EVERY season, a member of the Quick Council left their home in the Civilized Wood of the nameless island and boarded a hidden shuttle housed beneath a shallow bay. Despite being possessed of better stealth technology than the Patrol, the protocols of the Caudex insisted this shuttle could only be used when no other ships were within a day’s travel of the planet, when its destination—the moon the Fant had named Ulmazh—lay on the far side of the globe from the island of Zlorka and the space station in geosynchronous orbit above it. Despite centuries of successful missions to star systems beyond their own, the core of the Caudex’s program remained at the base its earliest visionaries had established within this moon. Theory and practice of the best developments of Alliance technology were explored, adapted, and enhanced there before being sent out to be implemented in still more ambitious projects. Ulmazh was the seat of Caudex manufacturing. The smaller portals that their ships had pushed for centuries were constructed there. Teams of ethernauts trained and drilled there, building up reflexes for contingencies that had never occurred but that some day might—for the Caudex, preparation for even the unlikely was mandatory. The moon also housed a modest shipyard, depending on the lesser gravity there to turn out new craft every decade. Small wonder then that a councilor spent a portion of each season on Ulmazh.
If Klarce enjoyed her rotation up to the moon more than her peers, well that was fine, too. If one of them wanted to let her take their turns, she’d be beyond delight. As it was, she’d been looking forward to the day’s trip all season.
Temmel arrived at Klarce’s office as she finished off several smaller tasks that would not wait for her return. Regina swapped out memos in front of her as quickly as she could skim, verify, and sign them, whisking the completed documents away to eventually distribute as necessary. When she was down to the last stack she didn’t bother to look up but acknowledged her first assistant’s presence with a simple question.
“Are we loaded and ready to go?” She knew the answer. Temmel was the very definition of efficiency. Klarce had traveled from world to moon and back with him many times and he wouldn’t be waiting on her now if there were anything left undone. In fact, he’d doubtless been yearning for the trip even more, eager for the chance to gain more flight time. Years before she’d joined the council, she’d been one of her predecessor’s assistants. Among the skills required for the job was piloting, a rarity on Barsk. Outside of the Caudex, she suspected that only Jorl could fly a shuttle. She’d enjoyed the rare opportunities to command a spacecraft, even within the restrictions of a covert dash from planet to moon and back again, and Temmel felt the same. For him, her turn to visit Ulmazh brought the satisfaction of sitting in a pilot’s seat, fingers and trunk hovering over the command board. As for her own hunger to pilot, Caudex protocols required someone else command the craft on such trips. Even so, Klarce had set aside time in her schedule over the next few days to drill with some ethernaut cadets and renew her certification. Should the need arrive, she liked knowing she could take the helm herself.
Time passed, and when Temmel still hadn’t responded she glanced up from her paperwork and saw a different answer in his eyes. “Tell me,” she said.
“Yes, the shuttle is ready, but … the launch has been countermanded.”
Klarce had feared as much but hoped she’d be wrong this once. Her travel plans had been overturned by the rest of the council. The Caudex would not allow a shuttle to lift today, not with a senatorial yacht afloat off the coast of Keslo. Which, she supposed, was why contingencies existed.
“We adapt,” she said. “Regina, send word to everyone I was scheduled to meet with over the next few days and express my apologies. Reschedule, loosely. With luck, whatever brought our senator’s private pleasure boat here ahead of schedule will send it back on its way promptly and we’ll have only minor delay. Temmel, is there anything that can’t wait?”
“We have three candidates for flight school who were going up with us to replace the team that’s graduating and preparing to start pushing a portal from the Thrax system, but I’m sure they have plenty to occupy themselves until we’re ready to leave. And actually, this may be a good thing for us in another area.”
“What are your referring to?”
“Ryne’s work.”
“The physicist? What of him?”
“Bernath informs me that the engineering team is preparing to test the prototype he designed. She says it’s really quite elegant and if successful production can begin immediately.”
“What’s that mean in terms of having working units?”
Temmel smiled. “Days. We can probably have the first batch to carry up with us when your flight is cleared.”
Klarce shifted in her chair, ears fanned wide with pleasure. “Now that is a piece of good news. Pending confirmation of the test from Bernath, I want you to review the schedule of outbound ships. Not much we can do for any ongoing portal-pushers already in transit, but I want one of the new units onboard any relay vessels. And when those are covered, create a timetable for delivering a unit to every watch station on both sides of our existing portals.”
“Providing the devices to the watch stations is to be our first priority?”
“Eventually we’ll distribute them to our more ambitious projects, but our first concern has to be preparing for emergencies both near and far. The greatest danger to our longer range plans remains the possibility of something coming through a portal that we hadn’t planned on.”
