The Galaxy Game (23 page)

‘What we do,’ she said, ‘is either so strange or so primal to our being that our senses do not interpret the stimuli in the usual way. Sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell may be blended or confused. For example, my dear colleague Baran tells me that he registers my presence as a cooling of the air, a pale tint to his vision and a sharp tingle on the tip of his tongue. I hear him and I wonder if he thinks of me as ice and unconsciously influences his own brain so that the input can be adjusted accordingly. Your aunt, Gracedelarua, perceives you as sunlight, warm and golden. What do you perceive, Rafidelarua?’

‘Vibration,’ said Rafi, surprising himself with his certainty. ‘Resonance. A tickle or a . . . Once I felt it like a thunderclap through my bones.’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Who was that?’

‘Dllenahkh, my uncle. He stopped my father, and I felt it. It shook me.’

‘Hm, interesting. I believe you perceive me?’

‘Yes. Like the beginning of an earthquake, but very gentle.’

She slapped the edge of her seat and laughed. ‘I would call that flattery, but I will accept it. Let me tell you what a nexus is. We are artists and our medium is people. We weave and knot, we contrast and complement, we make a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts. You, Rafi, will use your perception and skill to fashion a body of humanity with mind, strength and heart surpassing what any individual could accomplish.’

‘I don’t want to do what my father did!’ The words choked out of him under pressure, under force. Pure nerves set him trembling again.

Syanri was shocked. ‘Your father? Your father tried to tie everyone to himself – a selfish, foolish, cruel use of his talents. That is not the work of a nexus. You create a team by binding each to each, acting as glue, not as god. But you raise an important point. You have not been educated in good habits. How have you misused your skill?’

Rafi tried to calm down, but this request was worse than anything else she had said. He could not remember; he did not know everything he had done that he was not supposed to do. He thought quickly over the last few months and found his sharpest guilt. ‘I fooled a schoolmaster into thinking I had permission to leave for the weekend.’

It would have been better if she had looked disappointed, but she only folded her mouth briefly, bit her lip and nodded. ‘That was not right and should not be repeated. Continue.’

‘And I . . . I tickled my little sister. No hands, just . . . a kind of mental push.’

Again she bit her lip, but this time it served to suppress a giggle. ‘That is . . . not precisely common, but you had no malicious intent and the effects were positive. Leave that one off your conscience.’

Rafi thought for a moment of his mother’s reaction and wished his conscience could be cleared so easily, but that was too long and complicated to explain to Syanri. He tried to think of some other infractions and could only recall times when he had challenged his father, sometimes unsuccessfully, in order to be left alone. His mind blanked and he stared at her anxiously.

She stared back implacably. ‘Guilt. The stale taste of it is still there. There was a girl?’

In a rush, Rafi remembered adolescent dreams that bled into cap-induced nightmares, where he became every monstrous thing his father had been and could have been.
Serendipity
. He tried to speak and coughed instead, his mouth suddenly dry.

‘This is interesting,’ Syanrimwenil said with almost obscene delight, too caught up in fascination to be distressed by distress as she dug ruthlessly through the thoughts he did not speak. ‘It makes sense that you would fixate on someone possessing a level of talent similar to your own, but why did you keep yourself from her?’

Rafi had no words to answer, but in a moment of clarity that was new and unusual, he understood his past indecision. Serendipity possessed a different song and sound, and that had attracted him, but he could also hear behind that song the hollow echo of an insatiable hunger that had not yet learned what to do to satisfy itself.

Syanri laughed and laughed until Rafi could not be sure he was not being mocked.

‘Such wisdom!’ she cried. ‘A thousand poets would never have died and a thousand poems would never have been written if more young men had your caution and restraint. Well, you are quite the walled garden. It will take much to scale you, that is certain.’

Rafi bit his lip, trying to control his shaking, knowing she was testing him, and yet wondering what would happen to him if he struck a nexus.

‘That will do for now,’ Syanri said placatingly, pulling back abruptly to a less intense mode. ‘More may come to mind as we begin training.’

She stood and began to walk out of the niche, glancing back at him as he continued to sit, uncertain if the interview was over or if he was meant to follow. She paused in answer and he walked warily to her side.

