01
Botts revived me 714 days later. I had arranged for it to revive me whenever the pilot bot revived anyone on board, just to be on the safe side. If Vinden was surprised to see me sitting on the edge of my sleeper-pod, as he sat up, he didn't show it.
'Are we there yet, Dad?' he croaked with a faint, sarcastic smile when he saw me.
'Don't know. Just woke up myself. We're in free fall, and 803 days out of Ravin by my com link. What do you think?'
He nodded. 'Never made the passage from Ravin, but it sounds right. Let's go down to the bridge and check on the pilot bot and the ship's status. If we've arrived, we'll revive the crew and get to work,' he added with growing eagerness.
We hauled our way down the access well to the bridge the ship, cold and eerily silent. We found that the ship's controls had reverted to normal, and Vinden quickly determined that the pilot bot had signed off, voyage completed – we had, indeed, arrived.
Arrived at nowhere at all.
Visually there was no indication that we were anywhere. The view was unbroken blackness. A blackness so deep our sensors picked up no visible spectrum light. The glowing nebulas of the Nine Star Nebula were hidden behind a vast, dense cloud of dust and rocks. Radar sensors showed that we, along with the Rift Raven and drones had come to rest just off a reef so vast and dense, that it formed what appeared to be a solid, featureless plain stretching out in every direction beyond sensor range. It was if we'd reached the bottom of space itself. I thought of Glen Colin's example of the gold asteroid in the black reef. We were certainly there. Where, or what was the golden asteroid?
'What is this?' I exclaimed. 'It seems to stretch forever.'
'You're looking at the true Lost Star – the fabled Tenth Star,' said Vinden. 'Or at least the outer shell of it. The shell is about two aus in diameter. Our final destination lies within it, but this is as far as the Starry Shore goes. Let's get the sleepy-heads awake. I'll explain it to everyone.' He was in such good spirits that he seemed to have forgotten our mutual dislike. I made a point not to remind him, and eagerly agreed. I wanted company.
He revived Min first. She gave me a brief, secret smile when he wasn't looking that sent my poor heart racing, but otherwise was as cool and competent as ever, asking questions while we pulled the sleeper-pods from the racks and one by one, revived the crews – Vinden's and mine.
Once we had something to eat we stood about the awning deck, staring at the blackness of the view-panels.
'Where, exactly, are we?' asked Riv.
'We're just off the outer shell of the Tenth Star, the strangest star you'll ever cross orbits with,' Vinden began eagerly. 'Below us is its outer crust, or shell-reef. It was molten at one time, but has since cooled and fractured into a billion pieces. Because it is fractured, we can penetrate it. Our destination lies within the Tenth Star itself. We will use the Rift Raven as a lighter to carry our cargo this last leg of the journey.'
'Within a star?'
'Yes – a very unique star. It is composed of many layers or stratums. This outer layer is only the first of many. Our destination is a stratum within the shell.'
'The hollow world you hinted at?' I asked.
'Yes, but, as you can see, it is so much more that a hollow world. It has to be experienced, so the sooner we get the Rift Raven loaded and on its way, the sooner you'll experience it. You'll not be disappointed.'
'Right,' I said with a nod to Vinden, and turning to the crew added, 'Vyn, Ten, if you'd care to run across to your ship, I'll send Elana and Sar along with you to get the Raven up, running and ready to receive cargo... with your permission, Captain,' I added quickly to Min, realizing it was no longer my place to issue orders.
'Oh, carry on, Captain,' she replied with a taunting smile and a look. It may have been more than two years, by the clock, since we made love in the passenger strong room, but it was only hours ago subjectively for her and days for me. The sense of intimacy lingered in memory and senses. She seemed to be enjoying toying with that memory and sensation. Neb, I wanted her now. Again.
'We'll need to make several trips – do you have any specific order for transferring the cargo in mind?' I asked turning to Vinden, desperately trying to keep my composure and give nothing away. These people knew me very well indeed after twenty years.
'Yes. Everything has been planned down to the last detail. We will take the Indomitable, and number one through four containers containing its supplies and fittings in first, with the Ghost on the hangar deck. We'll follow that up with the two scout boats and boxes five through eight and the old flier, and finish with the Triumphant and boxes nine through twelve and the longboat for the return of the crew.
