Land and Overland Omnibus

CHAPTER 5



The ancient city of Ro-Atabri was immense.

Toller had been standing at the rail of his gondola for more than an hour, staring down at the slowly expanding patch of intricate line and colour patterns which differentiated the city from the surrounding terrain. He had been conditioned to regard Prad, Overland's capital, as an imposing metropolis, and had visualized Ro-Atabri as much larger but essentially the same. The reality of the historic seat of Kolcorronian power, however, was something for which he could not have prepared himself.

He sensed that such a huge difference in size somehow led to a difference in kind, but there was more to it than that. All the cities, towns and villages on Overland had been planned, and therefore their chief characteristics sprang from the will of their architects and builders, but from high in the air Ro-Atabri resembled a natural growth, a living organism.

It was all there, just as in the sketches his maternal grandmother—Gesalla Maraquine—used to make for him when he was a child. There was the Borann River winding into Arle Bay, which in turn opened out upon the Gulf of Tronom, and to the east was the snow-capped Mount Opelmer. Cupped in and shaped by those natural features, the city and its suburbs sprawled across the land, a vast lichen of masonry, concrete, brakka wood and clay which represented centuries of Endeavour by multitudes of human beings. The great fires which had raged on the day the Migration had begun had left a still-visible discoloration in some areas, but the durable stonework had survived intact and would serve humanity again in some future era. Flecks of orange-red and orange-brown showed where the ill-fated New Men had begun capping the shells of buildings with new tiled roofs.

"What do you think of it, young Maraquine?" Commissioner Kettoran said, appearing at Toller's side. Now that gravity was back to normal he was feeling much better and was taking a lively interest in all aspects of the ship's affairs.

"It's big," Toller said simply. "I can't take it in. It makes history … real."

Kettoran laughed. "Did you think we'd made it up?"

"You could have done, as far as most of the present generation are concerned, but this… It hurts my brain, if you know what I mean."

"I know exactly what you mean—think how I feel." Kettoran leaned further across the rail and his long face became animated. "Do you see that square patch of green just to the west of the city? That's the old Skyship Quarter—the exact spot we took off from fifty years ago! Will we be able to land there?"

"It seems as good a place as any," Toller said. "The lateral dispersions on this flight have been remarkably slight, and those that did occur have cancelled each other out. The decision rests with the Sky-commodore, of course, but I'd say that's where we'll put down."

"That would make it perfect. The perfect full circle."

"Indeed yes," Toller agreed, no longer really listening, his attention captured by the realization that the ten-day flight between the worlds was all but over, and that very soon he would have unlimited opportunities to court Vantara. He had not even glimpsed her since the incident with the blue-horn, and the lack of contact had fuelled his obsession to the point where the prospect of seeing another world for the first time seemed no more of an adventure than being able to speak to the countess face to face and perhaps win her over.

"I envy you, young Maraquine," Kettoran said, gazing wistfully downwards at the natural stage upon which the half-remembered scenes of his youth had been enacted. "Everything lies before you."

"Perhaps." Toller smiled, savouring his own interpretation of the commissioner's words. "Perhaps you're right."

The village of Sty-vee contained no more than a hundred or so buildings, and even in its heyday would have housed only a few hundred people. Toller was tempted to cross it off his list and proceed on his way without even landing, but it would then have become necessary to falsify an inspection report and he could not allow himself to sink to petty dishonesty. He studied the layout of the village for a moment, noting that its central square was very small, even for such an out-of-the-way place.

"What do you think, corporal?" he said, testing the younger man's judgment. "Is it worth trying to put the ship down on those few yards of turf?"

Steenameert leaned over the rail to assess the prospects. "I wouldn't take the risk, sir—there's very little leeway and there's no telling what the eddy currents are like around that group of tall warehouses."

"That's what I was thinking—we'll make a pilot of you yet," Toller said jovially. "Head for those pastures to the east, beside the river, and drop us there."

Steenameert nodded, his naturally pink face growing even more roseate with gratification. Toller had taken a liking to Steenameert on the occasion of their first meeting, when he had parachuted down from the interplanetary void, and had put in a special request to have him in his crew for the flight to Land. Now he was personally grooming Steenameert for a field promotion, somewhat to the annoyance of Lieutenant Correvalte, who had spent the customary year in a training squadron.

Toller turned to Correvalte, who officially should have been conducting the landing manoeuvre and was showing his discomfiture by lounging in a seat in a posture of exaggerated boredom. "Lieutenant, detail one man to guard the ship and get the others ready to inspect the village—the walk will do them good."

