Ceremony (11 page)

“A button.” It was a tarnished metal button with a few fibers of thread still attached. It was embossed. Grauel passed it to her. Marika studied it, then compared it to the five upon the left wrist of her jacket. “That is a Serke witch sign on it, Grauel. We’re on the trail. They’ve been here. I have a premonition. We are within a few passages through the Up-and-Over of catching up with them.”

“That’s what you’ve been saying since we established our first base.”

“This time I am right. I can feel it. I am convinced.”

“I hope you are.” Grauel sounded sour.

“Grauel?”

“I do not want to die out here, Marika. How would the All find me?”

“What?” This was a surprise.

“In fact, if I had my choice, I would spend my final days in the upper Ponath, at the packstead that gave me life.”

Marika was baffled. What had brought this on?

“I am getting old, Marika. In the Ponath I might already be one of the Wise. Likewise Barlog. The witchery and medicine of the silth have kept us young beyond our time, but time never stops gnawing. Lately I find I cannot help remembering that we are the last of the Degnan pack, and that our pack lies beneath the northern ice still unMourned.”

“Yes. I know all that. You are indeed old for the Ponath, but not old by standards of the silth. There will be time, Grauel. We will see to the Mourning. But we can’t go now. We’re finally making some headway out here. We’ve finally found something besides a place where they aren’t and haven’t ever been. Maybe this world is a regular stop. Maybe if we just sat here and waited... I know what I’ll do. I’ll make this world our new base. We’ll continue the hunt from here.”

“Which means a whole new globe of space to search,” Grauel countered, showing no excitement. “It will be like starting from the beginning.”

“Think positively, Grauel. Think lucky. Let’s go tell the others.”

“What I think is I wish I had not called you down here.”

That evening Marika climbed a peak while the others rested. She stood staring at the stars. There were few to be seen, for the dust cloud spanned the heavens of that world. She selected the next half dozen stars that should be investigated. Into the cloud itself this time? Yes. What better place to hide?

For the most part she had avoided going into the cloud during her search. She was much less comfortable operating there because there were so few landmark stars. She had reasoned that the Serke explorers would have suffered the same reluctance. But perhaps one of their more daring Mistresses of the Ship, possibly a Bestrei, might have dared the darkness and have found the aliens.

What lay beyond the cloud? No one knew. No one had tried to reach its nether side. Maybe no one but the Serke had had any contact with the aliens because they were over there and they too were reluctant to enter the dust.

The dust cloud it would be, for a time.

II

Marika’s bath had again been rotated. Grauel and Barlog had begun to show gray and even lose a little fur. Marika herself had begun to feel age in her bones when she rose some mornings. And there were moments when the homeworld called so strongly that her resolve almost broke. There were moments when she was tempted to go home just to discover what had happened in her absence. Sometimes, during the on-planet resting pauses, she lay awake when she was supposed to be sleeping, wondering about Bagnel, longing for his company, and wondering about the progress of the mirrors she had imagined into reality, and even about the warlock, her littermate, Kublin.

She knew very little about what had happened since her departure. But for the regular visit of High Night Rider, and the occasional appearance of a Mistress of the Ship with an adventurous spirit, a desire to visit the strange worlds Marika had reported, and a knack for assembling bath of like temperament, she had no ties with home.

Grauel and Barlog had recognized the process at work and had ceased their importunities for abandoning the quest, fearing their petitions would harden her resolve.

She was finding it increasingly difficult to convince herself that the hunt was worthwhile. There was no end to the universe, even within the dust cloud. There was always another star. And, inevitably, always another disappointment.

It was time for High Night Rider to come again. She felt she had reached a time of decision. If the news from home were bad, she would return.

The mirrors, insofar as she knew, were coming along well. A brief note half a year earlier, written by Bagnel, had told her the mirror in the leading trojan was well ahead of schedule. So much for his doubts about his management skills.

But he had mentioned trouble down on the homeworld’s surface. The old rogue male trouble had begun to reassert itself. The Communities seemed unable to stem it. This time the outlaws seemed to be working independent of the brethren, under the dominance of their wehrlen, but there were those, according to Bagnel, who did not believe the warlock was the true source of their witchcraft. Silth did not want to believe a male could be so strong, so felt the rogues had to be getting aid and encouragement from silth smuggled in by the Serke.

On its last visit High Night Rider had brought word that the rogues were sabotaging the brethren as well as silth, that assassination had become their primary weapon. They were using their talent-suppressing device again, and the sisterhoods could not cope.

Marika suspected they could not cope because they did not feel motivated enough. Even now, after all the disaster they had wrought, it was difficult to get silth to take males seriously as a threat.

Marika did not want to take up that task again, but it seemed she might have to, if the vague reports she received indicated the way things were actually moving. If the Communities themselves would not spend the effort and energy to defend themselves adequately.

A wave of undirected touch passed over her. She looked at the sky as one of her bath called out, “Mistress, High Night Rider has come.”

A blob of light moved across the sky, visible even in daylight. It slowed, maneuvered, fell into orbit. Marika rose and stalked through the camp, which today housed nearly a score of meth. Two other darkships were operating from her base, not participating in the hunt, but examining more closely the most interesting of the worlds that Marika had discovered. Their Mistresses were young ones, filled with a desire to expand the frontiers, and they had found themselves teams of bath willing to join their ventures.

Marika’s reports home had had one effect: They had somewhat revivified the old spirit of exploration. Once she had blazed a trail others were eager to devote closer attention to what she had found.

She suspected Bagnel was irked. That meant darkships scattered about the void contributing nothing to the mirror project. She suspected the tedium of construction work was what had encouraged these younger Mistresses and bath to come out to the edge of beyond.

