this would
actually produce more efficiently.”
Something
like interest began to show on a few faces. “That’s slower,” a man said,
shaking his head.
“This class
of machinery was designed to handle a maximum rate flow of about twenty-five.
You only cause a backlog if you push it harder than that. Try it—you’ll find
you only have to recalibrate one time in ten.”
“Really?” He stared at me. “How do you know that?”
“He’s a
Tech,” Ngeran said, looking at me as if he saw me for
the first time. I smiled.
Someone
else touched my arm tentatively, to ask me about a different piece of
equipment. I helped one worker and then another, answering their questions,
offering suggestions when I could to make their work easier and more efficient.
Most of them seemed grateful, unlike Ang. Now Ngeran was waiting for me, but his patience matched my own when he had something to
gain from it.
By the time
we reached the storage area, he seemed to have forgotten any resentment he’d
felt at showing me what he had. I read eagerly through the supply listings he
called up on the warehouse terminal, but there was no grid in the size range
that we needed. I queried over an
dover
, willing my
eyes to see the listing I wanted.
“You don’t
have one,” I said finally, hating to hear the words. My body suddenly felt
heavy with fatigue.
Ngeran peered past me at the screen, double-checked the listing again. “We had one a
few weeks ago. Or maybe it was a few months .... Guess
it’s gone.” He straightened up and shrugged. “Sorry.” He sounded sincere. “I
don’t care if I disappoint that dreamrider Ang. But I
figure you earned a grid.”
I grunted.
Our last hope of getting airborne was gone. I thanked him for his trouble, and
started to leave.
“Hey, Gedda —” he called after me. “You be around tomorrow?” There was an urgency in his voice
that belied the casualness of the question.
I shook my
head. Resignation settled into the heavy folds of his face. I left the
building.
I wandered
through the warren of passageways that led from one part of the complex to
another, searching for the room we’d been assigned to. The sound of the pumps
was everywhere, like the heartbeat of some giant beast. How precariously we float on the surface of life, Hahn, the sibyl,
said. She might have been speaking of this place.
I tried to
push her words out of my mind, but my disappointment over the grid brought them
back again and again. I thought of our trip upriver, and what it said about the
journey ahead. I wished profoundly that I had never left Foursgate ,
a place that was at least reasonably safe and comfortable. But there was
nothing left there for me to go back to now.
I tried not
to think about that, either—but in my mind I saw the river of circumstance that
had carried us all inevitably to this place. I remembered Spadrin making an obscene pun of Foursgate , tying its name to
the Gates—those black holes in space that give access to other worlds by
swallowing our ships whole and excreting them halfway across the galaxy. To him Foursgate is a trap, not a haven. To Ang , World’s End is a haven and a trap, sucking him into itself .... The real trap is the past; every choice we ever
make leaves us fewer options for the future.
I thought
of the grid again, and before that my decision to go with Ang ,
and before that my brothers .... I thought about
leaving Tiamat , knowing I could never return. Leaving
behind Moon—
Desperately
I thought of the Hegemony’s past, of my ancestors, those long-dead geniuses of
the Old Empire who left us the sibyl network that had guided Moon toward some
unknown destination. Who had solved the paradox of direct travel between the
stars at faster than light speeds— who had been on the
verge of discovering the key to immortality. Their Empire had collapsed of its
own complexity, of too many wrong choices, before they could achieve that
perfection.
And now
their descendants and
actually produce more efficiently.”
Something
like interest began to show on a few faces. “That’s slower,” a man said,
shaking his head.
“This class
of machinery was designed to handle a maximum rate flow of about twenty-five.
You only cause a backlog if you push it harder than that. Try it—you’ll find
you only have to recalibrate one time in ten.”
“Really?” He stared at me. “How do you know that?”
“He’s a
Tech,” Ngeran said, looking at me as if he saw me for
the first time. I smiled.
Someone
else touched my arm tentatively, to ask me about a different piece of
equipment. I helped one worker and then another, answering their questions,
offering suggestions when I could to make their work easier and more efficient.
Most of them seemed grateful, unlike Ang. Now Ngeran was waiting for me, but his patience matched my own when he had something to
gain from it.
By the time
we reached the storage area, he seemed to have forgotten any resentment he’d
felt at showing me what he had. I read eagerly through the supply listings he
called up on the warehouse terminal, but there was no grid in the size range
that we needed. I queried over an
dover
, willing my
eyes to see the listing I wanted.
“You don’t
have one,” I said finally, hating to hear the words. My body suddenly felt
heavy with fatigue.
Ngeran peered past me at the screen, double-checked the listing again. “We had one a
few weeks ago. Or maybe it was a few months .... Guess
it’s gone.” He straightened up and shrugged. “Sorry.” He sounded sincere. “I
don’t care if I disappoint that dreamrider Ang. But I
figure you earned a grid.”
I grunted.
Our last hope of getting airborne was gone. I thanked him for his trouble, and
started to leave.
“Hey, Gedda —” he called after me. “You be around tomorrow?” There was an urgency in his voice
that belied the casualness of the question.
I shook my
head. Resignation settled into the heavy folds of his face. I left the
building.
I wandered
through the warren of passageways that led from one part of the complex to
another, searching for the room we’d been assigned to. The sound of the pumps
was everywhere, like the heartbeat of some giant beast. How precariously we float on the surface of life, Hahn, the sibyl,
said. She might have been speaking of this place.
I tried to
push her words out of my mind, but my disappointment over the grid brought them
back again and again. I thought of our trip upriver, and what it said about the
journey ahead. I wished profoundly that I had never left Foursgate ,
a place that was at least reasonably safe and comfortable. But there was
nothing left there for me to go back to now.
I tried not
to think about that, either—but in my mind I saw the river of circumstance that
had carried us all inevitably to this place. I remembered Spadrin making an obscene pun of Foursgate , tying its name to
the Gates—those black holes in space that give access to other worlds by
swallowing our ships whole and excreting them halfway across the galaxy. To him Foursgate is a trap, not a haven. To Ang , World’s End is a haven and a trap, sucking him into itself .... The real trap is the past; every choice we ever
make leaves us fewer options for the future.
I thought
of the grid again, and before that my decision to go with Ang ,
and before that my brothers .... I thought about
leaving Tiamat , knowing I could never return. Leaving
behind Moon—
Desperately
I thought of the Hegemony’s past, of my ancestors, those long-dead geniuses of
the Old Empire who left us the sibyl network that had guided Moon toward some
unknown destination. Who had solved the paradox of direct travel between the
stars at faster than light speeds— who had been on the
verge of discovering the key to immortality. Their Empire had collapsed of its
own complexity, of too many wrong choices, before they could achieve that
perfection.
And now
their descendants and
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