Even after Bruin, Ring, and Kipper arrived, Griffin remained immersed in his exploration of Leto’s complex. Indeed, had Ring not insisted on accompanying Griffin and Terrell indoors, Griffin would have easily forgotten that anything had changed about their situation. The complex obsessed him to the point that Terrell had to remind him periodically that his goal was to seek and—if at all possible—activate a communications array so that he could contact his orbiting ship.
“This is all very interesting,” Terrell said one morning when Griffin called him over to show him some schematic diagrams he’d found regarding fuel cells, “but wouldn’t your analysis be much easier if you had some of those devices you left on your ship—the ones that let you record information and make pictures? I’d like to see the portable library you mentioned. With it, we could compare what we’re finding here with the artifacts you’ve already studied.”
Griffin nodded. “That would be great. However, I’m uncomfortable with bringing any modern technology down here until we’re certain that the nanobots that, in all likelihood, crashed my shuttle have been completely disabled. What if I brought the Howard Carter down and she crashed?”
Terrell countered immediately. “Didn’t you say something about the Howard Carter being able to send down drones that could carry small equipment? A drone would provide a very good test as to whether conditions have changed.”
When Griffin did not reply, Terrell persisted.
“I thought you intended to contact your ship and arrange for a message to be sent back to your family. You said a message would take a long time to reach them. Wouldn’t it be better to send it sooner, rather than later? You said that you could arrange to send the message drone remotely, so the ship would not be at risk of contamination.”
Fighting down an urge to tell Terrell to stop nagging him, Griffin seized on a point he had been avoiding, but that was at least better than admitting he was indeed behaving irrationally—an admission that would be particularly irksome at this moment since, in many ways, he had never felt more rational in all his life.
“Terrell, I’m not certain that I want to contact my family—not now, not since we found this complex. I’ve told you about them, haven’t I?”
“A little,” Terrell said, then demonstrated his excellent memory. “You are the youngest of ten children. You have six brothers and three sisters. Your father was involved in the military—although you have never spoken of what, exactly, that means. Your brothers and two of your sisters have, at least to some extent, followed in your father’s path. Your mother, in addition to raising all those children, was involved in some form of natural science. I’m not certain of the details, but you mention her most often when…”
Griffin held up a hand in mild protest. “You are a credit to your teachers, Terrell the Factotum, to remember so much and to draw such accurate conclusions from so little.”
“I am glad the seegnur is pleased,” Terrell said, the ritual response coming automatically. Then he colored. “And you, too, of course … Now, do you wish me to tell you what I deduce is making you hesitate or to spare me the trouble and talk openly for once?”
“It’s the military aspect,” Griffin admitted. “The Kyley Domain is largely peaceful. Indeed, since its initial formation, the domain has grown, because neighboring systems have requested membership—and the prosperity and security that come with it. These days, those systems which would join voluntarily have done so. Now some say that it is our duty to go forth and offer membership to systems who have not requested it.”
Terrell smiled knowingly. Although the people of Artemis were, on the whole, traditionalists, that didn’t mean there had been no ambitious rulers in the days since the seegnur had departed. His nod encouraged Griffin to continue.
“Not everyone, not even a majority, agrees with this course of action. Even in those systems that joined the Kyley Domain voluntarily, there were clashes with those who resisted. Some of the fights were horribly destructive, because any system worth having in the domain is of a similar technological level to our own. My father earned his awards in one such conflict. Several of my brothers served in a conflict when a group of affiliated systems decided that they had been wrong to join Kyley and wished to separate and form their own dominion. If Kyley were to annex groups who did not wish to join us, there would be even more battles. Dread of this has been the greatest argument against the annexation faction.”
“And the annexation faction,” Terrell said, “is the one to which some of your family belongs, yes?”
“It is the faction,” Griffin said, forcing a rueful grin, “my family heads. With age, my father has taken his taste for battle into politics. He has proven quite good at it, although I believe he regrets he cannot solve some differences of opinion with a single well-aimed shot.”
“So your brothers,” Terrell continued, “and your more military-minded sisters as well, would welcome annexation becoming official policy.”
