The Night's Dawn Trilogy (6 page)

Patience,
Hyale
counselled.
You will grow, you will learn. The data you possess will be integrated in time.

Acetes
cautiously opened its affinity sensitivity to cover the whole of Saturn’s environment, and received a chorus of greetings
from the habitats, an even greater wave of acknowledgement from individual adult Edenists, excited trills from children; and
then its own kind offered encouragement, infant voidhawks nesting within the rings.

Its tumbling halted, it hung below
Hyale
’s lower hull, looking round with raw senses.
Hyale
began to alter their trajectory, moving the egg into a stable circular orbit around the gas giant where it would spend the
next eighteen years growing to full size.

Iasius
plunged on towards the cloudscape, ploughing a dark telltale furrow through the rings for any entity watching with the right
kind of senses. Its flight produced enough power to energize two more eggs,
Briseis
and
Epopeus
, while it was still in the A-ring.
Hesperus
emerged while it was passing through the Cassini division.
Graeae, Ixion, LaocoÖn
and
Merope
all awoke in the B-ring, to be borne away by the voidhawks whose compositional patterns they had been given.

Udat
caught up with
Iasius
near the inner edge of the Bring. It had been a long, arduous flight, straining even the blackhawk’s power reserves, testing
manoeuvrability as seldom before. But now
Iasius
was calling for a mate again, and
Udat
glided across the gap until their distortion fields merged and the hulls almost touched. It sent
Iasius
its own compositional pattern through the affinity bond, swept away by a fervent gratification.

I thank you,
Iasius
said at the end.
I feel this one will be something special. There is a greatness to it.

The egg cannoned up from its ovary, sending out a cascade of polyp flakes, and Udat was left to exert its distortion field
to brake the intrigued, eager infant as
Iasius
departed. The puzzled blackhawk had no chance to ask what it had meant by that last enigmatic statement.

I welcome you to life,
Udat
said formally, when it had finally stopped the seven-metre globe from spinning.

Thank you,
Oenone
replied.
Where are we going now?

To a higher orbit. This one is too close to the planet.

Oh!
A pause as it probed round with immature senses, its giddy thoughts quietening down.
What is a planet?

The last egg was
Priam
, ejected well below the meagre lip of the B-ring. Those voidhawks remaining in the flight, now down to some thirty strong,
peeled away from
Iasius
. They were already dangerously close to the cloudscape which dominated a third of the sky; gravity was exerting its malign
influence on local space, gnawing at the fringes of their distortion fields, impairing the propulsive efficiency.

Iasius
continued to descend, its lower, faster orbit carrying it ahead of the others. Its distortion field began to falter, finally
overwhelmed by the intensity of the gravitational effect five hundred kilometres above the gas giant.

The terminator rose ahead, a black occlusion devouring the silently meandering clouds. Faint phosphene speckles swam through
the eddies and peaks, weaving in and out of the thicker ammonia-laden braids, their light ebbing and kindling in hesitant
patterns.
Iasius
shot into the penumbra, darkness expanding around it like an elemental force. Saturn had ceased to be a planet, an astronomical
object, it was becoming hugely solid. The bitek starship curved down at an ever increasing angle. Ahead of it was a single
fiery streak, growing brighter in its optical sensors. The darkside equator, that frozen remote wasteland, was redolent with
sublime grandeur.

Ring particles were falling alongside
Iasius
, a thick, dark rain, captured by the gossamer fingers of the ionosphere, a treacherously insistent caress which robbed them
of speed, of altitude. And, ultimately, existence.

When they had been lured down to the fringes of the ionosphere, icy gusts of hydrogen molecules burnt around them, emitting
banners of spectral flame. They dipped rapidly as atmospheric resistance built, first glowing like embers, then crowned by
incandescent light; sunsparks, stretching a hundred-kilometre contrail behind them. Their billion-year flight ended swiftly
in a violent spectacle: a dazzling concussion which flung out a shower of twinkling debris, quickly extinguished. All that
remained was a tenuous trail of black soot which was swept up by the howling cyclones.

