They were bizarre
mountains, naked of vegetation, worn by the wind, each standing
free in a forest of stone pillars. Some reached five hundred feet
into the air, striated in shades of red and ocher, and each wore a
skirt of detritus that climbed halfway up its thighs.
She found the cloister without further aid from her tutor. It
lay atop one of the pillars. It was a rusty brown color, built of
blocks of dried mud made on the banks of a trickle of a river
running far below.
Sisters came into the central courtyard as the darkship slowed,
hovered. They peered upward. Marika let the darkship settle.
“Welcome to Kim,” her tutor said once the darkship
had grounded. “We will rest for a day before we start
back.”
Marika stepped down onto alien rock, hot rock, under a sun too
large and bright, and shuddered. She was here. There. Upon a
starworld. The pup who had shivered in the chill wind licking the
watchtower at the Degnan packstead and had stared at the nighttime
sky, had achieved the impossible dream she had dreamed then.
She watched Grauel and Barlog dismount, their fur on end, their
weapons gripped tightly, their eyes in unceasing flickering motion.
They felt the strangeness too. They felt the absence of the
background of unconscious touch that existed everywhere at
home.
Marika met Redoriad silth whom she did not remember five minutes
later. They asked questions about the homeworld, for their cloister
was off the main starpaths and they had little news. She and the
Mistress answered, but she paid little heed to them or what she
said. She was unable to get over the fact that she had done what
she had done.
Marika did not sleep much during the time set aside for resting.
Her curiosity was too strong once the impact of achievement began
to lessen. She spent hours learning everything she could about the
world.
That was not much. The silth had little commerce with the
natives, who were very primitive and had nothing to offer in trade.
The Redoriad maintained the cloister on Kim only as a means of
enforcing their claim upon the planet and as an intermediate base
from which further starworlds could be explored and exploited.
----
----
II
The homeworld flashed into .being.
Very good
,
Marika’s tutor sent.
Almost perfect this time. You will
do, Marika. You will do. You need to study your stars now, so that
you can recognize them from any distance and angle. Then you will
be ready to roam on your own.
Do darkships get lost?
Sometimes. Not so much anymore. The sisterhoods do not do
much exploring these days.
Why not?
In the early days the voidfarers visited more than ten
thousand stars and found little worth finding. There is little out
there. Certainly little that can be profitably exploited.
Nevertheless, in ten thousand stars there has been enough found
that the few silth with the star-faring skill are kept quite busy.
It has been a generation since anyone has had time for
exploration.
Except for the Serke.
Perhaps. They found something, certainly.
Did they not, though.
Marika had her next step already planned. A thorough search of
everything salvaged from the Serke before their disbandment.
Somewhere in the records there might be a clue—though no one
had yet found it.
The homeworld swelled, and with it a feeling of welcome, of
returning to where she properly belonged, as the unconscious
touch-world of all meth gradually enfolded her. She looked back at
Grauel and Barlog, but could not see their faces. She sent a
tendril of touch drifting over them, found them relaxed, pleased,
almost comfortable. Out on the world called Kim they had been
nervous and irritable all the time.
The darkship settled into the court of the new Redoriad
cloister. There Marika’s tutor immediately took her leave,
heading for Mistress’s quarters without a backward glance. As
she rose to go on to her own cloister Marika wondered what new
rumors would be spread about her now.
Hardly had she settled into the Reugge landing
mountains, naked of vegetation, worn by the wind, each standing
free in a forest of stone pillars. Some reached five hundred feet
into the air, striated in shades of red and ocher, and each wore a
skirt of detritus that climbed halfway up its thighs.
She found the cloister without further aid from her tutor. It
lay atop one of the pillars. It was a rusty brown color, built of
blocks of dried mud made on the banks of a trickle of a river
running far below.
Sisters came into the central courtyard as the darkship slowed,
hovered. They peered upward. Marika let the darkship settle.
“Welcome to Kim,” her tutor said once the darkship
had grounded. “We will rest for a day before we start
back.”
Marika stepped down onto alien rock, hot rock, under a sun too
large and bright, and shuddered. She was here. There. Upon a
starworld. The pup who had shivered in the chill wind licking the
watchtower at the Degnan packstead and had stared at the nighttime
sky, had achieved the impossible dream she had dreamed then.
She watched Grauel and Barlog dismount, their fur on end, their
weapons gripped tightly, their eyes in unceasing flickering motion.
They felt the strangeness too. They felt the absence of the
background of unconscious touch that existed everywhere at
home.
Marika met Redoriad silth whom she did not remember five minutes
later. They asked questions about the homeworld, for their cloister
was off the main starpaths and they had little news. She and the
Mistress answered, but she paid little heed to them or what she
said. She was unable to get over the fact that she had done what
she had done.
Marika did not sleep much during the time set aside for resting.
Her curiosity was too strong once the impact of achievement began
to lessen. She spent hours learning everything she could about the
world.
That was not much. The silth had little commerce with the
natives, who were very primitive and had nothing to offer in trade.
The Redoriad maintained the cloister on Kim only as a means of
enforcing their claim upon the planet and as an intermediate base
from which further starworlds could be explored and exploited.
----
----
II
The homeworld flashed into .being.
Very good
,
Marika’s tutor sent.
Almost perfect this time. You will
do, Marika. You will do. You need to study your stars now, so that
you can recognize them from any distance and angle. Then you will
be ready to roam on your own.
Do darkships get lost?
Sometimes. Not so much anymore. The sisterhoods do not do
much exploring these days.
Why not?
In the early days the voidfarers visited more than ten
thousand stars and found little worth finding. There is little out
there. Certainly little that can be profitably exploited.
Nevertheless, in ten thousand stars there has been enough found
that the few silth with the star-faring skill are kept quite busy.
It has been a generation since anyone has had time for
exploration.
Except for the Serke.
Perhaps. They found something, certainly.
Did they not, though.
Marika had her next step already planned. A thorough search of
everything salvaged from the Serke before their disbandment.
Somewhere in the records there might be a clue—though no one
had yet found it.
The homeworld swelled, and with it a feeling of welcome, of
returning to where she properly belonged, as the unconscious
touch-world of all meth gradually enfolded her. She looked back at
Grauel and Barlog, but could not see their faces. She sent a
tendril of touch drifting over them, found them relaxed, pleased,
almost comfortable. Out on the world called Kim they had been
nervous and irritable all the time.
The darkship settled into the court of the new Redoriad
cloister. There Marika’s tutor immediately took her leave,
heading for Mistress’s quarters without a backward glance. As
she rose to go on to her own cloister Marika wondered what new
rumors would be spread about her now.
Hardly had she settled into the Reugge landing
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