“Precisely.” Griffin waved one arm in a broad gesture that encompassed Leto’s complex. “Here we have what may be the solution to the greatest argument against annexation. Even those pacification campaigns I mentioned—although not all-out wars of conquest—were expensive, both in equipment and in lives. My father’s opponents have used this against him, saying that if mere pacification costs so dearly, how much more expensive would conquest be? I’ll spare you my father’s counterarguments. However, if the technological advances we see here were in his hands, then he would have a cogent argument for conquest.”
Terrell nodded. “Because, although the expense would still be high, the chance of victory—and the opportunity to recoup the expenses—would be much more likely.”
“Again, correct,” Griffin agreed. “That’s why I’d like to know more about what we have here before I contact anyone.”
“Do you support your father’s dreams of annexation?”
Griffin didn’t need to be a genius to know that, although Terrell tried to keep his expression neutral, the factotum did not think annexation was a good policy. He framed his answer accordingly.
“Not precisely. Growing too large was what doomed the Old Empire. Their technology—especially in communications and travel—was as far above that of the Kyley Domain as that of Kyley is above that of the average householder in Shepherd’s Call. Currently, the Kyley Domain is mostly peaceful. Peace is good for scholarship and that is what I love. No. I can’t say I would particularly favor annexation.”
“I wonder what motivated the seegnur,” Terrell said. “As you said, they were far above any technology either of us has ever seen. Nonetheless, they made this place so they could research further advances. What could they have possibly wanted?”
Griffin brightened. “Actually, I’m beginning to figure out what their primary areas of research were.”
“Couldn’t Leto just tell you what they were doing?”
Uninvited, the disembodied voice replied, “Authorization level is not precisely clear. Until it is so, I shall withhold both restricting and abetting.”
“That,” Griffin said, shrugging, “about says it. I think if I figure out enough on my own, Leto will change her mind.”
Terrell nodded. “So, what do you think were the primary areas of research? You’ve had me sketching different models of battle armor. I can’t say that’s given me any great insights.”
“Ah, but your work,” Griffin said, slapping his friend on the back, “has given me a number of insights. Let me share them.”
He led the way to the well-lit table that had more or less become his office. Ring was nearby, sitting upright on the floor, apparently drowsing. Griffin did not so much ignore the other man as let him continue to rest. The journey from Lynn’s isolated community to Maiden’s Tear must have been exhausting for Ring. He might need as many days to recover.
“Pull over a chair. Let me grab my notes. Right. Now, where should I start?”
Terrell shrugged. “We of Artemis know little of the seegnur, your Old Imperials—beyond what was in the lore. You say they surpassed your own people in both the technologies of communication and travel. Maybe you can explain the differences between you. If you don’t, I’m not going to know why you’re so excited.”
“Fair enough.” Griffin paused, considering how best to explain star flight to someone from a culture that considered a multi-masted sailing ship the epitome of long-distance travel. “Think of space as an enormous sea in which the star systems are scattered like chains of islands swirling around a sun. The distances are so vast that travel between close systems—even between planets in the same system—takes not minutes or hours, but days, weeks, years, even lifetimes.”
Terrell accepted this so quietly that Griffin wondered if he was being humored. Then he remembered that Terrell belonged to a culture where journeys never took minutes or hours, but always took days, weeks, months, or longer. This explanation might be easier than he had imagined.
“I’m going to spare you the technical details—I’ll be honest, I don’t understand them myself—but eventually someone postulated that space could be folded.” Griffin took out a handkerchief—thankfully clean—and spread it on the table. “Let’s say System A is on this hem and System B is on this hem. The distance between would take years to cross, even at the fastest speeds. The orikami drive lets a ship equipped with it fold the space and so shorten the journey. He pinched the handkerchief in the middle, folding it so that the two edges remained visible, but the middle was compressed. “Now I’ve folded the space so that only half the distance needs to be crossed. We can fold it half again, then…” He made a final fold. “Half again.”
“Amazing!”
Gratified, Griffin continued, “The orikami drive can’t be used within a star system—the bodies that make up those ‘island chains’ make folding space impossible. However, there are various types of secondary engines that enable a ship to travel between planets. This combination of orikami drive and secondary engines is what is used by the Kyley Domain and is about the best we can do.”