Iasius
reached the extremity of the ionosphere. The light of the dying ring particles was hot on its lower hull. A tremulous glow
appeared around its rim. Polyp began to char and flake away, orange flecks bulleting off into the distance. The bitek starship
began to lose peripheral senses as its specialist receptor cells grew warm. Denser layers of hydrogen pummelled the hull.
The desent curve began to get bumpy, vexatious supersonic winds were beginning to bite.
Iasius
flipped over. The abrupt turn had disastrous consequences on its avian glide; with the hull’s blunt underside smashing head
on into the hydrogen, the starship was suddenly subjected to a huge deceleration force. Dangerous quantities of flame blossomed
right across the hull as broad swaths of polyp ablated.
Iasius
started to tumble helplessly down towards the scorching river of light.

The retinue of voidhawks watched solemnly from their safe orbit a thousand kilometres above, singing their silent hymn of
mourning. After they had honoured
Iasius
’s passing with a single orbit they extended their distortion fields, and launched themselves back towards Romulus.

The human captains of the voidhawks involved with the mating flight and the
Iasius
’s crew had passed the time of the flight in a circular hall reserved for that one purpose. It reminded Athene of some of
the medieval churches she had visited during her rare trips to Earth, the same vaulted ceiling and elaborate pillars, the
intimidating air of reverence, though here the polyp walls were a clean snow-white, and instead of an altar there was a fountain
bubbling out of an antique marble Venus.

She stood at the head of her crew, the image of Saturn’s searing equator lingering in her mind. A last gentle emanation of
peacefulness as the plasma sheath wrapped
Iasius
in its terminal embrace.

It was over.

The captains stopped by one at a time to extend their congratulations, their minds touching hers, bestowing a fragile compassion
and understanding. Never, ever a commiseration; these gatherings were supposed to be a reaffirmation of life, celebrating
the birth of the eggs. And
Iasius
had energized all ten; some voidhawks went to meet the equator with several eggs remaining.

Yes, they were right to toast
Iasius
.

He’s coming over, look,
Sinon said. There was a mild tone of resentment in the thought.

Athene raised her eyes from the captain of the
Pelion
, and observed Meyer making his way through the crowd towards her. The
Udat
’s captain was a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties, black hair cut back close to his skull. In contrast to the silky
blue ceremonial ship-tunics of the voidhawk captains he wore a functional grey-green ship’s one-piece and matching boots.
He nodded curtly in response to the formal greetings he received.

If you can’t say anything nice,
Athene told Sinon, using singular-engagement mode,
don’t say anything at all.
She didn’t want anything to spoil the wake; besides she felt a certain sympathy for someone so obviously out of place as
Meyer was. Nor would it do the hundred families any harm to introduce some diversity into their stock. She kept that thought
tightly locked at the core of her mind, knowing full well how this bunch of traditionalists would react to such heresy.

Meyer stood before her, and inclined his head in a swift bow. He was a good five centimetres shorter than her, and she was
one of the smaller Edenists in the hall.

Captain—
she began. She cleared her throat. No fool like an old one; his affinity bond was with
Udat
alone. A unique neuron symbiont meshed with his medulla, providing him with a secure link to its clone-analogue in the
Udat
, nothing like the hereditary Edenist communal affinity. “Captain Meyer, my compliments to your ship. It was an excellent
flight.”

“Thank you for saying so, Captain. It was an honour to take part. You must be proud all the eggs were energized.”

“Yes.” She lifted her glass of white wine in salute. “So what brings you to Saturn?”

“Trade.” He glanced round stiffly at the other Edenists. “I was delivering a cargo of electronics from Kulu.”

Athene felt like laughing out loud, his freshness was just the tonic she needed. She put her arm through his, ignoring the
startled looks it caused, and drew him away from the rest of the crew. “Come on, you’re not comfortable with them. And I’m
too old to be bothered by how many navy flight code violation warrants are hanging over your head.
Iasius
and I left all that behind us a long time ago.”

