‘Yes, congratulations,’ Soli said. ‘But the pilot’s ring seems a little small for your finger. Let’s hope your pilot’s vows aren’t too great for your spirit.’
My mother cocked her head as she pointed at Soli’s chest and said, ‘What spirit remains? Within the Lord Pilot? A tired, bitter spirit. Don’t speak to my son of spirit.’
‘Shall we speak of life, then? Yes, we shall speak of life: Let’s hope Mallory lives long enough to enjoy the life of a new pilot. If there was a tumbler of skotch at hand we’d toast to the glorious but too short lives of foolish young pilots.’
‘The Lord Pilot,’ my mother said quickly, ‘is too proud of his own long life.’
Justine grasped Soli’s arm while she brought her full, pouting lips to his ear and began whispering. He broke away and said to me, ‘You were probably drunk when you swore your oath. And your Lord Pilot was certainly drunk. Therefore, my lovely wife informs me, we’ve only to announce that the whole thing was a joke, and we are both finished with this foolishness.’
Beneath the silk of my robe, I felt hot sweat running down my sides in rivulets as I asked, ‘You would do that, Lord Pilot?’
‘Who knows? Who knows his fate?’ He turned to Katharine and asked, ‘Have you seen his future? What will be done with Mallory? Should he be kept from his fate? “To die among the stars is the most glorious death” – that’s what the Tycho said before he disappeared into the Solid State Entity. Maybe Mallory will succeed where our greatest pilot failed. Should he be kept from fate and glory? Tell me, my lovely scryer.’
Everyone looked at Katharine as she stood there calmly listening to Soli. She must have sensed their stares because she put her hand into the side pocket of her robe, ‘the pocket of concealment,’ where the scryers keep their tub of blacking oil. When she removed her hand, her forefinger was covered with a cream so black that it shed no light; it was as if she had no finger, as if a miniature black hole existed in the space that her finger occupied. According to the custom of the scryers she daubed the oil into the hollows of her eyepits, coating the scars with concealing blackness. I looked at the hollows above her high cheekbones; it was like looking down two dark, mysterious tunnels into her soul where windows should have been. I looked at her for only a moment before I had to look away.
I was about to tell my sarcastic, arrogant uncle that I would do as I had sworn no matter what he decided when Katharine let out a clear, girlish laugh and said, ‘Mallory’s fate is his fate, and nothing can change … Except, Father, that you have changed it and always will have …’ And here she laughed again, and continued, ‘But in the end we choose our futures, do you see?’
Soli did not see, and neither did I nor anyone else. Who could understand the paradoxical, irritating sayings of the scryers?
Just then Bardo ambled over and thumped me on the back. He bowed to Justine and smiled before quickly looking away. Bardo – he had always tried to keep it a secret, but he could not – lusted for my aunt. I did not think that she lusted for him, nor did she quite approve of his brazen sexuality, though in truth, they were alike in one certain way: They both loved physical pleasure, and cared little for the past, nothing at all for the future. After being introduced to Katharine, he bowed to Soli and said, ‘Lord Pilot, has Mallory apologized for his barbaric behaviour last night? No? Well, I’ll apologize for him because he’s much too proud to apologize, and only I know how sorry he really is.’
‘Pride kills,’ Soli said.
‘“Pride kills,”’ Bardo repeated as he smoothed his black moustache with the side of his thumb. ‘Of course it does! But where does Mallory get his pride from? I’ve been his roommate for twelve years, and I know. “Soli is mapping the core stars,” he used to say. “Soli almost proved the Great Theorem.” Soli this, and Soli that – do you know what he says when I tell him he’s insane for wasting time practising his speed strokes? He says, “When Soli became a pilot, he won the pilot’s race, and so shall I.”’
He was referring, of course, to the race between the new pilots and the older ones held every year just after the convocation. For many, it is the high point of the Tycho’s Festival.
I was sure that my face was red. I could hardly bear to look at my uncle as he said, ‘Then tomorrow’s race should be challenging. No one has beaten me for …’ His eyes suddenly clouded, and his voice trembled, slightly, and he continued, ‘for a long time.’
We spent a short while debating the aerodynamics of racing. I held that a low tuck was more efficient, but Soli pointed out that in a long race – as tomorrow’s race would be – a low tuck quickly burned out the muscles of the thigh, and that one must practise restraint.
Our conversation was cut short when ten red-robed horologes marched out on to the dais and took their places by the Timekeeper, five to either side. In unison they sang out, ‘Silence, it is time! Silence, it is time!’ and there was a sudden silence in the Hall. Then the Timekeeper stepped forward, and he announced his summons and called the quest for the Elder Eddas. ‘The secret of Man’s immortality,’ he told us, ‘lies in our past and in our future.’ I felt Katharine’s shoulder brush my own, and I was shocked (and excited) to feel her long fingers quickly and secretly squeeze my hand. I listened to the Timekeeper repeat the message that Soli had brought back from the core; I listened and for a moment I was enraptured with dreams of discovering great things. Then I happened to look at Soli’s brooding eyes, and I did not care if I did great things. In my single-minded way I cared about only a single thing: that I should beat Soli in the pilot’s race. ‘We must search for the mystery,’ the Timekeeper continued. ‘If we search, we will discover the secret of life and save ourselves.’ At that moment I did not care about secrets or salvation. What I wanted, simply, was to defeat a proud, arrogant man.
I had resolved to return to my room and to sleep until the sun was high above the slopes of Urkel, but I had not counted on the excitement that the Timekeeper’s summons would arouse. The halls of our dormitory – and indeed, all of Resa – rang from the happy cries and shouts of pilots and journeymen and masters. Against my wishes, our rooms became a nexus for the night’s celebrations. Chantal Astoreth and Delora wi Towt arrived with three of their neologician friends from Lara Sig. Bardo distributed pipefuls of toalache, and the revelry began. It was a wild, magic night; it was a night of tremulously announced plans to reach Old Earth or to map the Tycho’s nebula, to fulfil our vow to seek wisdom as befitted our individual talents and dreams. Soon our two adjoining rooms were thick with blue smoke and carpeted from wall to wall with excited pilots and various other professionals who had heard about the party. Li Tosh, who was a gentle man with bright, quick almond eyes, announced his plan to reach the homeworld of the trickster aliens, the Darghinni. ‘It’s said that they’ve studied the history of the nebular brains,’ he told us. ‘Perhaps when I return, I’ll have enough courage to penetrate the Entity, too.’ Hideki Smith would sculpt his body into the weird, cruel shape of the Fayoli; he would journey to one of their planets and try to pose as one of them in hope of learning their secrets. Not to be outdone, red-haired Quirin proposed to journey to Agathange, where he would ask the porpoise-like men – who had long ago broken the law of the Civilized Worlds and had carked their DNA so that they were now more than men – he would ask the wise Agathanians about the secret of human life. I must admit that there were many sceptics such as Bardo who did not believe that the Ieldra possessed any great secret. But even the most sceptical of these pilots – Richardess and the Sonderval came immediately to mind – were eager to be off into the manifold. To them the quest