for the mere privilege of belonging.
This is Thalia Island, Oxley, we are aware of Pernik’s withdrawal from affinity and we are summoning a planetary consensus to deal with the problem.
That red lighting effect has me worried,he replied. The flyer had dropped below subsonic again. Pernik gleamed a sickly vermilion eight kilometres away.
Around the planet, consensus finalized, bringing together every sentient entity in an affinity union orchestrated by the islands. Information, such as it had, was reviewed, opinions formed, discussed, discarded, or elaborated. Two seconds after considering the problem the consensus said: We believe it to be Laton. A ship of the same class as the
Laton?the appalled question came from
Yes.the atlantean consensus summarized the information that had been delivered by a voidhawk two days earlier. As we have no orbital stations our checks on arriving ships were naturally less than ideal, depending solely on civil traffic control satellite-platform sensors. The ship has of course departed, but the spaceplane remained. Pernik and its population must have been sequestrated by the energy virus.
Oh no,oxley cried brokenly. Not him. Not again.
Ahead of him, Pernik issued a brilliant golden light, as though sunrise had come to the ocean. The flyer gave a violent lurch to starboard, and began to lose height.
Syrinx watched the little flyer disappear into the east. The night air was cooler than she remembered from her last visit, bringing up goosebumps below her ship-tunic. Mosul, who was dressed in a baggy sleeveless sweatshirt and shorts, seemed completely unaffected. She eyed him with a degree of annoyance. Macho outdoors type.
This Clio was a lucky woman.
Come along,eysk said. The family is dying to meet you again. You can tell the youngsters what Norfolk was like.
I’d love to.
Mosul’s arm tightened that bit extra round her shoulder as they headed for the nearest tower. Almost proprietary, she thought.
Mosul,she asked on singular engagement, what’s wrong down here? You all seem so tense.it was a struggle to convey the emotional weight she wanted.
Nothing is wrong.he smiled as they passed under the archway at the foot of the tower.
She stared at him, dumbfounded. He had answered on the general affinity band, an extraordinary breach of protocol.
Mosul caught her expression, and sent a wordless query.
This is . . .she began. Then her thoughts flared in alarm.
“Are they?” His smile hardened into something which made her jerk away in consternation. “Don’t worry, little Syrinx. Delicate, beautiful little Syrinx, so far from home. All alone. But we treasure you for the gift you bring. We are going to welcome you into a brotherhood infinitely superior to Edenism.”
She spun round, ready to run. But there were five men standing behind her. One of them—she gasped— his head had grown until it was twice the size it should be. His features were a gross caricature, cheeks deep and lined, eyes wide and avian; his nose was huge, coming to a knife edge that hung below his black lips, both ears were pointed, rising above the top of his skull.
“What are you?” she hissed.
“Don’t mind old Kincaid,” Mosul said. “Our resident troll.”
It was getting lighter, the kind of liquid redness creeping across the island’s polyp which she associated with Duchess-night on Norfolk. Her legs began to shake. It was shameful, but she was so alone. Never before had she been denied the community of thoughts that was the wonder of Edenism.
There was an answer. Not coherent, nothing she could perceive, decipher. But somewhere on the other side of the blood-veiled sky the voidhawk cried in equal anguish.
“Come, Syrinx,” Mosul said. He held out his hand. “Come with us.”
It wasn’t Mosul. She knew that now.
“Never.”
“So brave,” he said pityingly. “So foolish.”
She was physically strong, her genes gave her that much. But there were seven of them. They half carried, half pushed her onwards.
The walls became strange. No longer polyp but stone. Big cubes hewn from some woodland granite quarry; and old, the age she thought she had seen on the approach flight. Water leaked from the lime-encrusted mortar, sliming the stone.
They descended a spiral stair which grew narrower until only one of them could march beside her. Syrinx’s ship-tunic sleeve was soon streaked with water and coffee-coloured fungus. She knew it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be happening. There was no “down” in an Atlantean island. Only the sea. But her feet slipped on the worn steps, and her calves ached.
There was no red glow in the bowels of the island. Flaming torches in black iron brands lighted their way. Their acrid smoke made her eyes water.
The stairway came out onto a short corridor. A sturdy oak door was flung open, and Syrinx shoved through. Inside was a medieval torture chamber.
A wooden rack took up the centre of the room; iron chains wound round wheels at each end, manacles open and waiting. A brazier in one corner was sending out waves of heat from its radiant coals. Long slender metal instruments were plunged into it, metal sharing the furnace glow.
The torturer himself was a huge fat man in a leather jerkin. Rolls of hairy flesh spilled over his waistband. He stood beside the brazier, cursing the slender young woman who was bent over a pair of bellows.
“This is Clio,” Mosul’s stolen body said. “You did say you wanted to meet her.”
The woman turned, and laughed at Syrinx.
“What is the point?” Syrinx asked weakly. Her voice was very close to cracking.
“This is in your honour,” the torturer said. His voice was a deep bass, but soft, almost purring. “You, we shall have to be very careful with. For you come bearing a great gift. I don’t want to damage it.”
“What gift?”
“The living starship. These other mechanical devices for sailing the night gulf are difficult for us to employ. But your craft has elegance and grace. Once we have you, we have it. We can bring our crusade to new worlds with
