and realized that, as a free man, he could make his own choices,
that he was only himself, and not his family’s honor, or his ancestors’ expectations.

He had decided then that he and he alone controlled one
thing, and that was how he chose to live his life. He had chosen to work for
Order, and against Chaos ... to do the greater good, even in defiance of the
laws of the Hegemony, if those laws were unjust. “How did you know?” he
murmured.

“Your actions spoke for you.”

Gundhalinu sighed, like a man who had finally arrived home,
feeling the tension flow out of him—tension that had become so profoundly a
part of him that he could hardly believe it had gone. “Thank you,” he said,
feeling his throat close over the words, “for showing me that I’m not alone.”

The Chief Justice smiled, and held up a hand. Gundhalinu
raised his own hand, pressed it palm to palm in a pledge and a greeting.
Somberly the other men touched hands with him.

Gundhalinu brought his hand up to his mouth to cover a
sudden yawn. Without tension driving him forward, fatigue was gaining on him,
threatening to drag him down. “Gentlemen, this has been truly unforgettable. I
am grateful for all you’ve shown me. But it must be close to dawn, and I’m
expected to be coherent and vertical for a charity breakfast in my honor given
by the Wendroe Brethren.” Irony pricked him, not for the first time, as he
glanced at the Chief Inspector and the Governor General. “Forgive me, but I am
exhausted ....”

“Of course.” The Chief Justice nodded. “But before you leave
us, I must tell you two things: One is, of course, that you must not speak of
this to anyone. You know the three of us now for what we are .... You will meet
others in time, and be taught the ritual disciplines and also certain
restricted information as you rise through the inner levels. But, more
importantly, before you go there is one thing Jcnown only to the inner circles
that we must share with you immediately, for the sake of the Hegemony’s
security.”

Gundhalinu forced his weary, restive body to stay still. “What
is it?”

“You hold vital information about the nature of the
stardrive plasma and Fire Lake. That information must be transmitted to
Kharemough immediately. They need lead time in fitting a fleet of ships. They
must be ready to maintain order; because once the stardrive gets out, everyone
in all the Eight Worlds will have the technology and the freedom to worldhop
almost instantaneously, without the time-lags we now face. I’m sure you’ve
already considered the tremendous change that will create in our interplanetary
relations.”

“You want Kharemough to maintain its control of the Hegemony,
then?” Gundhalinu asked. “I am a Kharemoughi, and I love my people ... but I
thought I understood that Survey does not play favorites—”

Estvarit nodded. “But we do play politics, as we said. We
try to achieve the result that brings about the most good for the most people.
Only the established Hegemonic government can effectively control access to the
stardrive, and keep the technology from spreading like a disease, causing
political chaos and interstellar war. Because it will spread ....” He looked
down. “By ordinary means it would take several years for even the news of your
discovery to reach any other world of the Hegemony, including Kharemough. But
you, as a sibyl, have the means to change that.”

“How?” Gundhalinu asked, his hand searching for the trefoil
symbol on its chain, which he was not wearing. “If no one on Kharemough even
suspects this discovery, they can’t ... ask the right questions, so that I can
give them the answers.” And yer ... In the back of his mind, he realized that
he had done something very like it, when he had been lost in World’s End: He
had called Moon Dawntreader, and she had come to him—

“There is a way; there always has been, but we have kept it
to ourselves. I will give you the name of one of our members, a sibyl, on
Kharemough. With the special Transfer sequence we will teach you, you will be
able to open a port to this person directly.”

Gundhalinu made a sound that was not quite a laugh. “This is
incredible! A means of instantaneous faster-than-light communication—Why haven’t
you shared this?”

“Because if we are to keep faith with the trust of our
ancestors, we must have our secrets—keep our edge.” Estvarit shrugged. “Now
listen to me, and listen well ....”

Around them the lighting in the room dimmed and brightened,
dimmed and brightened again. “Damnation!” Estvarit murmured. Abruptly the
lights went out, smothering them all in pitch-blackness.

Ye gods, not again. The thought formed inside the blackness
behind Gundhalinu’s eyes. Someone’s hands seized him by the shoulders, pulling
him around with desperate urgency. “This way ....”He recognized the voice of
the Governor-General. He let himself be led, fumbling but obedient, across the
room and through what felt like a hole in the night—a change in deflected
sound, in the quality of the air. He bumped up against a wall two steps farther
on.

“Follow the tunnel up,” the Governor-General murmured. “Don’t
worry, don’t ask questions. Everything is all right. Just get out. Come to the
Foursgate Meeting Hall tomorrow evening. We’ll be in touch—”

And then he was alone, closed in ... sure of it, even though
he could see nothing. He stretched out his right hand, keeping his left firmly
against the wall; fighting a sinking uncertainty for the second time in one
night. He found the hard, slick surface of the narrow hallway’s other wall less
than an arm’s length away. He began to feel his way along it, moving slowly,
testing every step. The tunnel led him steadily upward, the air seeming to grow
deader and more oppressive as he traveled, until at last he collided with a
flat surface, the darkness suddenly made material.

