Starship Fall (Starship Seasons, #2)(13)

Hawk said, “Kee...” and only then did I make out her slight figure, third in line, and I understood.

“Christ...” Hawk said. “It’s time for the next intake. I’ve got to go through all that again!”

The dozen Ashentay approached the long-house. Kee paused, then deviated from her route and came to Hawk. She laid a tiny hand on his tanned forearm and whispered in English, “This I must do, Hawk.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Aren’t you happy with what we’ve got?”

She gave a sad smile, perhaps at his incomprehension. “Of course I am happy; I have never been happier. But there comes a time when we must look ahead, and give thanks to our creator that we have the opportunity to perceive what the future holds.”

“But I don’t see why, what benefit...” Hawk began. “And the danger. Kee, I don’t want to lose you!”

She reached up and touched his cheek, having to stand on tip-toe to do so. “We must accept, Hawk. Isn’t that what life is about, after all? An acceptance, an accommodation with one’s fate?”

“No!” Hawk began.

The old man barked a peremptory command.

Kee smiled at Hawk once more and made to move.

Hawk took her by the shoulders, pulled her to him and held her. The disparity between her elfin slimness and his ursine solidity would have been comical, were it not so tragic. He was weeping, and she closed her eyes and accepted his embrace with an expression of infinite calm.

He let her go, reluctantly, and she turned and followed her fellows up the ramp, and disappeared into the shadows of the long-house.

Qah approached Hawk and spoke to him. He nodded and replied.

“What?” Maddie asked.

“The ritual could take as long as ten, twelve hours,” he said. “I’m staying here–”

Matt said, “Hawk, there’s nothing you can do. You’d be torturing yourself. Look, let’s go back to the clearing, set up camp. I have some imported whiskey. We could eat, have a drink...”

“Matt’s right,” Maddie said. “There’s absolutely nothing we can do here. Let’s get something to eat, and we’ll get back here well before the ritual’s ended.”

Hawk looked at the long-house, his expression stricken. I took his shoulder and shook him. “C’mon, Hawk. I’ve never known you turn down a meal.”

Hawk nodded, then spoke to Qah. She replied, and he translated, “She said she’ll come and find us when the ritual’s nearly finished.”

We made our way from the chamber and back up the narrow tunnel to the waterfall. The sun had set and the Ring of Tharssos was illuminating the sheer fall of water so that it looked, as we emerged, like some expensive lighting effect. Carefully we moved along the ledge and out onto the clearing. The Ring was a vivid slash of silver arcing across the heavens, and beyond it I made out the bright scatter of stars.

Matt fetched our backpacks from where we’d dumped them and we set up camp.

It was a warm night, so we elected not to erect the domes but to sleep out in the open. Matt fixed a meal and broke out the promised whiskey, and we sat around in a circle and ate and drank.

Matt chatted about the project he was working on now, the emotion spheres, and how he hoped they would eventually go on tour around the Expansion. I always enjoyed listening to Matt talk shop. I glanced at Hawk; he was watching Matt but his expression was distant as he gripped his glass, taking measured sips from time to time.

After the meal, and after we’d worked our way halfway down the bottle, Matt rolled out the inflatable sleeping bags and we turned in. Matt and Maddie lay together, Hawk beside them and myself at the end. I lay and stared at the scintillating stars.

Hawk said, as if to himself, “It’s all so bloody primitive! Why put yourself at such stupid risk? Who the hell wants to know what the future has in store, anyway?”

Maddie said, “They are different, Hawk. You know that. You must respect their ways.”

Hawk said, “I know, Maddie. I know that. But even so… Christ, if I lost her, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.”

Matt said, “She’ll be fine, Hawk. I know it.”

Hawk fell silent, and I slipped into sleep.

I was awoken twice, once by Hawk muttering in his sleep, and much later by a noise to our left. I rolled over and stared across the clearing. The light of the Ring was sufficient to illuminate a procession of tiny, fine-boned aliens – their chatter like the babble of running water – as they made their way towards the sacred caverns. The next dozen participants in the smoking ritual, I thought, before drifting off again.

* * *

I awoke shortly before dawn to find Maddie pushing at my shoulder. “David, get up. It’s time.”

I groaned and rolled over. Qah stood beside Hawk, who was struggling into his jacket. “She says the ritual’s almost over. We’d better get going.”

I washed the sleep from my eyes with a canister of water, and Maddie handed out bottles of juice. We drank as we hurried through the warm dawn, the sun rising bloody at our backs and sending our elongated shadows stretching ahead.

Qah led the way along the ledge behind the waterfall, Hawk close on her heels. I followed Matt and Maddie, dread lodged in my heart. What if Kee had succumbed to the smoke? I contemplated the prospect, and I wondered if some compensatory fate was about to strike, equalising the balance: we’d had a fine few years together as a group of friends, victim of neither tragedy nor hardship. Perhaps this was when the good times came to a terrible end.