'Right. Let's get working. I'm damn eager to see what we've come so far to see,' I said, with a nod to the crew.
02
The Rift Raven is an eight-box trader – 78-meter-long, by 24 wide by 14 high – with two holds, each taking four boxes in two rows of two. Its engine room is aft and connected to the bow's living and control centers by a long passageway running along its spine between the upper and lower holds. The Indomitable, in its skeleton shipping crate, just fit in the Raven's hold, though was too tall to close the cargo hatches over it. Vinden was unconcerned since it was a D-matter built hybrid space/airship and could take whatever the Raven could. It took us two days to maneuver and secure it in the Ravin. That done, we quickly transferred the four boxes and gathered for the first trip in. It was a large crew, most of whom would be staying on. It consisted of Vinden, his crew of eight, Min, Vynnia, Tenry, and myself, plus Molaye, Sar, and Dici who'd pilot the Raven back for the next shipment.
'The journey should take three or four days,' Vinden said as we gathered, shoulder to shoulder in the Raven's small mess room before we set out. 'Assuming the pilot bot's estimate of the rotation of the Tenth Star is correct. If that estimate proves too imprecise we'll shift the ship closer for the subsequent passages. The shell-reef passage will be demanding work and will take the better part of a day. Two hour watches until we clear it will be the order of the day. Once clear of the shell, navigation becomes easier for a while, as the next stratum is a thin nebula peppered with a few asteroids. Both the asteroids and gas gets thicker as we get deeper into the star, and eventually we'll have to crawl along. Our ultimate destination is a hidden base where my loyal followers a’wait in sleeper-pods. Because of its remoteness from Cimmadar, we should have no problem reaching the base without being detected – as long as Glen Colin can find it,' he added with a dark glance at Glen Colin, wedged in a corner.
'I'm preparing as you speak,' he said, raising a globe of whiskey, which earned him another dark glare.
'You haven't been back in eighty years? How can you be certain?' I asked.
'You'll see. and the sooner we get under way, the sooner you'll have your answers, Litang. Let's divide up into watches and get underway.
'Oh, and one last thing. We will operate in complete radio silence. Do not respond to any radio signals. We'll use only our line-of-sight laser radar for navigation and laser coms to link the buoys. Though we are far from Cimmadar, we don't want to give them any hint that we have arrived and where to find us.'
Fifteen minutes later, with Vinden and Min at the helm, the Raven slowly steered clear of the floodlight lit Starry Shore, the sole spot of light in the blackness – quickly reducing it to a point of light which vanished as we approached the outer shell of the Tenth Star. The outer layer was fairly dispersed, essentially a dense reef of flat, plate-like rocks, but the deeper we went into the fractured shell, the narrower the spaces between the plates became, and within two hours we were very carefully dancing the Raven through these cracks in hundreds of layers of crust.
It took twenty hours to make our way through this shell-reef as we searched for the most direct passage and marked it with buoys to make subsequent passages easier.
Towards the end of our nineteenth hour of passage – and not a moment too soon, we were all pretty worn from the de
manding navigation – the sensors picked up a glimmer of reflected light ahead, and an hour later, we emerged into a very brilliant nebula. The awake crew crammed into the small bridge to view the sight.
'We're now within the second stratum of the Tenth Star,' said Vinden with a sweep of his hand towards the bridge's glowing view-panels.
'Why call it a star?' asked Min, 'It looks like a nebula.'
'At this point, it is just a fairly dense nebula, since the star is very diffuse at this point. But as we move inward it gradually gets denser in a long series of stratums, each with its own particular characteristics. At its core, it's a tiny, bright star, but there's no sharp, defining break between here, and its nuclear core, that would allow you to say here's the star, and here's something else.
'We still have several days' travel ahead of us, and all this will become clearer the deeper in we go. We'll be encountering dense reefs a day or so in, depending on where we are relative to the base, but for now, we can bring the ship up to interplanetary speed. Glen Colin will give you your bearings – I trust,' the last louder and directed at Glen Colin, who was slumped in a corner, snoring.
'Huh? Are we there yet?'
'I believe it's your job to tell us that,' replied Vinden. 'At least that's why I've kept you on the payroll all these long years. Now make yourself useful and give Vyn her bearings.'
