Infinity's Shore

Thinking of Morgran brings Keepiru to mind, the finest pilot Emerson ever knew — the show-off! — steering Streaker out of danger with flamboyance that shocked the ambushers, plunging her back into the maelstrom, away from the brewing space battle…

… like the other battle that developed weeks later, over Kithrup. Fine, glistening fleets, the wealth of noble clans, tearing at each other, destroying in moments the pride of many worlds. Emerson’s hand flies as he draws exploding arcs across a sheet of native paper, ripping it as he jabs, frustrated by inability to render the gorgeous savagery he once witnessed with his own eyes.…

Emerson folds the drawings away when the party remounts, glad that his flowing tears are concealed by the rewq.

Later, when they face a steaming volcano caldera, he abruptly recalls another basin, this one made of folded space … the Shallow Cluster … Streaker’s last survey site before heading for Morgran — a place empty of anything worth noting, said the Galactic Library.

Then what intelligence or premonition provoked Captain Creideiki to head for such an unpromising site?

Surely, in all the eons, someone else must have stumbled on the armada of derelict ships Streaker discovered there — cause of all her troubles. He can envision those silent arks now, vast as moons but almost transparent, as if they could not quite decide to be.

This memory hurts in a different way. Claw marks lie across it, as if some outside force once pored over it in detail — perhaps seeking to read patterns in the background stars. Retracing Streaker’s path to a single point in space.

Emerson figures they probably failed. Constellations were never his specialty.

“Emerson, you don’t have to go.”

His head jerks as those words peel from a memory more recent than Morgran or Kithrup, by many months.

Emerson pans the land of fevered colors, now seen from high above. At last he finds her face in rippling glimmers. A worried face, burdened with a hundred lives and vital secrets to preserve. Again she speaks, and the words come whole, because he never stored them in parts of the brain meant for mundane conversation.

Because everything she said to him had always seemed like music.

“We need you here. Let’s find another way.”

But there was no other way. Not even Gillian’s sarcastic Tymbrimi computer could suggest one before Emerson climbed aboard a salvaged Thennanin fighter, embarking on a desperate gamble.

Looking back in time, he hopes to see in Gillian’s eyes the same expression she used to have when bidding Tom farewell on some perilous venture.

He sees worried concern, even affection. But it’s not the same.

Emerson frees his gaze from the torment-colored desert, turning east toward less disturbing vistas. Far-off mountains offer respite with natural undulating shapes, softened by verdant green forests.

Then, from one tall peak, there comes a glittering flash! Several more gleam in series. A rhythm that seems to speak.…

His intrigued detachment is cut short by a frightened yell. Yet, for an instant Emerson remains too distant, too slow to turn. He does not see Sara tumble off the path. But Prity’s scream tears through him like a torch thrust into cobwebs.

Sara’s name pours from his throat with involuntary clarity. His body finally acts, leaping in pursuit.

Hurtling down the jagged talus slope, he flings eloquent curses at the universe, defying it—daring it—to take another friend.

Lark

THE SERGEANT’S FACE WAS STREAKED WITH CAMOUFLAGE. Her black hair still bore flecks of loam and grass from worming through crevices and peering between brambles. Yet Lark had never seen Jeni Shen look better.

People thrive doing the thing they were bom for. In Jeni’s case, that’s being a warrior. She’d rather have lived when the elder and younger Drakes were fashioning the Great Peace out of blood and fire than during the peace itself.

“So far, so good,” the young militia scout reported. Blur-cloth overalls made it hard to trace her outline amid stark lantern shadows.

“I got close enough to watch the emissaries reenter the valley, bringing the sages’ reply to the Jophur. A couple of guard robots swooped in to look them over, especially poor Vubben, sniffing him from wheel rims to eyestalks. Then all six ambassadors headed down to the Glade, with the bots in escort.” Jeni made slanting downward motions with her hands. “That leaves just one or two drones patrolling this section of perimeter! Seems we couldn’t ask for a better chance to make our move.”

“Can there be any question?” added Rann. The tall starfarer leaned against a limestone wall with arms folded. The Danik was unarmed, but otherwise Rann acted as if this were his expedition. “Of course we shall proceed. There is no other option.”

Despite Rann’s poised assurance, the plan was actually Lark’s. So was the decision whether to continue. His would be the responsibility, if three-score brave lives were lost in the endeavor … or if their act provoked the Jophur into spasms of vengeful destruction.