“But, ma’am, they’re our portals. It shouldn’t be possible for someone we don’t want coming through to use them at all.”
She reached out with her trunk and circled his wrist, like a parent focusing a child’s attention. “That’s exactly the kind of thinking that almost guarantees we’ve overlooked something and ensures it will catch us unprepared. Heed me, Temmel, if you want my job one day; factor the impossible into your plans. Now, since Regina has gotten me caught up and we’re not actually leaving, I’m taking the rest of the day off. Follow up on the last bits I’ve given you and then feel free to do the same.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But … keep an eye on the senator’s ship. If there’s any change, anything at all, inform me at once. There’s no good reason for it to be here out of season, which only leaves bad reasons. Understood?”
Temmel turned and fled. Klarce nodded to herself. She had no complaints regarding her first assistant’s competency, but it would do him good to reflect on his own confidence. The galaxy had a nasty habit of rewarding hubris with ruination. That was another lesson Margda had taught them long ago.
* * *
WITH the intention of making mash out of fallen fruit, Klarce left her office with no greater purpose than to walk the boardways of the unnamed island’s Civilized Wood. She smiled and responded to greetings and well wishes from passersby, paused at a park to talk to a group of children playing some game with a long set of half-imagined rules, lingered at a fruit stand to select a few melons that would make a nice dessert that night when she surprised Adolo by actually having the time to cook dinner for them both.
The world-weariness that defined her responsibilities as second-in-line of the Quick Council fell away. The constant ache from her disease—however well managed—faded into the background. She felt happy, as much because she stood at the edge of an event that future generations would look back on as a benchmark of Fant history as because she had a free afternoon for the first time in more seasons than she could count.
That ended with such abruptness that she nearly stumbled and spilled her melons. Temmel had plucked a thread of her nefshons like a harp string, summoning her without warning, and even as she registered that he appeared to be back in her office she understood that to reach for her meant something critical or dire. Before he could apologize she interrupted him. “What’s happened?”
“The senator’s ship. It’s moving.”
“Leaving? Quicker than we thought. Does the rest of the council know? Are we back on for launch?”
“Ma’am, not leaving, moving. It’s still in Barsk airspace. And … hold a moment.” He looked to one side, as if someone stood next to him. Presumably, in her actual office, someone did. “Regina just shared an update. In the time I needed to take koph to find and tell you this news, we’ve confirmed the ship’s vector. It’s heading for us. We estimate it’ll reach the unnamed island before day’s end.”
“One of the western landing spots?”
“Unlikely, ma’am. They look to be aiming slightly north. Almost as if they want to avoid seeing or perhaps being seen by anyone who’s sailed away and is making landing here.”
She snorted. “As if anyone arriving after days of traveling to us during flood is apt to notice anything beyond their own trunk in the deluge.”
“It was just a guess, ma’am.”
“No, no, you’re probably right. A point to the senator for attempting discretion.”
Temmel nodded, then frowned. “But ma’am, why is he coming? He knows there’s something called the Caudex, but why would he think we’re here of all places?”
She considered this a moment and nodded. “Because he’s a scholar.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a matter of parsimony. Where else on Barsk could we be? And we know he knows how to find the island. But he’s never done more than land on the beach. Never had cause to. If he’s looking for the Caudex though, he’ll be looking for a city. Have you informed the rest of the Quick Council of this development?”
“Regina is doing so now.”
“Fine. Doubtless they’ll convene, but I can guess what they’ll decide. I’ll be asked to meet with him, learn what he knows, and determine what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
“This is just a guess, but if he’s being true to what we know of him, he’s coming to confirm a hypothesis, vetting his source. Send word to Sind that I’m on my way to the council chamber now. But also, let Adolo know that I need her to oust her family from their guest parlor and that she’ll be hosting an intimate reception for our guest.”
“Will the council sign off on such an informal venue? Wouldn’t something more official make a better choice?”
“First impressions are critical. He’s not showing up as an Alliance senator with a formal presentation to the council. He’s using his senatorial perks to hitch a ride here and showing up as an individual, relying on his aleph to open any doors. I intend to reinforce that by treating him as such, and guide him toward the doors I want to open by inviting him into a home.”
“But not your home.”
Klarce snorted. “My home is my office, more often as not. Adolo won’t mind being pressed into service as hostess. And if the rest of her household doesn’t like it, well, they can file a complaint. It wouldn’t be the first time. In any case, they can certainly spare the guest parlor, and it has its own, discreet entrance.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m on it. Anything else?”
Klarce considered. She pulled back from the connection with Temmel to get her bearings in the real world. She hadn’t made it all that far from the fruit stand and had come to a halt in the middle of the marketplace’s minor boardway, a confectioner on her left and a spice shop to the right. Sweet and savory, she wondered which would ultimately describe her face-to-face meeting with Margda’s chosen.
