Текст книги "Ammonite"

Автор книги: Nicola Griffith

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“I was really cross by this time, and wanted to beat her at something she probably thought she was superior at.”

“So she challenged me to a fish‑gutting contest. She was good, too,” Vine said, admiration in her voice for that young woman of long ago, “but I’d spent most of my life gutting fish. There could only be one winner.”

“I couldn’t accept that, though, and just went faster and faster.”

“Until the slick fish guts proved her undoing. The knife slipped, and suddenly there was red everywhere. Blood all over the fish, all over the docks, all over my barrel of fillets. And there was Thenike, hand gaping wide and bleeding like a stuck taar, looking furious.”

“I was furious. It hurt. And I knew I’d been stupid.”

“But she was still clutching the filleting knife, and I thought she was going to attack me with it, so we both just stood there, while she bled more.”

Thenike and Vine were both quiet for a moment, remembering. A sail flapped noisily overhead. The wind was picking up.

“And then?” Marghe prompted.

“She threw down the knife and stalked off, and all I had left of the encounter were two barrels of fish and a puddle of blood and fish guts. I thought that was that, until the next day. We were at the inn, drinking more wine than was good for us to celebrate the fact that we were alive, and rich, when in walked the fish‑gutting viajera with her hand wrapped in bandages. ‘I’m going to sing you something,’ she said, and snatched Byelli’s harp right out of her hands and began to play. And you know what a voice she has.”

Marghe did. She loved to listen to Thenike sing, with her smoky, rich voice and multiple harmonics.

“Well, it seemed to me all of a sudden that she was beautiful, and I kept her singing half the night.”

“Which is what I wanted, of course,” Thenike said smugly.

“And then it seemed that she thought I was beautiful–”

“Which you are.”

“–which I am, to some. And I ended up inviting her to come to my room and play the harp. And four days later when we left to sail to the Necklace Islands, I asked her to come along. We sailed together for two years. As lovers, then friends. Then Thenike decided it was time to move on, go where she could work properly as a viajera, where she was most needed, and we’ve seen each other only five times in the last twelve years.” She put down the rope she was working on and leaned over to hug Thenike. “It’s good to be sailing with you again, even if it’s only for a little while.” She released her, held her at arm’s length. “You’re looking good.”

“I’tn feeling good, better than I have in years.”

And Marghe felt a sudden, fierce love for Thenike, and the heat seemed softer, the sea more blue, and the world more alive than it had been.

They took half a day tacking back and forth to find the right current, then shot through the Mouth of the Grave, passing within spitting distance of rocky teeth sharp enough to rip the bottom out of the Nemora. Marghe was more exhilarated than scared by the danger and the heady rush of white water.

Once they were past the Summer Islands, the weather changed dramatically: the light breezes were replaced by hot winds heavy with moisture. The days were languorous and thick, and Marghe spent hours at the taffrail, gazing out on a sea that shimmered like a dragon’s wing and a sky that was glazed with soft light. Once, Marghe saw a bird with a wingspan of more than three meters skimming the swells; its third, fixed wing was the color of cinnamon.

The Nemoraplowed steadily southwest, and the sea changed slowly from blues and grays to a deep, sliding palette of greens and azures: Silverfish Deeps. Marghe saw thousands of silver fish, gliding beneath the surface in great shoals that flickered and swung silver like a bead curtain as they changed direction.

Marghe and Thenike were on deck, Marghe sitting comfortably on the sun‑warmed planking near enough to the rails to watch the wake curve out behind them, Thenike stretched out with her head on Marghe’s thigh. It was morning, and a sailor, Ash, was in the bows with a sandglass and a log attached to a length of rope tied off at intervals with knots. Ash threw the log, counted, and when another sailor in the stern shouted, tipped the sandglass and hauled the log back aboard. They did this three times.

“What are they doing?”

“Judging our speed.” Thenike raised herself onto her elbow. “Hoi, Ash! How fast?”

“Nine knots,” the sailor called.

“Good speed. And yesterday?”

“About the same.”

“My thanks.” She lay back down. “If the wind holds, we’ll be at High Beaches in three or four days,” She closed her eyes.

Marghe stroked her hair. Four days, then perhaps another six or seven to get to Port Central. Very good time. Something bright on the horizon caught her eye. “There’s something out there.”

“Um,” Thenike said without opening her eyes.

“It looks big, and bright. Seems to be traveling towards us.” She watched a moment. “I think it’s moving faster than we are.”

