A huge dark bulk hung above it. Forces it could sense but couldn’t understand were slowing its wild tumbling. The universe seemed to be composed entirely of tiny splinters of matter pervaded by glowing energy bands. Voidhawks flashed past at frightening velocities.
Yes, you are free, Hyale said. I bid you welcome to life.
What is this place? What am I? Why can’t I move like you? Acetes struggled to make sense of the scraps of knowledge fluttering around its racing mind, Iasius ’s final gift.
Patience, Hyale counselled. You will grow, you will learn. The data you possess will be integrated in time.
Acetes cautiously opened its affinity sensitivity to cover the whole of Saturn’s environment, and received a chorus of greetings from the habitats, an even greater wave of acknowledgement from individual adult Edenists, excited trills from children; and then its own kind offered encouragement, infant voidhawks nesting within the rings.
Its tumbling halted, it hung below Hyale ’s lower hull, looking round with raw senses. Hyale began to alter their trajectory, moving the egg into a stable circular orbit around the gas giant where it would spend the next eighteen years growing to full size.
Iasius plunged on towards the cloudscape, ploughing a dark telltale furrow through the rings for any entity watching with the right kind of senses. Its flight produced enough power to energize two more eggs, Briseis and Epopeus, while it was still in the A-ring. Hesperus emerged while it was passing through the Cassini division. Graeae, Ixion, Laocoцn and Merope all awoke in the B-ring, to be borne away by the voidhawks whose compositional patterns they had been given.
Udat caught up with Iasius near the inner edge of the B-ring. It had been a long, arduous flight, straining even the blackhawk’s power reserves, testing manoeuvrability as seldom before. But now Iasius was calling for a mate again, and Udat glided across the gap until their distortion fields merged and the hulls almost touched. It sent Iasius its own compositional pattern through the affinity bond, swept away by a fervent gratification.
I thank you, Iasius said at the end. I feel this one will be something special. There is a greatness to it.
The egg cannoned up from its ovary, sending out a cascade of polyp flakes, and Udat was left to exert its distortion field to brake the intrigued, eager infant as Iasius departed. The puzzled blackhawk had no chance to ask what it had meant by that last enigmatic statement.
I welcome you to life, Udat said formally, when it had finally stopped the seven-metre globe from spinning.
Thank you, Oenone replied. Where are we going now?
To a higher orbit. This one is too close to the planet.
Oh!a pause as it probed round with immature senses, its giddy thoughts quietening down. What is a planet?
The last egg was Priam , ejected well below the meagre lip of the B-ring. Those voidhawks remaining in the flight, now down to some thirty strong, peeled away from Iasius . They were already dangerously close to the cloudscape which dominated a third of the sky; gravity was exerting its malign influence on local space, gnawing at the fringes of their distortion fields, impairing the propulsive efficiency.
Iasius continued to descend, its lower, faster orbit carrying it ahead of the others. Its distortion field began to falter, finally overwhelmed by the intensity of the gravitational effect five hundred kilometres above the gas giant.
The terminator rose ahead, a black occlusion devouring the silently meandering clouds. Faint phosphene speckles swam through the eddies and peaks, weaving in and out of the thicker ammonia-laden braids, their light ebbing and kindling in hesitant patterns. Iasius shot into the penumbra, darkness expanding around it like an elemental force. Saturn had ceased to be a planet, an astronomical object, it was becoming hugely solid. The bitek starship curved down at an ever increasing angle. Ahead of it was a single fiery streak, growing brighter in its optical sensors. The darkside equator, that frozen remote wasteland, was redolent with sublime grandeur.
Ring particles were falling alongside Iasius , a thick, dark rain, captured by the gossamer fingers of the ionosphere, a treacherously insistent caress which robbed them of speed, of altitude. And, ultimately, existence.
When they had been lured down to the fringes of the ionosphere, icy gusts of hydrogen molecules burnt around them, emitting banners of spectral flame. They dipped rapidly as atmospheric resistance built, first glowing like embers, then crowned by incandescent light; sunsparks, stretching a hundred-kilometre contrail behind them. Their billion-year flight ended swiftly in a violent spectacle: a dazzling concussion which flung out a shower of twinkling debris, quickly extinguished. All that remained was a tenuous trail of black soot which was swept up by the howling cyclones.
Iasius reached the extremity of the ionosphere. The light of the dying ring particles was hot on its lower hull. A tremulous glow appeared around its rim. Polyp began to char and flake away, orange flecks bulleting off into the distance. The bitek starship began to lose peripheral senses as its specialist receptor cells grew warm. Denser layers of hydrogen pummelled the hull. The desent curve began to get bumpy, vexatious supersonic winds were beginning to bite. Iasius flipped over. The abrupt turn had disastrous consequences on its avian glide; with the hull’s blunt underside smashing head on into the hydrogen, the starship was suddenly subjected to a huge deceleration force. Dangerous quantities of flame blossomed right across the hull as broad swaths of polyp ablated. Iasius started to tumble helplessly down towards the scorching river of light.
The retinue of voidhawks watched solemnly from their safe orbit a thousand kilometres above, singing their silent hymn of mourning. After they had honoured Iasius ’s passing with a single orbit they extended their distortion fields, and launched themselves back towards Romulus.
The human captains of the voidhawks involved with the mating flight and the Iasius ’s crew had passed the time of the flight in a circular hall reserved for that one purpose. It reminded Athene of some of the medieval churches she had visited during her rare trips to Earth, the
