Look to Windward

forward and grasped one of Quilan’s hand in his. “Major Quilan, if you have changed your mind, if you are beginning to reconsider, tell us now. Do you still have the taste for this?”

Quilan looked into the old male’s eyes. “One death is an appalling thing to contemplate, Estodien.”

“Of course. And five billion lives seems an unreal number, does it not?”

“Yes. Unreal.”

“And do not forget; the gone-before have read you, Quilan. They have looked inside your head and know what you are capable of better than you do yourself. They pronounced you clear. Therefore they must be certain that you will do what must be done, even if you feel doubts about that yourself.”

Quilan lowered his gaze. “That is comforting, Estodien.”

“It is disturbing, I would have thought.”

“Perhaps that a little, too. Perhaps a person who might be called a confirmed civilian would be more disturbed than comforted. I am still a soldier, Estodien. Knowing that I will do my duty is no bad thing.”

“Good,” Visquile said, letting go Quilan’s hand and sitting back. “Now. We begin again.” He stood up. “Come with me.”

It was four days after they’d arrived in the airsphere. Quilan had spent most of that time within the chamber containing the temple ship Soulhaven with Visquile. He sat or lay in the spherical cavity that was the innermost recessional space of the Soulhaven while the Estodien attempted to teach him how to use the Soulkeeper’s Displacer function.

The range of the device is only fourteen metres,” Visquile told him on the first day. They sat in the darkness, surrounded by a substrate holding millions of the dead. “The shorter the leap, and of course the smaller the size of the object being Displaced, the less power is required and the less likelihood there is of the action being detected. Fourteen metres should be quite sufficient for what is required.”

“What is it I’m trying to send, to Displace?”

“Initially, one of a stock of twenty dummy warheads which were loaded into your Soulkeeper before it was emplaced within you. When the time comes for you to fire in anger, you will be manipulating the transference of one end of a microscopic wormhole, though without the wormhole attached.”

“That sounds—”

“Bizarre, to say the least. Nevertheless.”

“So, it’s not a bomb?”

“No. Though the eventual effect will be somewhat similar.”

Ah,” Quilan said. “So, once the Displacement has taken place, I just walk away?”

“Initially, yes.” Quilan could just make out the Estodien looking at him. “Why, Major, were you expecting that to be the moment of your death?”

“Yes, I was.”

“That would be too obvious, Major.”

“This was described to me as being a suicide mission, Estodien. I would hate to think I might survive it and feel cheated.”

“How annoying that it is so dark in here I can’t see the expression on your face as you say that, Major.”

“I am quite serious, Estodien.”

“Hmm. Probably just as well. Well, let me put your mind at rest, Major. You will assuredly die when the wormhole activates. Instantaneously. I hope that doesn’t conflict with any desire you might have harboured for a lingering demise.”

“The fact will be enough, Estodien. The manner is not something I can bring myself to be concerned with, though I would prefer it to be quick rather than slow.”

“Quick it will be, Major. You have my word on that.”

“So, Estodien, where do I carry out this Displacement?”

“Inside the Hub of Masaq’ Orbital. The space station which sits in the middle of the world.”

“Is that normally accessible?”

“Of course. Quilan, they run school trips there, so their young can see the place where the machine squats that oversees their pampered lives.” Quilan heard the older male gather his robes about him. “You simply ask to be shown round. It will not seem in the least suspicious. You carry out the Displacement and return to the surface of the Orbital. At the appointed time the wormhole mouth will be connected with the wormhole itself. The Hub will be destroyed.

“The Orbital will continue to run using other automatic systems situated on the perimeter, but there will be some loss of life as particularly critical processes are left to run out of control; transport systems, largely. Those souls stored in the Hub’s own substrates will be lost, too. At any given moment those stored souls can number over four billion; these will account for the majority of the lives the Chelgrian-Puen require to release our own people into heaven.”

QUILAN THOUGHTS.

The words rang suddenly in his head, making him flinch. He sensed Visquile go quiet beside him.

~ Gone-before, he thought and bowed his head. ~ Just one thought, really. The obvious one; why not let our dead into the beyond without this terrible action?

HEROES HEAVEN. HONOURING KILLED BY ENEMIES WITHOUT REPLY DISGRACES ALL COME BEFORE (MANY MORE). DISGRACE ASSUMED WHEN WAR BELIEVED OUR FAULT. OWN RESPONSIBILITY: ACCEPT DISGRACE/ACCEPT DISGRACED. KNOW NOW WAR CAUSED BY OTHERS. FAULT THEIRS DISGRACE THEIRS RESPONSIBILITY THEIRS: DEBT THEIRS. REJOICE! NOW DISGRACED BECOME HEROES TOO ONCE BALANCE OF LOSS ACHIEVED.

~ It is hard for me to rejoice, knowing that I will have so much blood on my hands.

YOU GO TO OBLIVION QUILAN. YOUR WISH. BLOOD NOT ON YOU BUT ON MEMORY OF YOU. THAT RESTRICTED TO FEW IF MISSION WHOLLY SUCCEEDS. THINK ACTIONS LEADING TO MISSION NOT RESULTS. RESULTS YOUR NOT CONCERN. OTHER QUESTIONS?

~ No, no other questions, thank you.

“Think of the cup, think of the interior of the cup, think of the space of air that is the shape of the inside of the cup, then think of the cup, then think of the table, then of the space around the table, then of the route you would take from here to the table, to sit down at the table and take up the cup. Think of the act of moving from here to there, think of the time it would take to move from this place to that place. Think of walking from where you are now to where the cup was when you saw it a few moments ago… Are you thinking of that, Quilan?”

“…Yes.”

“Send.”

There was a pause.

“Have you sent?”

“No, Estodien. I don’t think so. Nothing has happened.”

“We will wait. Anur is sitting by the table, watching the cup. You might have sent the object without knowing it.” They sat a few moments longer.

Then Visquile sighed and said, “Think of the cup. Think of the interior of the cup, think of the space of air that is the shape of the inside of the cup…”

“I will never do this, Estodien. I can’t send the damn thing anywhere. Maybe the Soulkeeper is broken.”

“I do not think so. Think of the cup…”

“Don’t be disheartened, Major. Come now; eat. My people come from Sysa originally. There’s an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.”

They were in the Soulhavens small refectory, at a table apart from the handful of other monks whose watch schedule meant it was their lunchtime too. They had water, bread and meat soup. Quilan was drinking his water from the plain white ceramic cup he had been using as a Displacement target all morning. He stared into it morosely.

“I do worry, Estodien. Perhaps something has gone wrong. Perhaps I don’t have the right sort of imagination