Correvalte saluted, very correctly, and left the bridge. Toller maintained a carefully neutral expression as he watched the lieutenant go down the short stair to the gondola's main deck. He had already decided to recompense Correvalte by recommending him for a full captaincy earlier than usual, but had decided not to let him know until the current mission had been completed.

It was the middle of foreday, and already in the equatorial region of Land the sun's heat was baking the ground. Most of the gondola was in the shadow of the ship's gasbag, a fact which made the environment beyond seem preternaturally bright and vivid. As the vessel performed a slow half-circle to face the slight breeze, sinking all the while, Toller saw that the fields surrounding the village had almost returned to their natural uniform shade of green.

With no seasons to orchestrate the cycle of maturation, individual plants in the wild state tended to follow their own timetables, with a proportion in the earliest stages of growth while others were at their peak or in the process of withering and returning their constituents to the soil. From time immemorial, Kolcorronian farmers had sorted the seeds of useful vegetables into synchronous batches—typically creating six harvests a year—and as a result areas of cultivated land presented patterns of stripes of varying colours.

Here, after decades of neglect, those patterns had all but disappeared as the edible grasses and other crop vegetables had slowly returned to botanic anarchy. The advanced stage of the reversal led Toller to suspect that the village of Sty-vee was not one of those which the New Men had reclaimed after the ptertha plague had wiped out the normal human population. If that were the case, the inspection of the village promised to be yet another in a series of unpleasant and highly depressing experiences.

The final stages of racial extinction—half a century ago—had come so swiftly that there had been no time for the dying to bury the dead…

The thought cast a pall over Toller's mood, reminding him of how wrong he had been in his supposition that the fleet's arrival on Land would give him endless opportunity to keep company with the Countess Vantara. At the heart of his mistake had been a single historical fact.

The migration from Land to Overland had been a carefully planned affair, one which should have been carried out in orderly stages, but in the event it had been essayed in circumstances of panic and chaos. With the city of Ro-Atabri burning, with mobs on the rampage and the army's discipline gone, the evacuation had been forced through with only minutes of notice for the refugees—and in that extreme not one book had been taken on the journey between the worlds. Jewellery and useless bundles of currency notes had been carried in plenty, but not one painting, not one written poem, not one sheet of music.

While men and women of culture were later to complain that the race had left its soul behind, King Chakkell and his heirs were to fret about a more irksome oversight. In all the turmoil and confusion nobody had thought of bringing any maps of Kolcorron, of the empire, or of Land itself. From the time of the Migration until the present day—although the Kolcorronian royal family still claimed sovereignty over the Old World—the lack of charts had proved an annoyance more than anything else, but the situation had changed entirely.

Prince Oldo, Daseene's sole remaining offspring, was now in his late fifties and had been thwarted all his life by the Queen's refusal to step down from the throne. And, just as his mother's frailty was promising to clear the way for him, he had been given an extra frustration to contend with in that he was about to become heir to a kingdom whose actual and potential wealth were almost a total mystery.

Unknown to Toller, he had prevailed on Daseene to put off the circumnavigation of Land until a detailed survey of Kolcorron itself had been carried out. Thus it was that, instead of pacing Vantara's ship on a challenging round-the-world flight, Toller had found himself committed to a seemingly endless series of aerial hops from one deserted village or town to another. He had been on Land for almost twenty days and in all that time had not even seen Vantara, who was engaged on similar duties in a different quarter of the country.

Just as the city of Ro-Atabri had impressed him with its sheer size, Kolcorron was overwhelming him with the multiplicity of centres, large and medium and small, which had once been necessary to house its population. Having lived all his life on Overland, where it was possible to fly for hours without seeing a single habitation, Toller felt oppressed, suffocated, by the extent of men's interference with the natural landscape. He had begun to visualize the old kingdom as one vast, seething hive in which any individual would have counted for very little. Even the knowledge that it was the birthplace of his grandfather did little to counteract his negative feelings about Kolcorron's tamed and overworked countryside.

He gazed moodily at the cluster of dwellings and larger buildings, apparently tilting with the airship's movements, which made up Sty-vee. The old maps and gazetteers which had been found in Ro-Atabri showed that its chief importance arose from the fact that the village contained a pumping station which had been vital to the irrigation of a considerable area of farming land north of the local river and canal system. It was required of Toller that he should inspect the station and report on its condition.