“What did the seegnur use?”
“We don’t know for certain,” Griffin said. “For more routine matters, they used something not unlike the orikami drive. However, there is evidence that they had found the means to make even bigger folds in space, that they could even fold space within star systems, which gave them a tremendous advantage.”
Terrell nodded. “Like that which someone with a small, fleet sailing vessel would have if their rivals were limited to rowboats.”
“Precisely!” Griffin’s eyes shone with excitement. “That technology vanished with the Old Empire. The theory is that it depended as much on a human component as on any machinery. We don’t know whether these pilots were all killed, were ordered to suicide, or merely died out without passing on their skills to a new generation. I think it was probably a combination of several of these elements. I also suspect that after the fall of the Old Empire there was such chaos that the resources for building these special ships and training their pilots simply wasn’t available.”
“Makes sense,” Terrell said. “Perhaps when the rulers knew they would fall, they made sure the technology would be lost with them—rather like how the Old One flooded his complex on Mender’s Isle and the Sanctum Sanctorum, rather than let us have them.”
“One thing,” Griffin said sadly, “we seem to have in common with the Old Imperials is the petty streak of human nature.”
“How did the Imperials deal with communication if these systems were so far apart? Did they use fast ships to carry messages?”
“We’re pretty sure that was how routine messages were transferred,” Griffin agreed. “However, there is evidence that, just as they had learned how to have humans augment and refine the ability to fold space, they discovered ways for minds to communicate over vast distances. This meant stationing adepts in each location and surmounting a wide variety of other difficulties but, compared to having to entrust messages to even the fastest ship, this gave the Imperials another great advantage.”
Again, Terrell seemed to have less of a problem accepting this than Griffin would have believed possible. But then he has experience with communicating mind to mind. Perhaps I would have accepted this more easily if I had known then what I do now.
“And yet the Empire fell,” Terrell said softly. “All that power and so little wisdom. And that brings us back to the question of what they were trying to make here.”
Griffin was about to launch into his theories on that point when Leto said, “Kipper has entered the complex. He does not bring your meal, although darkness is gathering without.”
There was a disapproving note to the disembodied voice, but Griffin answered mildly. “I’m sure there’s a good reason.”
He heard the soft slap of Kipper’s bare feet against the polished floor of the corridor. A moment later the boy, rosy-faced from exertion, burst through the door into the lab.
“Bruin invites you to join him for dinner. He says to tell you that he’s so tired of only having me and Honeychild for company that he’s considering inviting Sam the Mule.”
“Only you?” Terrell asked. “Where’re Adara and Sand Shadow?”
The boy shrugged. “Don’t know. She’s gone scouting and not come back.”
* * *
The three strangers recovered from their surprise quickly. After a quick consultation, they led the way to what had been the large dining and recreation area during the Old One’s tenancy. The tables and benches had been so bulky that they hadn’t been carried far by the surging water. The new arrivals had retrieved the furnishings and cleaned the area, which they were now using as a camping spot.
Julyan thought this was an odd choice, especially since the island surface was much more pleasant than this dank, subterranean chamber. Then he realized that the newcomers would have no idea that the Haunted Islands were prohibited, nor that any dangerous predators—barring snakes and insects—had been cleared away on the Old One’s orders. Doubtless they had chosen safety and secrecy over ambiance.
On their first meeting, Julyan had been so startled by the three men’s ready hands to their weapons that he had not taken in much about their attire and gear. Now, standing with his back against the wall, he made a careful inspection, as much to be prepared for future conflict as because he was interested.
All three men were dressed in a strange shoulder-to-foot garment, apparently somehow shaped from one piece of material, since Julyan couldn’t see any seams. Even the fasteners were hard to detect, but since the man with the bronze curls—Alexander—had his garment open at the neck, while the other two wore theirs neatly closed, Julyan glimpsed the nearly hidden closures. The footwear was apparently part of the same material, woven more thickly to the height of an ankle boot. Most interesting of all was the color, which shifted with the surrounding environment. Currently, it was a neutral hue, somewhere between grey and brown. In the corridor, it had been the same grey as the walls and floors. Julyan wondered if outside it would shift toward green.