'Right you are, boss. Give me some room,' he said, and pushed his way to the chair next to the helm and settled into it next to Vynnia. He pondered the situation for a few moments before mumbling, 'Just keep it as you are and bring her up to speed. I'll get a bearing eventually. We've plenty of time to shape our course while I fuel up...'
03
I found a quiet spot to sling a hammock and awoke six hours later quite refreshed. We were back to our usual three, four-hour watch rotation, so I'd another two hours until it was my turn on the bridge. I slipped into the small mess to get something to eat. Vinden's crew was sitting around the one table, playing cards and talking. I punched up my synth-meal and found a place on the fringe.
As I mentioned, they were a hard looking lot of five men and two women. All spaceers, and if their looks and airs were any indication, drifteers and likely pirates. Hopefully retired pirates. One, at least was.
'I've been meaning to thank you, Captain, for sparing my life,' said the man across the table from me. A lean, low grav man – friendlier than most of his mates, but likely just as deadly.
'I did? When?' I replied, adding as the full import of what he was saying struck me. 'Off the Kryver Reef, or do you hale from Despar?'
'You've spared that many lives?' he asked, with an easy laugh.
'Well, I'm Unity Standard enough to give a crew time to escape, when I can. I had a Despar tramp in my sights once, when I was piloting a jump fighter for St Bleyth and I gave them time to abandon before I blew it to atoms during the Despar troubles. Afterward we had to fight our way past five more commandeered drifteer traders. Didn't bother to destroy them, since I figured most of their crews were pressed into service. And then there was a St Bleyth frigate we fought to a draw before shaking it off in the Despar Reef. Still, I'm guessing you're off a Falcon Rock ship... So, yes, I've see some action, and spared a few lives when I could.'
He gave me a skeptical look.
I shrugged, 'You wouldn't have found me off the Kryver Reef if I didn't think I could handle drifteer pirates. Of course, we had a skip fighter on hand as well, so I wasn't too concerned. But if you happened to be there, you'll know I didn't need the skip fighter,' I said grimly. I figured that with this crew it didn't hurt to let them know Wil Litang was someone not to trifled with, though I'd have to cut a fine orbit not to overplay my hand.
He shrugged, 'Aye. I was there. And yes, you treated us right roughly. Old Cap'n Bitey Sark didn't know what hit him. Why, you didn't even give him the chance to finish his fine, pirate speech.'
'I hazarded a guess as to where it was leading and cut to my answer...'
'Cap'n Bitey was pretty put-off by that. Wasn't polite. We all thought he was mad enough to call your bluff as well. Didn't believe you'd actually blow our ship up with him in it, not after letting the others abandon ship. It was only when you told his girl, the lovely Flori, better death than dishonor and launched your second wave, that he decided that maybe you weren't bluffing, and – what the Neb – better dishonor, than death, and gave the order to abandon ship. I can tell you, we were sweating it,' he said, paused before adding, 'Would you've done it?'
I answered slowly, 'Yes...Reluctantly. I may be born and raised Unity Standard, but I'm a halfblooded drifteer, and I've been kicking around the drifts long enough to know I needed to do it if I didn't want to give the other hawks ideas. Plus, it'd be hardly fair to the two crews who did abandon ship. You were a minute away from the event horizon when you left.'
'Well, as I said, thanks, Captain,' he said, extending his hand. 'Ben Ton.'
'Glad to make your acquaintance, Ben, and under these circumstances. And I suspect you're not the only one here who's glad we don't play for keeps unless we have to,' I added as I took his hand and gave the others a look. I'm sure some of his mates were involved in the Ravin affair. 'I'm glad to see you've abandoned your ill-advised pirate ways and taken up a nice respectable career.'
That drew some gruff laughter from the rest of the gang, as I figured it would.
'What's it like to fly a jump fighter?' asked one of them watching me closely. No doubt a test.
I told him, plainly, and we ended up comparing notes on jump fighters, as I suspected, we would. And I told them, when asked, all about our various battles, since there was no reason not to any more, – none of these mates would likely ever see the Neb again. I did, however, keep my yarns short, factual, and undramatic. I wanted to impress them with my experience, not as a braggart. We talked pirate to pirate.
