The honored mother shook her head. "Not all. There are some things hidden away, crucial secrets. But there is evidence that the compound mind went to great lengths to uncover them. And to transmit them from Legis."
"Why don't you ask it?"
The adept frowned. "Have you . . . spoken with this abomination?"
Rana sighed, her mind returning to the halcyon days of her captivity, learning the Rix language and working under Alexander's guidance on necessary changes to the entanglement facility. Rana remembered the embrace of the compound mind, the security of knowing that practically every object on the planet was imbued with her lover's protector.
"Spoken is the wrong word, Mother. But let me use the infostruc-ture, and perhaps I can find an answer for you."
The adept shook her head. "Alexander no longer exists."
For a second, Rana felt one of the vanquished emotions of the living. Shock coursed through her, a sudden fire. The Other calmed it.
"How?"
"We don't know. It seems to have fled. Or perhaps it simply ceased to exist."
Rana closed her eyes, calling on her brainbug. She thought of the work she had done, when Alexander had helped her through the intricacies of the translight communication facility. The floating synesthesia icons of their researches appeared in memory, their meanings inflected by whatTrevim had just reported.
Here in the arid place inside her dead woman's eyes, Rana's brainbug was different. It moved with new surety, open and confident where once it had been furtive. She could guide her ability now, instead of having to turn her mind away to give it freedom.
In a few minutes, she saw the answer.
"Alexander sent itself away."
The honored mother swallowed.
"Did it know?" As she said these words, pain seemed to cross her face. Odd to see Dain in a dead woman.
"Did it know what?"
Trevim's features contorted again. "The Emperor's Secret," she gasped.
Rana narrowed her eyes.
"Are you well, Honored Mother?"
Adept Trevim wiped her brow, the gray skin of which shone with a milky-looking sweat. "It is forbidden to speak of it," she managed, "to one uninitiated."
Rana Harter looked down at her bedclothes. Her mind moved lightly across the weeks she'd spent in the shadow of Alexander. The brainbug searched for clues to what the adept might be talking about. But there was no purchase for the question; the evidence was insufficient.
"Mother, I know nothing about this."
Trevim sighed, making the crude facial movements that showed a living person's relief. Then she nodded. "I hoped you would not."
Trevim stood silent for a few minutes, regaining her composure by staring at the engaging blackness of the walls.
"You will go on a journey now, Rana."
"Where?"
"To meet the Emperor. He would speak to you of this."
"Home?"
"Yes. A great honor."
Rana frowned. The trip would take ten years Absolute. "But where is Herd?" she asked.
"Your Rix captor?" The adept's face seemed to hold distress again. How agitated she was for a dead woman. The Other in Rana rippled with cool displeasure.
"Yes."
"Don't think of her, Rana. You must let that unfortunate episode pass into memory. You don't need such attachments anymore."
Rana closed her eyes, thinking of the Rixwoman. When she opened them again, the honored mother was gone, leaving Rana alone with the question.
Would her love for Herd really slip away?
She stared at the walls and considered. The afterlife was clean, and pure, and good. The propaganda of the grays was true. Fear was vanquished now, the Old Enemy death had been beaten, and with it pain and need.
But Rana Harter shook her head in quiet disagreement with the honored mother's words. She knew that she would always miss that other heaven, those weeks with her Rix lover that had changed everything. That time with Herd had been so short. The alien woman had given her happiness, had somehow placed her on the path to immortality.
Most of all, the alien Herd had been beautiful, even more so than this wondrous blackness.
Rana wanted to see her. Desired-- no other word was correct--the alien lemongrass of her touch. Where was her lover now?
The Other calmed these thoughts before they grew too anxious. It explained that the still-living were never suitable companions for the dead. The pinks were like spoiled children, petty and tempestuous. They were ugly creatures, squalling brats who vied constantly for attention, for the baubles of wealth and power. They were blind to the subtle beauties of the darkness. The dead rightly kept themselves apart.
You don't know Herd, Rana Harter thought.
The Other was silent at this, as if it were a bit surprised.
And Rana closed her eyes, slipping back across the red horizon onto the calm, arid plane of death, and soon was smiling, an odd expression for a dead woman.
Executive Officer
Katherie Hobbes awoke.
She felt strangely rested. For the first time in weeks, her body wasn't full of nervous tension. But her sight was blurred, and all that she could comprehend of her surroundings were a few pastel planes, the restful hues of sickbav.
Hobbes tried to move.
Medically restrained, said a machine voice in second hearing.
"Shit," she said, remembering her knee. She blinked gumminess from her eyes and tried to look down the length of her prone body.
Standing at the foot of her bed was a figure whose stance she recognized even through the haze. Laurent Zai, "They said you'd be coming around." "How long, sir?" Her voice was dry and frail.
"Ten hours. Five hypersleep cycles."
A whole day, Hobbes thought. And she couldn't remember a single dream. The last time she'd slept more than two straight hours had been before the hostage-taking. It was strange to remember that time could go on while she was asleep. Despite this disorienting news, however, Hobbes's mind felt clearer than it had in days.
"Who cut out the drive, sir?"
He smiled. "Frick."
Of course. The first engineer could operate any aspect of the ship from his synesthesia interface. It was lucky he'd been on the bridge, and not knocked unconscious on one of the wildly spinning aft-decks of engineering.
"But you made a valiant try, I see," Zai added.
He glanced down at her left knee. Hobbes lifted her neck, straining to see her legs, but all she could see was a network of traction bars and a few glistening nano drips traveling down into shrouded flesh.