Look to Windward

They had been worried that Quilan’s welcome might be overwhelming, either accidentally or deliberately. His momentary slip when they had first boarded the Resistance Is Character-Forming and had spoken aloud in reply to a transmitted thought of Huyler’s had made them wary, and so they’d agreed that, for the first part of Quilan’s reception at least, Huyler would stay in the background, keeping silent unless he spotted something alarming that he felt he had to draw Quilan’s attention to.

~ So, Huyler; anything interesting?

~ Bit of a menagerie, don’t you think? Only one of them’s human.

~ What about the child?

~ Well, and the child. If it really is a child.

~ Let us not become paranoid, Huyler.

~ Let us not become complacent either, Quil. Anyway, it looks like they’re going for the cuteness angle rather than the top-brass approach.

~ There is a sense in which Estray Lassils is President of the World. And the silver-skinned avatar is under the direct control of the god which holds the power of life or death over the Orbital and everybody on it.

~ Yes, and there is a sense in which the woman is a powerless temporary figurehead and the avatar is just a puppet.

~ And the drone, and the Homomdan?

~ The machine claims to be from Contact so that may well mean it’s from Special Circumstances. The big three-legged guy seems genuine so I’d give him the benefit of the doubt for now; they probably think he’s a suitable host because he’s got more than the number of legs they’re used to. He’s got three legs, we’ve got three counting the midlimb; it could be that simple.

~ I suppose.

~ Anyway, we’re here.

~ Indeed we are. And quite an impressive “here’ it is, don’t you think?

~ It’s all right, I suppose.

Quilan smiled thinly. He leant on the deck-side rail, and looked around. The river stretched into the distance, the view dropped away to either side.

Masaq’ Great River was a single loop of water stretching unbroken right round the Orbital and flowing slowly as a result of nothing more than the huge spinning world’s coriolis effect.

Fed by tributary rivers and mountain streams throughout its length, it was depleted by evaporation where it ran through deserts, drained by overflow waterfalls and the run-offs into seas, swamps and irrigation networks, and absorbed into giant lakes, vast oceans and entire continent-wide river systems and networks of canals, only to reappear via great converse estuaries which eventually bundled it into a single gathered current once again.

It ran its unending course through labyrinths of caverns under raised continents, their depths lit sporadically by plunging holes and immense troughs deep as the roots of mountains. It traversed the slowly decreasing numbers of yet unformed Plate topographies within transparent tunnels which gave out onto landscapes still being moulded and inscribed by the manufactured vulcanologies of Orbital terraforming techniques.

It disappeared under Bulkhead Ranges in colossal watery mazes slung beneath those hollow ramparts and slipped—flooding sometimes for whole seasons—across entire horizon-wide plains before running through winding canyons kilometres deep and thousands long. It iced over from one end of a continent to another during the Orbital’s aphelion or within the local winters produced by a Plate group’s sun lenses set on disperse. Its course took in dozens of neatly circumscribed or lushly sprawling cities and—when it reached Plates like Osinorsi, whose median level was well below the stream’s steady elevation—the river was carried above the plains, savannas, deserts or swamps on single or braided massifs towering hundreds or thousands of metres above the surrounding ground; hoisted ribbons of land crowned with cloud, edged with falls, strewn with hanging vegetation and vertical towns, punctured by caves and tunnels and—as here—with artfully carved and soaring arches that turned the monumental massifs into a more precise image of exactly what they were: vast aqueducts on a water course ten million kilometres long.

The parapet of the massif here, just a few kilometres from the cliffs and the plains that marked the beginning of Xarawe, was a flower-strewn grassy bank less than ten metres wide. From his vantage point here, standing on a raised forecastle of the ceremonial barge Bariatricist, Quilan could look down through wisps of cloud to rolling hills and meandering rivers unwinding through misty forests two kilometres below.

They had asked him whether he wanted to go straight to the house they had provided for him, or if he would like to take in part of Masaq’ Great River, and one of its famous barges, where a small reception had been arranged. He’d said he would be happy to take them up on their kind offer. The Hub avatar had looked quietly pleased; the drone Tersono had positively glowed with rosy approval.

The personnel module had lowered itself gently towards the atmosphere of the Orbital. The craft’s ceiling had also become a screen, showing off the soaring arc of the Orbital’s evening and night far-side while the vessel submerged into the slowly warming morning air above Osinorsi Plate. The module had swung out over one end of the vastly elongated S shape of the central massif carrying the river above the Plate’s lower level. They rendezvoused with the Bariatricist near the border of Xarawe.

At about four hundred metres, the barge was nearly twice as long as the river here was wide; it was a tall, beamy craft tiered with decks and studded with masts, some of which held highly decorated sails, most of which trailed banners and flags.

Quilan had seen lots of people, though the vessel was hardly crowded.

“This isn’t all for me, is it?” he’d asked the drone Tersono as the module approached one of the barge’s half- decks stern first.

“Well,” it had said, sounding uncertain. “No. Why, would you prefer to have a private craft?”

“No, I was just wondering.”

“There are various other receptions, parties and different events taking place on the barge just now,” the avatar had told him. “Plus there are several hundred people for whom the vessel is their temporary or permanent home.”

“How many people have come to see me?”

“About seventy,” the avatar replied.

“Major Quilan,” the drone had said. “If you’ve changed your mind—”

“No, I—”

“Major, might I make a suggestion?” Estray Lassils had said.

“Please do.”

And so the module had positioned itself so that he could walk straight out onto the barge’s high forecastle; Estray Lassils had disembarked at the same time and shown him the route to take; she’d hung back while he found his way across a sort of gantry, through a rather riotous party, and eventually fetched up on one of the set-back decks looking out over the vessel’s bows.

There were a few humans there, mostly in couples. He had remembered a hot hazy day on a much smaller boat on a broad but almost infinitely tinier river, thousands of light years away now; her touch and smell, the weight of her hand on his shoulder…

The humans had looked at him with curiosity, but had left him alone. He’d gazed out, taking in the view. The day was bright but cool. The great river and the vast, stunning world flowed and revolved beneath him, taking him with them both.

The Retreat at Cadracet

After a while he turned away from the view. Estray Lassils emerged from a dance at the noisy party—flushed and breathing heavily—and walked with him towards the section of the barge set aside for his reception.

“You’re sure you’re quite happy to meet all these people, Major?” she asked.

“Quite certain, thank you.”

“Well, do say the instant you want to get away. We won’t think you rude. I did some research into your order.