Julyan realized that he should have been startled and shocked, rather than feeling so analytical. But an embarrassment of miracles—from the flameless lights the men carried, to the pumps that worked with none to man them, to the enormous craft resting in the bay—had made him so numb that he was glad that, once introductions were over, he was freed from the need for speech.
The Old One, however, was his usual self. Perhaps his grey eyes were shining a bit more brightly than usual, but Julyan doubted that anyone who didn’t know him well would find him other than cool, collected, and self-contained.
“You address us as ‘seegnur,’” said the tall, blond man. He had introduced himself as Siegfried and, without saying so, presented himself as the leader. “That word is unfamiliar to me.”
“I suspect it was specific to Artemis,” the Old One replied politely. “It is what we were taught to call visitors from off-planet, and so applies perfectly to you and your associates.”
“Indeed.” Siegfried looked mildly amused. “So you of Artemis have retained something of your history, even after all this time?”
“We have.”
“And you do not seem in the least surprised to see us.”
“The lore has always held that the seegnur would someday return. If there were those who questioned, I was not among them.”
“We have reason to believe,” said the darker man, Falkner, “that we are not the first—uh—seegnur to come to Artemis in recent times. Do you know of another?”
He spoke as if he expected a negative response. His green eyes widened in surprise as the Old One said matter-of-factly, “Yes. He called himself Griffin Dane. He did not tell many that he was a seegnur, but I was so informed.”
Julyan nearly gasped out loud. He had had no idea that Griffin had been a seegnur, yet, now that he thought about it, this explained much, including the Old One’s interest in him, and the privileges he had granted him, even when he had been a prisoner.
“Is Griffin still alive?” asked Alexander eagerly.
“I believe so. Last I heard, he was, although he is no longer in this immediate area.”
“So Griffin took you into his confidence,” Siegfried said. “Yet it sounds as if he did not confide in everyone. Why did he choose you?”
“He wanted my help.” The Old One spoke with disarming simplicity. He waved a long-fingered hand to indicate the battered tables and benches. “This facility and one linked to it on the mainland were in my trust. Griffin hoped to find in them equipment he might reactivate and then use to contact his orbiting ship.”
The three men exchanged glances in which Julyan read surprise and concern, but no one even drew in a sharp breath. Instead, Siegfried continued as spokesman.
“Why did Griffin need to contact his orbiter? Was his machinery disabled? We have had some minor difficulties—mostly with our more delicate devices—but nothing that should have interfered with something as basic as ground-to-orbit communications.”
“My understanding is that Griffin experienced difficulties almost as soon as he came below the atmosphere to begin closer scouting. His shuttle came down in the mountains to the north. By good chance for him—and for me—he was found by a young huntress who was training with her demiurge away from the settlements. She rescued him and, eventually, brought him to me.”
Again the three men exchanged glances in which Julyan was certain he saw a certain degree of incredulity. He didn’t blame them. The story was incredible.
“Why to you?” Siegfried said.
“I told you. I held this facility and the two on the mainland. Actually…” The Old One looked a little sly—an expression Julyan was certain was deliberate, although he expected that the three seegnur would take as a slip. “Most did not know I held this particular facility. What purpose Mender’s Isle had served in the days of the seegnur had been lost except in the name. The area was protected from invasion by cleverly designed barriers and by the pervasive belief that the islands were haunted.”
“But that didn’t bother you, eh?” said Alexander.
“I have long been interested in the lore regarding the seegnur,” the Old One said, a statement that clearly amused the three men, as well it should, since the Old One didn’t look much older than his early twenties.
They interpret as pomposity and youthful posturing what is only truth, Julyan thought, and was pleased. It was good knowing that the Old One had not become so excited by the return of the seegnur that he had forgotten his cunning.
The Old One continued as if he had not noticed the amusement his words had generated. “I first found a facility on the mainland, beneath where once a lighthouse had stood. I explored more carefully than any had in hundreds of years, since it had been sealed in the days of the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines. I found the manual override that enabled me to travel underwater to Mender’s Isle. With a few chosen acolytes, I cleaned the place and continued my studies. From there I entered a second facility on the mainland that proved to have been the landing facility.
