‘Sky’s Edge, I think.’
‘Yes. The 61 Cygni-A system.’
I nodded. ‘Except we always called our sun Swan. It’s a lot less of a mouthful.’
‘Yes; I’ve heard others say that as well. I really should remember these details, but we get people through from so many different places here. I’m all a muddle at times, honestly, trying to keep track of where’s where and what’s what.’
‘I’d agree with you, except I’m still not sure where we are. I won’t be sure until my memory comes back, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of the, whatever you said you were…’
‘Ice Mendicants.’
‘Well, it doesn’t ring any kind of a bell.’
‘That’s understandable. I don’t think the Order has any presence in the Sky’s Edge system. We exist only where there’s substantial traffic in and out of a given system.’
I wanted to ask her which system this happened to be, but I assumed she’d get round to that detail in good time.
‘I think you’re going to have to tell me a little bit more, Amelia.’
‘I don’t mind. You’ll just have to excuse me if this comes out a bit like a prepared speech. I’m afraid you’re not the first one I’ve had to explain all this to — and you won’t be the last, either.’
She told me that as an Order, the Mendicants were about a century and a half old — dating from the middle of the twenty-fourth century. That was around the time that interstellar flight broke out of the exclusive control of governments and superpowers and became almost commonplace. By then the Ultras were beginning to emerge as a separate human faction — not just flying ships, but living their entire lives aboard them, stretched out by the effects of time-dilation beyond anything that constituted a normal human lifespan. They continued to carry fare- paying passengers from system to system, but they were not above cutting corners in the quality of the service they offered. Sometimes they promised to take people somewhere and flew to another system entirely, stranding their passengers years of flight-time away from where they wanted to be. Sometimes their reefersleep technology was so old or poorly maintained that their passengers woke massively aged upon arrival, or with their minds completely erased.
It was into this customer care void that the Ice Mendicants came, establishing chapters in dozens of systems and offering help to those sleepers whose revival had not gone as smoothly as might have been wished. It was not just starship passengers they tended to, for much of their work concerned people who had been asleep in cryocrypts for decades, skipping through economic recessions or periods of political turmoil. Often those people would waken with their savings wiped out, their personal possessions sequestered and their memories damaged.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess now you’re going to tell me the catch.’
‘There’s one thing you need to understand from the outset,’ Amelia said. ‘There is no catch. We care for you until you’re well enough to leave. If you want to leave sooner than that, we won’t stop you — and if you want to stay longer, we can always use an extra pair of hands in the fields. Once you’ve left the Hospice, you won’t owe us anything or hear from us again, unless you wish it.’
‘How do you make something like this pay, in that case?’
‘Oh, we manage. A lot of our clients do make voluntary donations once they’re healed — but there’s no expectation on our part that they will. Our running costs are remarkably low, and we’ve never been in hock to anyone for the construction of Idlewild.’
‘A habitat like this couldn’t have come cheap, Amelia.’ Everything cost something; even matter that had been shaped by droves of mindless, breeding robots.
‘It was a lot cheaper than you’d think, even if we had to accept some compromises in the basic design.’
‘The spindle shape? I wondered about that.’
‘I’ll show you when you’re a bit better. Then you’ll understand.’ She paused and had the robot dispense some water into a little glass. ‘Drink this. You must be parched. I imagine you want to know a little more about yourself. How you got here and where here is, for instance.’
I took the glass and drank gratefully. The water had a foreign taste to it, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
‘I’m not in the Sky’s Edge system, obviously. And this must be near one of the main centres of traffic, or you wouldn’t have built the place in the first place.’
‘Yes. We’re in the Yellowstone system — around Epsilon Eridani.’ She seemed to observe my reaction. ‘You don’t seem too surprised. ’
‘I knew it had to be somewhere like that. What I don’t remember is what made me come here.’
‘That’ll come back. You’re fortunate, in a way. Some of our clients are perfectly well, but they’re just too poor to afford immigration into the system proper. We allow them to earn a small wage here until they can at least afford the cost of a ship to take them to the Rust Belt. Or we arrange for them to spend a period in indentured servitude for some other organisation — quicker, but usually a lot less pleasant. But you won’t have to do either, Tanner. You seem to be a man of reasonable means, judging by the funds you arrived with. And mystery, too. It may not mean very much to you, but you were quite a hero when you left Sky’s Edge.’
‘I was?’
‘Yes. There was an accident, and you were implicated in the saving of more than a few lives.’
‘I don’t remember, I’m afraid.’
‘Not even Nueva Valparaiso? That’s where it happened.’
It did, faintly, mean something — like a half-familiar reference stirring memories of a book or play experienced years earlier. But the plot and principal protagonists — not to mention the outcome — remained resolutely unclear. I was staring into fog.
‘I’m afraid it’s still not there. Tell me how I got here, anyway. What was the name of the ship?’
‘The Orvieto. She would have left your system about fifteen years ago.’
‘I must have had a good reason for wanting to be on her. Was I travelling alone?’
‘As near as we can tell, yes. We’re still processing her cargo. There were twenty thousand sleepers aboard her, and only a quarter of them have been warmed yet. There’s no great hurry, when you think about it. If you’re going to spend fifteen years crossing space, a few weeks’ delay at either end isn’t worth worrying about.’
It was odd, but though I couldn’t put my finger on it, I did feel that there was something that needed to be done urgently. The feeling it reminded me of was waking from a dream, the details of which I didn’t recall, but which nonetheless put me on edge for hours afterwards.
‘So tell me what you know about Tanner Mirabel.’
‘Nowhere near as much as we’d like. But that in itself shouldn’t alarm you. Your world is at war, Tanner — has been for centuries. Records are hardly less confused than our own, and the Ultras aren’t particularly interested in who they carry, provided they pay.’
The name felt comfortable, like an old glove. A good combination, too. Tanner was a worker’s name; hard and to the point; someone who got things done. Mirabel, by contrast, had faint aristocratic pretensions.
It was a name I could live with.
‘Why are your own records confused? Don’t tell me you had a war here as well?’
‘No,’ Amelia said, guardedly. ‘No; it was something quite different to that. Something quite different indeed. Why? For a moment you almost sounded pleased.’
‘Perhaps I used to be a soldier,’ I said.
‘Escaping with the spoils of war, after committing some unspeakable atrocity?’
‘Do I look like someone capable of atrocities?’
She smiled, but there was a decided lack of humour in her expression. ‘You wouldn’t credit it, Tanner, but we get all sorts through here. You could be anything or anyone, and looks would have very little to do with it.’ Then she opened her mouth slightly. ‘Wait. There’s no mirror in the house, is there? Have you seen yourself since you woke?’
I shook my head.
‘Then follow me. A little walk will do you the power of good.’
We left the chalet and followed an ambling path into the valley, Amelia’s robot scooting ahead of us like an excited puppy. She was at ease with the machine, but the robot left me feeling intimidated; the way I would have
