He asked how she had come to be there, at the most remote place humans had ever visited. And before they were finished, she’d told him why Digger was such an extraordinary person, and he’d told her about Mary, and about how sorry he was for Judy Sternberg and her team of Goompahs-in-training.

He learned that she loved Offenbach. “Barcarolle,” from The Tales of Hoffmann, was playing in the background while they talked. They discovered a mutual interest in politics, although they disagreed on basic philosophy. But it was all right because they found common cause in the conviction that democratic government was, by its nature, corrupt, and had to be steam-cleaned every once in a while.

She liked live theater, and had thought she’d like to act on the stage, but she was too shy. “I get scared in front of an audience,” she told him sheepishly. He found that hard to believe.

Collingdale had acted in a couple of shows during his undergraduate days. His biggest role had been playing Octavius in Man and Superman.

He wondered why she had chosen so solitary a profession. “You must run into a lot of people like me,” he said. “Unsociable types.”

“Not really,” she said. “Not out here. Everybody loosens up. You can’t be alone in a place like this unless you’re literally, physically, alone.” She flashed the first truly warm smile he’d seen. “I love what I do for a living,” she added.

“Kellie.” Bill’s voice crackled out of the speaker.

“Go ahead.”

“It’s throwing off a big slug of cloud to starboard.”

She looked at Collingdale.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Here’s the picture.”

Bill put it on the navigation screen, the largest monitor on the bridge. A large plume was erupting off the right side. “It’s turning,” Collingdale said. He raised a triumphant fist. “The son of a bitch is turning!”

“You really think?” asked Kellie.

“No question. It turns left by throwing dust and gas off to the right.” He was out of his seat, charging around the bridge, unable to contain himself. “It’s taken the bait. It’s trying to chase us. It has a hard time turning, but it’s trying.” His gaze fell on Kellie. “I believe I love you,” he said. “Digger’s got it exactly right. I wish you a long and happy marriage.”

ARCHIVE

The beast is in pursuit.

— Ship’s Log, NCY Hawksbill

December 6

On board the Jenkins.

Sunday, December 7.

THE NEWS THAT the omega was turning ignited a minor celebration, and induced Digger and Whit to take the day off. They were sitting in the common room, congratulating one another, when Bill broke in. “Digger, your friend Macao is onstage again,” he said. “—In Kulnar.”

“Doing a slosh?” he asked.

“Yes. Would you like to watch?”

“Actually, Bill, I’m half-asleep. But Whit might enjoy seeing it.”

Whit looked at him curiously. “Who’s Macao? What’s a slosh?”

“Whit, you’d be interested. A slosh is a kind of public debate. And Macao is the female I told you about.”

“The one you talked to?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Yes, I’d like very much to see it.”

Digger signaled Bill to start the feed.

Macao’s image appeared on-screen. She was in blue and white and was waving her arms in a way that Digger immediately saw signaled frustration. “—Not claiming that,” she said. “But what I am saying is that we should be ready. It’s a storm, like any other storm. Except it’s bigger.”

The biggest Goompah that Digger had seen was already on his feet. “But how do you know, Macao?” he demanded. “How could you possibly know?”

There was only one pickup, and it was positioned so that it caught her in profile. There were about two hundred Goompahs in view, but he guessed they were only half the audience.

“Forget what I know or don’t know, Pagwah,” she said. “Ask yourself what you can lose by moving your family to high ground.”

Digger translated for Whit.

“What we can lose is that we sit on a mountain and get rained on for three or four days.”

Another voice broke in, from someone off-screen: “Maybe if you were to tell us how you know what you say you know, we could make more sense of it.”

The Goompahs pounded their chairs.

“There have been signs,” Macao said. “Devils on the road, whispers in the night.”

Whit chuckled. “Wait till she hears about what happened in Savakol.”

“Devils on the road.” A female about six rows back got to her feet. “You’re the one always tells us there are no such things.”

“I was wrong.”

“Come on, Macao, do we believe in spirits now? Or do we not?”

Digger could see her hesitate. “I believe they exist,” she said.

“I almost think you mean it.” Again, Digger couldn’t see who was speaking.

“I do mean it.”

“That’s quite a change of heart.” This one was difficult to translate. Literally, the speaker said, “That’s not the way you used to put on your pants.”

“Nevertheless it’s true.”