“But I divert from what you wish to learn. Because I eventually came to live in this facility and served as its custodian, when Adara the Huntress sought a place where there might be intact artifacts of the seegnur, she brought her find—Griffin Dane—to me.”
“So the landing facility was intact?” Falkner sounded very eager.
“More intact than other places,” the Old One corrected. “I do not know what your legends tell of what happened here on Artemis, but the destruction was terrible and widespread. Very little of what the seegnur left remained intact and what did remain was nonfunctional. Griffin said the invaders released ‘nanobots’ that stopped even functioning devices from working.”
“We know some about what happened,” Siegfried said. “Some rare histories recall both the existence of Artemis, and that many who had been important in the Old Empire were killed here. Griffin was very interested in these stories and our father encouraged him in his fancy…”
“Wait!” the Old One spoke with a trace of his usual authority, quickly masking it with an overt show of astonishment. “‘Our’ father? Was your father Griffin’s patron? Or perhaps are you his brother?”
Siegfried looked momentarily annoyed, although whether at his own slip or at the Old One’s effrontery, Julyan could not be certain.
Alexander, however, laughed and replied, “That’s right. Griffin is our brother, our youngest brother. He’s a bit impulsive, but very smart. When no message came from him, we decided we’d better look for him.”
Julyan was startled. Perhaps there was some resemblance between Siegfried and Griffin—both were fair-haired and possessed strong, powerful builds—but he never would have taken Falkner for a brother to either of them. It wasn’t only a matter of coloring. His features were sharper, his cheekbones high, his chin almost pointed. While he wasn’t short, he certainly was not tall. His build was lean to the point of being wiry.
Alexander also did not resemble either Siegfried or Griffin. He was only of middle height, although he had a strong build. Where they were handsome in a distinctly masculine fashion, Alexander’s features were so elegant that—had his build been less definitively male—he might have been mistaken for a woman. His reddish-bronze curls set him apart, as did his eyes. These were a light hazel that shifted between pale green and a brown so light as to be almost tan.
Yet in one way Julyan had no problem believing these three were brothers. A shared life was reflected in those quick glances. It was there, too, in how Alexander deliberately interrupted Siegfried, giving away what the other had tried to hold back. Julyan would have bet a substantial amount that Siegfried was the eldest, a leader not only by talent but by habit, and that Alexander both accepted this and chafed under restraints so habitual that he probably was unaware how they bound him.
“I had the impression,” the Old One said slowly, “that Griffin had not told anyone where he was going, because he wanted the finding of Artemis to be his discovery, his triumph. That was why he was so concerned about contacting his orbiter. He did not believe anyone would know where to look for him—even after sufficient time passed for anyone to become worried.”
Again, Alexander was the one who chose to answer. “I said Griffin is smart, but I suppose I should have been more accurate. Griffin is very smart, if you’re talking book smarts. As a researcher, he may be even as good as I am—and I have more years of training. But as a conniver! He’s not as clever as he thinks. I’m sure our father knew where Griffin was going from the start, as well as precisely when he departed.”
Something in how Siegfried now took over the conversation made Julyan certain that Siegfried wanted to be sure Alexander didn’t babble further. But then the Old One wasn’t telling the whole truth either—and Julyan doubted if these seegnur had any idea just how much this “helpful” local informant was omitting.
“Let us go back to the original point,” Siegfried said. “Griffin came to you because you were in charge of the landing facility and processing center. Did he have any success reactivating any of the equipment?”
“None. He stayed with me but, eventually”—the Old One made a sweeping gesture with his right hand—“there was trouble. Adara the Huntress did not mind bringing Griffin to me when she believed she would continue to influence him. He had become quite dependent on her, you must understand: his rescuer, his guide, perhaps his lover.”
“Our Griffin is a romantic,” Falkner said. “The only reason he never married is that he couldn’t find a woman as captivating as his semi-mythical Artemis. So this Adara got her claws into him?”
Julyan swallowed a smile. He doubted the seegnur realized that Adara could, quite literally, get her claws into a man.