'How much did that treasure ship amount to?' asked Ben as that yarn wound down.
I told him and he whistled. 'Of course, our salvage share was only 1/12th of the total and most of that went into the owner's account,' I added. 'The crew and I divided 1/12th of the ship's share.'
'All that danger and all that gold and it just ends up in the owner's pocket,' he said, shaking his head.
'I have to say, even 1/1728th of the total cargo was not something I'd turn my nose up to. Would your share have gotten you anymore?'
He grinned and shook his head. 'No. I guess that's how the Neb spins.'
04
As promised, a day's sailing inward carried us into a stratum of reefs, sparse at first, but growing denser the deeper we went in.
I was standing lookout, highlighting the rocks for Molaye to avoid when Min and Vinden came up to stand behind us. Glen Colin was dozing in the shadows – his directions had been vague, as in hold this course, before going back to sleep. In fairness, he was on duty around the clock.
'Now my dear, we're getting close enough for you to begin to get a glimpse of your true home,' Vinden said, and pointing to the view-panel, added, 'Pull a visual on that large white rock off to starboard.'
I zoomed in on it as Vinden continued, 'The whiteness you see is frost. Frozen water. And if Litang will bring up the full sensor readings we'll likely find traces of nitrogen, and oxygen in the nebula's gas. In a few hours, we'll be entering a stratum where they replace the hydrogen of this stratum. We'll be sailing in an increasingly breathable atmosphere.'
They were standing behind me, so I couldn't see Min's expression, but she put her hands on the back of my chair and leaned over my shoulder. 'A livable stratum?' she asked, and then looking closer at the frost covered rock exclaimed, 'Why there are some sort of trees on that rock.'
'Aye, this rock – or this island as we think of them – originated within the nitrogen/oxygen stratum, where the atmosphere was warm enough to support life. Some fickle current or a collision sent it drifting into this uninhabitable region. The livable nitrogen/oxygen stratum is known as the Archipelago
of the Tenth Star. It is your true home. Our home. Our heritage.
'Imagine, my dear, a vast shell of warm, breathable atmosphere that is almost 200,000 kilometers thick, about 3/4th of an astronomical unit out from the center of the star and thickly populated with lush islands from the size of boulders to that of planets – uncounted billions of them – and all of them teaming with life, plants and animals, native and introduced. And peoples, in uncounted millions of tribes, nations, and civilizations. I am certain you'll find that what you've given up pales in comparison to the life of the Pela, as we call it,' exclaimed Vinden.
'And I'm to rule...'
'Oh, only a tiny speck of it, my dear,' laughed Vinden. 'But as far as we know, it is the most advanced civilization in the Pela and the only one that is in contact with the outside Nebula, so it alone has access to Neb technology. Our home world of Cimmadar is a small planet, but it rules seven moons – think of them as continents, if you will, and perhaps ten thousand free floating islands ranging from a kilometer across to several thousand. It is a mere drop in this ocean of life that surrounds the core of the Tenth Star, but is still the most powerful empire we've discovered. We know of thirty other societies with varying degrees of technology, a dozen nomadic barbarian hordes and thousands of barbaric tribes. Still, we've only explored a tiny fraction of the Pela, so nothing we can say about it can be said with absolutely certainly. The Pela contains more inhabitable surfaces by many orders of magnitude than the five hundred worlds of the Nine Star Nebula and their moons combined. And when you consider that within the Pela, the fastest flier can only travel a 1,000 kilometers in an hour, and most only a sixth of that, you can see how impossible it is to know much more about the Pela than we do. Oh, you can hop from place to place, if you have space ships like we do, but once you get within the Pela proper, the density of the atmosphere and islands preclude speeds above the 1000 kph rate, making even extended exploration mostly just sampling expeditions.
'Our destination is still more than a day's journey in, and Cimmadar would be decades away if we had to sail directly through the Archipelago to reach it. However, with our hybrid ships, we can travel through these outer reaches at spaceship speeds before plunging into the Pela proper, so you'll be on the Cloud Throne of Cimmadar within four or five months – if all goes well.'
'That seems like a dream, Uncle,' said Min softly. I had to agree, but I kept my mouth shut. I was the hired hand these days.
'Aye. I'll leave you just to take it all in, before we talk again. However, I want to leave you with this thought,' replied Vinden.