“One thing more,” she said, returning her focus to her assistant. “Send someone over to the council to pick up a parcel and take it to Adolo. I no longer have time this afternoon to deliver these melons myself.”
* * *
THIS Full Council meeting was much like the last, tedious and pointless. Arguments ranged back and forth between cautious and proactive. Marsh even went so far as to suggest pretending the island was uninhabited, and if necessary using the same lightning manipulation they used to clear debris from the beaches on Jorl if he appeared determined to cross the sand.
“Once he enters the forest, he’ll realize it’s truly a Shadow Dwell, and find signs of and access to the Civilized Wood above. He has to be stopped before that.”
Soosh disagreed. “Would you have us throw away centuries of tradition?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He has an aleph. By tradition, none may bar the path of a Bearer. He is free to go where he will.”
“The aleph was created by Margda,” said Sind. “The only reason he has one is because she foretold he would. Perhaps this is why she chose him, perhaps she foresaw his arrival here and she wanted to tie our hands in the matter.”
Genz trumpeted with disgust. “Impossible! If such a future were fixed, there’d be no point to this council even existing.”
“There have been few precognitivists since Margda,” said Klarce. “It’s far too late to lament we haven’t made a proper study of the phenomenon, and it’s moot besides. We don’t know for certain if he’s coming to us as a scholar or a senator. We don’t know what he knows or what he intends. Moreover, he—” She broke off mid-sentence as someone tugged on her sleeve back in the physical world. She shifted her attention and there was Temmel handing her a note. She read, nodded, and shifted her attention back to the council’s shared mindspace.
“Further argument is going to have to wait. I’ve been informed that the senator’s yacht has landed just off a strip of beach on the north side of the island. He’s on foot, wading to shore even now and he’s alone.”
“Alone?” asked Kissel, uttering his first words of this session and drawing all eyes to him.
“Yes. Just him. No Sloth. No Raccoon.”
“But we haven’t reached a decision.” Marsh’s trunk slashed from side to side. “We don’t have consensus.”
“No, said Klarce, pushing back from the circular table of the mindspace. “But what we do have is a visitor to our shores, one who strongly suspects there’s more to this island than the rest of the world believes. He’s coming. You can keep arguing what you’ll do but he’ll be walking down our boardways before you’ve reached agreement. As for me, I’m going to go meet him.”
“You can’t do that,” said Marsh.
Klarce silently looked around the table, pausing to lock eyes with each of her fellow councilors. “I don’t imagine any of you are going to actually attempt to stop me. Chastise, perhaps even sanction me after the fact, but not stop me. I’m fine with that. But one way or another, we need closure on him, and I’m going to get it.”
* * *
KLARCE opened her eyes to the real world, dipped her trunk into the water pitcher on the table, and rinsed the taste of koph from her mouth. She’d have liked to take a moment, splash some water on her face and ears, but there wasn’t time. She left the council room to find both Temmel and Regina waiting for her outside.
“How quickly can you get me down to the northern edge of the Shadow Dwell?”
Regina shook her head. “Not quickly enough. Even if he takes his time, the senator will easily have climbed the beach and reached the forest before we can stop him.”
“I don’t want to ‘stop’ him. I want to greet him. Likely he has only wild conjectures as to what he’ll find here. The last thing we want is to put him on the defensive. He mustn’t begin his visit here in a foreboding manner. We need to welcome him.”
“There’s no way to get there in time,” said Temmel. Regina nodded beside him.
“Go,” said Klarce.
“Ma’am?”
“Get to him, the both of you. Clear a path back, use my name, invoke the council if you have to. You’re his honored escort, the personal assistants of a member of the council.”
“How will we find him? By the time we reach the Shadow Dwell he could be anywhere.”
“No, he won’t. He’ll be waiting just inside the forest for you to come and guide him to the Civilized Wood.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Klarce smiled. “Because he’ll be busy chatting with me.”
* * *
SHE rushed down the hall to her office, fumbling with yet more koph as soon as she was through the door. Another dose, so soon after the last, and not the abbreviated mixture used in council. She’d pay for this later, possibly when she most lacked the resources but there was no other way. She dropped to a couch, calling up the index as soon as she had perception of nefshons, and swiftly singled out Jorl’s thread. She let the rest of the index fade and yanked on that single strand.
“Jorl ben Tral!” She hailed him, spinning the scene to match the one he actually stood in, there on a rainswept beach, the bulk of his vessel in the water a short distance behind him, himself but a moment’s walk from the forest’s edge. “I bid you welcome. I am Klarce, my mother’s name was Kolleen.”
