The Shadow of the Ship, page 20
She talked, faintly, of what she was seeing with her other eyes of that other Ship, one perhaps more real or more tangible than the hulking red shadow which lay upon the dark meadow. Rheinallt could not make out half her words nor guess where away in space or time her other viewpoint lay. All she could do was describe what she saw, and he listened. He forced a firm contact, and strained to hear her whispered words.
“The Ship is solid now,” the near-Susannilar said, eyes unfocused. No, not a whisper, only distant, though he was only inches away from her face. He tried to stare over the horizon in her eyes.
“It’s big, big, big,” she said.“Not a mountain of shadow but a mountain of metal. I think it’s metal. Nothing misty at all. Hard, sharp, bright colors everywhere, more artistic than a fountain. And the energy! It’s vibrant, I can feel it flowing through me and all around, piercing and flowing and weaving like channeled lightning.
“There are long corridors running fore and aft, long and empty but very brightly lit. Always too much light. There are no people that I can see. Nothing moving at all. But the Ship feels so alive, it’s as though they just went around a corner or ducked into their rooms a moment ago.
“I’ve been walking along what I think is a transverse corridor, and now I’m turning up one of the fore-and-aft ones. This is empty, too. There are rooms off this corridor, but the first ones along here at least are bare. The doorways are more or less human-type; the rooms are rectangular. No furnishings.
“Everything is so incredibly bright! My eyes are watering. I’m trying to shade my eyes but I can’t.”
Rheinallt tore his attention away from the scene she was describing, and looked closely at the eyes of this Susannilar next to him. He wished he had been here when she had begun to oscillate, splitting into the woman who was here and the woman who was not; he wished he knew more about how she had gone and by what route. Her eyes were moist from the transferred, or doubly felt, sensation of brightness. Moist and unfocused. All her attention was for the bright solidity of the faraway Ship.
“So bright,” she went on whispering, faint and hoarse. “A suit of armor, bright but empty. The people burned away long ago, sad ashes and all gone. The Ship outshines its contents as though they never had been at all. I know it was built but I can’t see anybody, any sign of builders except the Ship itself. Like a mirror, like a lens, so bright, brighter than stars, brighter than the stars could shine themselves!
“The fires of hell,” she went on in a worsening voice, her mouth obviously dry but eyes tightly shut now and streaming. Her face was flushed an angry red. “The fires of stars, of galaxies, of creation, the old strong vessel.”
Worried now, Rheinallt debated shaking her gently. This was a physical ordeal, and she was buckling visibly.
Then her voice strengthened slightly, her mouth set. She said clearly, “I’ve had enough. This is too much, I can’t take any more, I’m coming back.”
Tensely, he waited, gripping her suited arm tightly now in case by some accident of her returning state she lost consciousness. The hungrily disintegrating meadow would not care what she had seen if she lost consciousness on the way back. At least he was here to support her now.
At first, nothing happened. She was silent. Would she make it? Then, ever so gradually, he detected a kind of thickening in Susannilar, a growing in weight and substantiality. By imperceptible degrees, something was being put back that had been missing so subtly that in her heated narration he had not really been aware of her lack. He had not realized how much of her had been—elsewhere.
After a few minutes of labored breathing he could feel through her suit, she opened her eyes and there was recognition in them. She smiled briefly, then closed her eyes again. Presumably she needed to keep concentrating on her reintegration.
Later, after she had recovered somewhat and they were walking slowly back down toward the parked caravan and the airtent, he asked her in intersign where she had been. But she only shook her head. He decided that, considering the health of her equilibrium after her venture, there was no urgency to press her. Certainly, though, this was a great breakthrough. The restless expedition members would have a progress report to chew on.
It was only when they were entirely away from the reddening shadow, off the meadow and into the well-lit airtent, that he saw the blisters forming on her skin where Susannilar’s face was freshly, rudely sunburned.
After salving her face, he took her to her room and let her stumble into her bed. Tiredly he went to his own compartment.
