Wonderful was hardly out of breath. “By the dead, the state o’ you fat old men.” She slapped Never on the arm. “That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they’d catch you and skin you sure.”
“You hoped, you mean,” said Never, “but you should’ve known better. I’m the best damn runner-away in the North.”
“That is a fact.”
“Where’s Scorry?” gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.
Never jerked his thumb. “Circled round to check no one’s coming for us.”
Whirrun ambled back into the clearing now, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.
“I take it they’re not following?” asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.
Whirrun shook his head. “Nope.”
“Can’t say I blame the poor bastards. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You’re one serious fucker with that sword.”
“You get the thing?” asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.
“That’s right, Raubin, we saved your skin.” Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They’d done it, and his sense of humor was starting to leak back in. “Hah. Could you imagine if we’d left the bastard thing behind?”
“Never fear,” said Yon, flipping open his pack. “Jolly Yon Cumber, once more the fucking hero.” And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.
Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light, and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. “That ain’t fucking it, Yon!”
“It’s not?”
“That’s a cup! It was the thing we wanted!” He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. “The bloody thing with the kind of bloody light about it!”
Yon stared back at him. “No one told me it had a bloody light!”
There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off, startled from a branch it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the gray sky.
“Why the hell are you laughing?” snapped Wonderful.
Inside his hood Whirrun’s twisted face was glistening with happy tears. “I told you I’d laugh when I heard something funny!” And he was off again, arching back like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.
“You’ll have to go back,” said Raubin.
“Back?” muttered Wonderful, her dirt-streaked face a picture of disbelief. “Back, you mad fucker?”
“You know the hall caught fire, don’t you?” snapped Brack, one big trembling arm pointing down towards the thickening column of smoke wafting up from the village.
“It what?” asked Raubin as Whirrun blasted a fresh shriek at the sky, hacking, gurgling, only just keeping on his feet.
“Oh, aye, burned down, more’n likely with the damn thing in it.”
“Well… I don’t know… you’ll just have to pick through the ashes!”
“How about we pick through your fucking ashes?” snarled Yon, throwing the cup down on the ground.
Craw gave a long sigh, rubbed at his eyes, then winced down towards that shit-hole of a village. Behind him, Whirrun’s laughter sawed throaty at the dusk. “Always,” he muttered, under his breath. “Why do I always get stuck with the fool jobs?”
ALONE
ROBERT REED
Robert Reed was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and has worked as a lab technician. He became a full-time writer in 1987, the same year he won the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and has published eleven novels, including The Leeshore , The Hormone Jungle, and far future science fiction novels Marrow and The Well of Stars . An extraordinarily prolific writer, Reed has published over 200 short stories, mostly in Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s , which have been nominated for the Hugo, James Tiptree, Jr., Locus, Nebula, Seiun, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and World Fantasy awards, and have been collected in The Dragons of Springplace and The Cuckoo’s Boys . His novella “A Billion Eves” won the Hugo Award. Nebraska’s only SF writer, Reed lives in Lincoln with his wife and daughter, and is an ardent long-distance runner.
1
The hull was gray and smooth, gray and empty, and in every direction it fell away gradually, vanishing where the cold black of the sky pretended to touch what was real. What was real was the Great Ship. Nothing else enjoyed substance or true value. Nothing else in Creation could be felt, much less understood. The Ship was a sphere of perfect hyperfiber, world-sized and enduring, while the sky was only a boundless vacuum punctuated with lost stars and the occasional swirls of distant galaxies. Radio whispers could be heard, too distorted and far too faint to resolve, and neutrino rains fell from above and rose from below, and there were ripples of gravity and furious nuclei generated by distant catastrophes—inconsequential powers washing across the unyielding, eternal hull.
Do not trust the sky, the walker understood. The sky wished only to tell lies. And perhaps worse, the sky could distract the senses and mind from what genuinely mattered. The walker’s only purpose was to slowly, carefully move across the Ship’s hull, and if something of interest were discovered, a cautious investigation would commence. But only if it was harmless could the mystery be approached and studied in detail. Instinct guided the walker, and for as long as it could remember, the guiding instinct was fear. Fierce, unnamed hazards were lurking. The walker could not see or define its enemies, but they were near, waiting for weakness. Waiting for sloth or inattentiveness. Regardless how curious it was or how fascinating some object might be, the walker scrupulously avoided anything that moved or spoke, or any device that glowed with unusual heat, and even the tiniest example of organic life was something to be avoided, without fail.
Solitude was its natural way.
Alone, the ancient fear would diminish to a bearable ache, and something like happiness was possible.
Walking, walking. That was the purpose of existence. Select a worthy line, perhaps using one of the scarce stars as a navigational tool. Follow that line until something new was discovered, and regardless whether the object was studied or circumvented, the walker would then pick a fresh direction—a random direction—and maintain that new line with the same tenacity.
There was no need to eat, no requirement for drink or sleep. Its life force was a minor, unsolvable mystery. The pace was patient, every moment feeling long and busy. But if nothing of note occurred, nothing needed to be recalled. After a century of uninterrupted routine, the walker compressed that blissful sameness into a single impression that was squeezed flush against every other vacuous memory—the recollections of a soul that felt ageless but was still very close to empty.
Eyes shrank and new eyes grew, changing talents. With that powerful, piercing vision, the walker watched ahead and beside and behind. Nothing was missed. And sometimes for no obvious reason it would stop, compelled suddenly to lower several eyes, staring into a random portion of the hull. From the grayness, microscopic details emerged. Fresh radiation tracks still unhealed; faint scars being gradually erased by quantum bonds fighting to repair themselves. Each observation revealed quite a lot about the hyperfiber, and the lessons never changed. The hull was a wonder. Fashioned from an extremely strong and lasting material—a silvery-gray substance refined during a lost age by some powerful species, perhaps, or perhaps a league of vanished gods. They were the masters who must have imagined and built the Ship, and presumably the same wondrous hands had sent their prize racing through the vacuum. A good, glorious purpose must be at work here; but except for the relentless perfection of the Great Ship, nothing remained of their intentions, their goals, or even an obvious destination.