He wasn’t looking at her; he slid a compartment shut beneath the window curve at the craft’s front and rapped on it with a hand. “If you want an explanation about how the magic ship flies, I’m afraid I just haven’t got the time. I’m late for an appointment.”
“I know how they fly, my cousin told me.” Her own irritation chewed the words. “I just want you to take me to Carbuncle.”
He did look up this time, in mild astonishment. She forced the smile that said she had every right to ask. Several responses almost got past his lips, before he stooped to pick up his tool kit. “Sorry. I’m not going to Carbuncle.”
“But—” She took a step, putting herself between him and the door opening as he started toward it. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Shotover Bay , if it’s any business of yours. Now if you’ll just—”
“That’s all right. That’s fine, in fact. Will you take me there instead?”
He pushed back his black, reed-straight hair, leaving a muddy track through it; he was beardless, but a black mustache draped his downturned mouth. “Just why in the names of a thousand gods should I do that?”
“Well…” She almost frowned at his lack of generosity. “I’d be glad to do anything you ask, to repay you.” She hesitated, as his expression changed for the worse. “I… guess I’ve made a mistake, haven’t I?”
He laughed unexpectedly. “That’s all right, missy.” He thrust the tool kit past her into the space behind the seats. “But you shouldn’t be so ready to run off with the first stranger you see. You might just wind up in a worse situation than the one you think you’re in.”
“Oh—” Moon felt her cheeks burning in the cold air. She put a hand up, covering her face. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant! Here in the islands, when someone wants to go somewhere, and you’re going, you just — take them…” Her voice disappeared. “I’m sorry.” She started away, stumbling over a rut, suddenly feeling like precisely the foolish child she had seen in his eyes.
“Well, wait a minute.” The sand of annoyance was still in his voice, but its sting wasn’t as sharp. “Why do you want to go there?”
She turned back again, trying to remember the trefoil hidden beneath her slicker, and that she had a right to a sibyl’s dignity. “I want to find a ship at Shotover Bay to take me to Carbuncle. It’s very important to me.”
“It must be, to make a Summer willing to get into a flying machine with an oflvvorlder.”
Moon’s mouth tightened. “Just because we don’t use off world technology, that doesn’t mean we turn pale at the sight of it.”
He laughed again, appreciatively, as though he enjoyed being paid in kind. “All right, then. If all you want is a ride, missy, you’ve got it.”
“Moon.” She put out her hand. “Moon Dawntreader Summer.”
“Ngenet ran Abase Miroe.” He took her hand and shook it, not clasping wrists as she was used to; said, as an afterthought, “Last name first. Climb aboard and strap in.”
She climbed in resolutely on the far side, looking no further than the present moment, and fumbled with the safety harness. The interior of this craft was different from the one she had seen in her trance; she thought that it looked simpler. She held tight to the straps, and its false familiarity. Ngenet ran Ahase Miroe got in behind the controls and sealed the doors; the whine began to build in the space around them, muted this time, no louder than the rush of blood in her ears.
There was no sensation of movement when they lifted from the field, but as she saw Neith and her village fall away below she felt a sourceless wrench of pain, as though something inside her had been pulled apart. She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling the trefoil safely beneath her clothes, and sang a silent prayer.
The hovercraft banked sharply, heading out over the open sea.
10
Jerusha PalaThion stared out at the endless mirroring blue seeded with green island hummocks. She pictured it flowing past beneath the patrol craft like waters under the earth, pictured herself caught in an endless loop of time, freed from the suffocating futility of her duty… She blinked her eyes back into focus, glanced over at Gundhalinu where he sat reading behind the autopilot-locked controls. “How much longer till we get to Shotover Bay , BZ?”
He glanced up, down at the chronometer on the panel. “Still a couple of hours, Inspector.”
She sighed, and shifted her feet again.
“You sure you don’t want to read one of my books, Inspector?” He held up one of the battered Old Empire fantasies that he spent half his off-duty time wallowing in. It was in Tiamatan; she read the title: Tales of the Future Past.
“No thanks. Being bored is more interesting.” She flicked an iesta pod discreetly into the waste container. “How can an honest technocrat like you stand to read that crap, BZ? I’m surprised it doesn’t cause brain damage.”
He looked indignant. “These are based on solid archaeological data and analysis of sibyl Transfers. They’re—” he grinned, the vacant bliss crept back into his eyes—”the next best thing to being there.”
“Carbuncle’s the next best thing to being there; and if that’s any sample, good riddance to the good old days.”
He made a disgusted noise. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to get away from when I read. The real Carbuncle was—”
“Whatever it was, was probably just as bad. And furthermore, nobody gave a good goddamn about changing things then, any more than they do now.” She settled back in her seat, frowning out at the blue water. “Sometimes I feel like a bottle thrown into the sea, carried endlessly on the tide, never reaching a shore. The message I carry, the meaning that I try to give my own life, is never realized . because no one is ever interested.”
Gundhalinu put his book down, said softly, “Commander really knows how to try your sainted ancestors, doesn’t he?”
She looked back at him.
“I could hear every word both of you said yesterday, clear out in the ward room.” He grimaced. “You have more nerve than I have, Inspector.”
“Maybe just a shorter fuse, after all these years.” She pulled absently at the seal of her heavy coat. “Not that it made any difference.” They were still on their way to Shotover Bay on the edge of Summer, as near to the antipodes of LiouxSked’s universe as he could arrange on short notice. “A quarter around the planet in a patrol craft after a ‘possible’ smuggler report!”
“ ‘While the real criminals deal openly in Carbuncle and laugh in our faces.’ ” Gundhalinu quoted the end of it, from yesterday, with a sorrowful smile. “Yes, ma’am, it stinks.” His hands tightened over the wheel. “But if we really can knock down somebody running embargoed goods to the locals… We’ve gotten a lot of heat about that lately.”
“From the Queen.” Jerusha’s mouth twitched, remembering the royal display of hypocrisy that she had endured during her most recent official visit.
“I can’t understand that, Inspector.” He shook his head. “I thought she wanted all the high technology she could get her hands on for Tiamat; she’s always talking up technological independence. She wouldn’t care whether it was illegal. Hell, I expect shed prefer it that way.”
“She doesn’t care about Tiamat or technology or anything else, except in relation to how they affect her own position. And some of the contraband goods have been getting in her way lately.”
“Hard to imagine how.” Gundhalinu changed position carefully behind the controls.
“Not all the customers of the trade are harmless cranks.” She had read reports on smuggling in the Winter outback with interest and more than a little sympathy: The few independent smugglers’ ships that managed to penetrate the Hegemony’s planetary surveillance net could make a small fortune on a cargo of information tapes and tech manuals, power cells and hard-to-come-by components. There were always wealthy Winter nobles with an obsession about what made things shine and hidden labs on their island estates; self-styled mad scientists trying to crack the secrets of the atom and the universe. There were others privately stockpiling technology against the coming off worlder departure, too; planning to set up their own little fiefdoms, and never realizing that the Hegemony had its way of making sure they didn’t. There were even a few off worlders who had gone native living out here in this wilderness of water, and not all of them liked the restrictions the Hedge put on their adopted home.