He recounted his mission briefing from the Department. It was an irritating document, overwritten and portentous (the Department always knew more than it let on, or thought it did) and ultimately of no use to him. Everyone wants to know what She is and where She comes from. Me, I’m interested only in what She’s done. I’ve studied what She’s done, and I know how to defeat Her.
“Thahl.”
“Commander?”
“Lay in a course for Blentport on Sakhra, please.”
PART FOUR
1
It was a late autumn afternoon, and the sun Horus bled through a bandage of clouds. He arrived alone, cramped and tired after the journey. Foord was disappointed, but not surprised, when they didn’t come out to meet him.
Almost before he stepped out, the Sakhran landchariot which brought him clattered back towards the lowlands, its driver hissing and flaying the team. He looked up at Hrissihr and saw the great black disc daubed over one of its buttresses. A srahr: he remembered reading about it in his mission briefing from the Department.
The srahr (unlike the name of the historical figure, it is not written with a capital S) is recurrent in Sakhran culture. It is the silent letter in their alphabet, and the symbol of zero and infinity in their mathematics. In their past legends it is the mark of apocalypse, and in their present legends the mark of the unidentified ship, which for reasons of their own they call Faith. This ship came once before, over three hundred years ago, and they know it will soon return. You are not the only visitor they are expecting.
He gave the black disc a cursory glance, aware that they would be watching for his reaction. Then he turned his attention elsewhere around the massive hillcastle, noting details with the habitual precision of a warship commander. The wind swore down at him and he tasted two distinct liquids, one from his watering eyes and the other from his running nose.
Hrissihr rose before him like the fist of a subterranean arm. He counted off one minute, concluded the Sakhrans would not be coming out, and walked into the main courtyard. Several doors led off it, each one—he knew from his briefings—the entrance to a separate Sakhran apartment. Hrissihr looked like the castle of some single absolute ruler, but it wasn’t; it was the home of many Sakhran families, although, being Sakhrans, they stayed behind their own doors and rarely met socially. Tonight was to be an exception, with a dinner in the little-used Main Hall to mark his arrival.
The walls of the courtyard were hung with iron braziers, some containing fires which spat as he passed them, others empty beneath old soot-smears, recording the departure of Sakhran families to the Commonwealth lowlands, or to other hillcastles higher and further away. In the wind from the Irsirrha Hills, dead leaves rushed across the flagstones and clamoured against the shut doors. He picked up one; it was dark grey-green, its veins dry and spatulate. He tossed it away and the wind snatched it.
Sulhu chose that moment to appear.
“Commander Foord! You’re very welcome.”
Together they walked across the courtyard, Foord treading the dead leaves noisily and the Sakhran avoiding them gracefully. A few doors opened, and other Sakhrans peered warily from their apartments at Foord; either he was carrying some disease, or was the disease. Sulhu, though, treated him warmly, as if they’d known each other for years and this wasn’t the first time they had ever met. He took Foord’s arm and looked up at him as they walked, smiling a dark red mouthful of pointed teeth and chattering in perfect if rather sibilant Commonwealth.
“Your journey here wasn’t too tiring, I hope? I’ve been looking forward to this meeting. My son Thahl has told me all about you. I’m delighted that you could come up here and visit us while your ship is on Sakhra. Come in, come in….”
•
“You haven’t seemed completely at ease tonight, Commander Foord. I hope the food wasn’t to blame.”
“The food was fine, thank you. The fact is, I rarely get invited anywhere twice. I don’t make a very good guest.”
“Yes, my son Thahl says you call it Social Awkwardness. Then there’s also the long journey, and Director Swann’s opposition to your visit here. My invitation was well-meant, but perhaps not well-judged.”
“It was both, and very much appreciated. Also, my visit here is a useful reminder to the Director that I don’t take orders from him.” Swann was Director of Horus Fleet—regular military—and found having an Outsider at Blentport deeply insulting.
The silence lengthened. Sulhu’s eyes were unwavering behind the occasional horizontal flicker of their secondary lids. His ophidian face, usually rather immobile, seemed to crawl under the play of firelight.
“Alright, Commander. You’ve had an evening of small talk over dinner with my neighbours. Let’s not continue it. Can we talk freely? You’re off the record here, you know.”
Most Sakhrans were natural linguists, but Foord found Sulhu’s near-fluency disconcerting; it made him sound like he understood humans as well as he understood their language.
“You mean, Talk Freely about what I’m doing here?”
“Everyone knows what you’re doing here, Commander. Me especially. My son Thahl gave me an outline of your orders.”
His son Thahl sat deferentially silent and to one side, partly hidden in shadow. The dinner to welcome Foord had finished and the rest of those who attended—only a minority of those living at Hrissihr—had gone back to their apartments across the courtyard, or across other courtyards, and closed their doors behind them. Their empty chairs remained in a crescent round the dwindling fire. There had been much about the dinner—soft low light, murmured conversations, carefully judged understatement—which reminded Foord of the Charles Manson.
Foord turned and glared pointedly at Thahl, who showed no obvious embarrassment. The slender Sakhran darkwood chair on which Foord sat, although much stronger than it looked, still creaked under his weight.
“As well as being your son, Thahl is an officer on my ship. Those orders are confidential. Or were.”
“I said Outline, Commander, not details. Everyone knows them in outline. And in any case, Commonwealth law recognises no secrets within a Sakhran family.”
Since Sakhrans reproduced asexually once or twice in a lifetime, the father-son bond was strong; it was the only bond which was, since all the others had weakened over the last three hundred years. Hillcastles like Hrissihr provided the minimum for life, housing families of two, or sometimes three, who ate together only rarely. Fathers died, sons grew into almost the same identity, and reproduced; then died, and their sons grew into almost the same identity, and reproduced; then died. Sakhran society was conservative and minimal.
Foord knew all that from his long association with Thahl, but the detailed point about Commonwealth law had been covered in his briefing, and he should have remembered it.
“Of course,” he said hastily, and to both of them. “My apologies.”
Sulhu nodded, deadpan. “You’re not a very good guest. I won’t be inviting any more Socially Awkward people here.”