'As you know we've kept our secrets, sometimes, I fear, at great cost. This is the reason we've kept them so close. We of the Pela, no matter what side of the conflict we're on, agree that this vast and wonderful realm must remain forever hidden from the rest of the Nebula. While it is almost unimaginably vast and populous, it is also fragile. Its people are, for the most part, very primitive – true savages – not your make-believe throwbacks on the Unity moons or some drift worlds. Most are very fierce and warlike, but given their primitive weapons, they'd be unable to resist a mass migration of outsiders into the Pela.
'Imagine if the existence of the Archipelago became known. You haven't seen it yet in its full glory, but from what I've described already, who in the drifts would not give up their cold rocks and flock here, to live, mine, and build empires in the warm embrace of the Tenth Star? It's not hard to imagine the savage wars that would ensue and the savage exploitation of the people and resources of the Pela if they came. And given the absolute size of the Pela, and the limits of even a sophisticated ship to travel through it, you can see how impossible it would be to police the Pela or to keep would-be settlers, slavers and empire builders out, once it is known. Oh, it would take many thousands of years for outsiders to spread through the Pela, but they would, and our paradise would be lost. We, who know of the outside worlds, are one in our determination to keep the Pela secret.
'I trust, Litang, he added turning to me, 'that you'll respect our wishes and impress upon your crew the absolute necessity of keeping this vast wonder the property of its ancient owners. The Unity would be powerless to prevent the wholesale slaughter of men and beasts, which I'm sure you'd not care to shoulder the blame for.'
'Aye, I can see the necessity, if it is all that you say it is,' I said. 'It would be best, however, if all of my crew were given a chance to experience this for themselves. Hopefully the full experience will seal their lips and unite them in keeping it secret.'
'I agree completely. By all means, see that everyone has a chance to come along on one of the runs in. They've come a long way and deserve the experience. It'll be something they'll never forget, even if they can never tell anyone about it,' replied Vinden. 'Those who know the Pela are quite selfish and protective of it.'
Min stayed on in the bridge, as others stopped up to view our approach to the Pela. Hours later we crossed into the nitrogen/oxygen stratum and began to see moss and lichen covered rocks and floating islands – with snow in their crevasses. The density of the atmosphere, the number of small islands and rocks, and the fact that the Raven was a space ship, not a flier, made navigating under these conditions constant work once more, even at only seven or eight hundred kilometer an hour. By the time I decided to take a nap, we were seeing flocks of birds streaming between the islands ranging from small, multicolored birds, singly and in vast flocks, to an occasional large white bird with a wingspan of almost ten meters. And not all of them looked like birds. Some had four wings.
05
We were deep in the Pela, dodging lush green islands, large and small. I had the Raven's helm. Glen Colin was slouched on my left, nodding in sleep and drink. Vikei, one of Vinden's crew, was the lookout, busy highlighting the rocks on the radar display that she hoped I'd avoid. Even traveling 500 kilometers an hour, there were plenty to note and avoid.
The big islands now had forests of tall, straight-trunk trees topped with feathery, fern-like crowns, sticking out at all angles with a lower level of thick, intricately gnarled trees with willowy branches and shimmering leaves whose branches spread out like wide umbrellas between the fern-topped tree trunks. Flowering vines draped the trees, meandered over meadows and trailed the islands like windblown hair. There were also meadows with drifts of flowers and reedy grass, peaty plains, lichen and moss streaked cliffs and rocky peaks like fists and fingers. Only the very largest of them, the ones stretching for hundreds of kilometers, had any pretense of gravity – and then, only a pretense. Vines could be found on islands of all sizes, – small ones, like tumbling weeds, drifted between the large islands, which often had vines a kilometer long waving in the air currents behind them. All of the islands showed scars of collisions – fresh and old – and many islands seemed collections of smaller ones woven together by their entangled vines.
There was an abundance of animal life as well, but I was too focused on navigation to pay more than passing attention to it, when Glen Colin pointed to the Pela versions of bears, tigers, lions, snakes and dragons that inhabited the islands and the air about them, often just catching a glimpse of them before they disappeared under the cover of the forest or dove into rocky nooks.
