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“No,” he admitted.
“Good. Now move up and down, little honey, that’s right. Slowly, slowly — the night is long and we have a lot of ground to cover.”
By the time they went out on the balcony for air, it was night. The sky was glorious with light. Laughter floated up from the goblin market below, where surrogates danced amid a thousand paper lanterns. The bureaucrat looked up, away from them. The a
“Tell me the names of the black constellations,” the bureaucrat said.
Undine stood naked beside him, her body slick with sweat that did not want to evaporate into the warm night air. It was possible they could be seen from below, but he did not care.
“You surprise me,” Undine said. “Where did you learn of the black constellations?”
“In passing.” The railing was cold against his stomach, Undine’s hip warm against his. He rested a hand on the small of her back, let it slide down over her slippery, smooth flesh. “That one there, just beneath the south star — the one that looks like some sort of animal. What is it?”
“It’s called the Panther,” Undine said. “It’s a female sign, emblematic of the hunger for spiritual knowledge, and useful in certain rituals.”
“And that one over there?”
“The Golem. It’s a male sign.”
“That one that looks like a bird in flight?”
“Crow,” she said. “It’s Crow.”
He said nothing.
“You want to know how Gregorian bought me. You want to know in what coin did he pay?”
“No,” the bureaucrat said. “I don’t want to know at all. But I’m afraid I have to ask.”
She held out her wrist, adamantine census bracelet high, and made a twisting gesture.
The bracelet fell free.
Deftly, Undine caught it in midair, brought it to her wrist again, snapped it shut. “He has a plasma torch. One of his evil old clients brought it to him in payment for his services. They’re supposed to be strictly controlled, but it’s amazing what a man can do when he thinks he’s got a shot to live forever.”
“That’s all you got out of this? A way to evade the census?”
“You forget that all I did for him was to give you a message. He wanted me to warn you away from him. That wasn’t much.” She smiled. “And I warned you in the nicest possible way.”
“He sent me an arm,” the bureaucrat said harshly. “A woman’s arm. He told me you had drowned.”
“I know,” Undine said. “Or rather, so I just learned.” She looked at him with those disconcertingly direct eyes. “Well, perhaps it is a time for apologies. I came to apologize for two reasons, in fact, for what Gregorian convinced you had happened to me, and for the trouble I have learned was caused you by Mintou-chian.”
“Mintouchian?” The bureaucrat felt disoriented, all at sea. “What did you have to do with Mintouchian?”
“It is a long story. Let me see how brief I can make it. Madame Campaspe, who taught both Gregorian and me, had many ways of earning money. Some of them you would not approve of, for she was a woman who set her own standards and decided right and wrong for herself. Long ago she obtained a briefcase just like yours there by the bed, and set herself up in the business of manufacturing haunt artifacts.”
“Those people in Clay Bank!”
“Yes. She had a little organization going — someone to look after the briefcase, agents in several I
“Why ask me? They did not want to hear that — they wanted someone to tell them what to do and think, when to breathe out and when in. They did not understand that I had no desire to be their mommy. I felt that it was time I disappeared. And like Madame Campaspe before me, I decided to arrange a drowning.
“Gregorian and I were discussing the provenance and disposal of several items Madame Campaspe had left me. When I mentioned that I pla
“Witches are always busy — it’s an occupational hazard. I was away for some time, and it was only when I came back that I learned what difficulties I had inadvertently caused you.” She looked directly at him with those disconcertingly calm and steady eyes. “All this I have told you is the truth. Will you forgive me?”
He held her tight for a long time, and then they stepped back within.
Later, they stood on the balcony again, clothed this time, for the air had cooled. “You know of the black constellations,” Undine said, “and the bright. But can you put them all together into the One?”
“The One?”
“All the stars form a single constellation. I can show it to you. Start anywhere, there, with the Ram, for example. Let your finger follow it and then jump to the next constellation, they are part of the same larger structure. You follow that next one and you come to—”
“The Kosmonaut! Yes, I see.”
“Now while you’re holding all that in your head, consider the black constellations as well, how they flow one into the other and form a second continuous pattern. Have you got that? Follow my finger, loop up, down and over there. You see? Ignore the rings and moons, they’re ephemeral. Follow my finger, and now you’ve got half the sky.
“You’ve lived most of your life offplanet, so I assume you’re familiar with both hemispheres, the northern as well as the southern? Hold them both in your mind, the hemisphere above that you can see, and the one below which you remember and they form… ?”
He saw it: Two serpents intertwined, one of light and the other of dark. Their coils formed a tangled sphere. Above him the bright snake seized the tail of the dark snake in its mouth. Directly below him, the dark snake seized the bright snake’s tail in its mouth. Light swallowing darkness swallowing light. The pattern was there. It was real, and it went on forever and ever.
He was shaken. He had lived within the One Constellation all his life, gazed intently at different aspects of it a thousand times, and not known it. If something so obvious, so all-encompassing, was hidden from him, what else might there be that he was missing?
“Snakes!” he whispered. “By God, the sky is full of snakes.”
Undine hugged him spontaneously. “That was very well done! I wish I could have gotten hold of you when you were young. I could have made a wizard out of you.”
“Undine,” he said. “Where are you going now?”
She was very still for a moment. “I leave for Archipelago in the morning. It comes alive this season of the great year. Through the great summer it’s a very sleepy, bucolic, nothing-happening place, but now — it’s like when you compress air in a piston, things heat up. The people move up the mountainsides, where the palaces are, and they build bright, ramshackle slums. You would like it. Good music, dancing in the streets. Drink island wine and sleep till noon.”
The bureaucrat tried to imagine it, could not, and wished he could. “It sounds beautiful,” he said, and could not keep a touch of yearning from his voice.
“Come with me,” Undine said. “Leave your floating worlds behind. I’ll teach you things you never imagined. Have you ever had an orgasm last three days? I can teach you that. Ever talk with God? She owes me a few favors.”
“And Gregorian?”
“Forget Gregorian.” She put her arms around him, squeezed him tight. “I’ll show you the sun at midnight.”