Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (14 page)

Happiest of all was Tancredi. He clucked and chuckled and boasted and got drunk in the taverns and was scatty as a dog in heat. One could have been forgiven for thinking that he had been appointed Master of the
Nightingale.

Came the day (night actually) when the ship arrived.

Everyone gathered outside Tancredi’s house on the heights. People watched the ship approach from dusk when it was just a glowing light in the sky until half past one in the morning when it finally anchored and occupied two-thirds of the night sky above Pacifico. It maintained an orbit at least two shuttle orbits high. Any closer and its field of gravity, let alone its electro-magnetic aura, might have damaged our primitive shuttle.

I floated high above Tancredi’s house and was accompanied by one of the thin specialists from Tinker who was carried by a gravity unit similar to mine.

It was the size of the ship that impressed most people. Everyone knew the
Nightingale
was big, but big does not describe it. This creature (for so many people thought of it) closed out the stars in a vast area of space. It had the broad shape of a glowing white crab complete with two claws which, my expert explained to me, housed the sensitive projection plates of the STGs (symbol transformation generators). The entire artifact wavered like an object seen under the sea.

“Why does it glow and shimmer?” I asked.

My expert, whose specialty was in field equilibrium physics, offered a pleasingly simple answer. “An object as big as the
Nightingale
can only remain coherent within its own equilibrium field. It would break up with stress otherwise. The glow, as you call it, is the moment, the interface, between the self-generated field and raw space. Particles are being randomized all the time around it. That is what you can see.”

Occasionally we saw a flickering blue light which danced around the ship. Before I could ask the question I received the answer. “That’s the gravity monitor working. The
Nightingale
has over a thousand gravity traps. That’s why it can’t come too close. It’s edging into perfect orbit now. You watch. You’re in for a treat in a moment.”

Hardly had my expert finished speaking when there came a tingling in the air. I felt it as a sudden increase in static electricity and it alarmed me for the last time I felt such a build-up was during the War of Ignorance and then it presaged disaster. My companion who had straight shoulder-length blond hair responded in a more physical way. Her hair rose and stood out stiffly from her scalp. “Now watch,” she whispered. Suddenly there was a blaze of light from the ship. Three spokes of blue fire stabbed down. The first entered the sea about five miles off shore close to Perry Island. The second lighted on the summit of Mt. Topo about twenty-seven miles south of the Pacifico Monastery. The third grounded beyond the northern mountains. As soon as the bonds were made the spokes of light settled to a steady glow, like a fluorescent tube, and the static electricity ebbed away.

“Whew,” I heard my companion breathe out. “Don’t know why, but I always hold my breath when that happens.”

“The thrill,” I offered by way of explanation, “demands full attention so that even breathing is a distraction.”

My companion nodded vaguely. “Whatever,” she said. “It’s almost as good as sex.”

The next day was a day of ceremony. There was a formal handing over of the ship and a signing of papers and a swearing of oaths.

Magister Suliman, who had headed the committee charged with selecting a captain for the
Nightingale,
had traveled from Assisi to Juniper aboard the ship and he solemnly conferred the captaincy on Wilberfoss with an antique ceremony of laying on of hands. Choirs sang, bands played and high above us shimmered the white and blue shape of the
Nightingale.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Wilberfoss, accompanied only by senior members of the order and some technicians, climbed aboard a land-raft and was carried up and into the ship. This event made the resemblance between the ship and a crab even more striking since the ship’s access port was located where a crab ingests its food.

I was not invited up to the ship (nor was Tancredi, much to his chagrin) but I heard what happened. This was the first meeting between Wilberfoss and the biocrystalline brains of the ship and the brains needed to adopt him. They needed to feed upon him and that night Wilberfoss slept alone in the very heart of the ship, connected to the computers, and they learned from him.

