“Sir,” says Danivon mildly, trying to digest this all at once. “Am I to go alone.”
Boarmus doesn’t care whether he goes alone or in a company of hundreds, not so long as he goes, but saying so would trivialize the matter. For Boarmus’s purposes, this mission must look quite important indeed! Not an emergency, which might frighten Council Supervisory into fatal spasms, but important, nonetheless.
Boarmus frowns to show he is considering the matter. “Not if you think it best to take others with you. I’ll leave the details to you, Luze. I have every confidence in your abilities.”
“Sir,” says Danivon again.
Boarmus nods weightily. “Offer what inducements you think appropriate. Requisition whatever equipment you consider necessary. Before you leave, check with the Complaint and Disposition schedule: there will undoubtedly be some routine business to take care of on your way.” He waves a negligent hand, illustrating the trust he places in Danivon Luze. “Besides, it’s time Central Panubi was explored.”
He said this to Zasper years ago. He has said it to others since. After twenty or so generations of human occupation on Elsewhere, the center of the continent is still labeled “Panubi Incognita,” one of those places on maps where the lines trail off into emptiness and cartographers traditionally print “Here be dragons.” Considering that some pixieish conceit led the original cartographers on Elsewhere to do just that, perhaps no one should be surprised now that the dragons have actually shown up.
Allegedly shown up, Boarmus reminds himself. Allegedly. Though whether allegedly or actually, Panubi Incognita serves as a good excuse to get Danivon gone before … someone finds out what he’s done.
Danivon receives a dismissive nod, bows, about-faces, hooks his right thumb in his belt to give his coat a swagger, and stalks off toward the stairs, gaver-hide boots gleaming, purple plumes nodding, purple coat swirling at the hem, golden badge on his shoulder shining, soft red shirt and trousers rippling beneath in silken perfection. Behind him the two supervisors sip at their cooling tea and watch him go, Boarmus with slight perturbation, Syrilla with appreciation for the fine picture he makes. Exemplary, she thinks. Truly exemplary.
A Frickian servant brings hot tea and pours. A long, silent moment passes. Syrilla leans forward to set her cup upon the table when a sudden motion catches her eyes. On the Rotunda floor a guard has moved! She leans farther forward, disbelieving. Even though Door guards aren’t supposed to quiver so much as a muscle, one of them has moved! No … two … two have moved!
Boarmus has seen it too. “The Door!” he breathes.
Her eyes flick across the big Door as she follows Boarmus’s pointing finger. Not the big Door. The Arbai Door? But the Arbai Door doesn’t do anything! It has never done anything!
It is doing something now! Scintillating, sparkling, flinging coruscations of bright light around the Rotunda and through the high-arched opening into the balcony, sequined schools of spark-fish, swirling and reversing. Most of the guards are moving, shifting uncertainly toward and away from the glittering gate, casting doubtful glances over their shoulders, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, their weapons twitching in their hands.
Syrilla is half out of her chair when the clap of thunder sounds. She has time to see the guards cowering, and then the Arbai Door flashes like lightning, blinding her, blinding everyone. When she can see again the light has gone, leaving a dark spidery blotch struggling on the Rotunda floor.
Guardsmen raise their weapons. Someone—Danivon, it is—shouts a command as he descends the last few curving steps at a dead run. The weapons are lowered, reluctantly. Danivon arrives at the struggling thing on the floor at the same time as the officer in charge. In a moment they tug at the blotch, the thing, raising it up.
Syrilla and Boarmus stare in disbelief as they move toward the stairs, actually breaking into a trot as a confused babble rises from below.
Later, after Danivon assures everyone that his nose tells him the creature(s) is essentially harmless, after an Alsense machine is obtained and set before the arrival so that its (their) language can be understood, after the creature(s) explains that it (they) had, only moments before, existed in Predispersion times, a time so remote that only Files has any detailed knowledge of it at all—only then do the people of Tolerance learn that their accidental and extremely agitated guest(s) are Bertran and Nela Zy-Czorsky.
Elsewhere on Elsewhere, in Enarae.
Fringe’s pa died all of a sudden. His name appeared in the daily bulletin published by Enarae Executive Systems for the benefit of the next of kin. When Fringe, now in her early thirties, followed custom and went to review Char’s Blood Book in the Hall of Final Equity, however, she found she wasn’t Char’s daughter anymore.
Blood Books of all deceased were posted in the Hall for the convenience of family and claimants. The first page always listed family members, since they would be liable for the debts of the deceased. Char’s Book had only one name in it: Yilland so-called Dorwalk, adopted daughter of Char Dorwalk. There was no mention of Fringe herself or of her brother Bubba.
Fringe kept herself still, even when the surroundings blurred a little. She felt something rather like pain, though it wasn’t really—maybe more a final awareness, like stepping off a cliff and only then noticing it really was a long way down.
“I didn’t know,” Fringe blurted, almost in a whisper, not meaning anyone to hear.
A huge, shiny-headed bystander, who’d been glancing curiously at Fringe, jerked his head toward someone across the hall and mumbled, “That’s her. That’s Yilland.”
The only woman in that direction was talking in a high, distressed voice to one of the Final Equity arbitrators. She was wispy, skinny, perhaps a little younger than Fringe, and though her words didn’t carry, her voice did—an abrasive sound, like a knife being whetted.
“Don’t want to intrude,” the bald-headed giant offered. “My name’s Curvis. Last time I saw you,
