Ships are reassigned.
Resources taken away.
I say I will keep on searching, and the Xi say sure, if you must, if you want, but he is gone by now.
He is gone.
This is a new age, and he is gone.
Even Rencki, when I ping qim, says it is time to move on. The worlds of what was the Shine are still in chaos; corruption is everywhere. The people of the Mdo cannot believe in generosity, in kindness, in compassion or sharing. They have been raised from birth to think such things are at best an opportunity, at worst a trap. The patience of the Accord is running dry; the victorious fleets thought they would be heroes, and are discovering that it is all far more complicated than that. It is becoming harder and harder to convince people to help.
“You could be useful on Tu-mdo,” qe says. “You could do some good.”
I think for a while about going back, and eventually say no. I can’t imagine how returning to a world where I have always done it wrong would be any better than staying away.
Rencki is disappointed in me, but won’t explain why.
In the end, the search for Theodosius was called off entirely. I returned the little scout ship that had become my world, and transferred instead to the only vessel that anyone in the galaxy was willing to lend me.
I went back to theEmni.
He was in spring when I boarded.
Little white flowers were blooming down his internal corridors and passageways, fresh buds of green blossoming in the soft warmth above his life-support generators and in the swaying breezes of oxygen scrubbers. Whoever had managed him over winter hadn’t done their weeding properly, and a few roots were starting to poke up in the living quarters and around the Pilot’s chair, which I chopped back and disposed of his in bio-tanks. The dining room table had grown and been pruned since I’d sat at it last, and fresh green ferns sprouted around the shower cubicles, their tips uncoiling in languid curls. A family of three-toed yellowbills were nesting in the engine room, and I contemplated letting them stay to help keep the insect population in balance,but in the end decided against it. I did not know where I would go, or what diseases might creep in through the airlock, and did not want to be responsible for trying to catch and inoculate a nest of tiny wild birds, however sweetly they sang in the dawn cycle of the ship.
When we first pushed towards arcspace, theEmniand I, his hull creaked with the sound of old and new wood straining against each other, and I smelled sap seeping through some old cracks that were bending with the forces of our flight. But he flew well and true, and spring was a good time to push the engines, find the faults and broken barks of his system, let them heal in the warm light of a yellow sun.
With nowhere else to go, I flew to Adjapar, to the sleeping moon watching over the still-terraforming planet.
Hundreds of millions of Adjumiris slept still in the cryofacilities above that world, guarded by generation ships whose inhabitants would never walk upon the finished world they were waiting for. I told my story, explained who I was, and was surprised how easily Adjumiri returned to my mouth, tinged with the accent of the Black Mountains.
I was given a tour of the cryofacility, past the sleepers in their endless corridors, and shown samples of the latest algae blooms that were blossoming across the oceans of Adjapar, far below.
“We are due for a great dieback soon,” explained one terraformer, eyes bright with excitement at the impending ecological shift. “After that, we enter the final phase of floral seeding, and then…” tears glistened in their eyes, their voice shuddering with emotion; I had forgotten how small these things were in Adjumiris compared to the people of Nitashi, and how great they were when their feelings finally broke, “pioneer domes, the first families, the first children born on our new world.”
I asked them if they had a museum, a place where the artefacts were kept.
They said yes, deep below the moon, in cold storage. No onereally went down there, though. Everything was held in stasis; neither my guide nor their children would see these things that had been saved. But one day – one day – in generations to come, the people of Adjapar would open these boxes and precious crates, and see the things made by their ancestors, and hear their voices, and sing their songs again.
“I hope it helps them understand something,” said my guide. “I hope it teaches them something about who they are. Reminds them that they are not orphans. Not lost after all. That they still have a story that is their own.”
There was singing when I left.
There were only eight of them, raising their voices in farewell. Hardly enough to make a proper Adjumiri chorus. They had been born on Adjumir, and would die on this moon, never seeing blue sky again. They sang for themselves, not for me, as I said my goodbyes. Singing reminded them why, they said.
A cup of kol, on the Spindle.
Agran says: “I am not going to lie, I doubt I’ll ever get round to studying this,” when I give her a copy of Black Mountain Adjumiri grammar.
“It doesn’t take up any room,” I reply. “And someone might find it interesting later.”
She nods, blows steam off the top of her cup. Then: “I hear that the worlds of the Shine are going to be saved. That the death of the suns will pass them by.”
“So I hear.”
“There are some people here who are pretty angry about that. Some who say that the people of the Shine – no matter who they were – must have known what happened on Nitashi. Must have known what was happening on Cha-mdo. Chose not to care. Aren’t worth saving.”
“What do you think?”