Thenike sat up, peered between the rails, then stood for a better view. The object grew. “A seavane,” she breathed, “and it’s going to pass us.”

The two sailors with the log and sandglass had seen it, too, and paused to watch.

Its submerged body, rolling out of the water now and again, scales glistening, was immense, but it was the vane itself, like a sail twice as tall as the Nemora’s mast, that would glide through Marghe’s dreams for years afterward. It flared between the sky and sea like an enormous stained‑glass window, with slender supporting ribs like the great vaulting arches of a cathedral roof. Sunlight streamed through the transparent webbing and was split into soft, shimmering azures and indigos and golds and greens that cycled through the spectrum, over and over, endlessly, like a Gregorian chant.

The wind direction altered slightly, and the ribs splayed open like the fingers of a fan, turning the sail, stretching it tight enough to show for a moment the vascular system, like a filigree of tarnished silver among the amethyst and aquamarine, before it picked up speed and hissed through the water away from them.

The Nemoraswung out of the deep channel onto a more westerly heading. The weather changed again, cooling a little, clouding over. By the time the shoreline lay on the horizon, the world had turned gray. Marghe was not looking forward to making landfall; it would be a long, hot walk to Port Central, and she was not sure Danner would welcome her opinion of the Mirror’s actions.

High Beaches was a forbidding place, all bleak, liver‑colored cliffs and rocky promontories rearing from a choppy and restless sea. The Nemoraweighed anchor, and Marghe and Thenike took the Nid‑Nodin to a steeply sloping pebble beach. A woman with the same liver‑colored eyes as the cliff rock met them. She was thin, with lank brown hair rising from a high widow’s peak and the kind of sallow complexion that made her look grimy. She introduced herself as Gabbro.

“The viajeras Marghe Amun and Thenike, sa?” Marghe nodded. “I’m to be your guide through the burnstone to the west,” she said, and set off up the beach in a ground‑eating stride. “If we hurry, we can make a good start today.”

They did not follow her. “We can use the skiff,” Thenike called. Gabbro turned; reluctantly, Marghe thought. “The wind should be steady enough to take us upstream faster than we could walk. That is, if the spring rains were heavy enough.”

“Sa, sa. The river’s deep enough.”

“The skiff will save time,” Marghe said.

“Sa, sa.” Gabbro headed back down the beach toward the Nid‑Nod.

“But we’ll need to eat before we set out.”

“We can eat on the way. The silverfish shoals are due before the end of the moon. I have to be back by then. Come, we’ll need ropes.”

After so long aboard ship, Marghe struggled to keep up on the sliding pebbles, and she was sure she would be sick of hearing sa, sabefore dark, but she said nothing. This had been her own idea.

They were four days on the river Glass, four lazy days of trimming the sail, sitting at the tiller, and watching the banks go past. Marghe spent endless hours trying not to think about how she would persuade Danner to honor trata, concentrating instead on the variety of plants and animals they saw: nutches, knobby dark reptilian predators sunning themselves on stones; sleths, which Marghe at first mistook for bunches of reeds until one exploded into motion as a swarm of boatflies hummed past, catching half the cloud in its sticky fronds; pelmats, slow green amphibious things that crawled on the riverbed, and sometimes up onto the hull of the Nid‑Nod.

In the evenings, they tied up on the bank and Gabbro caught fish for their supper. Sometimes Thenike told a story.

Marghe hardly tasted the fish, barely listened to the stories. Her stomach felt full of rocks. The closer they came to Port Central, the more she lost herself in trying to find a solution to her problem: how to make Danner do the right thing. How? Danner would do as she thought best for her personnel. The difficulty lay in persuading the Mirror commander that honoring trata was the best thing, in the long term.

Marghe went over and over in her mind that original report on trata to Danner, searching for flaws. She found none. It was all there: long‑term and short‑term benefits. What more could she add? She had no idea, but she knew she had to try. She just had to hope that presenting the arguments in person would carry more force. The queasy weight in her stomach told her otherwise. No. The problem was not in her arguments, her initial reasoning: something was happening that was forcing Danner into this decision. Something of which Marghe knew nothing. What? She could only assume some kind of Company threats. What had Sara Hiam said? That cruiser out there isn’t hanging around for the view. TheKurst ’s a military vessel… Every time I wake up, I wonder, Is this going to be my last day?