He stopped, the construct she’d spun of him reflecting his self-image, moving as he imagined he should move. And then he smiled, an expression that spoke volumes, revealing that he understood what had just happened and that he had experienced nefshon-based conversations with other living beings before. The realization rocked her more than she dared reveal; Margda’s chosen one had violated more than just one piece of her precious edict.
“A pleasure to meet you. Klarce? Perhaps our mothers knew one another.”
And that simply she set aside half her fears. However tainted this fool might be, whether from Margda’s influence or some Alliance contagion, he was civilized. He was Fant. And so he must surely understand that the Caudex’s work was as much for him as for anyone on Barsk. It was a place to start.
She returned his smile. “I suspect we both have seen far stranger things than that possibility. I hope we can compare notes.”
He nodded. “I’d like that. But, and pardon this next question, I intend no disrespect, but I don’t want to proceed from false assumption. Klarce, I know where we are in this moment, but before you spoke to me I stood on the last island. I am not of the Dying though. Are you? Are you here as well?”
“Yes, to the second, and no, to the first. The Dying do indeed come to these shores, though perhaps not to the particular beach you’ve selected. But those that proceed further are no longer Dying. They join us, high above your head in the Civilized Wood as full citizens and participants in our endeavors.”
His ears rose and spread with obvious delight. “An entire Civilized Wood? Here? How large?”
“Not so small as you’d find on the smallest island of your archipelago, but near enough. I’m sure I can arrange a tour.”
“Like this?”
“Oh no, that would never do. You need to appreciate it with your own senses. This, this was just so I could be here personally to welcome you. Your arrival took us by surprise.”
“Not completely though.”
“No. But we’ll talk more of that soon. I’ve arranged a simple, home-cooked meal for you, if you’re agreeable to dining with my partner and me.”
“That sounds very agreeable. How am I to find my way there?”
“I’ve sent my assistants down to escort you. They should reach you shortly. Pardon their appearance if they are out of breath or otherwise disheveled. I emphasized speed in reaching you. I assure you they will take a more leisurely return.”
He looked at her strangely. What did he see? Could he read her fatigue?
“Very well. Then I will abide here until they arrive. I look forward to seeing you and your spouse soon.”
“Soon,” she said, and broke the connection.
* * *
KLARCE’S assistants delivered Jorl to her on the front porch of Adolo’s family home and then departed. Adolo had met them at the side door to the small parlor. Traditionally, it was a place for would-be suitors to some daughter of the house to meet without the pressure and attention of unwanted siblings and cousins—to say nothing of meddling aunts and grandmothers—and it served the need for a private welcoming of an unexpected visitor. From the look on his face and the posture of his ears, Jorl had not expected such a homey reception, and was embarrassed to have arrived without a visitor’s gift. Adolo had waved away his discomfort by placing a hefty mug of day beer in his hands and ushering him over to the very chair that Klarce had occupied over the span of many visits while wooing her.
Klarce had expected Adolo to be put out at the prospect of hosting Jorl in her own home, but in fact she had embraced the idea with delight, perhaps seeing it as an opportunity to bring their personal lives closer to her work in the council. And certainly the Full Council had demonstrated a pronounced inability to come up with anything better. But now, having this Aleph sitting in her parlor, occupying her favorite chair, nibbling dried vlarjna berries from a dish Adolo had made for her during an ill-conceived couples’ pottery class, it was all too much. She wasn’t entertaining some visiting leader or scientist recovered from among the Dying, this was an Alliance senator in Fant guise, and always and above all the chosen of the Matriarch. More, he had somehow resisted the efforts of two teams to disrupt his memory. What secrets did he hold and what game was he playing?
They’d settled in and Jorl blandly held forth with a string of seemingly sincere compliments of the parlor, the courtesy afforded by Temmel and Regina, the appearance of what portion of the Civilized Wood he’d seen on his way here. It was all polite and empty and demonstrated he had no intention of volunteering anything. Before she could organize the myriad thoughts in her head and begin to properly but surreptitiously interrogate their guest, Adolo broke the conversational ice.
“I am led to understand that you are a scholar with an unparalleled knowledge of the Matriarch’s prophecies,” Adolo said, even as she stepped up to refill Jorl’s cup with another serving of beer. If she caught Klarce’s glare she gave no sign but continued making small talk, ever the perfect hostess. “That must be fascinating.”
“Margda was a manipulative bitch,” snapped Klarce, diplomacy giving way to the effects of too much koph on her illness. Schooling herself, she elaborated, attempting to soften her outburst. “Her many accomplishments not withstanding, nor the tragedy of the illness that caused her such discomfort in the latter half of her life, but she was the most disagreeable, single-minded Fant that ever lived.”