In the morning he was Captain not only in name but in reality. The ship was his and in some of its workings had become a reflection of him. It was tuned to him. Not that we on the ground could notice any difference of course. But the technicians could. The next day in the taverns the only topic of discussion was how well or otherwise the living brain of a man and the semi-living brain of a cultured amalgam had managed to meld. Theory had predicted certain results and there had been many experiments and test runs, but by its very nature, there could only be one true test. After all the excitement and the holding of breath, this had worked out well achieving a few percentile points above expectation, and that was a cause for satisfaction, argument and merry-making in the taverns.

When he next appeared on the surface of Juniper I thought that Wilberfoss looked tired and gaunt. However, he was cheerful and seemed to have plenty of energy. I guessed that he was coming to terms with the awesome responsibility he had accepted. I wondered at that time whether the whole
Nightingale
program might not be too vast for one man to accomplish, for men are not machines, no matter how hard they sometimes try to imitate machines.

The fourth day after its arrival was Open Day aboard the
Nightingale.
I contrived to accompany Magister Tancredi who, along with other senior consceurs and confreres such as the bursar and the monastery cook, was given a special tour before the public were admitted. The bursar, I should tell you, is a middle-aged lady with a lantern jaw and gray hair. She is generally serious and it is my impression that she rather disapproves of Magister Tancredi’s hedonistic ways. This could be an affectation, however, as her prim manner disappears after she has had a few cups of wine. The cook is a small foxy-faced man with prominent teeth and no chin to speak of. He is liked by all and is, in his own way, a perfectionist. He regularly plays cards with Magister Tancredi. The other members of the party I hardly knew.

The ascent to the
Nightingale
was aboard one of the gravity land-rafts. “Rafts” suggests something simple and quite utilitarian. Well, these “rafts” were spaceships in their own right. Each one of them, and the
Nightingale
had ten, could enter a hostile environment such as a methane world or a world where the oceans were sulphuric acid and still function. These were the life-craft which could pick up sick or dying aliens in any environment and protect them until they were safe aboard the
Nightingale.
For the present excursion, the raft we were on had soft seats and sweet air and even music. It was programmed for human and Close Metabolism species, but the ship could just as easily have become an aquarium or contained a broth of gases.

The ascent was rapid and described a spiral up to the landing bay. As we approached the
Nightingale
its resemblance to a crab diminished, and it became a functional spaceship though Tancredi likened it, admiringly please understand, to a bleached skeleton. Others nodded when he said this and I think all the humans had been searching for a simile which would describe the
Nightingale.
He was right, there was something skeletal about it: not only in its color but also in its shape.

Our entry into the equilibrium field was spectacular. Force-field colors of blue and green washed over the entire raft and sparkled around us and shone through the observation ports as they randomized every extraneous particle. There was a hair-raising moment which had all the confreres laughing in a mixture of apprehension and delight, and then we were through. The planet below, familiar old Juniper, now wavered like a stone in a stream. We paused briefly while the
Nightingale’s
computers took stock of us and calculated the new tolerances required by our mass, and then we proceeded.

A brilliant light filled the cabin of the raft. The humans had to cover their eyes until the view ports adjusted and darkened. With my filters in place I was able to observe directly. The light was a reflection of sunlight from the twin STGs. The insides of the “claws” were polished to brilliance and reflected the blazing sun and the close stars. It was between these mirror plates that the raw energy of Noh-time travel was generated.

Docking was simple. We locked onto a beacon. A laser rod reached out and touched us and drew us in. The doors of the landing bay swung open and we slid inside the ship like a piece of well-oiled machinery, like the bolt of a rifle slamming home. As we passed through the entry I was aware of microscopic scrutiny followed by the tingle of a particle cleansing. Nothing living could now be harbored on the outside of our ship.

Once inside the
Nightingale,
the large space-security doors closed behind us. Immediately, brilliant lights from high above blinked on. They revealed that the docking chamber was blue and white. Everything was spotless and I looked in vain for the scuff marks and dust which characterize most docking bays that I have visited.

We settled, rocking slightly as our anti-gravity cells maintained equilibrium with the vast ship. After a moment, a magnetic rail linked with our craft and it began to glide down the long landing bay. We were being conducted along the path designated for our particular raft. Air-locks, each like a tunnel, were ranged around us. We veered upward and to the right and plunged into a tunnel marked with the number 7. Again I was aware of scrutiny and then we found ourselves in a cheerful yellow bay and our craft edged between twin piers. There was a slight bump and the craft settled for the last time.

