Even before the beacon check was done, massed organ marches blasted at me from below the darkness of the ridge across which we sped.
The spears of twin singularities shivered below the Mambrino, cold and menacing.
Then came another unvoiced, soundless question, one I answered mentally, 'What do you want?' But my thoughts and reactions were on the singularities.
A dialogue, as you might put it. The words pounded through my skull. The dark spears marched anglewise toward Mambrino.
'About what?' I eased the Mambrino into an upward arc, as if that might help.
Honesty, which you value highly, and the involvement of higher powers, or cultures ...
The massed steel-strung twang of singularities rattled through me, and beneath the harmony/disharmony came words, words unbidden, words unsummoned.
My lack of involvement is assumed to represent a lack of ability for such involvement.
'Lack of ability?' My words were half uttered, barely considered as I and Mambrino danced along the lines of light and darkness.
The nanite-demon people have the ability to affect nondemon cultures. What makes you think that ability has not been exercised?
I was sure it had been but did not answer, instead evading, sidestepping, a block of black crystal that tumbled end-over-end in the white darkness.
For what purpose... mere vanity? Do you trust the honesty of your Authority? If so, if that power is to be trusted, why not greater power?
'Not all power is the same.' I would have swallowed if I could have.
Not all power? Or not all users? Or does power shape its user? Those drifting words carried amusement I could not address or consider.
Is an Authority more than a demon? More than a grouping of demons? Is it to be respected because you have conquered the Web? If but in the darkness where there is no dust?... Gods use the Web ... old gods and new gods ... whether there is dust or not. Think of the power any god must employ to dip into the dust-strewn regions of life.
From there the words rolled on, and through me, as though I had heard them before. Or perhaps they were my own arguments. About that, I wasn't certain, only upon Engee's parting words, if they were from Engee and not from somewhere deep within my own snarled mind.
Think on what I have said, needle jockey.
With those words, the connection was broken and I was back among the sonic blocks and the music of lilacs and windroses and apple blossoms ... and the singularities that marched upward swiftly and toward the Mambrino.
I untwisted the twist of the Web, and we dropped out to the beacon of Ballentir, too high above E. Cygni, but safe.
'Captain ... what was that energy spike?' asked Berya. 'I could sense it even in overspace.'
'Later,' I temporized. 'Later.' Energy spikes ... Engee ... and not even on the Beta Candace run. I'd need to report, a solid report - after I brought the ship into E. Cygni, after I explained the 'hazard' of the earth-Nabata run to the station commander, after I got back to Orbit Two.
Then, if I could, I needed to think ... and talk to Cerrelle.
76
The void is coeval with all things and is not subject to being obstructed by things, nor does it hinder the coming and going of all things.
From Ballentir Station, we picked up two more passengers, happy to leave six months earlier than the next scheduled run, and my first trip over the Trough was backward, down an incline, an overspace gradient steep enough that I certainly wasn't looking forward to going the other way.
There were no other attempts at 'conversation' by Engee, if what I had 'heard' had indeed been such. Breakout in normspace was above the ecliptic and normal.
'Orbit Two, this is Mambrino. Estimate arrival in twenty your time. Captain Tyndel, second Berya, third Alek, twelve passengers. I say again, one-two passengers. Cargo less than one tonne.' After a moment, I added, 'Inbound from Ballentir.'
We continued inbound for more than ten minutes, well into the end of deceleration, before there was a reply.
'Mambrino, this is Orbit Two. Say again, previous departure point.'
'Previous departure point was Ballentir. Before Ballentir, Nabata. Estimate arrival at Orbit Two in eight standard.'
'Stet. Eight standard. Area is clear. No inbounds, cleared to lock one.'
'Stet. Docking at lock one.'
'They didn't want to believe our previous destination,' suggested Alek.
All they had to do was check the dilation intervals,' snapped Berya. 'Junior controllers shouldn't be questioning needle captains.'
That might have been, but I knew that someone would be.
The usually ubiquitous Erelya was not waiting for me. Rather, commander Krigisa was, except she didn't wait but glided into the Mambrino's control center even before I'd fully finished the post-flight.
'You're looking well, Tyndel, especially for a three-insertion run.' She nodded. 'I'd like to see you in operations after your post-flight.' As quickly as she had arrived, she was gone.
'What did we do?' Berya looked at the empty hatchway.
'Nothing. The commander's worried about dangers to needle ships and what I might have sensed in overspace.'
'That energy spike?'
It was my turn to nod. 'There have been some odd ... sightings ... along the Beta Candace run. I need to report. I was asked to watch things closely.' Not precisely true ... Actually, I was asked that when I first became a pilot. Maybe all pilots are.'
Berya didn't press me, for which I was grateful, as I gathered my gear.
Both Erelya and Krigisa were waiting when I hurried into operations. Both faces were drawn, and their eyes almost hollow. For not the first time, the gray of the room reminded me of the caserns of the ancients, of the deep cellars beneath Henvor and under the Hall of Unremitting Alertness.
'How did it go?' Krigisa's face was concerned, faintly.
'I had no difficulties. There was the same sparkling veil. It's a trace disconcerting but not enough to distract me.'
'What about the voices?'
'This time ... I did hear them - but not on the Beta Candace run.'
The commander's face turned impassive, her expression like those of the demons on the cataclypt of Dyanar, and I wondered why I had thought of such after all the years that had passed since I had left Henvor.
'Go ahead. Don't leave out anything, Tyndel.' Krigisa's words went beyond a command.
'All I got on the Nabata leg was the impression of a question. Not even a verbal request. Just this question. I ignored it. I didn't know if I should, but I did.'
'Did this ... voice ... or whatever threaten or did it move singularities against the ship ... ?'
'Did the transit get harder?' Erelya's question tripped over the last words of the commander.
'No, sers. Nothing happened then. We came out of overspace without any problems.' I paused, then dropped the words I knew would make a difference. 'But... on the sideways leg to Ballentir, there were words. On the homebound leg, there was nothing.'
'What words? Do you think it was Engee?' asked Krigisa bluntly.