The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(76)

“People can be a problem,” Marce acknowledged. “But your people didn’t seem to have those issues.”

“Not at first, at least,” Chenevert said. “But then you told me that Dalasysla was only made functional again for a few short decades. Whatever chaos visited the original Dalasyslans also seems to have visited them.”

“You were asleep by then?”

“Yes. I was awake long enough to see them get the habitat up and running again, and then I put myself to sleep.”

“When did you”—Marce motioned to Chenevert—“make the transition?”

“Almost as soon as we arrived,” Chenevert said. “I was already dying when we left, Lord Marce. I used to like to joke that I was like Moses. I took my people out of Egypt and showed them the promised land, but wasn’t able to go there myself. I was told I was being melodramatic, which was entirely correct. I like a bit of melodrama now and then. And also, I wasn’t too worried about it. I knew when my body died, I had this to look forward to. It made death rather less traumatic.”

“It’s amazing.”

“It’s very old tech,” Chenevert said. “Some improvements have been made to it, but it’s basically a centuries-old design. Given your reaction I don’t assume anything like it is very common in the Interdependency.”

“Not at all.”

“Well, it is also very expensive and fussy. You have to really want it. I did, and took it with me, and integrated it into the ship.”

“Do you like being a ship?”

“It’s mostly very pleasant,” Chenevert said. “I miss certain physical things, like eating and sex. Sometimes I debate myself which I miss more. At the moment eating has the edge. But I like still being alive most of all.”

“And yet you put yourself to sleep.”

“Well, that was a practical decision. I was operating on the idea that one day the Flow streams that had trapped us at Dalasysla might reopen, and whoever of my crew was left might want to go back to see if the situation had improved. Alternately that others might come, and if they weren’t friendly for whatever reason, it would be useful to have a ship with weapons nearby. I had thought this might be in the twenty-or thirty-year window, rather than three hundred years.”

“You could have woken yourself up.”

“I enjoyed sleeping. I never did enough of it when I was human. I think I’m almost caught up now.”

“The Dalasyslans—the ones now—remember you and your crew telling them that others would come. It’s one reason they didn’t seem all that surprised when we arrived. It was almost like prophecy for them.”

“I don’t know that we tried to make it sound like that,” Chenevert said. “I think we had just made the point that more people might come if the Flow stream ever opened up again. Time has a funny way of distorting things, Lord Marce. But then, you did also arrive just as they needed you. And you bought them a considerable amount of time with your gifts.”

“A wrecked spaceship and two shuttles that will run out of power soon,” Marce said.

“Or perhaps they won’t run out of power soon, because the Dalasyslans are exceedingly clever. No one can scavenge and make do like a Dalasyslan. That was certainly the case in my time, and it appears to be the case now. And while your arrival might not have actually been divinely ordained, the fact that you arrived when you did and gave them so many tools to survive must have looked miraculous to them. In which case the ‘prophecy’ came true for them. Or true enough, which in my experience is how prophecy works.”

“You have much experience with prophecy?” Marce asked.

“Enough, in this case,” Chenevert said. “Speaking of which, talk to me more about your Interdependent Church.” And then the two of them went on, talking about everything possible except too much of Chenevert’s life.

As they counted down the seconds until they arrived in Hub space, Marce decided whatever Chenevert had been in his previous life, in this one he seemed a pretty decent fellow.

“Here we go,” Hanton said, watching his monitor. “Aaaaaaand … arrival. We’re in Hub space.”

“I’m not seeing anything being flung at us with murderous intent,” Chenevert said to Hanton, after a few seconds. “You?”

“Nothing coming at us,” Hanton agreed. “I do see three small objects floating by the Flow shoal.”

“I see them too,” Chenevert said. On the command monitor one of these objects appeared as the Auvergne’s cameras zoomed in on it.

“It’s a monitoring craft,” Sergeant Sherrill said. “They’re at nearly every exit shoal. Records the ship and its arrival time against filed schedules.”

“I can guarantee there were no filed schedules for this ship,” Marce said. “Or this exit shoal.”

“Is it an Interdependency monitor? Or one from the Wus?” PFC Gamis asked.

“They’re all made by the Wus no matter what,” Hanton said. “Shipbuilding is their specialty.”

“Regardless of whose it is, we’re spotted,” Sherrill said, and looked over to Marce. “What do you want to do?”

“I think we need to march right down the lane,” Marce said.