Still keeping a watchful eye on Steenameert and his handling of the airship, Toller consulted his list and confirmed that after Sty-vee had been crossed off there would be only three further locations to check. If there were no complications he could be on his way back to base camp in the capital before littlenight of the following day. Vantara might also have returned to Ro-Atabri by that time. The thought helped to dispel some of Toller's forebodings about the task in hand, and he began to whistle as he took his sword from a locker. The steel weapon—which had once belonged to his grandfather—was too awkward to wear in the close confines of a ship, but he never ventured abroad without it strapped to his side. It enhanced his sense of kinship with that other Toller Maraquine, the one whose exploits he would never have the chance to emulate.

A minute later—to the accompaniment of short bursts from the secondary jets—the gondola's keel made contact with the ground and the four anchor cannon fired their barbs into the grassy earth. Crewmen leapt over the side immediately with extra lines and began doubly securing the ship against the possibility of the heat vortices which commonly roamed the land close to the equator.

"Closing down the engines, sir," Steenameert said, his eyes seeking Toller's as he vented the pneumatic reservoir which fed power crystals to the jets. "How was the landing?"

"Passable, passable." Toller used a tone of voice which showed that he was more pleased with the corporal's performance than his choice of words implied. "But don't stand there all day congratulating yourself—we have business in yonder metropolis. Over the side with you!"

As had happened before, during the short walk to the edge of the village Toller felt oddly self-conscious, as though hidden observers were watching every step he took. He knew how absurd the notion was, but yet he was unable to forget what easy targets he and his men would be if defenders with muskets were to appear at the blank upper windows of the nearest houses. His uneasiness, he decided, sprang from a feeling that he had no right to be doing what he was doing, that the last resting places of so many people should be left undisturbed…

An outburst of swearing from one of the crewmen a dozen paces to his left caused him to look in that direction. The man was gingerly skirting something which Toller could not see because of the long grass.

"What is it, Renko?" he said, knowing in his heart what the answer would be.

"A couple of skeletons, sir." Renko's saffron airman's shirt was already darkened with sweat in several places and he was showily limping. "I nearly fell over them, sir. Nearly broke my ankle."

"If it doesn't mend soon I'll have the incident noted in your service record," Toller said drily. "Clashed with two skeletons—came off second best." His comment brought a round of laughter from the other men and Renko's limp rapidly disappeared.

On reaching the village the group fanned out in what had become a routine procedure, with the crewmen entering houses and reporting on their condition to Lieutenant Correvalte, who was making copious notes in a dispatch book. Toller took the opportunity to find some comparative solitude, wandering separately through narrow passageways and the remains of gardens. The derelict condition of the buildings convinced him that Sty-vee had not been occupied by the New Men, that half a century had passed since human families had enlivened the crumbling stonework with their presence.

There were no skeletons visible out of doors, but that was not unusual in Toller's experience. In the final and most virulent phase of the ptertha plague victims had survived for only two hours after infection, but some instinct seemed to have prompted them to seek out places of seclusion in which to die. It was as if some lingering sense of propriety had been outraged at the thought of defiling their communities with decaying corpses. A few had made their way to favourite beauty spots or vantage points, but in general the citizens of old Kolcorron had chosen to die in the privacy of their homes, very often in bed.

Toller had lost count of the number of times he had seen pathetic family tableaux consisting of male and female skeletons still locked in a last embrace, sometimes with smaller bony frames lying between them. The sight of so many reminders of the ultimate futility of existence in such a short span had contaminated his spirit with a deep melancholia which at times overcame his natural ebullience, and now—unashamedly—he avoided entering the silent dwelling places whenever he could.

His meandering course through the village eventually brought him to a large windowless building which had been built on the bank of the river. Part of it extended down into the slow-moving water. Identifying the structure as the pumping station which was the chief item of interest in the area, he walked around it until he came to a large door in the north wall. The door had been constructed from close-grained wood well reinforced with brakka straps and appeared to have been quite unaffected by fifty years of neglect. It was locked and, as he expected, barely quivered when he threw his considerable weight against it.

Muttering with annoyance. Toller turned away, shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the village. More than a minute went by before he spotted the burly figure of Gabbleronn, the sergeant-artificer, who was responsible for maintenance of the airship. Gabbleronn had just emerged from what had once been a store of some kind, and was cramming a small object into his pouch. He looked startled when Toller called him, and responded to the summons with an evident lack of enthusiasm.

"I wasn't looting, sir," he protested as he drew near. "I just picked up a little candle holder fashioned from that black wood. It's of no value, sir … a souvenir to take home to Prad for my wife … I'll put it back if you—"

"Never mind that," Toller interrupted. "1 want this door opened. Fetch whatever tools you need from the ship. Blow it off its hinges if that's what it takes."

"Yes, sir!" Looking relieved, Gabbleronn studied the door for a moment, then saluted and hurried away.

