Explorer

He didn’t write a great deal about Jill and the kids, not knowing what sort of sore spot that might be by the time he returned. He’d left Toby in a mess, their mother in hospital, Toby’s wife Jill having walked out in despair of Toby’s ever living his own life, the kids increasingly upset and acting out, in the way of distressed and confused young folk. He wasn’t utterly to blame for Toby’s situation—but he regretted it. He wished he’d seen it coming earlier. He wished, with all his diplomacy, he’d found a way years ago to talk Toby out of responding to every alarm their mother raised—or that he could have talked their mother, far less likely, out of her campaign to get him out of his job and Toby back from the end of the island he’d moved to.

Their mother was one of those women who defined herself by her children. And who consequently ca

He patched nations together. He made warlike lords of another species form sensible associations and refrain from assassinating each other. And he hadn’t been able to impose a sense of reality on his own mother. That failure grieved him, his grief made him angry, and his anger made him feel very guilty when he thought of how he’d left the world, without that last visit that might have paid for so much—that would have turned out so opportune in his mother’s life.

No, dammit. There was no final gesture with someone who was only interested in the next maneuver, the ultimate strategem, the plan that would, against all logic, work, and get her sons home—no matter what her sons wanted or needed. If he’d gotten there, she’d have taken it for vindication.

Toby, unfortunately, was still in the middle of it all. Toby had still been trying to figure it all out. And even if their mother had passed—as she might have—Toby would still be struggling to figure out all out.

Well, what are we up to ! he wrote to Toby. A lot of things that I’ll tell you when I get there, because I can’t write them down, the usual reasons. And today I tell you I’d really like that fishing trip. Jase would be absolutely delighted with an invitation from you. He’s done so much. He’s existing in a position he doesn’t think he’s able to hold. He even supervised this last ship-move. He does a thousand things Sabin would have to do if he wasn’t here. I think he’s why she’s sane .

But besides that, there remain some few questions we’d like Sabin to dig out of files, questions we’ve asked. I wonder sometimes if maybe she’s putting more operations on Jase’s back because she really is doing something — or thinking about those answers. Maybe she’s found something she didn’t expect in those records and she’s considering her options. I hope. I don’t know .

Remind me to tell you about exploding cars when I get back. For the future aiji’s reputation I don’t want that one in print either.

When we last folded space I thought about Mt. Adams and the slope that winter — remember the race! Remember when I went off the ledge and through the thicket and lost my new cap and goggles ?

I remember hot tea and honey in the cabin that night and us making castles out of the embers in the fireplace. And I’d turned my ankle going off the cliff and it swelled up but I wasn’t telling Mum and I went on the slope the next day, too.

We tried to teach mum to ski, remember, but she said if she wanted to fall down on ice there was a patch in front of the cabin that didn’t involve long cold hikes.

It was an exact quote, and one she’d stuck to. But she’d brought them to the cabin—well, brought them up to the snow lodge ever since the time he’d lost himself in the woods and scared everyone, so she’d changed vacation spots. And she hadn’t liked the ski slopes, either, and had been sure he was going to fall into some ravine and die of a broken leg. Their mother was full of contradictions.

He was sure there was an essential key in that set of facts somewhere, a means to understand her, and consequently to understand himself and Toby, if he knew how to lay hands on it. But no thought during ship-transit was entirely reliable.

was thinking about you and the boat today. You know, in his office up on the bridge, Jase has just one personal item — that photo of him and the fish. Clearly he thinks about getting through this alive and getting that chance to come down —

maybe for good, he says, though between you and me, I think he’d get to missing life on the ship, too. He has a place here. And there. I know he remembers you and the boat.

I have learned a few things in the last few days. I’ll have to tell you when I get there. But then this letter and I will get there pretty much together, so you’ll at least have a chance to ask me first hand.

Here’s hoping, at least.

He had another ru

Aiji-ma, we have moved the ship on toward the station. Your grandmother has taken to her cabin as is her habit during these uncomfortable transitions. Your son is taking advantage of the opportunity to undertake new experiments, not all of which have predictable outcomes, but he is learning and growing in discretion. We fill our hours with plans and projections and take a certain pleasure in his inventions and discoveries.

Dared one think Tabini would understand? This was the boy who’d ridden a mechieta across wet cement.

One believes you will approve, aiji-ma.

Concerning Sabin, about the missing files, he withheld statement. If the letter ever got to Tabini, all their problems would have been solved—one way and another. He damaged no reputations, created no suspicions that might later have to be dealt with.

He held misgivings at arms’ length. Viewed suspicion with suspicion, in the curiously muzzy way of this place. He waited.

Besides his letter writing, he took daily walks, around and around the section. He worked out in their makeshift gymnasium. At times the suspension of result and the lack of outcome in their long voyage simply passed endurance, and he pulled squats and sit-ups until he collapsed in a sweating, sweatshirted heap.

He had nothing like Jago’s strength, let alone Banichi’s, but he’d certainly worked off all the rich desserts and sedentary evenings of the last ten years during this voyage. He no longer rated himself sharp enough to downhill Mt. Adams, but he figured if he fell in the attempt, he’d at least bounce several times before he broke something.

And, like the transcript-translation and the two letters which had now become individual volumes, exercise filled the hours, mindless and cathartic. Unlike the transcript and the letter-writing, it didn’t force him to think of dire possibilities or to fret about records on which he could spend useful time, if he could only get them.

He resurrected old card games out of the Archive and translated those for his staff, with cards made of document folders. Whist became a favorite.

Cajeiri, deserted to his own young devices, built paper planes and flew them in the long main corridor, where they took unpredictible courses. Cajeiri said the strangeness of the journey made them fly in unpredictible ways. It seemed a fair experiment and a curious notion, so Bren made a few of his own, and greatly amused the dowager’s staff.

Their designs were dubious in the flow of air from the vents. The properties of airplanes in hyperspace remained an elusive question. They were at least soft-landing, and the walls were safe.

And there was the human Archive for entertainment, such of it as they still carried aboard. The servant staff assembled with simple refreshments and held group viewings in the servants’ domain, occasionally of solemn atevi machimi, but often enough of old movies from the human Archive. Horses had long since become a sensation, in whatever era. Elephants and tigers were particularly popular, and evoked wonder. The Jungle Book re-ran multiple times on its premiere evening. “Play it again,” the staff requested Bindanda, who ran the machine, and on subsequent evenings, if the other selections seemed less favorable, they ran and reran the favorite.