Adolo had blanched at her lover’s vehemence, but Jorl showed no offense. He sipped from his cup, scooped up another helping of berries with his trunk, and nodded thoughtfully as he chewed and swallowed. “That doesn’t come through if you’re just reading her texts or the other papers she left behind, but that was my assessment of her as well.” He paused, turned his attention to Adolo, and smiled. “Thank you, these refreshments were exactly what I needed after the voyage here.”
Klarce bit back a scowl. Let her love be taken in by his charm for the moment, she knew better and would sort her later. “Assessment, scholar? That sounds more like a personal opinion than a conclusion reached by many hours of research. Surely you never conversed with her yourself?”
The historian had been raising the cup to his mouth again and halted, likely realizing he had slipped up. His eyes revealed him in the midst of a calculation, whether he ought to dissemble or bluff his way through, or minimize the truth by treating it as a triviality.
He nodded. “Actually, I did. Only a few times over a couple of days. After so many years immersed in her work, it was a singularly … disappointing experience. I tend to let it fade from memory.”
“How, disappointing? As a student of her life, someone actually foretold by one of her prophecies, you were marked with the aleph and forever changed on her word alone, and you found conversing with her disappointing?”
Jorl shrugged and fanned his ears, pretending a nonchalance that she knew was all fiction. “Say rather the conversation itself was disappointing. My apologies, I’m not at liberty to discuss the particulars of it.”
“As may be,” said Klarce. “And yet, if you had words with Margda, dead now the better part of eight centuries, you must perforce have been in violation of the first law of the Speaker’s Edict. Was that what made the conversation less than the pinnacle event one might expect of a scholar meeting the source of his life’s work? The utter betrayal of one of her most fundamental precepts, by her chosen one no less!”
From the corner of her eye Klarce could see Adolo flinch at still another display of bad manners, but her intention here wasn’t simply to be rude to a guest. Rather, she had selected her words deliberately. She needed Jorl unbalanced, needed to gain the upper hand with him, no matter how convivial a visit Adolo had created. And yet, she had somehow failed. Far from appearing mortified, Jorl looked to be striving to fight back a smirk. He hid his mirth behind another swig, draining the cup and waving off Adolo’s move to refill it again.
“I can see why you might think so,” he said, “but in fact, I didn’t summon her.”
Now Klarce snorted, ignoring the horrified stare she drew from Adolo. “You say you spoke with her?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“But didn’t summon her? The Matriarch of Barsk, dead for all those years. Pray, tell me how you two managed to converse if you didn’t discard the first law and summon her?”
His ears fell back and went still. He’d managed to school the amusement from his mouth but his eyes twinkled. “She summoned me.”
“What?”
“Margda summoned me. She broke both the first and second law of the Speaker’s Edict in doing so, but I suppose since she created the rules in the first place they were hers to break.”
“Impossible! How could a dead Speaker summon a living one?”
The smile came back and as it spread across his face Klarce knew she’d lost this round. The smug bastard had stopped any pretense at hiding his amusement. But more, the gleam in his eye had transformed into something shrewder.
“I think you of all people would know the answer to that better than me. That’s why I’m here, after all. Ignoring the Speaker’s Edict is the least of the surprising things that take place in this city that is found on no map. How many people not on this island even know of its existence?”
Klarce bit back a laugh and resisted the temptation to quote the number, or lay claim to the handful or more for every island on Barsk, or mention the residents of Ulmazh above, let alone those beyond this star system. Any one of those responses would give too much away. He’d scored a hit, and knew it, but not to what extent. So, she could return his game and minimize, downplay what he thought he knew.
“This community was founded by Margda’s contemporaries. They respected her work, but didn’t agree with all of her ideas or how they should be used. But she had the support of the sitting government and she did not tolerate differing opinions, let alone differing schools of thought. That was in the time of the planet’s first native-born generation. Less than half of the islands of the eastern archipelago had been colonized yet; the western islands had been charted from orbit but had yet to be visited. Those first Speakers who disagreed with her banded together and vanished from the world, creating a city on an unused spot beyond the western border of any settled land.”
“So this island wasn’t hidden back then?”
“Far from it. Back then you could even find it on maps—not that any of those maps exist today. And, of course, the cultural prohibition against technology was in its infancy so settling this place was easier because those who came here chose to embrace modernity rather than turn from it. That was the crux of the difference. Margda was a politician turned scientist. Our founders were scientists turned revolutionaries. While she was laying down her edict and defining the ‘one true way’ of Speaking, they were exploring the possibilities of nefshons in manners and directions that never occurred to her, generating hypotheses and testing their limits. I don’t know why she failed to examine any of those possibilities. She wasn’t stupid. Even those who hated her for her controlling personality acknowledged her brilliance. But she never pursued any of those other avenues of nefshon research.”