‘Let me show you the Academe,’ she said.

After ten minutes of walking and passing introductions, Rafi realised that her aim was not to show him the Academe but to show him off. His aunt’s name was well known, a fact that was no longer a surprise since he had taken to sifting through and organising the papers and articles from Sadira-on-Cygnus. What had initially been a snarl of names piled together was gradually resolving into discrete circles. Research on Cygnian-Sadiri culture was the preserve of Academe Bhumniastraya, but there was a connection due to the many Sadiri pilots engaged in study and research at Academe Maenevastraya, especially those concerned with the adaptation of mindships to Cygnian and Terran ocean environments. To his surprise, nexus-related studies were also a minor speciality at Academe Maenevastraya.

‘The connection between pilot and mindship has been compared to that of a nexus and network,’ Syanri explained. ‘The comparison is even more apt when you consider that mindships are not a single organism, but a colony. Mindships may travel by themselves, but a pilot needs a mindship. There is something about the collective binding that enables the preservation of identity and consciousness post-transit.’

‘Um,’ Rafi answered, out of his depth.

She was not impressed by his ignorance. ‘How did you get here, Rafidelarua?’

‘On a mindship. A personnel transport. But I don’t remember any of it. They put you in a coma.’

‘Not a coma,’ she corrected. ‘A carefully monitored state of physical paralysis and mental alertness similar to dreaming. Few people remember it, and for good reason. It’s claustrophobic torture, and they condition and treat you to forget it. Why do you think you need to be mentally alert during transit?’

‘So the mindship can carry you over,’ he answered. ‘So it can make you part of its colony.’

She stopped and stared at him. ‘Good. Very, very good.’

They continued walking in silence for a while, passing through a large hall or hangar with a half-constructed skeleton or scaffolding in the centre. ‘Rebuilding ancient technologies,’ Syanri said, nodding to the structure. ‘A collaboration with Academe Nkhaleëngomi. They say it might be an early interplanetary transport.’

Rafi frowned as he gazed at it. ‘But how can humans travel through space without ships? A nexus can’t be the only thing, can it?’

‘Oh, Rafi, are you imagining we would splashdown like mindships into the ocean in nothing but our bare skin? We used to travel from surface to surface. Why else do you think the Great Galactic War was so devastating? Both sides agreed to de-weaponise, and the greatest weapon of all was the portals. One of the main conditions for peace was the closure of the entire system of portals. They brought people and cargo, but they also opened the door to toxins and disease.’

‘Is that how Sadira—’

Syanri cut him off with a look. ‘Maybe. If that were the case, if portal technology has been reinvented or rediscovered, then what sense would it make for any of us to hold on to the requirements of obsolete treaties? If we want to avoid Sadira’s fate, we must be prepared.’

He had no answer so he avoided the question. ‘What do you do here? You said you’re semi-retired.’

Syanri accepted the swerve in topic with grace. ‘I no longer work in the Galactic League Logistics Division, but my former apprentices and colleagues still ask for my advice. At the moment, we are at an impasse with the Zhinuvian cartels. So few mindships now travel to Ntshune that the Zhinuvian trading fleets can name their price – and do. We need other options, or our Walls and equipment will deteriorate for lack of maintenance and parts, and travel for interplanetary fixtures will become impossible.’

Rafi thought somewhat bitterly about his additional days in quarantine due to the Cygnian government being unable to afford overpriced nanotech, and he uttered words that he never thought he would ever say. ‘But it’s just a game.’

‘Just a game, Rafi? The third greatest source of social and financial credit on Punartam after trade and academia? Legends and traditions that go back generations, even millennia? We would not survive losing the Game. Ntshune would, but then they would not survive losing us. The Zhinuvian cartels are doing their best to fracture and consume what remains of our galactic core and they are doing it by attacking the glue, by making it difficult for us to communicate with each other and be in each other’s presence.’

‘Do you think they were involved in the downfall of the Sadiri?’ Rafi asked. It was a common conspiracy theory, in spite of Ain’s confession and disappearance from contact.

Syanri shook her head sadly. ‘No. I believe the blame lies with the Sadiri and the Ainya alone. I think the cartels are run by opportunists who will help along anything that helps them. If we do not adopt the same mentality, and quickly, they will win.’