Marghe picked absently at her fish. It was almost cold, but she did not notice. What had changed to turn that ever‑present threat into something more urgent, something that made Danner believe trata should take second place?

The only thing she knew of was the fact that she was no longer protected by the vaccine. But that would not precipitate Company action, not of and by itself. If the vaccine had been proven ineffective, maybe. But her message had been quite specific: she had chosen not to continue. As far as Company was concerned, that decision would only result in unpleasant consequences for her personally. It should not affect Company’s attitude toward Danner or Hiam. In the long term, Company would be philosophical and simply try the vaccine again with someone else. After all, it was not as though the damn thing did not work…

“Amu? Marghe?”

“Um?”

“That fish is beyond eating.”

Marghe looked at it. Thenike was right. She threw it onto the pile of leftovers that they would bury in the morning before they set sail again. Gabbro was toasting some gram roots in the embers. They smelled sweet. All of a sudden, Marghe was restless.

“I’m going to walk for a while,” she said, scrambling to her feet and brushing sand from her legs. She faced west, where the last bloody rags of sunset lay scattered on the tops of the distant hills.

“Do you want company?”

Marghe nodded. They walked in silence, occasionally stopping to skip stones on the river, or to listen to the steady, reassuring flow of the water. It was warm, and insects hummed and buzzed. The evening gradually seeped into Marghe, loosening her shoulders, straightening her back.

“That’s better,” Thenike said.

They walked farther, then Marghe stopped to watch the last of the dark red slide from the sky. Inky clouds swept across the sky, and the air stirred with a warm breeze from the nttls. “I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills,” she quoted quietly, “coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.” A viajera’s memory was good for remembering poetry.

They walked back hand in hand, and ate hot, charred gram roots with Gabbro.

On the fifth day, at the foot of the Yelland hills, they beached the boat.

“From here, we walk.”

Port Central lay southwest, but they had to detour through the Yelland hills, zigzagging northwest then southeast to avoid burn‑stone and the possibility of triggering a burn that might smolder for a generation. It would add two or three days to their journey, Gabbro said.

Marghe walked behind Thenike, trying to imagine how it would be to feel the ground suddenly split between her feet, hot gases exploding, sending them tumbling into rocks; the eerie silence while they lay stunned, then the molten burnstone bubbling up through the turf, forming pools and sinks, setting the grass on fire…

The grass was brown from lack of rain, and the hot winds were scratchy with dust. There were no paths, and they had to clamber over outcroppings of needlestone that glittered under the dust and would cut their feet deeply if they slipped. The vegetation was grotesque, shaped by wind and aridity: thick and stunted, with enormous root systems.

On their second day in the hills, they met a band of seven olla shapers, and Weal, their headwoman, invited them to share a meal. Eager to eat something that was not fish or waybread or dried fruit, they accepted.

It was a seasonal camp; the shelters were simple corner posts supporting a roof of wide leaves. There were no walls, and the floors were beaten earth. But the cookfires were big, sunken pits, they had fresh vegetables and ten newly caught wirrels to offer, and a thin and bitter wine.

In return for their hospitality, the olla shapers got a story from Thenike about the nine riding soestre of Singing Pastures who had lived, loved, and died many years ago.

Firelight played on the women gathered around the cooking pit, reflected from rapt faces shiny with wirrel fat, and as Marghe listened to the ageless rhythms of the story, the repetition and ritual description, she knew a stranger looking at the listeners would be unable to tell her apart from the others.

The story was interrupted by the rustle and thump of a landing herd bird. Thenike fell silent as it waddled into the firecircle. It had a message cord around its leg. The viajeras and Gabbro politely looked away as the headwoman unwound the cord and read it: it could be private kin news, or trata business.

“Part of the message concerns the viajeras,” Weal said. “It is addressed to all in the north, and asks that if we meet you, we are to pass on the words of the viajera, T’orre Na. Thenike and Marghe Amun, greetings. Danner is heading north to Holme Valley and the pastures with sixty of her kith, and more following, to fight the tribes. I go with her.”

There was silence. One of the women coughed and the herd bird humphed and raised its crest.

“That’s all of the message?” Marghe asked.

”All concerning you.” Weal tucked the cord into her pocket, gesturing for Thenike to go on.

Thenike continued with the story, but Marghe no longer listened. What had happened to change Danner’s mind? Sixty Mirrors was a lot of firepower; she must intend serious fighting.

