The city of Losaltha, built on the splendid harbor which had served Barkesh for so many thousands of years back in Sharona, was in the process of becoming a major industrial city. For now, however, the Express and Portal Authority were still shipping steamships through to Salym by rail. They arrived as pre-manufactured modules, which were assembled at Losaltha and then put into service, closing the water gap between Losaltha and New Ramath. In fact, it had amazed Haliyar when she realized just how big the modules the Trans-Temporal Express's specialized freight cars could transport really were. Of course, most of the shipping here in Salym was still of local manufacture?small, wooden-hulled, and mostly powered by sail. That was the norm in the out-universes, after all.
But given the fact that New Ramath's sole reason for being was to handle the bigger, faster TTE freighters and passenger vessels plying back and forth between Losaltha and the Tharkoma Portal, its dockyards and wharves were several times the size one might have expected, with not a few luxury hotels under construction. But it remained a provincial city, for the most part, with few of the amenities those closer to the heart of civilization took for granted. Which had struck Haliyar as particularly amusing when she was first assigned here, since Tharkoma was little more than two hundred miles from Larakesh, the Ylani Sea seaport serving the very first portal ever discovered, and little more than three hundred miles from Tajvana itself. Or, rather, from the locations Larakesh and Tajvana occupied in Sharona.
And why are you letting your mind run on like a crazed tour guide at a moment like this?
Her mouth tightened as the question drove through her brain, but she knew the answer. It was to keep from thinking about the message locked in the agonized depths of that self-same mind.
If only Josam hadn't taken ill, she thought bitterly.
But he had. Josam chan Rakail was the Voice assigned to Fort Tharkoma, and he had the range to reach Chenrys Hordan, in the small town of Hurkaym. Hurkaym was actually little more than a village, built on the island which would have been Jerekhas off the toe of the boot of the Osmarian Peninsula to serve as a link in the Voice chain between Fort Tharkoma and Fort Losaltha. Josam could reach Hurkaym easily, but Haliyar's range was far more limited. That was why she'd been assigned to serve as the New Ramath Voice and link the city to the portal fortress. But Josam had come down with what sounded like pneumonia, and his assistant Voice at Tharkoma had even less maximum range than Haliyar did. Which meant all he'd been able to do was to relay the message to her for her to pass on to Chenrys.
And since I don't have the range to do it from here, either, I'm going to have to get into range in the first place, she thought.
She finally glanced out the window. It was the middle of the night in New Ramath, and without gas streetlamps, the city was wrapped in slumbering darkness, sleeping peacefully. She wondered how that would change when its inhabitants discovered the news she was about to pass on.
Her fingertips traced the hard, round outline of the pocket watch in the breast pocket of her warm jacket. It was hard to believe, even for a Voice, that less than half an hour had passed since the vicious attack on the Chalgyn Consortium's survey crew, five universes, two continents, and an ocean away from New Ramath. Haliyar bit her lip, fighting back a fresh burst of tears.
She'd met Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr and her husband on their way through Salym. As a Voice herself, although never one in Shaylar's league, she'd been unable to avoid feeling the echoes of their mutual devotion. Their marriage bond was so strong that no telepath?whether of Voice caliber, or not?could spend five minutes in their company without feeling it, whether she wanted to or not. And that made the agony of Seeing Jathmar's horrible death before Shaylar's very eyes, and then Seeing?and feeling?the even more terrible moment when Shaylar's Voice went abruptly silent, even worse. The experience had been like an ax blow, and now it was her job to pass that dreadful, soul-searing experience on to Chenrys in all its horrifying detail.
She wouldn't have had to do this if Josam hadn't fallen ill. She might have managed to avoid the unbearable immediacy of knowing exactly what had happened to two people she had both liked and admired deeply … and envied more deeply still.
The carriage slowed, and she drew a deep breath, preparing to climb down when the door opened. The dispatch boat?an incredibly fast little vessel, powered by the new steam turbines and capable of sustained speeds of thirty knots or more?lay waiting for her, smoke pluming from its two strongly raked funnels. It wouldn't have to take her all the way to Hurkaym. Haliyar's range was almost three hundred miles; getting her as far as the west coast of Osmaria would allow her to reach Chenrys, and that would take the dispatch boat less than four hours. Then the message?and all its grim, horrible imagery?would go flashing further along the transit chain literally at the speed of thought.
There were still water gaps which couldn't be closed by convenient relay stations like Hurkaym, Haliyar thought as the carriage came fully to a halt. Those were going to impose delays much greater than just four hours. Still, the message would reach Tajvana and the Portal Authority's headquarters there in less than a week.
And what happens then, she thought as the coachman's assistant opened the door for her, scarcely bears thinking on.
She stood for a moment, gazing at the dispatch boat under the bright, gas-powered lights of the TTE wharf, and tried not to shiver.
Chapter Ten
Jasak had to send another message. However little he might relish the thought, he had no choice, and he strode over to Iggar Shulthan.
"Iggy, I need two more hummers."
"Yes, Sir. I thought you would, Sir."
The hummer handler opened a small wire cage, made of heavy gauge mesh rather than the sort of wires and crosspieces wealthy ladies used to house chirping canaries or rainbow-winged near-sprites.
He moved carefully and gently, whispering the whole time, as he retrieved one of the ten remaining hummers from the dozen he carried everywhere First Platoon?or whichever of Charlie Company's subunits he was attached to at the moment?went.
Hummers were so aggressive they required not simply soothing handling, but also carefully controlled incantations that turned off their natural attack instinct. The bird Shulthan had retrieved was a beautiful creature, with iridescent green feathers and a ruby throat. And it was also five times the size of any wild hummingbird, with a stiletto beak that was even larger in proportion.
The Andaran Scouts, like all other trans-universal military organizations, bred magically augmented hummers by the hundreds of thousands. Incredibly fast in the air?a hummer could top a hundred and fifty miles per hour?male hummers were aggressive enough to ward off attacks by any airborne creature smaller than a gryphon. They formed the backbone of the Union of Arcana's long-distance communication network, routinely flying distances of well over a thousand miles.
The most remarkable thing about hummers, to Jasak's thinking, was how they transported messages. Rather than strap a message to the outside of a large, slow bird vulnerable to gryphon attacks, the inventor of the hummer system?an Andaran Scout, Jasak thought, with a touch of familiar smugness even know?had found a way to embed a message inside a smaller, faster bird. Every hummer in service was surgically implanted with a message crystal, wafer thin yet capable of storing complex and surprisingly long messages.