But before panic could take hold of him, the surface gave
under his pressure, releasing him into sudden daylight and fresh air.

He stumbled out into the street and the door slipped shut behind
him, merging into the surface of the wall, until by the time he turned around
he could not have said where it was. He stood staring at the wall for a long
moment, breathing deeply, befuddled by the light and the chill, damp air.

He turned away again at last, taking in his surroundings and
his predicament. He was still in Foursgate, but in the Old Quarter. Under his
bare feet was a narrow stretch of moisture-slick pavement, all that separated
the shuttered silent warehouses from the cold, lapping water of a canal—one of
the myriad canals winding through the ancient duroplass buildings and out to
the sea. He could smell the sea, even though its sharp, fresh scent was wrapped
in the reek of stagnant water and rotting wood and other, even less appetizing
odors.

The air around him was filled with moisture, as it always
was, fog lying like a shroud over the Old Quarter, a fine, incessant drizzle
wetting his face. The mottled gray of building walls faded into the wall of fog
in either direction within a few meters of where he stood. The fog lay on the
surface of the canal until the two became one in his vision, as seamlessly as
the door had disappeared into the illusory solidness of the wall behind him.
Somewhere in the distance he heard tower chimes begin a sonorous melody, their
voices muffled and surreal. It must be barely dawn, and no one else seemed to
be up and moving, even here.

He leaned against the building side, too weary not to,
pulling his robe tighter around him as he began to shiver. He was all alone,
wet, cold, half-naked and lost, without even the credit necessary to hire an
air taxi to take him home. The events of the past hours suddenly seemed like an
insane dream, but the fact that he was standing here proved their reality. One
thing he was not, certifiably, was a sleepwalker.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded of the walls;
heard his own words flung back at him. Why that unexpected, unceremonious exit
from the depths of a hidden room? Was this supposed to be one final test—proving
himself worthy by making his way home in the rain, creditless and barefoot—? He
let out a short bark of laughter, sharp with anger and exasperation. But even
as he thought it, he knew he did not believe that. Something unexpected had
happened in there, and not just to him. Were there others trying to get at
Survey’s secrets ... or were the inner circles of Survey not the haven of order
and reason they seemed to be? He shook his head, too exhausted to work it out,
or even to feel much concern about it. They would be in touch .... Then he
would have his answers.

“Ferry, sah?” a deep voice called out, resonating eerily off
the walls around him.

He looked up, felt water drip into his eyes from his hair. A
shallow, hign-prowed canal boat was soundlessly nosing its pointed bow in
toward the small wooden dock almost below him. The man standing in its stern
poled it closer with motions that looked effortless, but probably were not. The
boatman wore the shapeless, hooded gray cape they all seemed to wear, “to keep ’em
from molding,” his sergeant had remarked once.

“Where to, sail?”

Gundhalinu moved forward to the edge of the dock, looking
down into the boat.

. Its outer hull was a silvery gray that made it one with
the water surface, the fog, the stones of the quay .... But its interior, its
single flat, wide seat, the elaborate carving on its prow, were decorated in
strident, eye-stunning colors, alive with intricate geometric designs that had
been patiently painted by hand.

He looked up again, trying to see the man’s face. Most of it
was shadowed by the sodden gray hood, but he could see that the boatman was a
local—by the golden icast of his skin, the dark eyes with a slight epicanthic
fold.

“Sah?” the boatman said patiently, gesturing him forward.

Gundhalinu hesitated, realizing how absurd he looked, and trying
not to think |about it. “I need to get back to the upper city. But I haven’t
any money.”

The boatman chuckled. “Nor anything to keep it in either,
even.”

Gundhalinu smiled wearily, and shrugged. “Thanks anyway.” He
began to turn |away, ready to start walking.

“Well, I’ll take you up for the company, then,” the boatman
said. “Business is slow before dawn, and you look to be a stranger far from
home.”

Gundhalinu turned back, so quickly that he almost slipped on
the slick pavement. Moving more cautiously, he climbed down into the boat and
settled himself on the seat. He turned to look up again at the man standing
behind him. It was no one he knew; he was certain of that. “The universe is
home to us all.” He murmured the traditional response, still watching the other
man’s face.

“So it is,” the boatman said noncommittally, looking away
again as he pushed off from the pier. He propelled the boat on up the canal
with brisk, sure motions of his pole. After a time, he ventured, “Must have
been quite a night, sah.”

“Yes, it was,” Gundhalinu said. “It certainly was that.” He
watched the buildings drift past like fragments of dreams, made rootless by the
fog, as if they were moving and the boat was motionless.