'What's this coming up?' I asked Vikei, pointing to a squiggly line on the radar plot before us. I'd been seeing flocks of birds show up in long lines, but this seemed too solid to be a flock of birds.
'Beats me,' she replied. 'But we should clear it by a kilometer.'
Glen Colin must have been awake, since he chuckled. 'Call up a visual on that one, Cap'n.'
I nodded to Vikei, who brought it up on the forward screen and into focus.
It appeared at first as a long shadow against the hazy brightness of the pale bluish green sky, lazily altering its shape, almost like an eel swimming. It was, however, very big – nearly twenty-five meters long.
'Damn, is that a snake with fins? Or are those feathers?' she exclaimed –as its details began to come into focus a
s we closed in on it. It had a thick, undulating snake-like body with intricately patterned feathers in reds and yellows, and a large head with a wide, crocodile mouth that showed plenty of teeth when it opened it to challenge us as we approached. It flew using four short wings, which, on closer inspection, proved to be webbed limbs with wicked looking claws.
'A snake with feathers and legs,' I muttered. 'But then, I suppose it's not a snake.'
'It's what we call a serpent dragon. A Cathay serpent, if I'm not mistaken,' he paused to peer blearily at the screen. He'd been on duty for two days now, dozing when he could and drunk the whole time. It was beginning to take its toll. But only beginning. 'Aye, a lesser Cathay, I think. It's been a while since I've been home.'
'A lesser one? How big do the greater ones grow?' I asked.
'Well, lad, the biggest serpent dragons can be twice as large. There are feathered snakes as well. They can grow to twenty meters. We also have lizard dragons. They don't grow quite so long, nose to tail – only thirty to forty meters – but they're much fuller bodied – sort'a like the aquatic dinosaurs of old Terra, but with longer, claw tipped limbs.'
'Neb, how common are they?' asked Vikei.
'They ain't rare. We'll be seeing many more of ‘em the deeper in we get into the Pela and the air gets warmer. Still, you might go a day or two without seeing one.'
'What's with the feathers? They're certainly not birds.'
'Well, feathers are the rule in the Pela. Don't know why. The only creatures with hair you'll cross orbits with have been brought in from the Neb. But they've grown wild as well. This ain't the Unity or even a drift world where every animal is essentially harmless. Here, you're going to have to learn to keep a constant eye out for all sorts of danger.'
'I'm not sure I'm going to like this...' I muttered. Actually, I was sure I wasn't going to like it.
'Well, Cap'n, the careful ones get by. The beasties feed on the careless and the unlucky. You'll need to develop some very careful habits very quickly,' he replied with a grin. 'Everyone goes about armed and keeps an eye on the sky at all times. It helps to keep a dense forest close at hand for cover should one of the larger dragons come along. You see how all the beasties dodge into it when we go by. But you also have to keep an eye on the dense forests as well, for the talon-tigers and feather-armored bears and such hide in 'em to avoid the dragons. And just remember, a dragon can see you when they're just a dot in the sky, and the beasties can smell and hear you a kilometer away, so you have to be on guard all the time. You ain't in the Unity anymore.' He paused to take a long sip of his fuel.
'And, just to complete my sermon on being careful,' he continued, 'Most of the folk you'll cross orbits with in the islands are every bit as savage as the beasties. Some will eat you as readily as a dragon. And even if they've no appetite for you, many'll cut your throat on the standing principle that a dead stranger is the best stranger. Mind you, the people of Cimmadar are a lot more civilized than the islanders, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about people once we're back in the Empire. But even on Cimmadar itself, you need to keep an eye to the sky, and not only for dragons, but for raiders and slavers and the like. There are no defensible frontiers in the Pela so you have to look after yourself all the time. As I said, you go about well-armed in the Pela.'
'Vinden seemed to have skipped over those parts,' I said giving a steering rocket a little thrust to keep us clear of a rock in our course a dozen kilometers ahead. 'What else didn't he share with us?'
Glen Colin shrugged, glanced around to see that we were alone, and then said quietly to us, 'It may be that he thought that when he said the people were primitive, he said it all. The Pela may be paradise, especially if you're a prince in the royal house of Cimmadar, but like yonder serpent, the Pela has fangs. You need be pretty quick on your feet, and on the trigger, to die of old age. Luck helps too.
