The Ghost Sister (5 page)

The sun went behind a cloud and the landscape below was revealed: gray and ocher and mauve, very different from the lush greenness of Irie St Syre. Faced with the harsh contours unfolding themselves below, Shu couldn't help wondering how her homeworld had changed in the years of their passage, how customs had altered. Did folk still send one another the little golden starpine cones to mark the beginning of Irie's gentle winters? Did they still gather at the lakeshores of the Ummerat to send the paper lanterns sailing out to the islands in spring? Were her descendants still living in the sprawling house above the rushing torrents of the river? Questions tumbled through her mind, and she
sighed. This was the closest she had come to regretting her decision to accompany the mission; perhaps she'd been deluding herself all along and she was really too old and staid for adventure. At this unpalatable thought, Shu winced. Her ancestors would be ashamed of her. Hadn't they made a similar voyage, on one of those first colony ships setting out from Canada or Austral, to their new home of Irie? And she'd vowed never to have regrets, even though she knew how unrealistic
that
was.

She glanced at Bel Zhur Ushorn, frowning down at the controls of the aircar, and sighed again. Did Bel share her current regrets, she wondered, or was Bel sustained by her religion and ancestors of her own? Shu had never met Bel's mother in person, but she had seen newscasts of Ghened Zhur Ushorn, in full oratorical flow with a younger Bel at her side, and the physical resemblance between mother and daughter had been striking. They had the same wide cheekbones and determined jaw, the same amber-gold hair, but whether they both possessed an identical capacity for benign, if autocratic, rule remained to be seen. Bel's mother had been the driving force behind her own particular sect, sweeping in and organizing it from a loose affiliation of religious houses to a united, forward-looking movement which sought to extend its ideals of matriarchal harmony from Irie St Syre to the rest of the Core worlds and beyond. It must have been hard for Ghened Zhur Ushorn to see her own daughter involved in the scandal of Eve Cheng's death, and Shu thought now that Bel had been the sacrificial lamb, her mother dispatching her troubled daughter into the future to bring other lost flocks into the fold.

Yet Shu also wondered whether Bel might not have welcomed a little piece of territory to call her own, away from the long arm of her mother, and she wondered too how long Bel would be content to remain as Dia's acolyte. Shu could sense a well of pain and loss within Bel, but she could already see the girl's determination to go forth and
evangelize, to make something worthwhile out of the ruin of her past. Shu did not find this reassuring.

Then Bel Zhur's skilled hands brought the aircar smoothly around, the light changed, and Shu could once more gaze out across the immensity of the world below. They had now been flying for over an hour and the land was still empty of anything resembling human life. The distant mountain ranges sloped down into great gray folds tipped with snow, bordered by the green sea as it ate into the coast. The skeins of islands that had given this world its name reached to the curve of the southern horizon. Shu peered out, trying to see farther, but by degrees, she realized that they were losing height.

“Bel Zhur? Is everything all right?”

“It's fine,” the girl said, quick to reassure her. “I'm taking us down. The scan's picking something up. Looks like some kind of energy field.”

“What sort?”

“I'm not sure … the scan's a bit fuzzy. Looks like something magnetic, or bioenergetic. I don't know what's causing it, but the location fits with the coordinates that came with the last transmission.” Bel glanced over her shoulder with a sudden eagerness that illuminated her somber face. “Shu, I think something's still broadcasting down there.”

“It can't be the original transmitter, surely? The last transmission was made thousands of years ago. I know Elshonu Shikiriye made sure that the colonists brought some state-of-the-art equipment with them, but nothing lasts forever.”

Bel shrugged, saying, “I've no idea, but the signature pattern doesn't look natural. If we
have
found the site of the original colony …” She broke off, her hands flickering in complex motion across the controls. The aircar tilted abruptly to one side.

“Is everything all right?” Shu asked, trying not to sound too anxious.

“I think the field's interfering with the navigation sys-
tem … the aircar's drive is destabilizing. I'm taking us down as soon as I can.”

The aircar veered across a plateau, then in through the cliff wall. Shu squeezed her eyes tightly shut, then opened them again once she found she was still alive. She saw that the aircar was flying through rising cliffs; the stone was as red as the sun.