They laughed at her. There was a smattering of applause, possibly for her courage, or maybe because she’d provided a good evening’s entertainment. But the mood was different from any of the sloshen Digger had seen previously. The others had been lighthearted, even the more serious events. But some of these creatures were angry.

“It may be coming,” she persisted.

“But you’re not sure.”

“There’s no way to be sure.”

“When is it coming?”

“In a few more days.”

“Macao.” Pagwah again. The big one. “Macao, I’m embarrassed for you, that you would play on everyone’s fears at a time like this. I wouldn’t have expected it from you.”

It ended in pushing and shoving and disgruntled patrons stalking out. One of the Goompahs fell down. Some stayed in their seats and pounded their chair arms. Macao thanked them over the general confusion and then she, too, was gone.

She reappeared moments later, at a side door, followed by a small group. They were engaged for a minute or two in animated conversation. Then they left, and the place was empty. An attendant entered, moved across to the far side, and the lamps began to go out.

“Magnificent,” said Whit. “This is the kind of stuff I came to see.” He produced a notebook and gazed at it. “I’d like to capture as much of this as I can. Sloshen. Uh, that’s the correct term, right?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful,” he said.

“What’s wonderful? How do you mean?”

“Nothing seems to be sacred here. They can get up and talk about anything. The audience screams and yells, but the police do not come to get you.” His eyes glowed. “You thought of this place as Athens when you first saw it.”

“Well, not exactly, Whit. That was Brackel.”

“I’m talking about the civilization, not merely this particular city.” He fell silent for a few moments. Then: “They have more freedom than the Athenians did. More even than we do.”

That annoyed Digger. He liked Whit, but he had no patience with crazy academics making charges no one could understand. “How could they have more freedom than we do?” he demanded. “We don’t have thought police running around.”

“Sure we do,” he said.

“Whit.” Digger raised his eyes to the overhead. “What kind of speech is prohibited? Other than yelling fire in a crowded place?”

Digger smiled. “Almost everything,” he said.

He was baffled. “Whit, that’s crazy. When’s the last time anybody was jailed for speaking out on something?”

“You don’t get jailed. But you have to be careful nonetheless not to offend people. We’re programmed, all of us, to take offense. Who can go in front of a mixed audience and say what he truly believes without concern that he will offend someone’s heritage, someone’s religion, someone’s politics. We are always on guard.”

“Well,” said Digger, “that’s different.”

“No it isn’t,” said Whit. “It’s different only in degree. At my prep school, it was drilled into us that good manners required we avoid talking politics or religion. Since almost everything in the domain of human behavior falls within one or the other of those two categories, we would seem to be left with the weather.” He looked momentarily bleak. “We have too much respect for unsubstantiated opinion. We enshrine it, we tiptoe cautiously around it, and we avoid challenging it. To our shame.

“Somewhere we taught ourselves that our opinions are more significant than the facts. And somehow we get our egos and our opinions and Truth all mixed up in a single package, so that when something does challenge one of the notions to which we subscribe, we react as if it challenges us.

“We’ve just watched Macao go in front of an audience and admit that a belief she’s probably held all her life, that the world can be explained by reason, is wrong. How many humans do you know who would be capable of doing that?”

“But she was right the first time, Whit. Now she’s got it backward.”

“Irrelevant. She’s flexible, Digger. It looks as if they all are. Show them the evidence, and they’re willing to rethink their position.” He shook his head. “I think there’s much to recommend these creatures.”

The actions of the gods are everywhere around us. We have but to look. What are the stars, if not divine fire? How does one explain the mechanism that carries the sun from the western ocean, where we see it sink each evening, to the eastern sky, where it reappears in all its glory each morning? How else can we account for the presence of plants and animals, which provide our subsistence? Or for the water that we drink? Or the eyes by which we see? The gods have been kind to us, and I sometimes wonder at their patience with those who cannot see their presence, and who deny their bounty.

— Gesper of Sakmarung

The Travels

(Translated by Ginko Amagawa)

On board the Hawksbill.

Monday, December 8.

THE CLOUD HAD been shedding velocity for months, possibly years. Because the Hawksbill was moving at a steady clip, the cloud was falling behind. Collingdale wished they could shed some velocity themselves.

But they couldn’t. Not without bumping, and probably collapsing, the kite.

He wondered when they would reach a point from which the cloud would no longer be able to get an approach angle on Lookout. “Insufficient data,” said Bill, when he asked the AI. The truth was they simply knew too little about the cloud’s capabilities.