'Ah, but those are only the known dangers,' he sighed, and speaking softer, 'The ol'Pela is too vast to know what it holds. We don't worry about the peoples we know, the other civilizations and the nomadic hordes – their weapons are primitive by Neb standards – and can be dealt with. It's what we don't know that makes us a mite nervous – and what we don't know encompasses nearly everything, even after tens of thousands of years.'
'Like what?'
'There are legends, you see, of civilizations that are as advanced – or more so – than ours. If they be far enough away, we'd never hear of them, so we can't rule them out. The islanders spin yarns of the Dragon Lords – gods, semi-gods or some advanced civilizations, who knows? They're said to possess great power and travel in vast ships throughout the Pela. They're claimed to be the true masters of the Pela, and they ain't human but some sort of super-dragons. Far-fetched, but you can't rule anything out in the old Pela. Truth is that many Pelians believe your run-of-the-mill dragon, like the one we just passed, are intelligent as well. I wouldn't swear to that, but it ain't all that outlandish. There are said to be people who can talk to dragons – and they'll listen...'
I considered that for a while, as I nudged the Raven this way and that, avoiding the vine covered boulders that littered our passage between the large islands.
'Still, Cimmadar is the only civilization that trades with the rest of the Neb, and Vinden said the ships he's built are the most powerful in the Pela,' I said.
'That we know of,' he laughed. 'But what if the Dragon Lords, or some other civilization is just as secretive as we are? We can't be sure no one else has access to the Neb, can we?
'But is that likely?'
Glen Colin shrugged. 'There are plenty of legends in the Neb about the Tenth Star and though none of them are accurate, where there's smoke, there's fire. Truth is, we don't know. Even with our contact with the Neb, Cimmadar technology is hardly up to Unity, or even drift standards, so there's plenty of reasons for Cimmadar to be a hermit kingdom.'
We considered that for a while in silence.
'Hard to imagine anyone finding this,' said Vikei.
'Aye. But people are curious, and if they happened upon it, it would incite curiosity, in some, anyway. Who did find it, and when it was found, is lost to legends. Neb, even civilizations that have no contact with the Neb, or with Cimmadar, have legends of originating from beyond the Pela. Of course many of those societies may've been started by freebooters from early Cimmadar, so many of those stories may lead back to Cimmadar, but many a night in a pub is passed trying to unravel the mysteries of the Pela. It'll take many more before we catch even a glimpse of the heart of the mystery.'
'So where do you fit into this enigma? How did you get tied in with Vinden – or come to be a three-hundred-year old chief engineer?' I asked.
'Three hundred years old, my arse,' said Vikei rolling her eyes. 'Why he'll have trouble remembering today, tomorrow.'
'Look up my Guild records, mate. I'll give you the list of names I've sailed under, and you'll see I'm not lying. Of course, I've spent a century and a half asleep in sleeper-pods laying low, so I don't know how you want to count my years. From my birth, or my subjective experiences.'
'Leaving that aside, how'd you get to be both a guide in the Pela and a chief engineer aboard tramp ships? The two don't seem to mix.'
'Well, you see, Clan Colin is one of the clans with the talent. We've served the Cloud Throne as guides for time immortal. Sadly, as you can see, my talents in the family's legacy are rather limited. In fact, they missed it altogether when it came time to test me. I was considered a null, one without the talent, so I wasn't able to join the Royal Guides. But Clan Colin has privileges in court, so I was offered an appointment as an apprentice engineer aboard one of the rocket fliers that ply between Cimmadar and its space station in the shell-reef. When I was senior enough, I earned a berth on one of the outbound trading ships that conducted our modest trade with the greater Nebula.
'It was only after taking this position that I found that I had the talent after all, but it needed whiskey to run on. By
then, however, it was too late – even dangerous – to point this out, so I kept my talent my secret. I rather doubt the Royals would care for an inebriate guide, in any event.
'Anyway, I'm a curious fellow, and being carefree as well, back in my youth, I found myself wanting to see more of the Neb than a brief call on the odd trading station and drift world. So I jumped ship and set off on my own. Which, of course, landed me on Cimmadar's wanted list. You can imagine how wound up they get when somebody in the know wanders off. I had to keep moving and every so often, lay low in some Guild sleeper-pod warehouse when the chase got too hot. Which is how I've put 300 years between my birth and now.'