“Yes. She resented,” the Old One continued, “that he was increasingly separating himself from her. I moved Griffin to Mender’s Isle to protect him. Adara was too clever and ruthless for me. In the course of her ‘rescue’ of Griffin, all I had worked so hard to discover was ruined. Many of those who lived and worked with me were killed. Julyan and I only narrowly escaped. Griffin went with Adara. By now I have no doubt she has convinced him that I was his enemy, rather than the best friend he had upon this world.”
Julyan was impressed. No one who knew the Old One would believe this story for a minute, but this “Maxwell”—so slim, almost fragile, so apparently young—easy to imagine him being overwhelmed by some terrible warrior woman.
Oh, Adara! he thought gleefully. Do you know what a terrible enemy you have made? Soon the time will come that you will be glad of my protection, no matter the price I exact for it—and my price will be high indeed. We’ll start with every inch of your lovely body, but in the end, I think I’ll claim your soul.
“You have given us much to think about, Maxwell,” Siegfried said after a moment. “Do you know where our brother is?”
“I do not,” the Old One said, “but I am certain he is alive and well. What good would he be to Adara the Huntress if he were not?”
“Then we owe it to ourselves to become more fully acquainted with the situation before we venture after him,” Siegfried concluded. “Not only do we need to know more about the culture that has grown up here, but we also must assure ourselves that our equipment will continue to function. May we enlist you in our researches?”
The Old One gave a very low bow—doubtless the first time he had bowed to anyone in more than a hundred years. “I would be honored to be of service, seegnur. Where do you wish to begin?”
“I’d like to see your facility on the mainland,” Falkner said. “Is that at all possible?”
“If we are careful,” the Old One answered. “After the disruptions caused by Adara and the lies she spread, the facility was sealed against intrusion. Still, we can penetrate via the underwater tunnel. Most of the more interesting equipment was underground, so our lights should not show.”
Siegfried nodded. “Then that is where we will start.”
“But,” added Alexander, a slow smile stretching his handsome face, “I am certain that is not where we will end.”
* * *
It feels so good to be out alone, Adara thought as she left Maiden’s Tear behind her. In all fairness, I couldn’t leave Terrell both to assist Griffin and to take care of all the camp duties, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit I was beginning to feel more like a makeshift factotum than a huntress.
“Alone? Since when have you been alone?”
That was how Adara interpreted the flash of images that flooded into her mind. She hadn’t intended to send her thoughts to Sand Shadow, but she guessed that in her relief at being out and away she had projected more strongly than she had intended. As was their custom when scouting a new area, the demiurges were ranging a short distance from each other, covering a larger area, while still being able to reach the other should trouble arise.
Is Sand Shadow closer than I assumed? Adara thought. Or is our bond becoming stronger? Certainly it has been tested over these last several months, not only by the challenges we’ve faced with Griffin, but when Artemis started drifting into our practice sessions. I doubt that many paired demiurges have faced such strange and peculiar challenges over such a short time.
Adara felt Sand Shadow’s agreement, both as to the manner of their testing and the puma’s belief that their bond had grown more complex. Along with this came a certain wistful hope that soon they would be able to understand each other as easily as did Bruin and Honeychild.
They are much older than we are. Adara soothed the puma. You are hardly grown out of spots.
She laughed at the puma’s indignant reminder that, compared to Adara, Sand Shadow had made great progress over the seasons they had known each other. Adara could only agree. Humans did grow slowly compared to pumas. Humans aged more slowly as well, but one of the wonders of the human/animal bond was that—barring accidents—the animal demiurge did seem to live longer and with greater vitality than their non-bonded kin. Adara suspected that the seegnur had somehow linked traits for longer life to the adaptations that let human and animal communicate mind to mind. What use would the human/animal partnership be to the seegnur if the human was slowed by an aging demiurge or continually training new partners?
Despite Sand Shadow’s reminder that she was not really “alone,” Adara felt amazingly light and free. Before Griffin’s arrival, her responsibilities had been minimal. She had passed her final testing and been accepted as a hunter, but had not yet taken on a territory of her own—nor would she have been likely to do so. As he aged, Bruin had been ranging less, content with his garden, his students, and challenges in the immediate vicinity of Shepherd’s Call. As he stayed closer to home, Adara spiraled outward, taking on his responsibilities, acting under the aegis of his reputation. It had been a comfortable time, an enjoyable time. Then, in the flash of a shooting star, Adara had become responsible for the life of a man—and not just any man, but a man who was probably a seegnur.