“I suspect she couldn’t,” said Jorl. “The visions she had of the future and her goal of keeping Barsk strong in the face of an antagonistic Alliance shaped her work.”
Klarce nodded. It stung to agree with the scholar, but he made sense. And it fit with things she and a handful of other living Speakers knew from direct experience. “Yes, always the visions. Lacking a scientist’s curiosity, perhaps she had to rely on direction from her own damaged brain.”
Jorl scooped up more berries, used chewing as an excuse for a moment of silence rather than reply. When he did speak, it was to direct the conversation back to an earlier topic.
“You said my assessment reflected conversation, but I was simply affirming what you’d already said. Which I take to mean that you have spoken to her yourself. Even unhindered by the edict, I have to wonder how that came about.”
She laughed. “Oh, not just me. Speakers in this city have been summoning Margda since word of her death reached our shore within days of her passing. She’s doubtless the most frequently summoned person in all of history. Doing so is a rite of passage among our leaders and most talented citizens. I myself have experienced her cutting intelligence, her contempt and disdain, seven separate times.”
That had struck a nerve. His eyes had widened with each word. By the end, his trunk dropped into his lap, limp and weak. But what had he expected?
“I … I find that difficult to credit,” he said. “Such a thing changes the deceased. I’ve seen it myself, before I learned better, from summoning a loved one again and again. I would have seen it in her when she summoned me. Heard it in her voice.”
“No, scholar, you wouldn’t. None of those thousands—yes, that many and more—thousands of summonings left any mark on her nefshons.”
Emotion became animation and he swung his head and trunk from side to side in violent denial. “No. That’s impossible.”
Klarce relished her turn to be smug. “For you, perhaps. For those trained only in the knowledge that the Matriarch passed along. But here we studied not just those teachings but many different things as well. We learned to control and influence and disrupt the formation of memories. Every Speaker in this city who ever summoned Margda stripped her of the experience as the final part of the event. She recalled no summoning, nor any word shared with her, and thus each time one of our Speakers drew her here it was the first time all over again for her.”
He took a moment, absorbing what she’d shared. “You left her only quiet,” said Jorl.
“A colorful description, but apt.”
“She had to have known though. Given how much of the future she saw in her visions, how could she not have seen that others would summon her?”
“You’re probably right at that, scholar. Careful notes were taken every time we spoke with her. Invariably, once the Speaker had established her construct, her expression would begin with something I thought bordered on amusement and then change at once to disappointment and disregard. As if she knew she’d be summoned, but that none of us were the one she expected.”
“That … that makes sense to me,” he said, but didn’t expand on how or why he thought so.
“Does it? A pity then that we cannot ask her to elaborate. But that doesn’t surprise you, does it, Jorl?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“No? Because as I’ve noted, the Speakers of this island have been conversing with Margda regularly since the time of her death. That tradition ended unexpectedly just a few years ago. Specifically, seven years. Does anything stand out for you from that time? Because we’ve had reason to examine it carefully, trying to tease out possible explanations. A time that is marked by you, her designated aleph, causing some kind of ruckus in the station that is the Alliance’s sole link to our world. A time that also corresponds with an unexplainable appointment of a Fant to the Alliance senate. Never mind that no Fant has ever enjoyed such an office, yours included permanent standing among that body’s most important committee.”
She stopped speaking and glanced up at Adolo, sweet Adolo, who had never had an interest in politics or science but was ever content to teach children their numbers and letters and ensure that life had some semblance of normalcy for those growing up in this strange place. Adolo stared back at her, the back of one hand raised to her mouth, her eyes wide but not really seeing. She turned and hurried from the parlor. It was just as well.
Klarce returned her attention to her “guest.” “Tell me, Jorl, you’re the historian here. Surely you don’t believe in coincidence. Not one of such magnitude. Surely you have some inkling of why, despite the efforts of the most powerful Speakers on this island, none of us have succeeded in summoning Margda since that day.”
He nodded. “I do.”
“You caused this, didn’t you.”
Again the nod. “I did.”
“What did you do? What could you possibly do to prevent so many talented people from doing what we have done for centuries?”
“I … I removed her from the range of your talent.”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s clear you have studied the science of summoning in ways unknown to Margda’s students and their successors, just as it’s apparent that you’ve also schooled yourself in the things she taught. But it hasn’t occurred to you that someone might be able to do something you can’t. Even if I told you how it happened, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Klarce spread her hands in front of her and gestured an invitation with her trunk. “We’re nearly all scholars and scientists on this island. Try me.”
