“Much of what my brother says is true,” Jason told us. “Much of what you see on distant worlds is formed by the same physical laws that form our sights here. The erosion that carves rocks into sand here just makes more sand that aside from a few differences in color and texture looks like the sand back home. The cold that turns frozen water into glaciers here just makes more glaciers that carve the landscape the same way glaciers are carved here. Gravity and weather patterns and everything that decides what natural places look like all work according to the same consistent set of laws that allows for variety but ensures that any wonder you see, anywhere you go, can only be a variation on something you’ve seen where you came from. The same thing goes for other sentient species, other civilizations. They’re different, sometimes startlingly different, but also all the same. I don’t know what Mr. Pescziuwicz wants from his future, or how he defines freedom, but as long as all you want is a variety of backdrops, or comfortable places to lie your head, you can get that without ever leaving your homeworld. You can even have as much ‘freedom’ as you can handle, as long as the folks who run the place aren’t intent on taking it from you.”
Farley Pearlman, who was desperate to atone for his previous faux pas, ventured, “Th-then… what were you looking for… when you—”
“The one thing distant places can give you, when you once again turn your eyes to home.”
The Khaajiir and I spoke in unison. “Perspective.”
We glanced at each other. The Khaajiir seemed gratified, even proud of me in a way.
I turned to Oscin and then to Skye. “So that’s what that feels like.”
Jason raised his glass. “You’ve got it, Counselor. You can’t determine the shape of an object, or a society, by examining it from only one side. You have to walk around it, look down on it from a height, even—as I did—bury yourself in the dirt, to see it from ground level. It’s the only way to see what something is, before you—”
That’s when someone, or something, moaned.
It came from all around us: a screech of metallic agony my mind insisted on interpreting as the sound made by an enraged giant peeling back the wrought-iron bars of its cage. The floor started vibrating. The floating table tilted twenty degrees, spilling drinks and plates onto the laps of all the guests on my side. Bubbles rose in the tank containing the Bettelhine fish. Monday Brown fell out of his chair. Vernon Wethers fell next. The scenic windows went black as metallic shutters slid from the exterior housings and blocked Xana from view. I heard screams, gasps of pain, and Philip Bettelhine commanding us not to panic.
I tried to get up at the wrong moment, and a final lurch sent me airborne. I had time to scream a single “Shiiiiiiit!” before I hit the floor, taking all the impact on my left hip.
And then, as the story goes, some idiot turned out the lights…
7
THE FIRST DEATH
The power outage lasted only a couple of seconds, but neared absolute, the one real source of light during that interval being a flashing red glow that tinted the darkness rather than dispelling it. For a moment I imagined that glow to be an emergency indicator light, somewhere around the wide curve of the bar. I was correct about it coming from behind the bar, but wouldn’t realize until long after the lights came back on that the source was Colette’s ridiculous strobing hair.
While it remained dark, but after the tremors tapered off, Skye found me. “Are you all right, Andrea? Please say you’re all right!”
“I’m fine,” I said, with a tremor that rendered that assertion a lie. “You?”
“Skye’s fine. Oscin slammed his chin against the table on his way down, and it hurts like hell. He’s got a cut there. He’s with Mr. Pearlman now, and thinks—”
The lights returned.
I sat up, regretting it at once as pain flared all along my left side. My involuntary moan of pain was louder than I prefer my complaints to sound. Skye stepped over me and positioned herself under my arm on that side, ready to support me if I wanted to stand up, a notion that for the moment failed to tempt me at all.
Most of our fine dinner was now a halo of debris beneath the tilted table. We didn’t seem to have lost any people yet. Philip Bettelhine was on his hands and knees, wringing something moist from between his fingers. Vernon Wethers knelt beside him, unhurt but waiting for Bettelhine to tell him what to do. Dejah Shapiro comforted the sobbing Dina Pearlman. Monday Brown was facedown but stirring. Oscin, bleeding from a nasty diagonal cut across his chin, was helping Farley Pearlman to his feet. Jelaine Bettelhine was already at the shaken Khaajiir’s side. His staff was nowhere to be seen. I made eye contact with Jelaine and saw her register that I was hurt too. Jason, who had fallen not far from Philip, managed to stand, revealing an ugly gash across his forehead that had already painted the lower half of his face red with blood. Though his eyes were just narrow, glistening slits, he still lurched around the side of the table to collect the Khaajiir’s staff from where it had come to rest, avoiding all other debris as he went.
The Khaajiir, who had already struck me as frail, had not weathered the jolt well. He looked paler than he had been, and more confused. He asked for his staff, in Bocaian. Jelaine, answering in the same language, said she’d get it for him in a moment.
Colette appeared behind the bar, smeared blood staining her upper and lower lips. She wiped it off with the back of her hand, and widened her bejeweled eyes when she saw the scarlet staining her wrist, but remained at her post anyway, no doubt as much out of shock as duty.
I didn’t see Arturo Mendez at all. Maybe he was down in the galley.
Farley Pearlman gasped. “What the hell was that?”
“That,” the Porrinyards said, “felt like a full emergency stop.”
Philip Bettelhine rubbed his face. “That’s what it was. Is everybody all right?”
The Porrinyards said, “The two of me have accounted for everybody but Mr. Mendez and any other workers you might have belowdecks. I don’t see anything but bruises and lacerations up here.”
Philip Bettelhine scanned the room for the lowest-level employee on hand, and found Colette. “Hey, sweetie, why don’t you rush to the galley and check on everybody? Get back with a head count as soon as you can.”
Colette nodded, ran around the bar, and disappeared down the spiral staircase to the lower levels.
Farley Pearlman pulled free of Oscin so he could tend to his sobbing wife. He fired off a question as he ran, debris crunching beneath his shoes. “So what would cause a full emergency stop?”
“This one?” Philip asked. “I don’t know.”
Dejah Shapiro, relinquishing Dina to Farley’s care, snapped, “The man’s not asking what it is. He’s asking what it could be.”
Across the room, Jason and Jelaine Bettelhine were helping the shaken but still ambulatory Khaajiir to one of the overstuffed easy chairs. Jason had the staff tucked under his right arm, and made sure to hand it to the grateful Khaajiir after he and his sister lowered the elderly sentient to his seat. At the same time he shouted out an explanation to the rest of us. “If it ever looks like one car’s going to overtake another on the same cable, traffic control override stops the one coming up from behind.”
“What’s your cutoff?” Dejah asked.
“I never worried about it, before. It’s generous. Three hundred kilometers, I think.”
“Three hundred’s right,” Philip said.
The Khaajiir clutched his staff as if it represented the only solid object in the entire universe. “That’s how you stop if you have three hundred kilometers to slow down?”