* * * * *
After the caravan’s crude clock had turned around a little further to what it claimed was night back on faraway Blueholm, Rheinallt had a fitful sleep, full of dreams of bifurcation, oscillation, and great red ghosts. The damned clock even got into one dream, wherein it was vital that he know the precise time for navigational purposes, but the clock’s pitiful ratchet-brain only clanked and chuckled inanely, and its hands always pointed in opposite directions. In his dream he pitched it overboard and tried to construct an hourglass out of black meadow-sand. But the sand turned to ashes and blew away in the vacuum when he tried to pick it up; while the clock, instead of disintegrating, thinned and faded into a reddish glow in which he could no longer discern even its feeble-minded approximations of the time.
“Bad sleep, huh?” Whitnadys said when he awoke puffy-eyed.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“Well, don’t go outside until you’re awake. It’s too dangerous.”
Rheinallt splashed some water onto his face from the cupboard basin Whitnadys had opened up already for her own use. “I’m going to be walking up and down in the caravan for most of the day, I expect. Talk to the expeditionaries, share the news, buck them up, and all that.”
“Good idea. A lot of them are depressed. Going to tell them what Susannilar did yesterday, that she seems to have penetrated the Ship?”
“Sure. It’s a breakthrough. Unless some of the others are hoarding information, it’s the first one. Our investigation isn’t exactly a team effort, but everybody can use some encouragement that progress is being made.”
Whitnadys’ eyes twinkled as she threw back her hair and began to brush it out, a deep golden brown like sage honey. “No one will ever think the trip’s a waste after they get home, and they can dine out for years on the story of the Special Caravan and the shadow of the Ship. They’ll lap it up.”
“Maybe then they will. Now they’re frustrated.”
“Seriously, though, you might try to step on that corposant business. Your public conversation with the Detenebrator in the airtent spread like wildfire. Explanations run all the way from your carrying on a hallucinatory dialogue with a locus of ball lightning, down to your cavorting with a demon.”
He frowned. “What do I tell them?”
“You don’t have to make up anything, but do reassure them that it’s all right. You may have seen scads of aliens, but they’re naturally freaky to us. Arahant’s a dear friend, but it was a good idea to keep him under wraps.”
“Didn’t do that for the caravan’s sake, although it only takes one percent xenophobia, as it only takes one percent criminality, to make a society uncomfortable to live in. A long shot into the dark on a caravan creates tensions enough of its own without adding to them before it’s necessary.”
“The Detenebrator, though?” she persisted.
Rheinallt began pulling on a loose white shirt and pants. Fortunately, fifty-four worlds held so many variations of clothing styles that the fact that his own set of preferences never quite coincided with any fancied norm was never a cause for comment. Same with other little cultural peculiarities, like the proper personal distance preferred for conversations, privacy demands, and so on.
The Trail societies were mostly pretty loose, and the Blue Free Nation was the loosest and most tolerant of all, which was a significant factor in his choosing it for a base. That it was Whitnadys’ home turf was another.
Of course, professional traveling people like trailmen would never hassle someone on a point of individuality, considering it rather part of the universal entertainment for their benefit if they did not actually like it. Alienness was an untried stimulant, though.
“I can’t guarantee anybody’s response to an alien when they’ve never met one,” Rheinallt admitted. “But I don’t assume the Detenebrator is alien.”
She looked at him skeptically. “It’s human, then? Or was, or will be?”
“Was. At least according to what I’ve heard: fitting together the halves of the story it gave me, and Susannilar gave me.”
“Well, if you talk about it, don’t drag Susannilar in to get blamed for that, too,” Whitnadys warned. “The girl’s got enough troubles of her very own.”
“Agreed, for now, anyway. And I’ll also take your suggestion about calming incipient fears about the Detenebrator.”
“Time to make my rounds of the squeakers,” Whitnadys said. “See you later.”