Toller sat down on the stone doorsteps and made himself as comfortable as he could while he waited for the sergeant to return. The heat was increasing as the sun climbed higher, and the sky was so bright that only a few of the normal daytime stars were visible. Directly above him, the great disk of Overland occupied the centre of the heavens, looking fresh and unsullied in his eyes, and he felt a sudden pang of homesickness for its dew-fresh open spaces. The entire planet of Land was one vast charnel house—exhausted, ghost-ridden, dusty and sad—and even the presence of Vantara somewhere over the horizon scarcely compensated for the gloominess which had begun to impose itself on his mind. It would be different if he could actually be in her company, but this business of being near to her and yet completely cut off from her was much worse than…

What am I doing to myself? he thought suddenly. What kind of man am I becoming? Would that other Toller Maraquine have mooned around in such a manner—lovesick and homesick—like a sallow-faced adolescent?

The questions propelled Toller to his feet and he was pacing in impatient circles, a hand on the hilt of his sword, when he saw Correvalte approaching with the rest of the crew in his wake. The lieutenant was checking his notes as he walked, looking businesslike, competent and very much at ease with himself and his surroundings. Toller felt a twinge of envy coupled with a momentary suspicion that Correvalte had the potential to be the better officer of the two.

"The report is almost complete, sir—except for an inspection of the pumping station," Correvalte said. "Have you been inside the building?"

"How could I enter the building when the accursed door is barred?" Toller snapped. "Do I look like a wraith which can insinuate itself through cracks in the woodwork?"

The lieutenant's eyes widened and then became opaquely impersonal. "I'm sorry, sir—I didn't realize…"

"I have sent Gabbleronn for some tools," Toller cut in, already ashamed of his display of peevishness. "See if he needs any help in carrying them—I have no wish to linger in this cemetery any longer than necessary."

He turned away as Correvalte was performing one of his ultra-correct salutes and walked along the bank of the river until he came to a narrow wooden bridge. From a distance the bridge had appeared quite sound, but on close examination he saw that its structure had a grey-white spongy texture which signalled that it had been ravaged by wood-boring insects. He drew his sword and struck at one of the handrail stanchions. It severed with very little resistance to the blade and toppled into the river, taking a section of the rail with it. Half a dozen further blows were sufficient to cut through the two main beams of the bridge, sending the whole rotten edifice plunging down into the water amid puffs of powdered wood and a buzzing of minute winged creatures which had been disturbed in their appointed task.

"You have had a good meal," Toller said, whimsically addressing the multitudes of insects and their grubs which must have been still inside the fallen timbers, "now you can enjoy a drink."

The little flurry of physical activity, frivolous though it had been, helped ease the tensions in his mind and he was in a better mood as he retraced his steps to the village. He reached the pumping station just as Gabbleronn and two of his helpers had succeeded in prising the door open with the aid of large crowbars.

"Good work," Toller said. "Now let us see what marvels of engineering lie within."

Before arriving on Land he had known from his history tuition that the planet had no metals, and that brakka wood had always been employed for applications where, on Overland, the designer would have chosen iron, steel or some other suitable metal. Nevertheless, machinery whose gearwheels and other highly stressed components were carved from the black wood seemed cumbersome and quaint to his eye, relics of a primitive era.

He led the way along a short passage to a large, vaulted chamber which contained massive pumping machinery. The windows in the roof were heavily encrusted with grime, but there was enough light filtering down from them to show that the machinery, although coated with dust, was complete and in a good state of repair. Those parts not made of brakka—beams and struts—were of the same close-grained wood as the station's door, a material which evidently resisted wood-boring insects or was not to their taste. Toller tested one of the beams with his thumbnail and was impressed by its hardness, even after fifty years without maintenance.

"I believe it's called rafter wood, sir," Steenameert said, coming to his side. "You can see why it was favoured by builders."

"How do you know what it's called?"

Steenameert blushed. "I have read descriptions of it many times in the—"

"Oh, no!" The voice was that of Lieutenant Correvalte, who had been walking around the perimeter of the chamber, opening the doors into side rooms as he came to them. He was backing off from a doorway, shaking his head, and Toller knew at once that he had witnessed a great obscenity. This, Toller told himself, is what I have been expecting since we entered the village. I knew something bad was in store for us, and I have no wish to set eyes on it.

He knew, also, that he could not avoid personally inspecting the find lest the word get about among the crewmen that he had become soft. The most he could do was to delay the grim moment. He stooped over a control lever and ratchet and brushed the dust away from them, pretending to take a special interest in the precise carving, and while doing so watched his men. Their curiosity aroused by Correvalte's reaction, they were taking turns at venturing into the room. None stayed longer than a few seconds, and—professionally callous though they were—each looked subdued and thoughtful as he returned to the main chamber.