Adara pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, as if the pressure of responsibility was a physical thing she could push away. The patterns of dark and light within her eyelids seemed to take the form of mushrooms. With that, a startling thought crashed into her mind.
Is that why I am having so much trouble contacting Artemis? Am I resisting the responsibility? I didn’t ask for it … I haven’t asked for so much of what has dominated my life since early spring.
“But do you regret it all? Saving Griffin and this curious hunt we have followed since?”
Adara considered Sand Shadow’s question, trying hard to eliminate from the equation her mixed feelings about Griffin as a man, trying only to weigh the life she was living now against the life she would have been living. Did she truly regret the change? Startled, Adara realized that the woman she had been—someone whose greatest worries had been honing her own abilities and developing a reputation—was a stranger to her. How petty that Adara seemed! How self-absorbed!
She smiled. She didn’t regret the events of the last several months at all. She let herself probe the next element of what Sand Shadow thought of as a “curious hunt.” How did she feel about the addition of Artemis to what had been a closed relationship? That was a harder question. The world had been a much more comfortable place before Adara had realized that the spirit associated with it was more like a frightened child than the all-enfolding mother figure which had vaguely occupied that space in her imagination.
Adara would be the first to admit that she was not the most philosophically inclined of humans—although recent events were forcing her to reconsider that attitude. She had truly been content with the gradually more complex catechism taught to children. She had never been the type to ask why the sky was blue (because so often it wasn’t) or why the sun moved (because it did). Maybe it was because she’d been taught that her world was a paradise designed by gods, for gods, so what use were questions?
Things were as they were because that was what suited the seegnur. Now, though, there were questions that the catechism had not addressed. Why was the fact never raised that Artemis the planet was also Artemis the person? What about Leto’s complex? It didn’t fit in at all with the ostensible reason the planet had been created. Which was the bigger lie?
Eminently practical, Sand Shadow pulled Adara back from a trail of increasingly fruitless speculation. To the puma’s way of seeing things, the question was not how one felt about a hunt, but whether or not the hunt was worth pursuing. If it was, then the next question was what was the best and safest way to accomplish it. If best and safest also included easiest—well, that suited the great cat as well.
Adara found herself smiling. “How would you hunt a neural network? We have tried opening ourselves to her when we are practicing. After all, that’s how she touched us the first times. However, we’ve had no luck. Should we try again now that we’re farther from Leto’s zone?”
A single image popped into Adara’s mind, herself up in the high limbs of a long-needled pine, a lacework of fungus growing from the wood and talking to her. This was followed by a second image of a cluster of a similar mushroom, only this one was larger, falling like a curtain, rather than shaping a face. From the sense that came with the image, Adara could tell that Sand Shadow was looking right at them.
“You think we should use those? How?”
A mild sense of annoyance, one that Adara translated as, “Why should I do all the thinking? I’ve half an idea. You come up with the other half.”
Adara understood the puma’s annoyance. “Really,” she said out loud to herself. “You’d think I was a wolf pup, waiting for the head wolf to make my decisions for me, rather than a full-grown huntress.”
Sand Shadow was lolling next to the mushroom curtain, playing with her earrings, when Adara arrived. Reaching out with one hand to rub the great cat behind one ear, just where she liked it, Adara studied the cluster, admiring how the predominately white hue was shaded with palest pink and yellow. Bruin had tutored his students very carefully on the subject of mushrooms, for hunters also did a great deal of foraging. Sometimes plants could be as valuable as the plushest fur or finest joint of meat. Mushrooms and other fungi, with their widely varying properties, were among the most useful, whether for food, medicine, or sources of poison. After they had been properly prepared—usually by drying—they had the added advantage of being lightweight and easily portable.
Of course, some are only useful when fresh, Adara thought as she examined Sand Shadow’s find, but that is hardly an issue in this case. Now that I have it, what do I do with it? Artemis may know how to speak through a fungus, but I do not.
