With his long, bunned white hair, pale complexion and simple but elegantly cut Seer robes — black puttees, pantaloons and long jacket — he contrived to look appealingly frail, sweetly elderly, breathtakingly distinguished and only a little less authoritative than a supreme deity.
He swept into the senior officers’ mess of the heavy cruiser Pyralis in a clatter of clicks from his twin staffs and boot heels, attended by a pale train of half a dozen junior Seers — half of them men, half of them women, all of them greyly deferential — and, bringing up the rear, the gangly, smiling form of Paggs Yurnvic, a Seer whom Fassin had helped teach but who, having spent less time subsequently in the slowness of actual delving than Fassin had, was now older in both adjusted time and appearance.
“Chief Seer,” Fassin said, standing and executing a formal nod that just avoided being a bow. The heavy cruiser was taking their party to Third Fury, the close-orbit moon of Nasqueron from which they would delve — either all remotely, or, if Fassin had his way, through a combination of remote and direct presences.
Braam Ganscerel had insisted that his years and frailty made a high-gee journey to the moon out of the question — esuits, life-pods and shock-gel notwithstanding — and so the ship was making a gentle standard one gee, creating what felt like about twice ’glantine’s gravity and a fraction less than Sepekte’s. Even this standard gee, Braam Ganscerel let it be known, necessitated that he use both his staffs to support himself. This was, however, in the current grave circumstances, a sacrifice he felt it was only right and proper and indeed required that he make. Fassin thought it made him look like a stilter, like a whule.
“Well?” the Chief Seer demanded, stopping in front of Fassin. “Why can’t you remote delve, Fassin? What’s wrong with you?”
“Fear, sir,” Fassin told him.
“Fear?” Braam Ganscerel seemed to experiment with putting his head even further back than it already was, found it was possible, and left it there.
“Fear of being shown up by you, sir, as a merely competent Slow Seer.”
Braam Ganscerel half-closed one eye. He looked at Fassin for a while. “You’re mocking me, Fassin.”
Fassin smiled. “I delve better direct, Braam. You know that.”
“I do,” Ganscerel said. He turned with a sort of staccato grace and let himself flop into the couch where Fassin had been sitting, watching screen news. Fassin sat too. Paggs perched on one arm of the next-nearest couch and the rest of Braam Ganscerel’s retinue sited themselves nearby according to some arcane pecking order.
Fassin nodded at Paggs. “Seer Yurnvic,” he said with a smile and a formality he hoped Paggs wouldn’t take seriously.
Paggs grinned. “Good to see you, Fass.” That was all right, then.
“However, we must do this together, I believe,” Braam Ganscerel said, looking ahead at the wall screen, where the news went silently on. The funerals were taking place of some more of the Navarchy people who’d died in the attack on the dock-habitat at Sepekte’s trailing Lagrange. Ganscerel had let one of his twin staffs rest on the couch beside him, but still held the other. He waved it at the screen and it obligingly went back to being a bulkhead again. The heavy cruiser’s senior officers’ mess was a large space, but much broken up by vertical columns and diagonal reinforcing struts. Like the rest of the vessel it was quite comfortable by human standards, though Colonel Hatherence had had to be content with a cabin that was extremely cramped for an oerileithe. She had been offered passage on an escorting cruiser with more suitable accommodation but had declined.
“We can be together,” Fassin said. “You and Paggs remotely, the Colonel and I directly. That way we’re backed up so if anything happens to either group—”
“Ah,” Ganscerel said. “You see, young Taak, this is the point. If we are all on Third Fury, with this fine vessel and its escort craft to protect us, we shall all be safe. You wish to take a tiny gascraft into the unending violence of the planet’s atmosphere. A dangerous enterprise at the best of times. In wartime, positively foolhardy.”
“Braam, the old portal was protected by an entire fleet and it still got blasted. Third Fury might move, but it moves very predictably. If somebody did want to attack it they could accelerate a small rock to just under light speed and send it on an intercept course. If that happens, the only way a heavy cruiser is going to help is if by some million-to-one chance it happens to be in the way at the time and takes the hit itself. As nobody’s going to surround the entire moon with a shell of ships, I think it’s unwise to rely on a few war craft to protect us from something there’s almost no defence against.”
“Why would anybody target a moonlet like Third Fury?” Paggs asked.
“Indeed,” Ganscerel said, as though he had been just about to ask that very question.
“No good reason,” Fassin said. “But then a lot of places there’s been no good reason to hit have been getting attacked recently.”
“This might well include Nasqueron itself,” Ganscerel pointed out.
“Which can absorb a lot more punishment than Third Fury.”
“You might still be targeted.”
“If I’m in there in a gascraft, even with Colonel Hatherence riding shotgun, I should be effectively untraceable,” Fassin told them.
“Unless,” Paggs said, “she’s supposed to be in constant touch with her superiors.”
“And that might be the real reason we are all expected to stay together on Third Fury, delving remotely,” Ganscerel said, sighing. He looked at Fassin. “Control. Or at least the illusion of it. Our masters are fully aware how important this mission is, even if they think themselves for the moment above explaining its precise nature to all who need to know. They are naturally terrified that if it goes wrong some of the blame will stick to them. Really, it is all up to us: a bunch of academics they’ve never particularly cared about or for, even though -’ Ganscerel looked round the assembled junior Seers “- being a centre of Dweller Studies represents the only thing which makes Ulubis in any way remarkable.” He directed his gaze on Fassin again. “There is very little they can do, therefore they will attend with extreme diligence to what trivial matters they are able to affect. With us all apparently safe on Third Fury protected by a small fleet of warships, they will feel they are doing all they can to assist us. If they let you go down into Nasqueron, and something does go wrong, they will be blamed. In that they are right.”
“It won’t work, Braam.”
“I think we have to try,” the older man said. “Look.” He patted Fassin’s arm. Fassin was dressed in his Shrievalty major’s uniform and feeling awkward amidst fellow Seers. “Have you tried remote delving recently?”
“Not for a long time,” Fassin admitted.
“It’s changed,” Paggs said, nodding. “It’s much more lifelike, if you know what I mean; more convincing.” Paggs smiled. “There have been a lot of improvements over the last couple of centuries. Largely thanks to the Real Delving movement, frankly.”
Oh, Paggs, flattery? Fassin thought.
Ganscerel patted his arm again. “Just try it, will you, Fassin? Will you do that for me?”
Fassin didn’t want to say yes immediately. This is all beside the point, he thought. Even if I didn’t know there was a potential threat to Third Fury, the argument that matters is that the Dwellers we need to talk to just won’t take us seriously if we turn up in remotes. It’s about respect, about us taking risks, sharing their world with them, really being there. But he mustn’t seem intransigent. Keep some arguments back; always have reserves. After a moment he nodded slowly. “Very well. I’ll do that. But only as a trial delve. A day or two. That’ll be enough to feel any difference. Then we have to make a final decision.” Ganscerel smiled. They all did.