He blew a kiss at her, finished pulling on his soft boots, and folded the basin back into the cupboard. Then he headed out too, with no particular destinations. He just wanted to talk to people, as and where he found them, being himself one of the unifying forces that kept the caravan’s individualities from scooting off in all directions.
As Rheinallt buttonholed people and explained Susannilar’s new information about the Ship, he let on that she had used instruments rather than direct perception, and that her instrumentation was proprietary. That kept anyone from inquiring too closely about Susannilar’s actual method of penetrating Ship secrets, while encouraging them to try new lines of endeavor themselves.
Much later, when he entered the lounge car for the third or fourth time, but intending on this occasion to take a break, he saw Glenavet at a table near the big window.
“How’re you doing, Eiverdein? Pull up a chair.”
“Thanks.” Rheinallt picked one so that he, like Glenavet, could see outside: see the edge of the Blue Trail in the foreground, the long black slope with one or two suited figures moving on it, and the glowing red Falling Angel hulking above it all.
Rheinallt signed to the waiter to bring him a mixed salad. Since salads only had to come from a few dozen yards away, and were only picked to order, they were as fresh as could be.
The representative of the Federated Trailmen was flushed and grinning. “I hear Susannilar told you about her walking tour of the Ship,” he said happily. “You know, I’m really amazed that someone like that could exist. And I don’t mind telling you that I’m just as amazed that I’ve come across her. I never expected to meet anybody who was, well, unique. Don’t know how I took so long to notice her, must have been blind. Let alone that heavenly smell! I’ve never been much for perfumery, but what Susannilar daubs on herself packs a wallop.”
“It is beautiful,” Rheinallt agreed sincerely.
“Goes with her, or something. Like the glow goes with the Ship, I guess. Although Susannilar got a bit burned yesterday, sort of a glow herself: she wouldn’t tell me how.” Glenavet’s attention drifted to the Falling Angel outside. “Too bad we can’t use it, after all this trouble.”
What had gotten into him? No, that wasn’t quite fair: he had come along as organizer, not adventurer. “How’s the Federated’s recruiting?” Rheinallt countered.
Glenavet looked a little disconcerted. “Oh, fine. Haven’t given much thought to it the last few days. Susannilar, naturally. She takes up a lot of my time, even when I’m not with her, if you know what I mean.”
“I can guess.” The guy fell hard.
“Say, Eiverdein, Susannilar’s a really great person, and I know you’re kind of a friend of hers, so I figured you wouldn’t mind me talking about it. Right? She’s a wonder and no mistake! Pretty—well, anyone can see that, although I’m slow, took me a long time to notice her.” He slowed down, laughed indulgently. “And more than exciting, because we’ll be able to bring her back, which is a lot more than we’ll be able to do with your Falling Angel obsession.”
“So you’re going to bring Susannilar back with you?” Rheinallt asked quietly.
Glenavet’s face went through some subtle changes. “Sure! Sure I am.”
“Otherwise she’ll just have to ride back with the caravan?” he asked, because Glenavet had answered more than Rheinallt had inquired.
“Oh, hell, Eiverdein. You know we’ll both be on the caravan.” Glenavet was grinning helplessly with a mixture of adoration and embarrassment for his subject. “What I mean is, we’ll be together.”
“I take it you’ve been together already?”
Glenavet blushed. He leaned forward, glancing around to assure that no one was near. “That girl is unimaginable,” he asserted in a soft but intense tone. “She’s a wonder. Like making love with two women at once.”
“She’s a doppelganger.”
“Yeah, she said she tried to explain all that to you, but she wasn’t sure how much you picked up. But you’re sharp, you probably understood it all right away. Me, I’m still trying to soak it all in.”
“I confess I hadn’t thought about what it would be like making love to a doppelganger,” Rheinallt said, smiling. The salad arrived, and he began digging into it.
“Sometimes it’s like there’s two of her just an eighth of an inch offset, like vibrating faster than your eye can follow. And other times she’s all the way separated, with her totally apart as if they were twins, with me in the middle.