“You used to be in the Confederation Navy?”

“Yes. Most of us put in a shift. We Edenists have a strong sense of duty sequenced into us.”

He grinned into his glass. “You must have been a formidable team, that was some mating flight.”

“History now. What about you? I want to hear all about life on the knife edge. The gung-ho adventures of an independent trader,
the shady deals, the wild flights. Are you fabulously wealthy? I have several granddaughters I wouldn’t mind getting rid of.”

Meyer laughed. “You have no grandchildren. You’re too young.”

“Nonsense. Stop being so gallant. Some of the girls are older than you.” She enjoyed drawing him out, listening to his stories,
his difficulties in making the repayments to the bank for the loan he’d taken to buy
Udat
, his anger at the shipping cartels. He provided a welcome anodyne to the black fissure of emptiness which had opened in her
heart, the one that would never close.

And when he left, when the wake was over, the thanks given, she lay on her new bed in her new house and found ten young stars
burning brightly at the back of her mind.
Ia-sius
had been right after all, hope was eternal.

For the next eighteen years
Oenone
floated passively within the B-ring where
Udat
had left it. The particles flowing around it were occasionally deluged with bursts of static, interacting with the gas giant’s
magnetosphere to stir the dust grains into aberrant patterns, looking like the spokes of a massive wheel. But for most of
the time they obeyed the simpler laws of orbital mechanics, and whirled obediently around their gravitonic master without
deviation.
Oenone
didn’t care, both states were equally nourishing.

As soon as the blackhawk departed, the egg began to ingest the tides of mass and energy which washed over its shell. Elongating
at first, then slowly bloating into two bulbs over the course of the first five months. One of these flattened out into the
familiar voidhawk lens shape, the other remained globular, squatting at the centre of what would ultimately evolve into the
bitek starship’s lower hull. It extruded fine strands of organic conductor, which acted as an induction mechanism, picking
up a strong electrical current from the magnetosphere to power the digestive organs inside. Ice grains and carbon dust, along
with a host of other minerals, were sucked into pores dotting the shell and converted into thick protein-rich fluids to supply
the multiplying cells within the main hull.

At the core of the nutrient-production globe, the zygote called Syrinx began to gestate inside a womb-analogue organ, supported
by a cluster of haematopoiesis organs.

Human and voidhawk grew in union for a year, developing the bond that was unique even among Edenists. The memory fragments
which had come from
Iasius
, the navigation and flight instincts it had imparted at the birth, became a common heritage. Throughout their lives they
would always know exactly where the other was; flight trajectories and swallow manoeuvres were a joint intuitive choice.

Volscen
arrived a year to the day after
Iasius
’s last flight, rendezvousing with the fledgeling voidhawk egg as it orbited contentedly amid the ring.
Oenone
’s nutrient-production globe disgorged the womb-analogue and its related organs in a neat package, which the
Volscen
’s crew retrieved.

Athene was waiting just inside the airlock as they brought the organ package on board. It was about the size of a human torso,
a dark crinkled shell sprayed with rays of frost where liquids had frozen during its brief exposure to space. They started
to melt as soon as it came into contact with the
Volscen
’s atmosphere, leaving little viscous puddles on the green composite decking.

Athene could sense the infant’s mind inside, quietly cheerful, with a hint of expectancy. She searched through the background
whispers of the affinity band for the insect-sentience of the package’s controlling bitek processor, and ordered it to open.

It split apart into five segments like a fruit; fluids and mucus spilled out. At the centre was a milk-coloured sac connected
to the organs with thick ropy cords, pulsing rhythmically. The infant was a dark shadow, stirring in agitation as the unaccustomed
light shone on her. There was a gurgling sound as the package voided its amniotic fluid across the floor, and the sac began
to deflate. The membrane peeled back.