I have an appointment in that room, Toller thought, and it would be unseemly to delay any longer.

He straightened up, hand unconsciously falling to the hilt of his sword, and walked to the waiting doorway. The room beyond resembled a prison cell. It was devoid of furniture, and was cheerlessly illuminated by a broken skylight in the sloping roof far above. Ranged around the walls, in the seated position, were perhaps twenty skeletons. The wispy remnants of dresses and skirts, plus the presence of necklaces and ceramic bangles, informed Toller that the skeletons were the remains of women.

It isn't all that bad, he thought. It was a fact of life, a fact of death, that the plague was impartial. It struck down women just as readily as men, and since arriving on this unhappy world I have seen many, many…

His mind seized up, chilled, as he absorbed a fact which had not been readily apparent at first glance. Curled up in the pelvic basin of each of the skeletons was another skeleton—a tiny armature of fragile bones which was all that remained of a baby whose life had ended before it had properly begun.

Yes, the plague had been very impartial.

Toller longed to turn and flee from the room, but the deadly coldness in his mind had percolated down through his body, immobilizing his limbs. Time had become distorted, stretching seconds into eons, and he knew that he was destined to spend the rest of his life frozen to the same spot, on that threshold of pessimism and pure despair.

"The villagers must have put all their pregnant women in here, hoping these walls would protect them," Lieutenant Correvalte said from close behind Toller. "Look! One of them was having twins."

Toller chose not to seek out that refinement of horror. Breaking free of his paralysis, he turned and walked away from the room, acutely aware of being closely scrutinized by every member of his crew.

"Make a note," he said over his shoulder to Correvalte. "Say that we inspected the pumping machinery and found it to be in good condition and capable of being restored to working order in a short time."

"Is that all, sir?"

"I haven't noticed anything else that our sovereign would regard as important," Toller said in casual tones, walking slowly towards the station's entrance, disguising the anxiousness he felt, the pressing need to reassure himself that the sanity of sunshine could still be found in the outside world.

The Migration Day celebrations had taken Toller completely by surprise.

He had completed his survey mission and arrived back at the base camp in Ro-Atabri less than an hour before nightfall, having lost track of the date. Unusually for him, he felt deeply tired. The news that it was Day 226, the anniversary of the first touch-downs on Overland, had failed to strike any spark within him, and he had gone straight to bed after signing his ship over to Fleet Master Codell. Even the word that Vantara had returned to base earlier in the day had not roused him from the pervasive lethargy, the weariness of spirit which was taking the light out of everything.

Now he was lying in darkness in his room, which was part of the quarters which had once housed the guard of the Great Palace, and was quite unable to sleep. He had never been given over to introspection and soul-searching, but he understood very well that his tiredness was not physical in its origins. It was a mental tiredness, a psychic fatigue induced by a long period of doing that for which he had no taste, of going against his own nature.

Before leaving home he had visualized Land as one vast charnel house, and the reality of it had more than conformed to his expectations, culminating in the grisly find at the Sty-vee pumping station. Perhaps he was being self-indulgent. Perhaps—as one born into a privileged position in society—he was having his first taste of what life must be like for a common man who was forced to spend all his days in a kind of toil he detested and which had been forced on him from above. Toller tried reminding himself that his grandfather, that other Toller Maraquine, would not have allowed his composure to be so quickly disturbed. No matter what fearful sights and experiences the real Toller Maraquine had had to contend with he would have deflected the force of them with his shield of toughness and self-sufficiency. But … but…

How do I find room inside my head for twenty skeletons neatly ranged against a wall, with another twenty skeletons curled up inside them in the pelvic cradles? Another twenty-one skeletons, I should have said. Didn't you notice that one of the women was having twins? What are you supposed to do about two little manikins, with whitened twigs in place of bones, who kept each other company in death instead of life?

An extra-loud burst of laughter from somewhere in the palace grounds brought Toller to his feet, swearing in exasperation. Men and women were getting drunk out there, getting themselves into a state in which they could exchange handshakes with skeletons, return the grins of skeletons, and pat unborn babies on their still-bifurcated craniums. It came to Toller that his only prospect of sleep that night lay in dosing himself with large quantities of alcohol.