Later, when Marghe and Thenike were lying side by side, too hot for nightbags, Marghe was still wondering what had happened to involve Danner with the tribes. “I don’t understand any of this. But I want to find out.”

“Then we’ll head north in the morning.”

“Gabbro won’t like it.”

“No. But we don’t need Gabbro from here. I know the way to Singing Pastures.”

They were quiet for a long time. Just before she fell asleep, Marghe asked, “Were there really ever nine soestre?”

“Maybe there were, somewhere,” Thenike said, and Marghe knew she was smiling in the dark.

Chapter Sixteen

DANNER STOOD OUT on the glaring white concrete, waiting for the gig. She was hot, and getting a headache, which she made worse by looking up into the bright summer sky even though she knew they would hear the gig a long time before they saw it.

Day was there, and T’orre Na–it had seemed polite to ask them as guests–and a small honor guard: Lieutenant Lu Wai, Sergeant Kahn, Officers Twissel and Chauhan. Teng should have been there, but the deputy was miles away, investigating a promising site in the southwest at the foot of the Kaharil hills.

Danner made a deliberate effort to not shift from foot to foot. Anything could happen. When– if, she amended, if–the Kurstfound out that the orbital station was being abandoned, they might blow the gig out of the sky. Even if they did not, then its passengers were by no means safe: autopilot was fine for landings not involving people, but risky for human cargo, and although Nyo had basic pilot skills, she had not flown anything in over six years.

The sky cracked with sound. Danner jumped, along with everyone else except Twissel. Good woman under pressure, Danner thought, and filed that knowledge away. The cracking came again, a broader sound this time, then again, and again, until the noise widened into a flat sheet of sound that climbed the register to a roar, then a scream, then a thin, piercing shriek.

“There!”

They all followed Day’s pointing finger. A tiny black speck to the northwest, getting rapidly larger. The two sleds detailed as emergency vehicles hissed up onto their cushions of air as their drivers fed power to the motors. Lu Wai signaled to her three officers, and all four snapped down visors and stood to attention.

And suddenly the gig was tearing a tunnel through the air and landing, and Danner grinned, for the immediate worry was over and now here she was, getting ready to meet in person for the first time a woman she had come to know well over the last few months, who had listened when she had needed an ear, had talked when she needed advice, had faced hard decisions without flinching. An ally and friend.

A friend who was coming to stay. A friend.

The gig landed in a ball of heat and noise, adding a black carbon streak to the dozens already crisscrossing the concrete. Its power systems whined. One of the sleds hummed over grass, then concrete, and a tiny figure leaned from the cab to flip open a small panel on the still‑warm hull of the gig, then yank a handle. The hatch popped and hissed open. The Mirror pulled down a ramp. Three figures climbed out shakily and onto the sled. One of them waved, and Day and T’orre Na waved back. They were the only ones who did; Danner and the other Mirrors, after hundreds of hours of parade‑ground training, did not think to respond. It saddened Danner. What else had been trained out of them? How many other things, human things, would they have to relearn?

The sled hummed back over the concrete and settled five feet from Danner. Sara Hiam climbed down a little unsteadily. Danner saluted, then dropped her hand and smiled instead.

“Welcome!” She held out both hands. Sara took them. She seemed smaller in real life than on the screen, and thinner. She was trembling.

“Hell of a journey.”

“Looked like a good landing.” Nyo and Sigrid climbed out of the cab like old women. They, too, looked too thin; Nyo’s skin was gray, like hot charcoal. Sigrid was so pale Danner could see the blue lines of veins around her neck and eyes. They both looked as unsteady on their feet as newborn foals. “Welcome,” Danner said, troubled, and turned to Sara Hiam. “Is this the gravity?”

“That’s part of it, though we’ve done nothing but exercise this last month.” She drew away from Danner gently and looked up into the sky. “I hated to leave. Five years’ work up there. Who knows what those bastards will do with it now.”

Four days later Danner was sitting in her office with the newly returned Teng.

“As you can see,” Teng was saying, as she pointed to the screen, “precipitation patterns look favorable. This site in the foothills would be ideal for grain production and for grazing herd beasts.”

“Yes. I see.” The deputy was looking tired from her trip, and was being more than usually pedantic. “I hear that this site has a name already.”

Teng smiled a little. “My team have been calling it Dentro deun Rato.”

“In a while,” Danner translated. “A nice enough name, with a good feeling. Sounds like home. But in just four days it already has an Anglo corruption: ‘Dun Rats.’ What does that say to you?”