The explorers could do little to truly expand meth knowledge. There were more curiosities among the starworlds than could have been cataloged by ten thousand darkship crews in ten thousand lifetimes.

Of late even Marika had been spending more time looking at those curiosities than she had been being driven by her need to overhaul the Serke.

“Darkships coming down, mistress,” someone called. “At least three of them. Maybe four.”

That was to be expected. There were supplies to be delivered, and always there was another group of explorers who had saved themselves effort by scavenging a ride aboard the giant voidship.

Though the darkships would not ground for a long time yet, Marika went to the landing area with the others. They all stood around waiting, joining in speculation about what news would come from home.

The first darkship down carried a passenger.

“By the All! Bagnel!” Marika swore as the tradermale stepped down. He was shaking, numb with awe. “What are you doing here?” He did not hear her. Whether he was amazed to have arrived healthy, or overawed by having traveled so far, he was completely turned inside himself. She rushed over and repeated her question as meth yelled about clearing the area so the next darkship could ground.

Silth stared. A male! Out here!

Bagnel shuddered as though shaking water off, and said, “Marika.” He looked her over. “You have changed.”

“So have you. Is that gray I see there? Time gnaws, does it not? It must be fate. I was just thinking about you--and here you are. What are you doing here? Come with me. Before that Mistress gets impatient and plops down on our heads.”

“Are you all right? You look tired.”

“I am tired, Bagnel. I have looked at more stars than you can imagine even exist. Though you must have seen how many there are when you spanned the reach outside the cloud. Come. Let’s get something to eat. You must be starved.”

“My stomach is too unsettled. That passage... It was too much for me, I fear. The Up-and-Over... I find myself dreading the return trip already.”

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. Has something happened?”

“No. Except that I have been stripped of my job and prerogatives. Whoa! It’s only temporary. A cabal of senior factors and high silth ganged up on me and ordered me to take a vacation. They said I was pushing myself too hard, that I was on the edge of a breakdown because I was trying too hard to keep the project ahead of schedule. They stripped me of my powers so I would have no choice. Since they wouldn’t let me do anything at all, and the Redoriad were willing when I approached them, I decided to come walk the stars while I had a chance. You invited me, you’ll recall. I think I am sorry I did it.”

“I recall. I believe I invited you to come after I caught the Serke.”

“But you haven’t. You’ve been out here forever. It begins to seem unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“I am narrowing it down, Bagnel. Narrowing it down. I have a very good idea where they’re not.”

“You are still able to be amused at yourself.”

“Not often. But I don’t think it will be too much longer.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Marika noted Grauel and Barlog hovering. They were polite enough to remain out of earshot, but they were there, eager to discover the meaning of Bagnel’s appearance. Marika asked, “You’re sure this isn’t business? That someone didn’t send you out to get me to come home?”

He looked surprised. “No. Why do you ask that?”

“We get very little reliable news out here. What we have gotten are rumors about increasingly bad rogue trouble. Trouble nobody seems able--or maybe just willing--to solve. I thought maybe someone sent you to get me to come back and deal with it.”

“Marika... I might as well put it bluntly. The vast majority of silth are very happy that you are out here instead of at home. That’s why you get the support you do. The farther away you are, the happier they are.”

“Oh.”

“The rogues have become a problem again, though, that’s for sure. They’re much better organized this time. They learned a lot.”

“I believe I predicted that. I believe no one would listen to me.”

“Right. It’s no longer possible to use the tactics you developed. One cannot be taken and forced to betray scores more by subjecting him to a truthsaying. They have structured their organization so that few members know any of the others. And they are careful to keep the risks low whenever they choose to strike.”

“That was predictable too.”

“And even where the hunters know who they are looking for it has been hard to track a culprit down. Your Kublin, for example.”

“Kublin?” Marika had done her best not to think of her littermate over the years. It had been her thought to destroy his hope by shattering the support lent by the Serke and their rogue companions. But the Serke remained unshattered.

“He is rumored to be the mastermind, the one they call the warlock. Not one hunter has been able to find a trace of him since his escape from you. Whenever someone does get a line on him he is found to be gone by the time the hunt closes in. There is still strong support for him and those who fled with the Serke among the bond meth and even our worker brethren.”

“I can find Kublin.”

“No doubt. You have always done whatever you set your mind to. I will mention that to anyone who is interested. My own opinion is, you should continue the search for the Serke. Step it up, even. It could be important.”

“Ah? Is that it?”

“What?”

“The true reason you put yourself through what it takes for a meth unfamiliar with the Up-and-Over to come out here?”

“I came for a vacation, Marika. I came where I could see a friend who has been missing from my life for far too long. I’m just trying to tell you what is happening at home. If you care to interpret that as an attempt at manipulation... “

“I’m sorry. Go ahead. Tell me the news.”

“Last month we finally caught a courier from the rogues trying to sneak in. Two of them, actually. Both brethren who had gone into exile aboard Starstalker. I was brought in for their questioning because they had things to say about the project.”

“And? Did you get any hints as to where they are hiding?”

“Just one. Inside the dust cloud. Which you suspect already. Naturally, they would not have been risked had they known more. I wish we could have taken the Mistress of the Ship who brought them in.”

“Of course. What did they have to say otherwise?”

“We learned a lot about what they’ve been doing, which is mostly marking time and hoping the aliens find them before you do. They are no longer so confident of Bestrei.”

“What?”

“It turns out that our estimates of the Serke situation were not quite right. They have no direct contact with the alien. What they have is a very large alien ship orbiting a planet. They have been studying it and appropriating from it, while they wait for its builders to come looking for it.”

“But... “

“Give me a chance, Marika. There is a story. I’d better tell it so you know what I’m talking about.”

“I think you’d better. Starting from the beginning.”