“Take it easy, Bel,” Shu said, as the aircar veered in at an alarmingly steep angle. “Something's coming up ahead.”

The narrow passage between the red walls was widening. Bel Zhur took the aircar out into a huge caldera: a circle of rock cut away to reveal an amphitheater at the heart of the mountains. Shu scrambled forward, desperate for a better view.

“Will you look at that!” Bel's brown eyes were wide. “
That
'
s
not natural.”

Squinting over Bel Zhur's shoulder, Shu saw a great gate rising in the cliff: a columned oblong of darkness. “Could that be the colony?” Shu heard herself ask.

“If it is, let's hope we live to see it,” Bel snapped. The aircar came to a bumpy halt, throwing Shu forward in her seat so hard that the strap cut into her waist.

The two women sat in shaken silence for a moment, listening to the aircar power down. Once the sound had stopped, Bel released the hatches and clambered out onto the stone-strewn ground at the base of the caldera, reaching up to help Shu. Once on solid ground, Shu took a deep breath, then looked around, letting the impressions filter in.

For one, it was the quietest place she had ever known. Although she'd always regarded Irie St Syre as a peaceful world, she realized for the first time how accustomed she had become to background noise: distant voices, the continual minute whir of the biosphere control mechanisms, the hum of the Weather Monitor stations. Here, there was nothing, not even the wind. Silence lay like a lid across the caldera.The aircar itself, with its curling, fluid lines and dark
green carapace, looked utterly out of place in this harsh landscape, like a water-worn stone left behind on the bed of a dead river.

Ahead, an arched gate rose, carved in the hillside. A swirl of dust skittered through the open portal. Within the gate, the walls stretched upward, massively thick against the bitter dry cold: blocks of black stone bearing the patina of age and smoke ascending to panels the color of ebony. Shu rubbed a cautious hand along the wall; the soot was ingrained. “There was a fire here,” she said, and looked around. All the frames were empty of doors except one, a rusted metal skeleton that hung ajar, as though the people who had lived there had only slipped out for a little while. Bel Zhur stepped through and turned back to smile uncertainly at Shu.

“Coming in?”

The hall smelled of dust, old stone, and ancient wood. The walls inside were scoured by the wind, and dim beneath the encroaching earth. Bel coughed and the sound echoed softly, falling between the walls and rustling into silence. They came out onto a long, low gallery overlooking a central courtyard. Wan afternoon sunlight slanted across the flagstones.

“It feels empty …” Bel Zhur whispered. “Not even ghosts any more.” They followed the gallery round, going back though a high-ceilinged room. Here, there were fewer signs of fire. The smell of age hung in the air and congested in the lungs.

“They even left their books,” Shu said. She pulled one down from the shelf and tried to riffle its metal pages, but they were rusted solidly together. She saw then that water had blown in along the east wing, glistening along the sills.

“
Marie Celeste
,” Bel said softly. “
Eberne Graille.
”

“What was it that made them go?” Shu asked softly into the empty air. “The fire? And what was that field you picked up on the aircar's screen? I've seen nothing so far that looks remotely high-tech.”

Mutely, Bel shook her head.

They walked on, into the labyrinth of rooms. Bel held up a small oblong box, and clicked it open. Inside was a set of needles, miraculously still bright and without eyes. There was a metal figure on the inside of the lid perhaps six inches long.

“I know what
that
is,” Shu said. “That's an acupuncture diagram.” She was tempted to take it with her, but the melancholy of the place made it feel too much like desecration. Carefully replacing the box, Shu followed the girl downstairs.

Outside, the passage was darker. The light was falling and the sky above the cliff was a thin, chilly green. They followed the passage to the top of the caldera, where a tower stood high on the cliff, now no more than a ruined pagoda shell.

“Did they burn it before they left?” Shu mused aloud. “Or did it force them out?” Dust rustled along the paving stones. Looking down from the bottom of the broken steps, they could see straight along the passage to the gate. Directly in front of the tower stood a round, ornamented bowl like a font. Rainwater gleamed in the bowl and the air was very still. But now Shu noticed that something was humming, just below the edge of hearing. It was the faintest of sounds, but it still made her jump.