'How'd Vinden ever find out about your talent?' I asked.
'Well, you see, Cap'n, I was never without friends in Cimmadar. It's not like I betrayed our great secret – even drunk. I kept my wits about me, drunk or sober. I was considered more or less harmless, little more than a bad example. So, when I had a mind to, I could turn up homesick and humble, groveling to be forgiven. I was Clan Colin, after all. And they didn't know of my talent, or they would've never let me roam again. And since some of the young royals were as carefree and curious as I was – I got along with them just fine. Too well, I suppose since once they got wind of my talent in drink, they used it. Oh, they'd get me out of trouble, sure enough, and back, as cap'n, mind you, of an outbound spaceship. But there was a price to be paid. I'd have a list of trinkets to bring back. By the container load towards the end there. They had pull...'
'You were a smuggler!' exclaimed Vikei.
Glen Colin grinned, 'Well, when members of the Royal family ask you to bring a container or two of requested items, I'm not sure I'd exactly call that smuggling.'
'Wasn't that dangerous?' I asked. 'I assume the fact that they had you doing it, meant it wasn't officially sanctioned.'
'Well, maybe. Who knows what lifts with the Royals? They're mostly above the rules. Still, it worked both ways. I may've brought the goods in, but they ended up with'em. We'd be both in the same black hole if blast came to thrust. Still, they were mostly a good sort, and it made my extended stays in the Neb all the smoother sailing when I came back, treasures in tow.'
'And Vinden was one of your customers.'
He grinned wider. 'I don't tell tales out of school, Cap'n. Let's just say I've known one Prince Imvoy, who you know as Vinden, for a long, long time, long before all the trouble began. I suppose I picked the wrong side, and ended up back in the Neb, running Vinden's first buckets of bolts and then the hijacked Cimmadarian trader 'Lark between the Pela and the drift all the while trying to dodge the packs of murderous pirates and assassins the Empress hired to track us down. Eventually Vinden tossed in his hand and knowing I was his star-in-hand, stashed me in cold storage for the day when he'd need my talents to find home again.'
'Why did he need the Starry Shore if he had you?
'He didn't. I can find my way to the Tenth Star. It's just that it would've taken many more years, and would've needed a wide awake crew to man the ship all those years. What he really needs me for is to find Redoubt Island, the space station and finally Cimmadar itself.'
'And why don't you just use radio beacons to find your way about?'
'Well, between the atmosphere and all the islands floating about, radio waves don't travel all that far. You could set up strings of relay stations, and many civilizations are advanced enough to do that. But if you recall our talk back on Ravin, I mentioned that anyone can follow a radio beacon, including your enemies. Since Cimmadar has its guide clans, and doesn't need radio beacons, why run the risk? There are, for example great nomadic fleets of barbarians a'roaming the Pela, looting and killing as they go, some numbering in the millions. So it's not wise to advertise your position because they can follow the beacons. We've had to fight them – and other empires as well – dozens of times in our long history, and it's been touch and go at times, so these days we're strictly a hermit empire, radio silent, and elusive. Rumored, but never found.
'The other thing you need to realize, is that the islands are constantly churning. Great rivers of air shuffle the islands, large and small hither and yon. An island a ten round-cycle journey away, may, over time, become a hundred round-cycle journey, or a thousand. And these great currents change course or disappear as well, so no island stays in the same relative position, making beacons and charts useful only for a limited time. And there are only two fixed positions in the Pela – inwards and outwards, and once you get off the chart, there's nothing to set your course against, save a string of islands passed, that are often tumbling and turning so they won't look the same coming back a month later. So you see how handy it is to have a person onboard who can lead you to where you’re going just by sensing where it is. There's no way Prince Imvoy could find Redoubt Island, or the space station, or Cimmadar without me, so you can see why ol'Glen Colin is so valuable. He could spend his lifetime searching and never finding it. Oh, I'm a jewel in Prince Imvoy's crown.'
'I wouldn't call you a jewel,' said Vinden grimly, as we all turned to see him climbing up from the access well. 'A pimple on my arse, would be more accurate.'
'I serve as a pimple, if you wish, m'lord,' said Glen Colin with a grin, undaunted.