He sat silent a moment, glancing into his empty cup before setting it aside again. His gaze traveled to the dish that had held the berries and found it empty as well. His head came up and he locked his eyes with hers. “Fine. Her nefshons. I dispersed them. That simply.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No, what doesn’t make sense to you is that it could be something so simple. You know the process. At the end of any summoning, the Speaker releases the control that has brought the conversant’s nefshons together and gives them a push, sending them back on their way, spreading out through space as everything does.”
“Yes, yes, but then the next Speaker pulls them together again, or gathers other particles from that conversant until enough are present to allow a summoning. What did you do differently? Something else is in play here. I’ve attempted it myself. Her nefshons no longer come when called.”
“Oh, that’s not true. I’m sure they still come. But as I said, they’re beyond your range. Summoning someone is all about pulling particles to you. But I didn’t want to Speak with her, not ever again. So I pushed them instead. When I sent Margda’s nefshons away, I spread them far. Unimaginably so. A single Speaker doesn’t have sufficient time, not on the duration of a single use of koph, not in the span of a lifetime of such attempts, to bring them back far enough. It won’t happen.”
Klarce frowned. “Manipulation of nefshons, whether pulling them towards the Speaker or as you suggest pushing them away, works at the same rate. To move them too far to be retrieved would require a comparable amount of time. But physics aside, even if such a thing were possible, what would be the point?”
“For the reasons you said at the beginning of this conversation. Calling Margda single-minded and disagreeable doesn’t begin to describe her. She played with the lives of generations of Fant in pursuit of her own agenda. I wasn’t going to risk her ever being able to do that again.”
“So you dispersed her? Beyond all recall? No, I don’t believe that could be done.”
He just shrugged. “And yet, you haven’t been able to summon her since. If you have a better explanation, I’d welcome the telling of it.” He sighed, as if he’d relived something that had cost him dear, something Klarce wished she understood if only to use it against him. Again he picked up his empty mug. His trunk quested across the dish Adolo had made for her.
“Could I get something more to drink? And do you have any more of those berries?”
She ignored him, his outlandish claims somehow relieving her of the responsibility of hospitality.
“Your ship is here out of season.”
He held the mug up, a prop to hide behind. “That’s not the sort of thing I would think you’d know. That it’s here, certainly, you’d have detected it at your shore. But that it has a regular schedule.…”
“The Caudex pays attention to a great many things, Senator.”
“Ah, that’s the name I was waiting to hear. The one Fisco mentioned. That’s what you call yourselves? All of this?” He waved his trunk in a circle as if encompassing the island.
“And more,” Klarce said. She frowned. How was it he kept gaining more from all this than her?
“Hmm. Well, as to my ship, yes, it came early. A … special circumstance. Senatorial business, I can’t elaborate.”
“Bringing a Procy to Barsk seems beyond the purview of your office, and a violation of the spirit—if not quite the letter—of the Compact.”
Ah, she’d scored another point. She saw it in his eyes, a widening of surprise followed by a narrowing as his mind raced to fabricate something vaguely convincing and wholly false. It was time to switch tactics and keep him off balance.
“Would it amaze you to learn that I know a great deal more about your situation than just the comings and goings of your yacht? I have personally read every book you’ve written, reviewed every journal article you’ve published. I know you’ve maintained the same abode longer than any other male on Keslo. I’m aware that, perhaps out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a dead friend, you have acknowledged the existence of an abomination—”
“His name is Pizlo.”
She lashed from right to left with her trunk, symbolically and mentally waving away the name.
“I know your daily routine, Jorl. I can access your tenday grocery list, the people you correspond with on other islands, the names and details of the last play you attended. Shall I tell you the title of every book you’ve ordered from your wife’s bookshop?”
Through most of her recitation he had sat still, showing no emotion. At this last piece his ears flapped back and up and he leaned forward in his seat. When he spoke, his voice had dropped an octave.
“I came here seeking an understanding to a puzzle, and you tell me that you’ve been treating me as such for some time. That’s fine, and if you have specific questions I’ll do my best to provide you with answers. But your curiosity stops at me. I will not have you scrutinize my family. That ends now. My wife and daughter are no part of anything that should interest you.”
Klarce kept the reaction from her face. Daughter? How had she missed something as significant as the historian having a daughter? What else had Dabni left out of her reports? She raised her trunk in a halting gesture and extended an open hand as if revealing a peace offering.
“Be at ease, please. Your daughter has never been of interest. Believe me when I tell you she isn’t mentioned in any of the reports I receive on you. Your wife, however, is another matter.”
“She shouldn’t be of interest to you either.”
“You give her far too little credit, Jorl. After all, who do you think has been filing all those reports?”
