Matriarch’s Journal: 2nd Moonday of the Month of Restoration, 3617
Since we expected to be gone for a while, I took more of a retinue this time: besides Johannon, Clive, and the requisite honor guard, Lens and I were accompanied by Lady Madonna, Addick Heyan and Lieutenant Yarman Graysal from PLOT/Twist. Graysal left the management of the agency to Marty and Suzanna; Heyan left the management of my estates to his daughter, Premma. It’s odd that I still think of Premma as that funny little girl I knew growing up on Dolparessa. She’s got to be in her fifties now. I’m sure she’ll take care of everything adequately – or rather, her husband Ashpremma will take care of everything while she reads novels and eats crème cakes.
Sir Kaman promised to keep a watchful eye on the Atlas Tree. “Upon your return, Your Eminence, I would like you to assist me in interviewing for an assistant. With three trees in need of care, I am understaffed, and I’m afraid I can’t possibly engage in extra-galactic commutes.” Meaning that he was scared shitless of the Denolin Turym, but he had a point. He couldn’t be in three places at once. I was just a bit reluctant to trust anyone else with something as important as Ash’s well-being, and I told him so.
“I already have a support staff of K’ntasari maintaining Goliath on Eden,” he said. “I only do on-site inspections every other month. Maybe one of them could take over for Yggdrasil. K’ntasari like travel.”
Soon my necessities were loaded onto the ship, including the Staff of the Matriarch and a small stasisstorer of juice. Each bottle was labeled with a number and a date, the numbers referring to the branch it was taken from. Call it my scientific training, perhaps. More likely, it seemed strange to be drinking out of bottles with names written on them. Maybe I should mix them all together, an Atlas cocktail. I didn’t have nearly as many of the Eden apples. The last time I had been to see Goliath was for the short time I lived in the cabin with Ari.
Lens was quiet as we boarded the ship, but he rarely speaks unless spoken to. When we return for the gala, Ross will have to append the disclosure agreement. Then everyone will know about my three new husbands. I fear that the spotlight will be hard on Lens. I hope that Beat or Axel might prove to be a better public face of Yggdrasil. Or perhaps that will be left to the as-yet unemanated Archon.
I worry about Lens. Even when I held his hand, he seemed downcast.
Not long after, Clive arrived. Lens flinched, his face suddenly registering shock and dismay. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re not jealous, are you? You knew he was coming with us. That was the whole point.”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s nothing. Not to do with him at all.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
“I startle easily,” he said, smiling faintly.
“Don’t start.”
“What?”
“Lying to me. It never works out well.”
“I wasn’t…” he trailed off. “If I say that I would sincerely prefer not to discuss it, would you let it go?”
I wanted to say no, but then I realized that if I pushed him, he’d have a motive to lie. I had to trust him, and to give him reason to trust me.
“All right,” I said. “For now. But I don’t want you to worry alone.”
“Drink your juice,” he said.
For a moment, I thought he was changing the subject. Then it occurred to me that he meant it literally – if I did not want you to be alone, I had to inundate my system with nau’gshtamine. I wondered if there was any difference in the amount of the drug or the taste of the juice between emanations. I downed a bottle marked 25 – that would be Dermot.
Fifteen minutes later, I was absolutely sure of two things: first, despite his exterior mask of polite reserve, Lens was terrified. Second, you were poised like an arrow on a bowstring, nervous perhaps, but not with fear. Anticipatory excitement might be a better explanation, except an excitement colored with absolute focus and indomitable will.
Something was going to happen.
While Lens attended to Clive’s treatment, I had a conversation with Neliit. “Lens has gone into fruit,” I told her. “He’s offered up his seeds to be taken to your homeworld.”
“I thought he might,” she said. “I apologize if I offended you.”
“I’m sorry if I was offended. Of course your mores concerning mating and reproduction must be most different.”
She agreed. “We tend to make our choices based more on reason. That’s not to say that there isn’t considerable affection between triads, but our attachment seems to lack a certain quality of possessiveness I see in other species.”
“Jealousy,” I reply. “Hardly humanity’s most elucidating trait.”
“The Ateher *hissclick* Masock often share their postcoital dinner with their closest friends and family – ‘companions of the mandible,’ they call it. I would hardly acquiesce if you asked for a bite of my mates, so I can see why you would be reluctant to give me a bite of yours.”
“The consequences to Ash of eating one of his apples are rather less extreme.”
“I suppose that’s true. But Masock queens live perhaps six, seven hundred rotations. Ateher studs only live around ten.”
“Really?”
“An evolutionary adaptation to severe ecological circumstances. The males are not needed in child-rearing, and so if their lifespans are short, it saves on resources. They would only live a year or so after mating, with their faculties rapidly diminishing. They consider it a blessing to be slain at the height of their prowess.”
“That’s tragic.”
“Not particularly. The Ateher *hissclick* Masock have never sought the technology to preserve their lifespans indefinitely. They are joyful in their time, unlike the Twist, who have become increasingly frustrated with the chronological limitations on their advancement.”
“Or like humans.”
“Humans are more like we Eer-gaaani. Neither the Ateher *hissclick* Masock nor the Twist are capable of fear. The Masock are satisfied with their amount of time, the Twist are not. But my people, like yours, have a survival instinct.”