Welcoming the positive decision, his inner tiredness abating slightly, Toller pulled on some clothes and left the room. Finding his way through unfamiliar corridors with some difficulty, he reached the garden on the north side of the grounds which was the centre of the festivities. It had been chosen because it was mostly paved and therefore had stood up to decades of neglect better than the others. Even the parade ground at the rear of the palace was waist-high in grass and weeds. Several small fires had been lit in the garden, their orange-and-yellow rays partially obscured and softly reflected by ornamental fountains, statues and shrubs, making the place look much larger than it did in daylight.

Couples and small groups strolled through the spangled dimness, while others stood near the long table which had been set up for refreshments. Males outnumbered females by about three to one on the expedition, which meant that women who were in the opposite mood that night were enjoying a surfeit of romantic attention, while males who were redundant in such respects were concentrating on food, drink, song and the telling of bawdy stories.

Toller found Commissioner Kettoran and his secretary, Parlo Wotoorb, standing behind the table serving food and drink. The two old men were obviously enjoying the menial task, proving to all of the company that in spite of their exalted rank they still possessed the common touch.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome," Kettoran called out when he espied Toller approaching. "Come and have a drink with us, young Maraquine."

Toller thought that the commissioner was slightly overplaying his role—perhaps afraid of somebody missing the point—but it was a harmless enough foible, not one he found objectionable. "Thank you—I'll have a very large beaker of Kailian black."

Kettoran shook his head. "No wine. No ale either, for that matter. A question of useful payload on the ships, you see—you will have to settle for brandy."

"Brandy it is then."

"I'll let you have some of the good stuff, in one of my best glasses."

The commissioner sank down to his knees behind the table and a moment later stood up with a glittering crystal filled to the brim. He was handing the glass over when the jovial expression abruptly departed his face and was replaced by one of mingled surprise and pain. Toller took the glass quickly and watched with some concern as Kettoran pressed both forearms against his lower ribcage.

"Trye, are you unwell?" Wotoorb said anxiously. "I told you 'you should take more rest.'"

Kettoran inclined his head briefly towards the secretary, then winked knowingly at Toller. "This old fool thinks he is going to live longer than I am." He smiled, apparently no longer in distress, picked up his own glass and raised it to Toller. "1 bid you good health, young Maraquine."

"Good health to you, sir," Toller said, unable to muster a reciprocal smile.

Kettoran studied his face closely. "Son—I trust you will not think me impertinent—but you no longer seem the young game-cock who captained my ship on the voyage to Land. Something seems to have taken the starch out of you."

"Out of me!" Toller laughed incredulously. "Put your mind at ease, sir—I don't soften up so readily. And now, if you will excuse me…"

He turned and walked away from the table, privately disturbed by the commissioner's comments. If the effects of his malaise could be discerned so quickly by one who scarcely knew him, what chance had he of keeping the respect of his own crewmen? Maintaining discipline was difficult enough at times without having the men begin to regard him as a hothouse plant who was likely to wilt at adversity's first cold breath. He sipped some brandy and walked around the garden close to the perimeter, keeping away from noisier centres of activity, until he found an unoccupied marble bench. Grateful for the solitude, he sat down.

Above him the narrowing crescent of Overland was nested near the centre of the Great Wheel, that enormous whirlpool of silver luminance which dominated the night sky in the latter part of the year. Several comets were splaying their tails across the heavens, and myriads of stars—some of them like coloured coachlamps—added to the splendour, burning with an unwinking permanence which contrasted with the brief dartings of meteors.

Toller addressed himself to his outsized goblet, which must have contained close on a third of a bottle of brandy, downing the warming liquor in patient, regular sips. It was a night on which it would have been good to have female companionship, but even the thought that Vantara might be only a few dozen paces away in the scented gloaming failed to elicit any response from within him. It was also a night for facing up to truths, for discarding illusions, and the plain facts of the matter were that he had made an enemy of the countess on their first meeting as adults, that she despised him now and would go on doing so for as long as he stayed in her memory.

Besides, came the slithering thought, how can you even think of courting a woman when there are twenty-one miniature skeletons watching you?

Toller kept on with his methodical drinking until the goblet was empty, then assessed his condition. In spite of the tiredness he had not yet succeeded in stunning himself with alcohol. There was a perverse wakefulness at the core of his mind which told him that at least one more brimming crystal would be necessary if he were to escape the reproachful gaze of the twenty-one bone-babies and sink into unconsciousness before deepnight engulfed the world.

He stood up, as steady as a well-rooted tree, and was starting in the direction of the table to avail himself of Kettoran's generosity when he saw a woman approaching him. She was slim and dark-haired, and he knew before being able to see her face properly that she was Vantara. She was wearing full uniform—no doubt her way of distancing herself from those officers who were prepared to forget about rank for the sake of the revel—and Toller braced himself for a verbal skirmish. He did not have long to wait.

