That was good enough for Marika. But meantime she had to endure the horror of her nights.
Dorteka wakened her from this dream. She was early, but Marika was too fuddled to realize that till after they had been into their gymnasium routine for some time. "Why are we up so early?" she asked.
"We have new orders, you and I. We are headed north."
"Up the river? To chase nomads?" Marika was astonished. It was the last thing she expected.
"Yes. The great hunt is in full cry. The most senior is sending everyone who has no absolute need to remain. She sent a note saying that means us especially."
Just last evening word had come round that the most senior had ordered all patrolling darkships to destroy any meth they found upon the ground. They were to operate on the assumption that no locals had survived. No mercy was to be shown.
"What is it all about, mistress?" Marika asked. "Why is Gradwohl so determined? I have heard that winter may not break this year, at least in the upper Ponath. That the ground will remain frozen. No crops could be planted there. So why fight for useless territory?"
"Someone exaggerated, Marika. There will be a summer. Not that it matters. We are not going to send settlers into the Ponath. We are simply validating our claim to our provinces. In blood. Gradwohl is leading us in a fight against the Serke, and this is the only way we can battle them. Indirectly."
"Why are the Serke so determined, then? I am told wealth is the reason. I know about the emeralds, and there is gold and silver and copper and things, but nobody ever did any mining up there. It is a Tech Two Zone. There must be some other reason the Serke risk conflict."
"Probably. We do not know what it is, though. We just know we cannot allow them to steal the Ponath. Them or the brethren."
"You think the reason the tradermales will not help us is because they want to steal the Ponath, too?"
"I expect the Brown Paw Bond would stand with us if they could. We have been close associates for centuries. But higher authority may have been offered a better cut by the Serke."
"Could we not impose sanctions?"
Dorteka appeared amused by her naivetй. "Without proof? Wait. Yes. You know, and I know, and everyone else alive knows what is happening. Or we think we do. We suspect that the brethren and the Serke Community have entered into a conspiracy prohibited by the conventions. But no Community extant will act on suspicion. The Serke have Bestrei, and flaunt it. As long as the Reugge cannot present absolute and irrefutable proof of what is happening, no other Community faces the disagreeable business of having to take sides. They would rather sit back and be entertained by our travails."
"But if the Serke get away with this, they will be a threat to everyone else. Do the other orders not see that? Armed with all our wealth, and Bestrei besides ... "
"Who knows what is really going on? Not you or I. The other sisterhoods may be in it with the Serke. There are ample precedents."
"It all seems silly to me," Marika said. "Will Grauel and Barlog be able to go with me?"
"I am sure they will. You are a single unit in most eyes."
Marika glanced at her instructress, not liking her tone. She and Dorteka tolerated one another because the most senior insisted, but there was no love between them.
Marika, Grauel, Barlog, and Dorteka, with their gear, boarded a northbound darkship about the time Marika should have begun her mathematics class. The bath, before going to their places at the tips of the short arms, made certain the passengers strapped themselves to the darkship's frame. All gear went into bins fixed around the cross's axis.
Marika paid much more attention to the darkship and its operators this trip. "Mistress Dorteka. What is this metal? I have seen nothing like it before." It seemed almost invisible when probed with the touch.
"Titanium. It is the lightest metal known, yet very strong. It is difficult to obtain. The brethren recover it in a process similar to that they use to obtain aluminum. They fairly rob us for these ships."
"They make them?
"Yes."
"I would think it something we would do for ourselves. Why do we let them rob us?"
"I am not sure. Maybe because to argue is too much trouble. We do buy them, I think, because their ships are better. We have been buying them for only about sixty years, though. Before that most of the orders made their own. There was a lot of artistry involved. Most of those old darkships are still in service down south, too, around TelleRai and the other big cities."
"What were they like? How were they different? And what do you mean, buy? I thought the tradermales only leased."
"Questions, questions, questions. Pup ... They do not lease darkships. We would not let them get away with that. In some ways they have us too much in their power now.
"The old ships are not much different from those you have seen. Maybe smaller, generally. They were wooden, though. A few were pretty fanciful because they were seen as works of art. They were pawcrafted from golden fleet timber, a wood that is sensitive to the touch. The trees had to be at least five hundred years old before they could be cut. They were considered very precious. The groves are protected by a web of laws even now. So-called poachers can be slain for even touching a golden fleet tree.
"Every frame member and strut in the old ships was individually carved from a specially selected timber or billet. The way I hear, a shipbuilder sister might spend a year preparing one strut. It might take a building team twenty years to complete a ship. No two darkships were ever alike, unlike these brethren products. These things are plain and all business."
All business maybe, but hardly plain. This one was covered with seals and fanciful witch signs that, Marika suspected, had something to do with the Mistress and her bath.
"You say those old ones are still around?"
"Most of them. I have seen some in TelleRai that are said to be thousands of years old. Silth have been flying since the beginning of time. The Redoriad museum at TelleRai has several prehistoric saddleships that are still taken up once in a while."
"Saddleships?" Here was something she had missed in her search for information on flying.
"In olden times that sort of silth who today would become a Mistress of the Ship usually flew alone. Her ship was a pole of golden fleet wood about eighteen feet long with a saddle mounted two-thirds of the way back. You would find the Redoriad museum interesting, what with your interest in flight. They have something of everything there."
"I sure would. I will find out about it if I ever get to TelleRai."
"You will get there soon enough if Gradwohl has her way."
"Then I suppose the reason for buying metal ships is because that is easier than making them."
"No doubt."
"Are there any artisans left? Sisters who could build darkships if necessary?"
"I am sure there are. Silth are conservative. Old things take a thousand years to die. And about darkships there are many still devoted to the old. Many who prefer the wooden ships because the golden fleet wood is more responsive than cold metal. Also, many who feel we should not be dependent upon the brethren for our ships.
"The brethren keep taking over chunks of our lives. There was a time when touch-sisters did everything comm techs do now. Their greatest bragged that they could touch anyone anywhere in the world. That far reach is almost a lost art now."
"That is sad."
The darkship was fifty miles north of the city already. Ahead, Marika could just distinguish the fire-blackened remains of a tradermale outpost. Kharg Station. It marked the southernmost flow of nomad raiding for the winter. Its fall had been the final insult that had driven Gradwohl into the rage whence this campaign had sprung. Its fall had come close to costing Senior Zertan her position, for she had made no effort to relieve the besieged outpost.
"I think so, too. We live in the moment, we silth, but many long for the past. For quieter times when we were not so much dependent upon the brethren." Dorteka eyed the ruins. "Zertan is one of those. Paustch is another."