Teng said nothing.

Danner sighed, and wished her deputy was someone with a little more imagination, someone she could talk to. Like Sara Hiam. Or even Day and T’orre Na. She made a quick note to talk to the viajera later in the day, find out if there was any reason using this site would antagonize the natives. “Continue.”

Teng looked relieved. “Well, there are several springs. Fa’thezam says they’re deepwater springs that won’t dry up except in the most severe and prolonged drought. In which case we could always run a line from the Ho.” She tapped a key. The map widened to include half the continent. “These blue arrows indicate major native trade routes. We can use the Ho to transport our goods for barter; upstream past Three Trees and Cruath, all the way to Holme Valley; downstream to Southmeet and the coastal trade.”

“The soil?”

“McIntyre gave the all‑clear,” Teng consulted her notes, scrolling rapidly. “Rich, well‑drained, well‑protected by root systems. That means not much danger of erosion. Apparently the–”

“Give me a separate report on that. Let’s keep this general. Anything else?”

“It’s easily defensible.” The map changed to show elevations. Danner nodded. “Plenty of natural resources: clay, wood, workable stone. Olla.”

“Has Gautier finished her report on that?”

“Not yet.” Again, Teng scrolled busily. “But it looks promising. She says that the chemical valences of the olla are such that if–”

“Later. All I need to know is that progress is being made, and things are looking good. That there are no substantial snags.”

“That about sums it up: the more we know about Dentro de un Rato, the better it looks.”

Danner turned off the screen. “Tell me, Teng, do you think we could live there if Company cuts us off? If something happened like, oh, say, we lost all our equipment here.”

Teng sucked at her lower lip, but Danner made no sign that it was a habit that had always irritated her. Teng was slow, but methodical. Danner had never known her to make a single major mistake: everything was checked and double‑checked before Teng would commit herself. Danner trusted Teng’s judgment, no matter how impatient she became with her methods.

“Hard to say.”

“Take a shot at it.” Don’t think, she wanted to say, react. Tell me your gut feeling. But that would only confuse her stolid deputy.

“Well…” Teng sucked her lip some more. “If we could start sowing crops now, and if nothing untoward happened–no fires or floods or droughts–and if we had help from the natives: seed stock, a breeding herd, advice, good trade relations… then, maybe. Maybe we could.” She looked pleased with herself. “Yes, I really think we could.”

Danner smiled. “Good. That’s good. I want a copy of every report, with your comments. I’ll read them tonight. I’ll also consult with Day and the viajera T’orre Na, see if we can get a guarantee of that native cooperation.” She drummed her fingers a moment. “Yes.” She stood up, decisive. “Teng, if you’re not too tired, I’d like you to put in some time today and tomorrow laying down a preliminary evacuation plan. I’ll rely on you to deal with the broader logistics. If it turns out we hit a major flaw with this site, though I don’t think we will, much of the planning could be translated for another site.”

Teng did not stand up but shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“There’s something else?”

“Yes.”

Danner sat down, gestured for Teng to go on.

“Several people have approached me about… about leaving. About taking the gigs up to the Estrade.”

“Ah.” Danner had hoped this would not happen, but there were always those to whom reason meant nothing, who would not believe what they did not want to be true. “How many?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen? That’ll strain Estrade’s life‑support systems to the limit.”

“They understand that.”

Danner sighed. If they did not want to stay, she did not want to keep them. “Very well. But only one gig goes, the other stays here. If they can stand the overcrowding once they’re up there, they can sit on top of each other on the way up. If they don’t like those arrangements, then tough. We keep one gig here. You never know.” Why did she insist on hanging onto these hopes? When Company went, the gig would be useless. Still… “Who wants to leave? Anyone we can’t afford to lose?”

“Here’s a list.”

Danner took the flimsy. It was in alphabetical order in Teng’s usual methodical style. A name, second from the end, leapt out at her as if it were in thicker, darker print than the rest. “ Vincio? Vincio–you’re sure?” She felt as though she had been jabbed lightly in the stomach with stiff fingers. She could not believe that Vincio–her loyal assistant, the one who brought her tea every day, who never seemed to sleep, who always knew when Danner could be disturbed and when she needed to be left alone–was leaving. Abandoning her.

She took a deep breath. If Vincio wanted to go, she would not stop her. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, looked at the list again, frowned. “Relman’s not on it.”

“No.”

