Karl Schroeder - Ashes of Candesce - Book Five of Virga

Pinioned by her frank gaze--and acutely feeling the lack of helpful suggestions from his scry--he struggled for something clever to say. Finally he noticed that she was holding a thick, old-fashioned book made of the flat leaves they called "pages." A quill pen jutted out of it. "What's that?" he blurted.

She waggled the heavy volume. "A navigator's log book. I'm writing down my story, at last! I wasn't sure I would ever get to."

She sat up and he took it from her gingerly. The thing was floppier than he'd expected, and he nearly dropped it. The pages were all blank, except for the first few that were covered with fine, looping handwriting in black ink.

Keir had seen such things in sims and other virtual entertainments, but he'd never held an actual book in his hand, nor traced actual handwriting with his fingers. He did so now and found that his touch was reverent. This object had awoken some deep feeling inside him, a surprising respect.

"You learned all you know," he said, "from these."

"Oh, don't put it that way!" She laughed. "I'm already intimidated enough at the thought of writing my own."

He returned it, and smiled at the glittering night. "You must be glad to be back."

"Well." Now she frowned. "I'm not exactly 'back.' This place isn't my home."

"But it's Virga."

"If I threw you to some star across the universe, could you say you felt at home because it wasn't Virga?"

"No, but--" He saw her point, but continued, anyway. "If Artificial Nature was there, it would feel much the same as anywhere else I've lived."

"Why? Is it really all the same everywhere?"

He shrugged. "Seems so ... The admiral wants me to go back. Says I should 'liaise' with the Renaissance when they pick up the rest of your men."

"Oh, that's good. So are you happy to be going home?"

"I told him no." Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. At this moment his lack of scry was a powerful ache, because he really didn't know how much or how little to tell her. "I can't go back," he heard himself say. "Something was happening to me there--something awful ... I, I don't feel right, like this isn't my skin..." He pulled at the flesh of his forearm. "I think I lost my memory, but I seem to think I was once older..."

She looked startled. "Older?" she asked. There was surprise in her voice, but concern as well, and he relaxed a bit. "Was it during what we call the outage?"

"No, we came here after that." He realized he shouldn't have said that, but it was too late.

"That's not very long ago." She leaned back again, her lips pursed and brow furrowed. "You've only spent the last couple of years of your life in Aethyr. Which means you spent most of it somewhere else. Are you telling me you don't remember any of that?"

"N-no ... the memories are there. They're just not in ... what do you call it? Chronological order. They're jumbled up, like those spy's photos Venera threw on the table." And there were far too many of them, too; but he didn't say that.

"Keir--you said you were once older. How old do you think you really are?"

He shook his head.

"You look somewhere between sixteen and nineteen," she said. "When I met you I thought you were younger. You look like you've put on a year or two since then."

"I was getting shorter!" He'd jumped to his feet and started to walk, but there was nowhere to walk to in this tiny garden. He paced to the stairwell, then back to the edge of the roof. "The day I met you, I'd proved it. I was getting shorter." He raised a shaking hand to wipe at his eyes. "What was that? What's going on?"

"Did you tell the admiral about this?"

Her voice was quiet and steady. He turned to find she was still seated, but leaning forward, book on knees, all her attention on him. Keir shook his head.

"Did he insist you should go back?"

"Y-yes. But I can't." He scowled at the pretty night. "I'll run away first."

She stood up. "I'll speak to him. He wants me to go, too--to bring his diplomats to the emissary's people. I told him he didn't need me and that anyway I'd done my part. He insisted until I pointed out that if he lost me, he'd lose his only connection to them." She held up the book and grinned. "I said, better that I stay here and write down everything that happened, so at least there's a record. The emissary's perfectly capable of guiding its people to their home without me. So that's what's happening."

Leal walked to his side and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You see, all things are possible."

Keir took a deep breath, and let it out. He smiled at her. "Thanks." She nodded, half-smiling.

"I'm still a stranger here, though." He looked down, past ledge and shingle, down the sheer walls of the admiralty to where on any world-bound building, grass or stone or soil would begin. There was only air, and soaring clouds half-lit by the city glow. "I can't even read your letters."

"How lucky for you, then," said Leal, "that I'm a teacher currently lacking a student. I can teach you to read."

"I don't want to be a burden."

"Hmm." She tapped her chin with a fingertip. "Well, then, why don't you tell me everything you know about Artificial Nature? And the Renaissance? I'll add it to my book. You may know more than you think; and what you know could be more useful to us than you realize."

The first rule of the Renaissance was to keep what they were doing secret. --Then again, he'd already given most of it away before they'd even left Aethyr.

He smiled wryly. "It's a deal."

12

DAYS PASSED INa flurry of dispatches, expeditions, and consultations. The prime minister took their case to his cabinet, and the decision was made--for now--to indulge Chaison Fanning, just in case it turned out that Leal's story was true. The very first order of business was to verify that, and so a small flotilla of ships made for the sunless countries the very next day, charged with finding Serenity, establishing a safe bridgehead at the door, and entering Brink. Maerta had promised Leal that she would try to rescue Hayden Griffin and the stranded Home Guard airmen from the plains of Aethyr. With luck, they would be able to return the Guardsmen to their people and win some allies there.

In case the rescue didn't happen or the rescued Guardsmen were hostile, Chaison had a Plan B for contacting the Home Guard, and it involved sending Antaea Argyre on a journey to the principalities of Candesce.

That expedition was arranged; meanwhile, Venera's spies went into overtime, tracking the movements of a small set of people who were nominally stateless refugees, but who certainly didn't act like them. The name Inshiri Ferance came up again and again; it began to seem like she had visited every sun in Virga--just, not Slipstream's.

Chaison and Venera Fanning worked together almost without consultation (though that might go on under the covers at night, as some speculated), he organizing the logistics of a new diplomatic network, she calling in favors, sending out invitations, and frankly spying on everybody.

Leal's message to the people of Virga had not yet been announced, but the ripples from its impact were already spreading.

* * *

"THE SIMPLE FACTis, you can't worry people into acting," Admiral Fanning had said at the crowded strategy session. Keir remembered him shrugging. "No matter how much truth you have on your side, and no matter how compelling your arguments, people simply won't move if they don't have to." He had taken a piece of chalk and drawn a white slash through the words "Artificial Nature" written on the chalkboard behind him. Next to it he'd written one of many curious new words Keir was learning lately. This one was "velleity."

"That's our true enemy," he said. "Velleity means 'having a vague desire to do something, but not enough will to actually do it.' If we take our message of urgent action around to the nations of Virga, that's what we're going to get: a vague interest, some desultory waves of the hand, and no commitment.