And just that easily she saw she’d defeated him. The self-assured smirk, the smug confidence, fell away. He slumped back in his chair, arms limp at his side, trunk flat across his chest. His ears hung back. He seemed to age a decade in that instant and Klarce could almost believe the faint glow of the aleph on his forehead dimmed just a fraction.
“Dabni…”
“She’s a Caudex field agent. One of thousands. We sent her to Keslo specifically to keep watch on you. You said you came here to unravel a puzzle; I share this with you so you can ponder a new one of which you were unaware. Doubtless you and your spouse will have much to discuss when you return. But frankly, I don’t care. Your personal life doesn’t concern me. It’s your professional life as a member of the Alliance senate that worries me.”
He shook his head, following the direction of the conversation like a man dragging himself through the mud of the Shadow Dwell. “There’s nothing to worry over. I’m not here to play power games with you and your Caudex, regardless of what you believe of my situation with the Alliance senate.”
She’d broken him. It was only a matter of changing tacks again and she would own him.
“We’ve been quite frank with one another thus far, and whether you believe me or not, I am with all sincerity the closest thing you have to a friend on this island. You say there’s no cause for worry, and yet my people are concerned. Tell me why a Raccoon has come to see you, tell me so I can alleviate panic before it runs away and cannot be stopped.”
“She … she has a proposal.”
“For?”
“For immigration.”
“She’s seeking Eleph or Lox to immigrate elsewhere in the Alliance? That hardly seems likely given the lengths they went to to put us all here.”
“No, not Fant. She wants to have other races emigrate to Barsk. To share this world with us.”
In a million years Klarce would never have imagined someone would sit in her parlor and speak those words. Adolo might as well have come back into the room and slapped her full in the face with a sack of barley.
“That’s … impossible!”
Jorl nodded. “At the moment it’s merely a thought experiment.”
“A dangerous one. And what is your position?”
“Although I feel the only way our people are to survive in the galaxy is for us to once again live among other races, whether here on Barsk or out there on other worlds, I’ve yet to come up with a scenario that gets past the pragmatic without ending in disaster.”
Klarce composed herself. “The Full Council will be relieved to learn that.”
“Full Council?”
She inclined her head. “The governing body of the Caudex. I wonder, would you be inclined to meet with them?”
“That depends,” he said, drawing out his response, regaining some of his composure before her eyes. “Will they answer my questions, or just ask more of their own?”
Her ears flapped at his wryness. It would be easy to like this scholar, his sharp wit, his insight. But no, even if as he claimed he had banished the Matriarch from all reach, she had nonetheless chosen him. Whether he understood it or not, he would be forever at odds with the Caudex.
“I think an accommodation can be made. Tomorrow, at midday?”
“Thank you, I’d like that.” He stood and, damn him, despite the knowledge of his wife’s betrayal the fool was smiling. “Then, if it’s not too much trouble, I should get back to my ship.”
“I’ll have one of my assistants escort you down to the beach.”
He nodded, paused, and to Klarce’s surprise extended his hand to her. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to find here, but this…” his trunk swung round again, though something in the gesture this time limited the inclusion to just the room. “Not what I expected. Thank you. And if you would, pass along my appreciation to Adolo as well.”
She escorted him to the door. Regina and Temmel waited outside, alert as it opened.
“Regina, would you kindly escort the senator to the spot of beach where he came ashore?”
“Yes, ma’am. Senator, if you’ll follow me please?”
“Of course.” He paused and turned back to Klarce. “I’ll be back on that spot a bit before noon.”
“And Regina will be waiting to escort you to our Full Council, Senator. Until then.”
He nodded and followed Regina down the boardway and a moment later was gone to her view. She took a deep breath, made a mental note to take her meds early tonight, and focused her attention on Temmel.
“Send word to Sind. Regina will escort the senator to the council room tomorrow for a midday session of the Full Council.”
“Regina? Not you?”
“No, you and I will be elsewhere, though naturally I’ll still attend the council.”
“Where will we—”
She cut him off. “Contact Bernath. Get an update on the physicist’s devices. If they’re ready, have them put aboard the shuttle. If not, bring what you have and him as well. Likewise the three flight school candidates. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”
“Ma’am? The council countermanded the shuttle’s departure—”
“Because of the presence of the senator’s ship. But we know where that ship is, and we know where it’s going to be, at least until he returns to our shore. I intend to use that window to get us to Ulmazh. If the Full Council judges him to be a problem, I’ll have far more resources available to me there than here. Now go, set it all in motion and then grab some sleep. Tomorrow will be here soon enough.”
Not waiting for a reply, she stepped back into Adolo’s family home. Somewhere in that vast collection of rooms and hallways she still had to find her lover, and apologize for her rudeness to their guest. As if that was the most important thing that had taken place there today.