David Zindell - War in Heaven

‘Chance favours the bold – as you’ve proved, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.’

Danlo bowed his head quickly, then studied the Sonderval’s wide smile and the wide, white, perfect teeth. He said, ‘Your fleet … is small enough as it is.’

‘We’ve slightly fewer deep-ships and black ships than the Ringists,’ the Sonderval said. ‘But I believe that we’ll have a more coherent command of them.’

‘And the lightships?’

‘True, they’ve half again as many as we,’ the Sonderval said. ‘But don’t forget that the best pilots went with us to the Vild. The best and the boldest, Pilot.’

‘You seem so confident,’ Danlo said.

‘Well, I was born for war – I think it’s my fate.’

‘But in war … there are so many terrible chances.’

‘This is also true, which is why I would still stop this war if I could.’

‘There … must be a way to stop it,’ Danlo said.

‘Unfortunately,’ the Sonderval said, ‘it’s easier to forestall a war than to stop one once it’s begun. Your mission won’t be easy.’

‘No.’

‘It might be difficult for you even to reach Neverness.’

Danlo nodded his head that this was so, then said, ‘But I will return there. I … will speak with Hanuman once again. My fate, Lord Pilot. Only I must ask you for time. Hanuman burns like a thallow flying too close to the sun, and it will take time to cool his soul.’

‘I can’t promise that. We’ll fall against Neverness as soon as possible.’

‘How … soon?’

‘I’m not sure,’ the Sonderval said. ‘We won’t be able to approach Neverness directly, and the ships will require some time before they’re able to perform the manoeuvres I’ll require of them. But soon enough, Pilot. You must make your journey as quickly as you can.’

‘I see.’

For a long time the Sonderval regarded Danlo with his hard, calm eyes. Then he said, ‘I don’t envy you your mission, you know. I wouldn’t like to be there when you tell Hanuman that he must dismantle his Universal Computer.’

At this Danlo smiled gravely but said nothing.

‘Perhaps,’ the Sonderval said, ‘it would be best if Lord Bede presented the Fellowship’s demands.’

‘If you’d like. Lord Pilot.’

‘And if by some miracle you’re successful and Hanuman sees the light of reason, you must bring me word as soon as you can.’

‘But once the fleet has left Sheydveg, how will I find you?’

‘That’s a problem isn’t it?’ Again the Sonderval fingered the brooch that adorned his robe, then sighed. ‘I could give you the fixed-points of the stars along the pathway I’ve chosen towards Neverness.’

Danlo waited silently through the count of ten heartbeats for the Sonderval to say more.

‘I could do that, Pilot, but it might not prove wise. The chances of war might cause us to choose different pathways. Then, too …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, the chances of your reasoning with Hanuman aren’t very great. Why should I burden you with information you’ll probably never need?’

‘I … see.’

‘ Vital information,’ the Sonderval said. ‘If Lord Salmalin knew our pathway, he could lie in wait for our fleet and destroy it.’

Danlo watched the Sonderval squeezing the diamond brooch between his long fingers; he watched and waited, saying nothing.

‘Nevertheless, I’ve decided to give you this information – it might possibly keep us from a battle for which there’s no need. And I must give you something else as well.’

So saying, the Sonderval unpinned the brooch with infinite care and closed it safely before giving it to Danlo. For the count of twenty heartbeats, Danlo stared at this piece of jewellery waiting like a scorpion in his open hand.

‘Thank you, Lord Pilot,’ Danlo said politely. But his voice was full of irony and amusement – and with dread.

‘If your mission fails and you’re imprisoned, you mustn’t let the Akashics read your mind. And you mustn’t let the Ringists torture you.’

‘Do you truly think that Hanuman would—’

‘Some chances would be foolish to take,’ the Sonderval said. ‘The brooch’s pin is tipped with matrikax. If pushed into a vein, it kills instantly.’

‘I see.’

‘Your vow of ahimsa doesn’t prevent you from taking your own life, does it?’

Never killing or harming another, not even in one’s own thoughts , Danlo remembered. And then he said, ‘Some would say that it does.’

‘And what do you say, then?’

‘I … will never tell anyone the stars along your pathway.’

‘Very well,’ the Sonderval said.

He moved closer to Danlo and bent his long neck down as might a swan. For a few moments, he whispered in Danlo’s ear. Then he backed away as if he couldn’t bear such closeness with another human being.

‘Before you leave, I’ll meet with Lord Bede by imago,’ the Sonderval said. ‘But I won’t tell him what I’ve just told you.’

‘But is he not a lord of the New Order?’

‘He is not a pilot . There are some things only pilots should know.’

Danlo bowed, then fixed his burning eyes on the Sonderval. For a time, in the deep silence of space, the two men held each other’s gaze and looked into each other’s heart. And then finally the Sonderval had to turn away.

‘I was both wrong and right about you,’ the Sonderval said. ‘Wrong, because you’ll serve us very well as an ambassador. But you would have made a great warrior, too. As I know you secretly are. The fire, Pilot, the light. Hanuman would do well to fear you.’

‘But it is I … who will be at his mercy.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps.’

For a moment, the Sonderval looked at Danlo strangely before bowing to him. Perhaps some presentiment of doom came flooding into him like an ocean wave then, for his eyes misted and his perfectly shaped chin trembled slightly. Considering that he was the Sonderval, the most perfect and aloof of all men, this was one of the most remarkable things Danlo had ever seen.

‘I wish you well, Lord Pilot.’

‘And I wish you well. I hope I shall see you again.’

Danlo smiled and said, ‘When we have stopped the war – when the war is over.’

‘When the war is over,’ the Sonderval repeated. And then he said, ‘Fall far and fall well, Pilot.’

With a final bow, Danlo returned to his ship. It took only moments for the two pilots to disengage the Cardinal Virtue and the Snowy Owl . These beautiful lightships orbited above Sheydveg like a pair of silver thallows while Lord Demothi Bede spoke with the Sonderval and received his final instructions. And then the Snowy Owl rocketed away from the thirty thousand other ships towards Sheydveg’s orange-red sun. Danlo opened a window into the manifold, and so he began the last part of his journey to return home and to bring an end to war.

Life is light trapped in matter.

— saying of the gnostics

Life is the ability of matter to trap light.

— saying of the eschatologists

In mapping his pathways from Sheydveg to Neverness, Danlo had a choice between two conflicting purposes. Since his mission cried out for speed, he might have fallen from star to star by the shortest pathway, which would have taken him to Arcite, Darkmoon and Darghin, and thence to Fravashing and Silvaplana before falling on to Qallar and Neverness. But his safety – and Demothi Bede’s – was important, too; dead ambassadors stop no wars. Since the Ringists were already at war, a lone lightship falling suddenly out of the manifold near some hostile world might find itself attacked by ten others. Certainly, therefore, Danlo would best avoid such worlds, for Ringist pilots might be lying in wait along such an obvious pathway. It would be safest for him to make a great circle through the Fallaways, past the great red sun of the Elidi and then on to Flewelling, the Nave, Simoom and Catava. Safest, truly, but such a journey would take long, long. In the end, he decided upon the shorter pathway. Once, his friends and fellow pilots had called him Danlo the Wild. But he was not wild beyond the cooling draughts of reason, and so he began his journey with a falling off towards Agathange instead of Arcite and planned to approach Neverness by way of Kenshin or Tyr.