“I don’t know that I’m particularly afraid of death,” I said. “On the other hand, I don’t particularly want to die.”
“Why not?”
“Why would you? I suppose that’s an interesting question. For us, the norm is to want life, and we consider anyone who doesn’t in need of intervention. Life is interesting, and besides…I wouldn’t want to be without Ash.”
“Would life be so interesting to you if you weren’t rich and powerful, well-educated and well-travelled?”
“I once told Daniel I could’ve lived with him in his little flat in Merenis Port-of-Call and have been perfectly happy. Honestly, who knows how that would’ve turned out, but I meant it when I said it.”
“These are not hypothetical questions,” said Neliit. “Hand your people immortality, and you’d better give them something worth doing with their time. Or put another way, immortals have a lot of time on their hands, so it’s better if they aren’t using it to nurse a grudge.”
“You’re speaking as if from experience.”
It was the first time I’d seen her look disturbed about anything. “An eternity ago, even before we’d ventured out of our galaxy and encountered the SongLuminants, we developed life extension. Shortly after that, we had our most brutal war. We took ourselves to the verge of extinction. Fortunately, our technology was advanced enough to nurture the survivors without an ensuing dark age. I was born long after that, millions of rotations later. We have been taught that the reason for the war was that life no longer seemed of any particular value. It took a descent into barbarism in order to make it precious again.”
“Thank you for telling me that. I’ll need to think about it carefully.”
“I don’t want you to mistake the fact that you are personally ready for immortality with the attitude of the rest of your species. Your readiness comes from your interaction with Ashtara.”
“But it’s like you said before. It’s out of the box. Since it’s a possibility, it’s becoming a demand.”
“Your people have an urgent desire to avoid death. That’s an entirely different thing than being prepared to live forever. Don’t confuse them.”
*****
Bottle number two on the Ashtara juice diet – or maybe it’s the juicy Ashtara diet? I decided I’d better take one from Goliath this time. Actually, I’d better take Ari’s. He’d have a jealous fit if I didn’t.
It was slightly different. Dermot’s was sweeter – although that might be a difference between Atlas and Goliath. Soil composition could affect the flavor.
The sense of your determination was even stronger the second time. Also, there was a sense that you were absorbing what Neliit had said – not really her message, but the facts she had related. They were being torn apart and looked at from different angles.
“Hey Lens, what are you seeing with those glasses?” I asked.
The answer must’ve been ‘a ghost’ to tell from the way he jumped.
“Neliit related some history to me. I’ve got the sense that Ash is mulling it over, and I was wondering if you can see any of it.”
He shook his head. “His thoughts and reasoning are beyond me. I only have his vision.”
“That’s why you’re so frightened. You don’t understand what it is you’re seeing. But he feels – well, it’s not quite calm. Ready for action might be closer. And extremely self-assured.”
“N’aashet n’aaverti. It allows Him to work miracles. But from where I stand, I have to wonder whether He is confident because He cannot fail, or whether He has not yet failed because of His confidence.”
“I believe that he will not fail. Not that failure is impossible, but that he will not allow it to happen.”
“You have faith in Him.”
“And so should you.”
“Perhaps not,” said Lens. “Perhaps He allows me sight in this limited way to give Him a perspective outside of His confidence. If He can see the possibility of failure, He can plan to compensate for it.”
“You mean like when Lorcan tried to kill me, or when Davy and Dermot created Goliath. He wants to make certain he takes the most extreme consequence into account.”
Lens nodded. “He leaves nothing to chance – not even chance itself. He’s always prepared to manifest Wynne.”
“Then what about Lorcan? Was what happened to him part of the plan?”
“I can’t answer that. But I’m certain that my abilities are.”
*****
We emerged from the wormhole not far from our original point of embarkation. Much had changed in the interim. The camouflaged station had dropped its camouflage and looked like a grain of sand sitting atop against an enormous free-floating platform. Five-hundred kilometers long, two-hundred kilometers wide, and half a kilometer deep, it resembled a giant ribbon in space. The depth existed only for crew quarters and maintenance supplies. The point of the complex was the surface, thousands and thousands of tiny (well, not so tiny – perhaps about 100m in diameter) hemispheres dotting the sunward side of the exterior.
The array had been built around the old station, so that its sphere poked out, an enormous dome in the center of the others. Yggdrasil’s taproot had been used as a starter hole for a rip into the nul-universe extending the length of the platform.
“The Hreck work fast,” I said.
Neliit came up behind me. “It’s going to take some time for the Hreck to realize that they no longer have to do everything the SongLuminants tell them to. They’re bright and industrious, but were bred for obedience. Honestly, I have my doubts about letting them into the Combine. Independent thought is hard for them, but they’ll never grow past being a servitor race if not given the challenge.”
“We only have several hundred seeds to start with,” said Lens. “Davy’s idea is that the second generation of seeds, produced in response to the interaction of these nau’gsh with the Denolin Turym, will be even more well-adapted to the circumstances.”
“Look,” said Neliit, pointing towards the projection. At the periphery hung several dozen Denolin Turym, watchful, but not making any overtly hostile moves. “You see? They are quite intelligent. They aren’t going to harm us.”
“Sure,” I said. “Ick.”