"What's this?" she said lightly. "No sword? Of course! How silly of me to forget—there aren't any kings ripe for skewering at this little gathering."

Toller nodded, acknowledging the reference to his grandfather, who had been dubbed Kingslayer by the populace of his day. "That's very funny, captain." He made to move past her, but she halted him by placing a hand on his arm.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No." Toller was disconcerted by the unexpected physical contact. "1 would add that I'm going to replenish my glass."

Vantara looked up into his face, frowning slightly as she scanned his features. "What's the matter with you?"

"I fail to understand the question."

"Where is the great warrior, Toller Maraquine the Second, who is immune to bullets? Is he off duty tonight?"

"I was never one for riddles, captain," Toller said stonily. "Now, if I may be excused—I'm ready for another of the commissioner's sleeping potions."

Vantara transferred her grip to the hand in which he held his glass—the warmth of her touch like ambersparks playing on his flesh—and briefly bowed her head over it. "Brandy? Bring one for me, please. But not on such a gigantic scale."

"You want me to bring you a drink?" Toller said, aware of sounding slow-witted.

"Yes—if you don't mind." Vantara sat down and made herself comfortable on the bench. "I'll wait here for you."

Feeling slightly bemused, Toller made his way back to the refreshments table and obtained another huge bumper of brandy for himself and a normal-sized one for Vantara, to the accompaniment of much nodding and winking from Kettoran and Wotoorb. While he was on his way back to the bench a ptertha came drifting across the garden, its bubble-like structure glinting but scarcely visible in the uncertain light. It was ascending in the updraught from one of the fires when it was noticed by a group of the revellers. Whooping with glee, they began throwing large twigs and pebbles at it. One of the sticks flailed through the ptertha and it abruptly ceased to exist. A cheer went up from the onlookers.

"Did you see that?" Vantara said as Toller approached her. "Just listen to them! Overjoyed because they managed to kill something."

"The ptertha killed many of us in their day," Toller replied, unmoved. Including twenty-one unborn babies.

"So you approve of killing them for sport?"

"No, no," Toller said, sensing a return of Vantara's old antagonism and feeling unable to cope with it. "I don't approve of killing anything, for sport or any other reason. I've seen enough of the butchers' handiwork to last me a lifetime." He sat down, handed Vantara her glass and took a sip from his own.

"Is that what's wrong with you?"

"There is nothing wrong with me."

"I know—that's what is wrong with you. Having something wrong is a natural state with…" Vantara paused. "I'm sorry. As well as being too involuted, that was uncalled for."

"Did you ask for that drink merely to occupy your hands?" Toller took a gulp of his brandy, suppressing a grimace as the excessive quantity of the fiery liquid washed into his throat.

"Why are you so determined to get drunk tonight?"

"In the name of…!" Toller gave an exasperated sigh. "Is this your normal mode of conversation? If it is I'd be grateful if you would go and sit elsewhere."

"Again, I apologize." Vantara gave him a placatory smile and sipped from her glass. "Why don't you lead the conversation, Toller?"

The informal and quite intimate use of his given name surprised Toller, adding to the mystery of her change of attitude towards him. He gazed thoughtfully at Vantara and found that in the half-light her face was impossibly beautiful, a concordance of perfect features which might have existed only in the mind of an inspired artist. It occurred to him that one of his fantasies had suddenly and unexpectedly been translated into reality—she, with all of her incredible womanliness, was close beside him. And it was a night for romance. And there was a thrilling softness in her voice. And it was the duty of every human to seize what happiness he could whenever he could—no matter how many tiny skeletons he had looked upon—because nature produced millions of beings of every species for the precise reason that some of them were bound to be unfortunate, and if a member of the lucky majority failed to savour life to the full that would be a betrayal of the few who had been sacrificed on his behalf. It was now up to him to make the maximum effort to win the object of all his desires by attracting her to him with his qualities of strength, courage, consideration, fortitude, knowledge, humour, generosity. Perhaps a well-turned compliment would be the best way to begin.

"Vantara, you look so…" He paused, aware of the scrutiny of eyes that no longer existed in twenty-one fist-sized skulls, and listened like a bystander to the words which were issuing from his mouth. "What is happening here? Usually when we meet you behave like an arrogant bitch, and now—all of a sudden—we're on first-name terms and the very air is suffused with warmth and friendliness. What private scheme are you about?"

Vantara laughed and gasped at the same time. "Arrogance! You talk to me about arrogance! You who always approach a woman with your male armour clanking and your phallic sword swinging through the air!"

