Yes. Very well, I’ve thought about the questions; as to the answers, I don’t have a clue. Which makes the questions irrelevant.
Very good, I would agree with that statement.
You would?
With one exception. They are irrelevant only for the moment. Right now, our society is doing what it always does in times of crisis, and resorting to physical force to defend itself. Again I have no quarrel with this. But if we are to make any real progress in this arena these questions must be examined with a degree of urgency so far lacking. For answer them we must. This is not a gulf of knowledge the human race can survive. We must deliver—dare I call it—divine truth.
You expect that out of a
My dear Syrinx, of course not. What sloppy thinking. But I am disappointed the solution to our more immediate problem has eluded you.
Which problem?she asked in exasperation.
Your problem.he snapped his fingers at her with some vexation, as if she were a miscreant child. Now concentrate please. You wish to fly, but you retain a perfectly understandable reticence.
Yes.
Everyone wishes to know the answer to those questions I asked, yet they do not know where to look.
Yes.
One race has those answers.
The Kiint? I know, but they said they wouldn’t help.
Incorrect. I have accessed the sensevise recording of the Assembly’s emergency session. Ambassador Roulor said the Kiint would not help us in the struggle we faced. The context of the statement was somewhat ambiguous. Did the ambassador mean the physical struggle, or the quest for knowledge?
We all know that the Kiint would not help us to fight. QED the ambassador was referring to the afterlife.
A reasonable assumption. One hopes the future of the human race does not rest on a single misinterpreted sentence.
So why haven’t you asked the Kiint ambassador to Jupiter to clarify it?
I doubt that even a Kiint ambassador has the authority to disclose the kind of information we now search for, no matter what the circumstances.
Syrinx groaned in understanding. You want me to go to the Kiint homeworld and ask.
How kind of you to offer. You will embark on a flight with few risks involved, and you will also be confronting the unknown. Sadly your latter task will be conducted on a purely intellectual level, but it is an honourable start.
And good therapy.
A most fortuitous combination, is it not? If I were not a Buddhist I would be talking about the killing of two birds.
Assuming the Jovian Consensus approves of the flight.
An amused light twinkled in the deeply recessed eyes. Being the founder of Edenism has its privileges. Not even the Consensus would refuse one of my humble requests.
Syrinx closed her eyes, then looked up at the vaguely puzzled face of the chief therapist. She realized her lips were parted in a wide smile.
Is everything all right?he asked politely.
Absolutely.taking a cautious breath, she eased her legs off the side of the bed. The hospital room was as comfortable and pleasant as only their culture could make it. But it would be nice to have a complete change.
Yes?
I hope you’ve enjoyed your rest, my love. We have a long flight ahead of us.
At last!
• • •
It had not been an easy week for Ikela. The Dorados were starting to suffer from the civil and commercial starflight quarantine. All exports had halted, and the asteroids had only a minuscule internal economy, which could hardly support the hundreds of industrial stations that refined the plentiful ore. Pretty soon he was going to have to start laying off staff in all seventeen of the T’Opingtu company’s foundry stations.
It was the first setback the Dorados had ever suffered in all of their thirty-year history. They had been tough years, but rewarding for those who had believed in their own future and worked hard to attain it. People like Ikela. He had come here after the death of Garissa, like so many others tragically disinherited from that world. There had been more than enough money to start his business in those days, and it had grown in tandem with the system’s flourishing economy. In three decades he had changed from bitter refugee to a leading industrialist, with a position of responsibility in the Dorados’ governing council.
Now this. It wasn’t financial ruin, not by any means, but the social cost was starting to mount up at an alarming rate. The Dorados were used only to expansion and growth. Unemployment was not an issue in any of the seven settled asteroids. People who found themselves suddenly without a job and regular earnings were unlikely to react favourably to the council washing their hands of the problem.
Yesterday, Ikela had sat in on a session to discuss the idea of making companies pay non-salaried employees a retainer fee to tide them through the troubles; which had seemed the easy solution until the chief magistrate started explaining how difficult that would be to implement legally. As always the council had dithered. Nothing had been decided.
Today Ikela had to start making his own decisions along those same lines. He knew he ought to set an example and pay some kind of reduced wage to his workforce. It wasn’t the kind of decision he was used to making.
He strode into the executive floor’s anteroom with little enthusiasm for the coming day. His personal secretary, Lomie, was standing up behind her desk, a harassed expression on her face. Ikela was mildly surprised to see a small red handkerchief tied around her ankle. He would never have thought a levelheaded girl like Lomie would pay any attention to that Deadnight nonsense which seemed to be sweeping through the Dorados’ younger generation.
“I couldn’t stonewall her,” Lomie datavised. “I’m sorry, sir, she was so forceful, and she did say she was an old friend.”
Ikela followed her gaze across the room. A smallish woman was rising from one of the settees, putting her cup of coffee down on the side table. She clung to a small backpack which was hanging at her side from a shoulder strap. Few Dorados residents had skin as dark as hers, though it was extensively wrinkled now. Ikela guessed she was in her sixties. Her features were almost familiar, something about them agitating his subconscious. He ran a visual comparison program through his neural nanonics personnel record files.
“Hello, Captain,” she said. “It’s been a while.”
Whether the program placed her first, or the use of his old title triggered the memory, he never knew. “Mzu,” he choked. “Dr Mzu. Oh, Mother Mary, what are you doing here?”
“You know exactly what I’m doing here, Captain.”
“Captain?” Lomie inquired. She looked from one to the other. “I never knew . . .”
Keeping his eyes fixed on Mzu as if he expected her to leap for his throat, Ikela waved Lomie to be silent. “I’m taking no appointments, no files, no calls, nothing. We’re not to be interrupted.” He datavised a code at his office door. “Come through, Doctor, please.”
The office had a single window, a long band of glass which looked down on Ayacucho’s biosphere cavern.
