Incandescence

He said, «I'll take the address.» He glanced at Parantham. «I assume I'm not required to go alone?»

Lahl said, «Take an entourage. Take a caravan.» She held out her hand, the fist closed, then opened her fingers to reveal a glass key sitting on her palm, an icon for all the data she wished to convey to him. As Rakesh reached for it, she said sharply, «This is your duty now. Your burden. You do understand that?»

He hesitated. «What exactly are you asking me to promise? I can't be certain that I'll find this planet.»

«Of course not.» Lahl frowned, perhaps wondering what distortions her perfectly lucid chemical emanations were suffering in translation. «Succeed or fail, though, you'll see it through?»

Rakesh nodded gravely, reluctant to press her for details lest they transform this reasonable-sounding commitment into some far more rigorous obligation.

He took the key from her, and she stood.

«Farewell then, Rakesh.» The scape drew her as almost literally unburdened, her bearing visibly more relaxed and graceful, as if she'd been freed of a physical load.

The four friends rose. As Lahl walked away across the mesa, Rakesh peeked at her version of the scape. A long, translucent, segmented creature pushed its way briskly through a dense carpet of decaying vegetable matter, beneath an overcast sky.

Csi called after her, «Enjoy the reunion!»

Rakesh restored his normal vision and looked around the table. Parantham was jealously eyeing the key in his hand.

Viya smiled. «You're not really going to do this?» She sounded as if she'd be unsurprised if he shook his head and casually pitched the key over the edge of the mesa.

«Of course I am,» Rakesh replied. «I gave my word.»

«To whom, exactly?» Csi asked. «For all you know, she was just some de novo that the Aloof created and spat out as bait.»

«Bait? If they wanted visitors, all they had to do was stop turning us away. We never needed luring.»

«We never would have gone in this way by choice,» Csi said. «With no guarantee of integrity. Once you're in, they can send you wherever they like, and do whatever they want with you.»

Rakesh said, «Why would they want to harm me? Anyway, people taking the short cut have been checked, and there have never been any violations found.»

«What proportion have been checked?» Viya asked. «One in a thousand? And the data passing through the network is classical, remember. Even if the original transmission comes through intact, that doesn't prove it hasn't been copied. If you go in without encryption, there'll be nothing they can't do to you.»

«All right, it's a risk, I admit it. The Aloof might be deranged sadists who clone travelers in order to torture them for eternity.» Rakesh was disappointed. He had no shortage of doubts about the wisdom of his decision, but he'd expected more from Viya and Csi than this timidity masquerading as sophistication.

None of them had come to the node with the intention of staying for a tenth as long as they had. Half their time was spent debating the best way to move on, inventing one fanciful scheme after another, hunting for ways to build up momentum lest they end up stranded, or worse: slinking back to their home worlds with nothing to show for the millennia, or simply drifting aimlessly on through the network.

He held up the key. «This is what I came here for. I'm not going to sit at this table for another century, waiting for something better.»

Csi adopted a conciliatory tone. «We all get bored, Rakesh. We all get frustrated. But that's no reason to fall for the first scam artist who comes along.»

Parantham said, «If it's a prank, what happens? We cross the bulge, the Aloof ignore us, and we end up on the other side of the galaxy. We lose fifty millennia, but we gain new surroundings, and the minor daredevil status that comes from having taken the short cut.»

«And if it's a trap?» Viya asked. «If the Aloof really do mean you harm?»

Parantham hesitated before replying; Rakesh waited gleefully to hear her pour scorn on the idea.

She said, «That's what backups are for.»

2

As the work party dispersed, Roi headed for the nearest tunnel. The warm buzz of cooperation was fading, giving way to a faint sense of melancholy, and she needed to get away from the wind and the weight to a place where she could rest.