"That is the most twisted and…"

Vantara silenced him by raising one hand, fingers spread out, as a barrier between their eyes and mouths. "Say no more. Toller, I beg you! Neither of us is wearing armour on this night and therefore either of us could easily be wounded. Let us accept things the way they are for this single hour; let us have this drink together; and let us talk to each other. Will you agree to that?"

Toller smiled. "How could any reasonable man refuse?"

"Very well! Now, tell me why you are no longer the Toller Maraquine I have always known."

"We've returned to the same subject!"

"We never left it."

"But…" Toller gazed at her in perplexity for a moment, and then the unthinkable happened—he began to speak freely about what was in his mind, to confess his newly discovered weaknesses, to admit his growing belief that he would never be able to live up to the example set for him by his grandfather. At one point, while he was describing the tragic find at the pumping station in Sty-vee, his voice faltered and he experienced a terrible fear that he would be unable to continue. When he had finished he took another drink of his brandy, but found it was no longer to his taste. He set the glass aside and sat staring down at his hands, wondering why he felt as shaky as a man who had just emerged from the most harrowing ordeal of his life.

"Poor Toller," Vantara said gently. "What has life done to you that you should be ashamed of having finer feelings?"

"You mean, of being weak."

"It isn't weakness to feel compassion, or to experience doubt, or to need human contact."

Toller thought he glimpsed a way of repairing some of the cracks in his personal facade. "I could do with lots of human contact," he said wryly. "Provided it's the right sort."

"Don't talk like that, Toller—there is no need for it." Vantara set her own glass down and swung one leg over the bench so that she was sitting facing him. "Very well, you may touch me if you want to."

"This is not the way I…" Toller fell silent as Vantara took his hands and guided them on to her breasts. They felt warm and firm, even through the thickly embroidered material of her captain's jupon. He moved closer.

"Pray do not misunderstand," Vantara whispered. "I am not going to share your bed—this degree of human contact is sufficient for the needs of the hour." Her lips parted slightly, inviting him to kiss, and he accepted the invitation as in a dream, scarcely able to believe what was happening. The utter femininity of her swamped his senses, reducing the sounds in the garden to a remote murmur. Vantara and he held the same position for a long but indeterminate time, perhaps ten minutes, perhaps twenty, repeating the kiss over and over again, tirelessly, feeling no need to vary or advance the act of physical communion. And when finally they separated Toller felt replenished, restored to completeness. He smiled at Vantara and she responded, his smile grew wider and suddenly they were laughing. Toller was aware of a sense of relief and relaxation akin to that which followed sexual congress, but it was more pervasive and had a component which hinted at greater permanence.

"I don't know what you did to me," he said. "An apothecary could grow rich if he could put such a remedy in a jar."

"I didn't do anything."

"But you did! I had become so weary of this old planet that even the circumnavigation flight was beginning to pail on me. Now, all at once, I'm looking forward to it again. We will not actually be together when we take to the skies, but I'll be continuously in sight of your ship, day after day, and at night there'll be no landing in graveyard cities. I'll see to that. We can…"

"Toller!" Vantara looked oddly wary. "I told you not to misinterpret what has taken place between us."

"I am presuming nothing, I assure you," Toller said quickly and easily, knowing he was lying, filled with an exulting new certainty that in this respect he knew Vantara better than she knew herself. "All I am saying is—"

"Forgive me for interrupting," Vantara cut in, "but you are making one rather large presumption."

"And that is…?"

"That I will be taking part in the flight."

Toller was jolted. "How can you not take part? You're here because you're an air captain, and the round-the-globe flight is the most important part of the entire mission. Sky-commodore Sholdde will not excuse you from it."

Vantara smiled in a way that was almost shame-faced. "I confess that I was anticipating some difficulty in that direction, but it transpires that my beloved grandmother—the Queen—had foreseen this kind of thing happening, and had given the commodore instructions that my requests were not to be denied." She smiled again. "I have a feeling he will shed very few tears when I leave."

"Leave?" Toller understood exactly what Vantara was saying, but his lips framed the question nevertheless. "Where do you intend to go?"

"Home, of course. I despise this tired and gloomy world even more than you do, Toller—so tomorrow I will escape from it by flying to Overland, and I doubt if anything will ever persuade me to come back here." Vantara stood up, symbolically breaking the bonds of Land's gravity, putting the interplanetary chasm between herself and Toller, and when she spoke again her voice contained a note of casual insincerity which he felt like a blow to the face.

"Perhaps we will meet again in Prad—in some future year."