Bel Zhur paused, frowning. “What's that noise?”

“I've no idea,” Shu said. She could hear the sound very distantly, but more than that, she could feel it. It traveled up her spine, as though someone were drawing a finger up her back. She stood still, listening, and shut her eyes in concentration, but suddenly the life scanner attached to her belt shrilled an alarm. Bel cried out. Shu's eyes snapped open. The girl was sprawling on the ground, her amber braids trailing in the dust. Her face was a contorted mask of dismay.

“What—” Shu started to say. Bel's calf welled with blood.

The girl looked down at her injured leg and gave a sudden whimper. Shu had the flashlight out and was wheeling around her. In the shadows, something scuffled. She glimpsed a small, pointed face, caught in the light. Something hissed, displaying sharp teeth, then ran through the shadows and disappeared. Bel was sitting on the ground with her teeth clenched, clutching her injured leg.

Shu helped her to her feet.

“
What was that?
” Bel cried.

“Bel, I don't know. I didn't get a good look at it. Some kind of animal, maybe. Look, we've got to get you back to the aircar and get your leg cleaned up.” A disquieting thought occurred to her. “Do you think you'll be able to fly us back to camp?”

Bel nodded. “Most of the controls are on autoset. I'll manage. What about that field we picked up?”

“Whatever it was,” Shu said grimly, “it can wait. Now that we've found the settlement, we can always come back.”

The sun had gone over the edge of the cliff now, and a thin wind had sprung up, stirring the dust along the passageways as Shu helped the girl hobble back to the aircar. When they reached the gate, Shu stopped and looked back. Above the cliff, and immediately over the shattered roof of the tower, a single star hung in the bright western sky, like a distant promise.

Late one afternoon, Mevennen came to sit with me on the long balcony as the day faded across the waters of the estuary. The bones protruded painfully within the contours of her face. Her silver eyes were rimmed with shadows and it seemed as though the weight of her hair was too heavy for her head to bear.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

She said tightly, “I'm all right.”

I didn't think it was true, but neither did I want to pester her with questions. We both fell silent. At this time of the day, flocks of waterbirds were passing in skeins downriver: the balachoi which came to summer here. Mevennen and I watched them as they flew like shadows across the sun and the air was filled with the beat of their fringed wings. When the last of the birds had gone, the air was still and mild. The remaining sunlight fell across the black wood of the balustrade so that it took on the deep glow of silk, and our shadows raced across the floor of the balcony and vanished into the cool shade beyond.

After a while, Mevennen sighed. “I'm going to bed. I'm tired today …” and with an embarrassed gesture, she added, “
Oh
, I'm sorry. I'm complaining again.”

“No you're not,” I said affectionately. I reached out and touched her hand. She did not reply but stood stiffly and stretched her arms above her head with her fingers linked. She bent backward and the care with which she did so made me catch my breath, although she still moved with grace.

When she had gone, I sat for a time on the balcony. Damoth had long passed over the rim of the world and the tide was beginning to swell the waters of the estuary when the sound came, the step behind me on the balcony. I did not need to turn around to see who it was; I already knew. Who would not know, when their lover stepped softly up behind them after long absence?

I'd let it be known that I would be here; I'd allowed myself to hope that Morrac would come, but it was greatly against my better judgment. Our affair had, at that time, lasted for the better part of four years. From the beginning he had always been the dominant one. I knew that it hurt me, drained me, ate at me like an unhealed sore, nor were others slow to tell me. But some perversity inherent in my character led me to take a peculiar enjoyment in the
indifference and hostility to which I was subjected, and just when I thought everything was over, he'd come back and rekindle our affair with all its old intensity. Why I should have found that particular combination of coldness and closeness so compulsive, I don't know. My relationships with other people didn't have the same dependency, although the attraction that I had felt for a girl years ago had an element of it. This feeling still persisted, but at times I looked back at myself and knew that it was waning, strained by my impatience at my own self-indulgence.