Rafi wondered how the conversation had come to this point. They had started with personal examination and ended at galactic collapse. He was sure that if he dared asked her what one had to do with the other, she would tell him ‘the glue’.

She glared at him, obviously frustrated at his bafflement. ‘You think more with your body than your brain. Very well. Come with me.’

Rafi followed her and soon found himself a large hall in the recreational section of Academe Maenevastraya. His eyes were immediately drawn to a small training Wall. The players were unusual. Older men, some of whom he recognised as coaches and others who possessed the casual skill and confidence of retired players, were trying a few nostalgic runs. If there was scoring going on, it was to no rulebook that he knew. Younger players, including one or two women, stayed close to the edges of the Wall and appeared to be having more fun falling between levels than doing any actual running. There was a familiarity about their motion, and suddenly Rafi remembered Sadiri pilots using Dllenahkh’s training hall for certain obscure exercises that they claimed were for three-dimensional awareness, but which had looked a lot to Rafi like mere play.

Syanrimwenil put her hands on his shoulders and guided him to stand in front of the Wall at a distance where he could see every part of it without straining when he focused on the centre. ‘Pay attention,’ she told him. ‘What have we been discussing? Look at the players, feel the motion, then close your eyes and concentrate.’

It still made no sense, but Rafi decided to at least pretend to try. He looked at the Wall until the separate movements of individuals coalesced into the stretch and flex and contraction of a flock or shoal. He let his eyes close.

A hum tingled through his body, bringing vague discomfort and a sharp memory – the waters of Grand Bay and a silent, curious behemoth testing him and finding him not to its taste. That same buzz covered the Wall before him in a sixth sense he could not describe or define. He could sense the pilots tumbling their straight relays at the sides, and in the centre the complex plays moved like a single weight tugging several threads. But the weight moved, the centre of the game moved from person to person, body to body, and in that moment Rafi realised that he was watching a group of nexuses, a collection of boobies, playing the game at a level that could never be seen by the average spectator. The pilots drew from that buzz of motion and connection like flitting dragonflies sipping at the edge of a pond. The intoxication reached him as well; he felt the world shifting, the borders and boundaries of reality falling away to vastness. Not space, for it was not empty, but filled with tangible, never-ending harmonies and a light whose scintillations pricked at every nerve in his being. He swayed, shook free of the vision and gasped for air.

Syanrimwenil’s hands stayed on his shoulders, steadying him and feeling his epiphany. She laughed. ‘Baran contributed much to research on Wallrunning history and traditions. He distilled a little fact from a wealth of myth about Wallrunners re-enacting a warrior’s journey through a portal. Now do you understand a little better what I am trying to tell you?’

Only one thing was important to Rafi. ‘Will you teach me that?’ he asked, his eyes half-closed and voice slightly hushed.

She laughed. ‘Of course.’ She turned him around, away from the Wall. ‘Now it’s time for your next appointment, isn’t it? Let me walk you to the main dining hall. The view is remarkable. Some people are put off by the transparent wall and floor, but I find it aesthetically strong and daring. We stand on nothing in the midst of space. This is true. This has always been true.’

Rafi enjoyed a friendly and relaxed meal and discussion with Ixiaral during which he openly and sincerely admired the astounding view through glass wall and floor. Later, he had a hard training session with Ntenman and another team coached by Revered Baranngaithe where he managed to reduce his number of accidental falls. Yet, in spite of all that, when sleeptime came and his overtired brain rebelled, the nightmare it chose was one of deep, starry space and Syanri’s voice echoing mournfully, ‘We stand on nothing,’ while he tried and failed to keep his team of Wallrunners from falling into a distant sun.

Chapter Eleven

The suns had risen five Standard days ago. We were lounging around waiting for the rain to stop and training to begin. Rain in the Metropolis was welcome, even when it came scant and fine, more like an ambitious mist. Instead of having our usual huddle behind the screen, we were sitting in a row of the empty auditorium. Mostly we watched in appreciation as the water droplets spun and swerved along the Wall, here compressed, there rarefied, revealing the invisible steps and grav-changes in faint grey shading. Often we argued.