“Eat it,” Sand Shadow suggested, her image that of Bruin devouring an enormous skewer on which chunks of elk alternated with wedges of onion and large, white-capped mushrooms.
Adara considered this suggestion, but rejected it. Some mushrooms were safe to eat. Others were decidedly not. In between fell a vast number that might not kill the human who ate them, but could have side effects ranging from hallucinations to a very bad ache in the gut.
Sand Shadow seemed disappointed that Adara would not opt for the simplest solution.
“Glad you feel that way,” Adara retorted. “I notice you’re not offering to eat them.”
The puma did not deign to reply.
Adara considered. Artemis’s neural network was somehow associated with fungi, an idea that was only strange if one didn’t realize that the visible fruiting bodies were the least portion of complex organisms that could stretch for miles. Adara had no idea if all mushrooms were part of Artemis’s network, but she saw no harm in assuming so. Perhaps she and Sand Shadow would do better if they concentrated on Artemis using a specific focal point, rather than reaching out to nothingness.
Sand Shadow liked the idea. She assured Adara that nothing dangerous was anywhere near and that she would not let herself detach so far that she would not be on guard. Adara accepted this division of labor. The puma’s senses were far better than her own. It did not make sense to insist that she keep watch while the puma prowled after the elusive neural network.
She settled down cross-legged, gently touching the mushroom curtain with her fingertips. Although their communication with Artemis had been as much wordless as shaped by words, still Adara—human as she was—had shaped it into words. She recalled them now.
“Velvet darkness, soft as sound,” she recited softly. “My shadow, my other self, can you hear me?”
That wasn’t quite right … Artemis was not her “other self” as Sand Shadow was. How had Artemis defined herself in those earlier contacts? Not just as a neural network, that had been Adara’s human mind, seeking to reduce the complex to a few simple terms. “Neural network, seeded spores activated by annihilating desire, interlacing mosaic, pieces yet unplaced.” That had been it. It made a lot more sense now than it had at the time.
Adara repeated these words in her mind, feeling Sand Shadow shaping the remembered images that went with them. Closer, but still not enough … Adara lowered herself to the level of the mushrooms, stared at them, repeating the words very softly. Neural network. (That spider’s web of tangled threads.) Seeded spores. (Lovely, like the tiniest snowflakes on a very cold winter’s day, but detailed, minute dandelion seeds drifting with purposeless purpose.) Interlacing mosaic. (Concentrate on the image of connection, not on the gaping holes they now suspected were there.)
Closer. They were closer, but still not quite enough. Adara saw how her breath stirred the delicate gills on the underside of the mushroom. Saw them vibrating, like the strings of the wind harps Bruin put in his garden when the weather was fine. That music, played without fingers, was both haunting and unpredictable, stirring the soul to flights of fancy.
Without realizing it, Adara realized her whispered words were becoming a chant, the chant rising and falling, making its own melody. Then, soft as a breeze, she began to sing, letting the rise and fall of her voice stir the delicate gills, while keeping her breath so soft that even the thinnest veil in the cluster did not stir. Her mental image changed, ceasing to be darkness, becoming instead the palest light, the softest breath, the gentle scent of moonflowers, all weaving into a music that called, coaxed, comforted, cajoled. Vaguely she was aware of Sand Shadow adding the whistling cries of a puma kitten—sweet notes often mistaken for birdsong by the uninitiated—to the mix.
“Whyfore of yourself? Do you flee it? We will give you eyes, ears, nose, fingers, paws, whiskers, tail. Is the whyfore so terrible that you no longer seek it? Come to us! Come to us!”
At last, weakly, tentatively, with nothing about it of the teasing child who had so confidently asked about the difference between good and bad behavior, the sensibility that was Artemis touched the minds of the human and the puma. Her thoughts trembled so that Adara struggled to sort meaning from what was a flood of emotion rather than words.
“I, so scared, broken apart … By your voices interwoven, laced together. Alone, no more!”
Interlude: Giver Given
Song breathed onto my gills,
Wind harp Artemesian
Plays upon my soul.
The veil trembles,
tears,
revealing …
Before: There was mind.
Before: I had heart.
Before: Gifts given so I might give.
Now soul,
Now self,
Now I see …
My beloved’s face
must be me.