C. Cherryh - Cuckoo's Egg

"Good morning," Sagot said.

Thorn walked across the sand the length of the room to where Sagot sat, as she had sat the first time he saw her. Reprise. He walked to the riser facing hers and sat down on the edge, feet dangling, hands locked in his lap. Sagot's face was a stranger's face, withholding everything behind the eyes, an aged, white-dusted mask. "How are you, Thorn?" (As if we started over.) "I'm fine, Sagot. Duun says I have to go back there tomorrow. Is it going to be the same?" "I can't discuss it, Thorn."

He sat there a moment. "I want to know, Sagot. What are they doing?"

"I can't discuss it. Can we get to our lessons?"

"Will you go with me tomorrow?" (Please, Sagot.)

A long silence. "I don't think I can really make much difference. They won't let me bring you home; they're going to insist you stay there; they think they woke you up too fast. They weren't happy at all about my taking you out of there; you were on your feet and you were being reasonable-" Sagot's mouth puckered in humor. "-but a drunk hatani's not to argue with. Tomorrow you'll know what to expect and you won't argue with the meds, all right?"

"I know. I'd still like for you to stay."

"Thorn-"

"Don't talk to Duun about it. I know he'd say no. Just do it, Sagot. I don't trust the meds. I've never liked them."

"I'll be there." Sagot smoothed the heavy fabric of her kilt and rested her hands on her ankles. "Let's talk about the weather-like atmosphere. Like the interaction of the oceans and air masses. When I was at the north pole, that was back in '87,1 flew up there, but I went out on this exploration ship, Uffu Non was its name. Ask me about the hothonin some time-"

"What are hothonin?"

"It's this kind of fish, about shonun size.

They catch birds. That's right. They have this white spot on their heads which looks like a small fast-swimming fish when they run just below the surface; a bird dives down, the hothun dives up- snap , no bird. See what assumptions do? Anyway, we put out of Eor port and headed out to sea-"

"He's still sane," Duun said. Ellud faced him, hands on knees, in the normal clutter of Ellud's desk. Duun sat opposite, in the accustomed place. "Let's not push it, Ellud."

"I'm not pushing it," Ellud said. "Council's pushing me. Betan's surfaced. She's alive."

Duun let his face relax in his surprise. "That's no good news. Where?"

"She's in seclusion. Shbit's got her, of course, in his house. That's the report that's gotten to me, via a councillor who talked to a councillor who talked with her. Don't go in there, Duun. For the gods' sake, don't try it at this point. Everything's going our way and Shbit's got nothing but a failed agent."

"The bureau agents must be in Shbit's bed if they're sure what he hasn't got. I don't like their complacency. Tell them that."

"Stay out of it, Duun, Gods, you go after Shbit and you could blow this whole thing into the public eye again, and gods know we've been there too often as it is. The council's riding even just now. The appropriations keep coming."

"I know when Shbit will move. Shbit doesn't know it yet." Duun decided on the tea and poured himself a cup. "One has to suppose he restrains Betan; but I'd rather not suppose at all. What's the report from Gatog? Any details?"

"They've got the problem solved. It turned out to be a software glitch. They took each other out."

Duun frowned. "I figured. False alarm, then. Dammit, Ellud. Those ears go down again and we'll have councillors in the trees."

"It could be worse."

"Believe me, I never quite forgot that." Duun picked up the cup with two fingers of his right hand and turned it with his left, feeling the incised design, natural clay, the costly happenstance of obu art, which was like Ellud, both clever and lacking plan. The paradoxes of the man confounded him lifelong. "I want to see the reports on Shbit. I want to know when he breathes in and how long he holds it. To the second, Ellud, tell your agents that."

"… in 1582 the first reactor went on line in Toghon province-"

"… in 1582 the Dsonan League established the international council. The immediate motivation was the drought which occurs in cycles in Thogan and which in that year had created considerable hardship on the seventeen million who inhabited the region stretching from-"

"… in 1593 the first satellite was launched from the Dardimuur coast-"

(Satellite?)

"… in 1698 Botan no Gelad became the first shonun into space."

"Sagot." Thorn's heart beat very fast. He looked up from his monitor at a placid, aged face. "Sagot, we're in space."

"I was a little girl when Nagin walked on the moon. I remember my oldest brother coming and bringing me to the television and telling me that was the moon and shonun were walking on it. Nagin and Ghotisin and Sar. I went outside in the dark-it was spring and it was a clear night; I looked up at the moon and tried to see where they were, but of course I couldn't. I stared and stared and my brother came out and stood beside me. Til go up there someday,' he said. He did. He flew all the way to Dothog and he walked on another world. He sent me a picture of him standing there in front of a sea of red dunes, you can't tell it's him, of course, the suit's big and cumbersome, and the sun-visor's down, but I know it's him. I still have it."

(Machines in the dark. Things spinning.)

("The world's wide, minnow, wider than you know.")

"Can I see it? Can I meet your brother?"

"He's dead. He died, oh, forty years ago. He had an equipment failure, out on the Yuon desert, on Dothog. Air ran out. I've got the picture, though. I'll bring it."

"I'm sorry, Sagot."

"Child, you grieve and you get over things. I just remember my brother now, not the end of him, just the living. You know the shuttleport, just outside Dsonan? You can feel the ships take off. You can hear them when they come in, like thunder, even through the walls-"

"Is that that sound?" ("Duun, what's that?" "I don't know, buildings have a lot of sounds. Mind on your business, minnow.")

"-about every five-day. They carry cargo up to the station, pick up what the station makes, medicines and such, and bring it back down. There's still the Dothog base, it's quite a little town now, all domes and connecting tunnels. All scientists. About once a year you can get a tour out from the station, but it's horrendously expensive, the kind of thing only the rich can afford and too rough to please most of that sort, but they still have a few visitors. I've dreamed about it, I'd like to go, but it takes a year each way; and something always comes up. I don't know-" Sagot looked at her hands and looked up. "I think, I think deep down I'm superstitious about it, I think my brother's still there, still climbing about over the dunes and enjoying himself, but if I went there it'd be just a place, I'd see the town all grown up and the damn tourists and I'd go out in the desert and he wouldn't be there. Then he'd be dead for me, really dead-oh, gods. I'm sorry, boy, the old woman talks on and on. You wanted to ask me about space."

"Have you been there?"

"I've been up to the station. It's a barren kind of place, all tubes and tunnels-"

(Tunnels. Metal tunnels. Going on and on, bending up when you walk them-)

"-and one part of it looks a lot like all the other parts. And strangely enough you don't really get to see the stars much. You can see them from the shuttle if you get up front-they let you do that. It's beautiful. The world's beautiful. Haven't you seen it in pictures?"

(The dark globe with the fire coming over it, the spinning place-)

"No, of course you haven't. I've got this marvelous window-tape. I bought it on the station. It's the earth from space. I think I can find a copy for you. You get to watch the sun come up over and over again round the curve of the world; you get to see all the seas and the clouds all swirled-"