Minla's Flowers

'There are no pathways in the void,' Sibia retorted. 'The void is vacuum: the same thing that makes birds suffocate when you suck air out of a glass jar.'

'You may think it absurd,' Merlin said. 'All I can tell you is that vacuum is not as you understand it. It has structure, resilience, its own reserves of energy. And you can make part of it shear away from the rest, if you try hard enough. That's what the Waymakers did. They stretched great corridors between the stars: rivers of flowing vacuum. They reach from star to star, binding together the entire galaxy. We call it the Waynet.'

'Is this how you arrived?' Malkoha asked.

'My little ship could never have crossed interstellar space without it. But as I was passing close to your planet - because a strand of the Waynet runs right through this system - my ship encountered a problem. That is why Tyrant was damaged; why I had to land here and seek your assistance.'

'And the nature of this problem?' the old man pushed.

'My ship only discovered it three days ago, based on observations it had collated since I arrived. It appears that part of the Waynet has become loose, unshackled. There's a kink in the flow where it begins to drift out of alignment. The unshackled part is drifting towards your sun, tugged towards it by the pull of Calliope's gravitational field.'

'You're certain of this?' Sibia asked.

'I've had my ship check the data over and over. There's no doubt. In just over seventy years, the Waynet will cut right through Calliope, like a wire through a ball of cheese.'

Malkoha looked hard into Merlin's eyes. 'What will happen?'

'Probably very little to begin with, when the Waynet is still cutting through the chromosphere. But by the time it reaches the nuclear-burning core . . . I'd say all bets are off.'

'Can it be mended? Can the Waynet be brought back into alignment?'

'Not using any technology known to my own people. We're dealing with principles as far beyond anything on Lecythus as Tyrant is beyond one of your propeller planes.'

Malkoha looked stricken. 'Then what can we possibly do?'

'You can make plans to leave Lecythus. You have always known that space travel was possible: it's in your history, in the books you give to your children. If you had any doubts, I've shown it to be true. Now you must achieve it for yourselves.'

'In seventy years?' Malkoha asked.

'I know it sounds impossible. But you can do it. You already have flying machines. All you need to do is keep building on that achievement . . . building and building . . . until you have the means.'

'You make it sound easy.'

'It won't be. It'll be the hardest thing you've ever done. But I'm convinced that you can do it, if only you pull together.' Merlin looked sternly at his audience. 'That means no more wars between the Skylands and the Shadowlands. You don't have time for it. From this moment on, the entire industrial and scientific capacity of your planet will have to be directed towards one goal.'

'You're going to help us, Merlin?' Malkoha asked. 'Aren't you?'

Merlin's throat had become very dry. 'I'd like to, but I must leave immediately. Twenty light-years from here is a bountiful system known to the Cohort. The great vessels of my people - the swallowships - sometimes stop in this system, to replenish supplies and make repairs. The swallowships cannot use the Way, but they are very big. If I could divert just one swallowship here, it could carry fifty thousand refugees; double that if people were prepared to accept some hardship.'

'That's still not many people,' Sibia said.

'That's why you need to start thinking about reducing your population over the next three generations. It won't be possible to save everyone, but if you could at least ensure that the survivors are adults of breeding age . . .' Merlin trailed off, conscious of the dismayed faces staring at him. 'Look,' he said, removing a sheaf of papers from his jacket and spreading them on the table. 'I had the ship prepare these documents. This one concerns the production of wide-spectrum antibiotic medicines. This one concerns the construction of a new type of aircraft engine, one that will allow you to exceed the speed of sound and reach much higher altitudes than are now available to you. This one concerns metallurgy and high-precision machining. This one is a plan for a two-stage liquid-fuelled rocket. You need to start learning about rocketry now, because it's the only thing that's going to get you into space.' His finger moved to the final sheet. 'This document reveals certain truths about the nature of physical reality. Energy and mass are related by this simple formula. The speed of light is an absolute constant, irrespective of the observer's motion. This diagram shows the presence of emission lines in the spectrum of hydrogen, and a mathematical formula that predicts the spacing of those lines. All this . . . stuff should help you make some progress.'

'Is this all you can give us?' Sibia asked sceptically. 'A few pages' worth of vague sketches and cryptic formulae?'

'They're more than most cultures ever get. I suggest you start thinking about them straight away.'

'I will get this to Shama,' Coucal said, taking the drawing of a jet engine and preparing to slip it into his case.

'Not before everything here is duplicated and archived,' Malkoha said firmly. 'And we must take pains to ensure none of these secrets fall into Shadowland hands.' Then he returned his attention to Merlin. 'Evidently, you have given this matter some thought.'

'Just a bit.'

'Is this the first time you have had to deal with a world such as ours, one that will die?'

'I've had some prior experience of the matter. There was once a world--'

'What happened to the place in question?' Malkoha asked, before Merlin could finish his sentence.

'It died.'

'How many people were saved?'

For a moment Merlin couldn't answer. The words seemed to lodge in the back of his throat, hard as pebbles. 'There were just two survivors,' he said quietly. 'A pair of brothers.'

The walk to Tyrant was the longest he had ever taken. Ever since he had made the decision to leave Lecythus he had rehearsed the occasion in his mind, replaying it time and again. He had always imagined the crowd cheering, daunted by the news, but not cowed, Merlin raising his fist in an encouraging salute. Nothing had prepared him for the frigid silence of his audience, their judgmental expressions as he left the low buildings of the compound, their unspoken disdain hanging in the air like a proclamation.

Only Malkoha followed him all the way to Tyrant's boarding ramp. The old soldier had his coat drawn tight across his chest, even though the wind was still and the evening not particularly cold.

'I'm sorry,' Merlin said, with one foot on the ramp. 'I wish I could stay.'

'You seem like two men to me,' Malkoha said, his voice low. 'One of them is braver than he gives himself credit for. The other man still has bravery to learn.'

'I'm not running away.'

'But you are running from something.'

'I have to go now. If the damage to the Waynet becomes greater, I may not even be able to reach the next system.'

'Then you must do what you think is right. I shall be sure to give your regards to Minla. She will miss you very much.' Malkoha paused and reached into his tunic pocket. 'I almost forgot to give you this. She would have been very upset with me if I had.'

Malkoha had given Merlin a small piece of stone, a coin-shaped sliver that must have been cut from a larger piece and then set in coloured metal so that it could be worn around the neck or wrist. Merlin examined the stone with interest, but in truth there seemed nothing remarkable about it. He'd picked up and discarded more beautiful examples a thousand times in his travels. It had been dyed red in order to emphasise the fine grain of its surface: a series of parallel lines like the pages of a book seen end-on, but with a rhythmic structure to the spacing of the lines - a widening and a narrowing - that was unlike any book Merlin had seen.