An air-lock like a giant sucker detached from the wall of the bay and reached across to us and locked against our exit port. It was a fluid movement, very organic, like the flowing and reaching of a snail’s antennae.

When the air-lock was attached, the door from our craft opened. Waiting at the end of the air-lock tunnel was a young confrere of the Gentle Order. He was a trainee contact-specialist as was indicated by the belt of red and green which he wore around his robe. This man, who announced himself as Confrere Rimbawd, was to be our guide. He spoke with a raw, country accent.

“Welcome aboard the
Nightingale.
Please walk from the land-raft and join me. Docking procedures are entirely automatic so that any species can be shifted from the environment of the raft to its home environment. However, human and Close Metabolism species such as the Talline are considered able to manage their affairs by walking.”

“I never managed my affairs by walking,” murmured Tancredi to a colleague, speaking just loud enough to be heard by his fellows. Young Confrere Rimbawd was confused by the laughter. “If you will just come this way,” he said.

Our first visit was to that section of the hospital which was designed for human and Close Metabolism Life-forms (frequently known as CMLs). There were over a thousand individual chambers and each of them could be supplied with its own atmosphere. Each was self-contained and those life-forms which were vital enough could do their own catering. The chambers which contained special atmospheres had a blue light burning outside and the doors were locked. Visi-plate screens allowed those outside to contact and see and talk with those inside.

In residence in one room was a female Bonami, sometimes called a Tree Loafer. Tancredi touched her call plate for he had known many of the Bonami in his time and knew something of their main language. The Visi-plate shimmered and a face peered out at us. It was a greenish-gray elfin face with dark eyes and the skin had small spines like the horse chestnut. Tancredi spoke some words and then placed his thumb between his lips and pretended to bite it. Immediately the Bonami uttered a torrent of musical sounds which ended with her opening her mouth and firing her tongue at us. It was like a black feather unfolding. Tancredi spoke some more and the Bonami (whose name does not have an easy phonetic equivalent) leaned forward and adjusted her Visi-plate so that we could see into her chamber. The room had been adapted to resemble a treetop home and the Bonami was lying coiled in a hammock covered with a woven material. Despite the garment, we had for the first time some sense of the size of her perhaps twelve feet. Several of our party expressed astonishment and Tancredi commented that in the northern parts of her homeworld it was not uncommon to find Bonami of twenty feet and longer.

She uncoiled slowly and sensuously like a snake and reached for some fruit from a basket above her.

“Close Metabolism alien,” said one of our party. “How close?”

“Surprisingly close,” said Tancredi. “When I was down on their world I could walk about with just an air-synthesizer on my back. I only had to take a breath every few minutes. But the humidity! Phew. I used to wear a skirt of that flax stuff, and that was too much.” “Ask her why she is returning home.”

Tancredi complied and received a short reply after which the Bonami stretched one arm languidly down and closed the communication. “I think she is returning home to mate, or else she is returning home to give birth. I am not sure. She didn’t want to talk about it.”

Young Rimbawd looked at him and coughed politely. “It was neither of those,” he said. “She is returning to go back to the egg, to die that is. And she was upset because you didn’t identify yourself. Questions without identity invariably give offense you know, and the Bonami are very concerned with ceremony. You should have said who you were if you wanted to converse.”

“Hmph,” said Tancredi, or something like that. But one up for Rimbawd, I think.

Rimbawd walked us through his part of the hospital and showed us the special communal living cells where he and other contact confreres spent their time. The rooms were distinguished by their simplicity and recorded the taste of old Assisi. Not a few of the confreres looked on these with nostalgia for it was in such clean and simple quarters that many of them had come to their maturity. Windows looked out on the green hydroponics fields which formed a belt around the ship. Thus, although we were within the
Nightingale,
there was no sense of our being closed in.