“Hard on her,” Glenavet continued, “to be so innocent and so sad at the same time. I’ve sworn to do whatever I can to make things better for her. I think she knows I’m sincere. Now I have to figure out what to do. Not even deciding to join the Federated was as heavy a situation.”
“Well, Glenavet, I hope the liaison will help both of you.”
“I suppose it will,” he said ruefully. “I feel so different from the fellow I was before I met her. I guess I’m changing already, but that’s supposed to happen when you fall in love, right?”
Rheinallt wondered if Susannilar had told him about Nollinsae’s pursuit. Her method of sharing confidences was staggering. “When did you meet her first?”
“I heard this sobbing: it was a young woman’s voice, but distant. There was nobody in sight. I thought, too bad; but I wasn’t barging in on somebody’s private troubles. Still, the crying kept on and on, and I was getting edgy. What was all that heartrending? None of my business, but maybe I could help.”
Glenavet reminisced in a hushed solemnity. “So there I went nosing down the corridor. In this alcove I found her, nestled behind a stubby potted tree. She was scrunched into the corner and hanging on to the tree for dear life.
“It was her that was sobbing, no question about the source. But she was dry-eyed! Nobody else nearby, so I looked closer at this lady, a girl really. I was starting some soothing-type noises but when I got closer, I saw that she was quivering. More than just a sob-quiver, she was really vibrating.
“So she wasn’t just fooling around with that tree. She really was hanging on. As she was vibrating away, I saw a couple of leaves flutter down. She was in trouble, even if I didn’t understand it.
“I gathered her into my arms and hugged her gently like she was real fragile. I didn’t say anything at all. I mean, I’m good at organizing people, getting them all fired to stand together. This was something I hadn’t practiced much.”
Glenavet stopped. “Don’t know as I want to go any further,” he said gruffly. “Hope you don’t mind. Gets more personal, both of Susannilar and me.”
“Sure. That’s fine,” Rheinallt said.
The burst of new emotions that had overreached the barrier of shyness was subsiding. Yet Glenavet was not quite talked out. “Guess I ought to grab some more ears and work on the organization. But you know, it all seems different now. Have to start thinking about my own goals here. Like the real point of my being on this expedition turns out to have been meeting Susannilar. My old purposes feel threadbare, but if meeting Susannilar has set me a new way, what is it? Got some heavy figuring to do.”
Glenavet stood, looked out upon the black starkness outside for a moment, then lifted a hand in casual goodbye and walked off.
“Later,” Rheinallt said cordially, and turned to polishing off the salad.
Yes, Glenavet had been dropped into a crucible. He hoped the man would recognize himself when he found those new purposes, and like what he found. The vital encounter had not even been with their so-glorious Ship but with an oscillating and pursued refugee girl.
* * * * *
After he finished lunch Rheinallt resumed his floor-walking, conversing with whoever felt like it, and with whoever looked in need of cheer.
Rheinallt’s face must have shown more strain than he realized. He was just about to pass out of a car down in the tail of the caravan when a passenger nudged him. He turned in the narrow corridor, recognizing a self-touted metallurgy expert.
“Say, Captain! Don’t look so worried! Don’t dwell on your problems,” the passenger said earnestly. “Put them behind you and live in the present.”
“Oh? How can I do that?”
“Just don’t let the past get to you. So what if we’ve used more than half our supplies? We’ve got to enjoy each day as it comes, get rid of old thoughts.”
Rheinallt slouched against the wall. Who would start such an outrageous rumor? He hadn’t heard it before today. In a dryly innocent tone he asked, “You mean, suppress my thoughts?”
The passenger threw up his hands. “No, no. You can’t do that. You have to live through all your old feelings. It’s when you haven’t lived through them that you’re carrying all the dead weight around with you. That’s suppression: very bad for you.”
“How do I tell when I’ve lived through my old problems? By running out of food?”
“You’ll know,” the metallurgist assured him. “You’ll be altogether in the present. Everything will feel right. And that Guardsman fellow said not to worry about the food.”
