Elsevier nodded, and began to give Moon the words in Tiamatan as Aspundh spoke again: “Tiamat is — undeveloped. Do you understand where you go when you’re thrown into the darkness? Do you understand why sometimes you see another world instead?”
Elsevier shook her head at Aspundh as she finished. “That’s why I her to you brought.”
Moon looked toward the window, searching the air. “The Lady chooses…”
“Ah. So on your world your goddess is in charge — or you’ve always believed that she is. What would you say if I told you that your visions weren’t a gift from the gods, but a legacy of the Old Empire?”
Moon realized that she had been holding her breath, let it out suddenly. “Yes! I mean, I — I expected it. Everyone here knows I’m a sibyl; how could they know? You’re a sibyl; and you’ve never heard of the Lady.” She had long ago stopped seeing the Sea Mother literally, a beautiful woman with seaweed hair, clad in spume, rising from the waves in a mer-drawn shell. But even the formless, elemental force she had sometimes felt touch her soul would not have left Her element or journeyed so far. If in fact she had ever even felt anything, beyond her own longing to feel… “You have so many gods, you off worlders She was too numbed by loss and change to feel one more blow. “Why do you have so many?”
“Because there are so many worlds; each world has at least one, and usually many, of its own. “My gods or your gods,” they say, ‘who knows which are the real ones?” So we worship them all, just to be sure.”
“But how could the Old Empire put sibyls everywhere, if no god did? Weren’t they only humans?”
“They were.” He reached out to the bowl of sugared fruits in the mil table center. “But in some ways they had the power of gods. They III could travel between worlds directly, in weeks or months, not years — they had hyper light communicators and star drives And yet their Empire fell apart in the end… even they overextended themselves. Or so we think.”
But even as the Empire fell, some remarkable and selfless group had created a storehouse, a data bank, of the Empire’s learning in every area of human knowledge. They had hoped that with all of humanity’s discoveries recorded in one central, inviolable place, they would make the impending collapse of their civilization less complete, and the rebuilding that much swifter. And because they realized that technical collapse might be virtually total on many worlds, they had devised the simplest outlets for their data bank that they could conceive of — human beings. Sibyls, who could transmit their receptivity directly to their chosen successors, blood to blood.
Moon’s fingers felt the scar on her wrist. “But… how can someone’s blood show you what’s in a — a machine on some other world? I don’t believe it!”
“Call it a divine infection. You understand infection?”
She nodded. “When someone is sick, you stay away from them.”
“Exactly. A sibyl’s ‘infection’ is a man-made disease, a biochemical reaction so sophisticated that we’ve barely begun to unravel its subtleties. It creates, or perhaps implants, certain restructurings in the brain tissue that make a sibyl receptive to a faster-than-light communication medium. You become a receiver, and a transmitter. You communicate directly with the original data source. That’s where you are when you drown in nothingness: within the computer’s circuits, not lost in space — or with other sibyls living on other worlds, who have answers to questions the Old Empire never thought to ask.” He lifted his glass to her with an encouraging smile. “All this verbalizing makes me dry.”
Moon watched the trefoil turn against the rich, gold-threaded brown of his robe; saw her own turning silently, exiled, on a hook in an air-conditioned room somewhere high overhead. “Is it the disease that makes people go mad, then? It’s death to kill a sibyl… death to love a sibyl—” She broke off, touching the cool stones along the table edge.
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what they say on Tiamat? We have that saying too; though we don’t take it literally any more. Yes, for some people infection with the ‘disease’ does cause madness. Sibyls are chosen for certain personality traits, and emotional stability is one… and of course a sibyl’s blood can transmit the disease. So can saliva — but usually the other person must have an open wound to become infected. Obviously it isn’t ‘death to love a sibyl,” with reasonable care, or you wouldn’t have seen my daughter today. I suppose the superstition was fostered in order to protect sibyls from harm in less civilized societies. The very symbol we wear, the barbed trefoil, is a symbol for biological contamination; it’s one of the oldest symbols known to man.”
But she heard nothing after—”It isn’t death to love a sibyl? Then Sparks… we don’t have to be apart. We can live together! El sevier!” Moon hugged the old woman until she gasped. “Thank you! Thank you for bringing me here — you’ve saved my life. Between the sea and the sky, there’s nothing I won’t do for you!”
“What’s this?” Aspundh leaned on his fist, bemused. “Who is this Sparks ? A romance?”
Elsevier pushed Moon away to arm’s length and held her there gently. “Oh, Moon, my dear child,” she said with inexplicable sorrow, “I don’t want to have to hold you to that promise.”
Moon twisted her head, not understanding. “We were pledged, but he went away when I became a sibyl. But now, when I go back I can tell him—”
“Go back? To Tiamat?” Aspundh straightened.
“Moon,” Elsevier whispered, “we can’t take you back.” The words rushed out like a flight of birds.
“I know, I know I have to wait until—” She beat the words away.
“Moon, listen to her!” The shock of Cress’s broken silence stopped it.
“What?” She went slack in Elsevier’s grip. “You said we would—”
“We’re never going back to Tiamat, Moon. We never meant to, we can’t. And neither can you.” Elsevier’s lip trembled. “I lied to you,” looking away, searching for an easy way, finding none. “It’s all been a monstrous lie. I’m — sorry.” She let go of Moon’s arms.
“But why?” Moon brushed distraughtly at her hair, strands of cobweb tickling her face. “Why?”
“Because it’s too late. Tiamat’s Gate is closing, becoming too unstable for a small ship like ours to pass through safely. It… hasn’t been months since we left Tiamat, Moon. It’s been more than two years. It will be just as long going back.”
“That’s a lie! We weren’t on the ship for years.” Moon pushed up onto her knees as comprehension melted and ran down around her. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I should have done it at the beginning.” Elsevier’s hand covered her eyes. Cress said something to Aspundh in rapid Sandhi.
“She isn’t lying to you, Moon.” Aspundh sat back, unconsciously separating himself from them. Elsevier translated his words dully. “Ship’s time is not the same as time on the outside. It moves more slowly. Look at me, look at Elsevier — and remember that I was younger than TJ by many years. Moon, if you returned to Tiamat now you would have been missing for nearly five years.”
“No… no, no!” She struggled to her feet, wrenching loose as Cress tried to hold her down. She crossed the room to the window, stood gazing out on the gardens and sky with her forehead pressed hard against the pane. Her breath curtained the glass with ephemeral frost, making her eyes snow blind “I won’t stay on this world. You can’t keep me here! I don’t care if it’s been a hundred years — I have to go home!” She clenched her hands; her knuckles squeaked on the glass. “How could you do this to me, when you knew?” turning furiously. “I trusted you! Damn your ship, and all your gods damn you!”
Aspundh was standing now beside the low table; he came slowly toward her across the room. “Look at them, Moon.” He spoke quietly, almost conversationally. “Look at their faces, and tell me they wanted your life to ruin.”