Danner sighed. Life never worked out the way it should. “Recommendations?”

“Let them go. Let Relman stay. She’s a good officer. She’ll be especially eager to please, now.”

But we’re not officers anymore, not any of us, Danner wanted to say. But she did not, because if they were not officers, then what, who, were they? She knew she was not yet ready to face that question; none of them were. They would live the fiction a little while longer: in confused times, people, especially militarily‑trained people, liked orders, firm leadership. If she could provide it.

“Give them ten days to think it over. Meanwhile I’ll talk to Sigrid and Nyo about making the platform’s functions tamper‑proof, accessible only from our uplink station. We’ll need those facilities, especially the satellites, as long as we can get them. I don’t want a bunch of disaffecteds screwing with the programs. If we can lock those systems in, then let’s let them go.”

After she dismissed Teng, Danner read the geologists’ reports on Dentro de un Rato. Her thoughts kept wandering. Why did Vincio want to leave? Why did she think she had anything to gain by going up to an orbital station where she had a good chance of dying, either immediately, courtesy of the Kurst, or later, due to failed life support? And if–a big if–Company did take them all off, where did Vincio expect to spend the rest of her hopelessly contaminated life?

Danner contemplated calling Vincio into her office and asking her why straight out, but in the end decided not to; she was not sure she could face the answer.

Danner walked slowly across the grass from Rec, her face still red from Kahn’s fencing workout. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. It came away sticky with pollen. Damn this planet. It just kept getting hotter–thirty‑eight degrees Celsius according to her wristcom.

Her mod was blessedly cool. She had a fast shower, resisting the temptation to stand under the revitalizing water for longer, and pulled on summer‑weight fatigues. Her stomach growled, and she glanced at her wristcom. She would have to eat while she talked to Gautier, the ceramicist, about her report. There were not enough hours in the day.

She had just stepped back out into the muggy heat when her wristcom bleeped.

“Danner,” she answered, walking toward the cafeteria.

“Vincio, ma’am. Another message from SEC rep Taishan. Do you wish to follow code‑five procedure?”

Banner was already changing direction, angling toward her office. “Yes. I’ll pick it up personally.”

Day and T’orre Na were sitting on the bench along the far wall of the outer office when Danner got there. She nodded to them both. The viajera was running a knotted cord through her fingers; bright threads flickered through her tanned hands. “It came on a herd bird,” she said.

“My office.”

They sat. Danner felt a vast irritation. She did not have time for this. “What does it say this time?”

“ From Marghe Amun to Commander Danner, greetings. Hannah, you must,”–Thenike looked at Danner–“there’s great emphasis on that word, you must accede to Cassil’s trata demands. Even if you only send half‑a‑dozen officers. You must be seen to do something. Please review my report. I’m on my way to talk to you personally.”

“But she’s pregnant!”

T’orre Na looked at Danner blankly, and Day grinned.

“I mean… Oh, curse the woman! This is the last thing I need! A pregnant SEC rep who’s gone native, swanning in here stomach‑first and telling me what I must and must not do! Well, I can’t stop her, she can come and she can say what she likes. But I’m just too damn busy.” Danner felt foolish at her outburst, then angry at feeling foolish. Damn it, the day was just too hot for this. “I have an appointment.” Then she remembered she needed to talk to the viajera. “If you two could meet with me for dinner? Good.”

She got out of the office and took four strides across the grass toward her appointment with Gautier and her lunch before her wristcom beeped again.

What the hell was it now? “Danner!”

“Dogias here. We’ve got trouble. The northern relay has just gone from the grid.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone. Phht. Kaput.”

Danner felt like strangling the woman. “Explain,” she said through gritted teeth.

“The northern relay is no longer accessible. Diagnostics show it does not exist.”

“Theories?”

“None. What I need is a satellite scan, or to go up there personally and take a look.”

It took Nyo two hours to send signals through the Port Central uplink to Estradeordering a satellite to scan the right area and send down a data squirt. Sigrid took another half an hour to collate the information. The delay did nothing to soothe Danner’s irritation.

The room was crowded: Dogias, Danner, T’orre Na, Sara Hiam, Lu Wai, Day, Nyo; Sigrid at the screen.

“It’s a bit fuzzy, but the best I could do with the cloud cover. This is the Holme Valley. Here and here”–she circled areas to the north–“are native dwellings. Here”–further to the north–“is the area where the relay is.” She magnified. And again. “Or was.”