'You're blushing .. .' She grinned. 'I like it when you do that. You're not the composed Dzin master, needle jockey.'
'I never was. I keep telling you that.'
'Maybe I need to hear it more often,' she answered as we walked up the polished stone steps.
While the path leading from the tunnel exit was clear, fine snow drizzled around my face out of the heavy gray clouds. The snow on either side of the way was higher than my head and showed little sign of melting.
'It's been a cold and snowy winter,' Cerrelle said. 'They're talking about another little ice age.'
Three years plus, three and a half, and I was back in winter. I'd barely felt summer before I'd left. Sometimes, life felt like that.
'The glider-cat's in the transport hangar.'
Cerrelle took us into the low stone-and-wood transport building, past open doors, and murmuring voices, and the scent of electronics and people, and then down another set of steps into the lower hangars, where the glider lay in a bay between two others - both larger. After Cerrelle opened the canopy, I stowed the small duffel in the rear of the free-range glider. She closed the canopy, and I settled into the seat beside her.
After she had the glider-cat on the tree-cleared but snow-covered way to the lake, she glanced momentarily at me. 'Now ... tell me what happened.'
'They asked me to take the Beta Candace run. That's the one past Alpha Felini - the Anomaly. Engee, if you will...' I went on to explain the lost needles and everything that had happened, including the medical debrief. By the time I had finished, Cerrelle was guiding the glider on the last stretch toward the lake. Her face was drawn. 'You... they... Erelya was right about this being the greatest challenge since the Devastation.'
'I can see why people would get upset ... I suppose.'
'You suppose?' Her eyebrows rose, although she kept her eyes on the snowy track. 'Is that Dzin ... or don't you understand?'
I sighed. 'I understand, but I don't. Anything that powerful could have done a lot before this. What real changes will it make? The worst it could do would be to disrupt interstellar travel. That won't affect anyone much on earth. It will hurt a few thousand people on the orbit stations and the borderline outplanets. Most of the colonies are self-sustaining. They have to be ...'
Cerrelle laughed as she eased the glider-cat up the snow-covered slope to the chalet. 'I doubt that most people will be anywhere near that calm.'
'I know. I know. But it's all true.'
'Truth often doesn't impact people's emotions. Do I have to remind you of that, Dzin master?'
I flushed. She was, again, definitely right about that.
'Think of all those excited people the way you felt when you discovered Rykasha,' she suggested.
That thought wasn't exactly reassuring.
A thin line of white circled from the hearth's chimney, barely visible against the clouds whose gray had begun to lighten, even though the fine flakes of snow continued to fall.
'The fire will feel good.' In more ways than one. 'I thought so. I put on four of the heavy oak logs before I left.'
Once we were inside, I left the duffel by the steps and hugged Cerrelle again. This time, she didn't protest. After a time, she murmured, 'This has upset you. You're affectionate, but not usually this affectionate, and it's not...'
'Lust?' I suggested, letting a wry grin cross my face.
'I don't mind lust, at the right time. Or place.' She smiled back. 'You want to talk about it?'
After I get some real Arleen.'
'It's laid out, by the kettle.'
Even though the kettle was heated through nanite action, somehow boiling water and steeped tea tasted better than formulated tea, and all the scientific rationales for why there should be no difference didn't explain the greater satisfaction of brewed Arleen. I carried two mugs to the couch before the hearth and the fire, to which Cerrelle had added another set of logs.
Beside the woman whose directness and honesty had inspired mine, I enjoyed a sip of the brewed Arleen.
This ... nanogod spoke to you?' she finally asked. The debrief showed that, too?'
'Yes. The first few times, I thought or wondered if... well ... like you lost your nanite balance on Thesalle. I wondered if all those little nanites were scrambling my nerves and I was making up thoughts to cover the static'
'What changed your mind?'
'Static isn't that rational ... and then there were the power spikes on the system, and I wasn't the only one who noted them.'
'Static could have affected the others.'
'Not with other pilots hearing things. They finally found a record in the lower level systems, something about derivative power flow memories, Erelya said.'
'A real god?' Cerrelle laughed, half humorously, half bitterly. 'After all the generations of rationality that has almost eliminated unreasoning faith in the supernatural?'
'He's not a god. A powerful intelligence isn't a god,' I pointed out.
'Too many people won't see it that way ... and if it gets to the mite cultures ...'
'It won't change anything,' I pointed out. 'Most believe in a supernatural being anyway. The danger is greater in Rykasha. Erelya said it... was the greatest problem since the Devastation.' I shook my head. 'You said it, too.'
'You don't think so?'
'Engee exists, whatever Engee is or has become. This being ... this intelligence has power. We have powers that people before the ancients would have called godlike or angellike or demonlike. Somewhat greater power doesn't make a deity.'
'Spoken like a true Rykashan. From a man who wasn't sure he was one.' Cerrelle raised her fine eyebrows into an arch. 'How many true Rykashans are there?'
'Not as many as the Authority thinks.'
'They will. They'll calculate it down to the last head.'
I had to smile, momentarily, but the smile faded. 'That still doesn't bother me. After the initial flurry, most people will get over it. Something else does. He ... it... wants something. Why does a creature with that kind of power want something from me? Or any needle pilot?'
'Do you have any idea what?'
I shook my head. 'Besides, how will I ever know? He's only contacted me in overspace - so his powers are limited that way. You don't think they'll let me near a ship anytime soon, do you?'
'What do you think?' Cerrelle asked, gently, after another long silence.
'I don't know. They've lost every pilot who's heard the voices, except me.' I stood, needing more Arleen, and walked to the kitchen, where I poured a second mug, before returning and settling beside Cerrelle, ruffling her short red hair for a moment. 'I suppose that's up to the Authority.'
'They'd be wise to let you go.' She frowned. 'I'm not sure you'd be wise to oblige them.'
'I haven't come close to paying my obligation,' I pointed out.
Cerrelle nodded. She knew about obligations - hers made mine look minuscule.
'I have a double layover,' I said. At the very least. That's because they want to think it over. Also, that's because I did the sideways transit, and that rates double.'
'Good.' She edged close to me, close enough that I could brush her cheek with my lips.
I did.
'I missed you.'
'I missed you!
The discussion about Engee was postponed ... but only postponed.
78
Studying the physics of light is not illumination.
Standing on the main level of the chalet, amid blazing sunlight reflected from the expanse of white outside the long glass windows, I looked at the console, letting my mind do the searching for the needle pilot's assignments. I could have linked directly, but I liked the old-fashioned image, though I would have once called it an iconraiser's screen, many years back, back when anything beyond the basics of the ancients' technology raised the old fears of the Devastation, back when intercity gliders were the fastest transport I'd known and the stone-sided demon traps of Henvor had provided a sense of security against the unknown.