"Corbinye!" Again, voice crackling on the edge of familiarity. She opened her eyes, more out of a desire to see the fool who so ardently wished his arm broken than because the tone commanded her.

  "So." Anjemalti's face, grime-streaked and stark, hung over hers, almost near enough to kiss. So like him, she thought wearily, to choose a blow instead.

  "So," she managed in turn, and tried to right herself, only to be pinned where she lay by astonishingly gentle hands on her shoulders.

  "Rest a moment, Corbinye. You struck your head—and lucky you didn't slice it open. It was enough to stun, though—"

  "My ship," she cut him off brusquely as memory returned. "What has that damned thing done to my ship, Anjemalti?" She struggled, the hands lifted away and she sat up, though her ears rang with the effort of it and her vision swam.

  "The ship appears unharmed," he said, amazingly mild.

  "Have you been to the bridge?" she snarled. "Have you run systems checks? That—monster—swallows my ship and you tell me it seems unharmed? I'll tell you plain—cousin—it's my opinion that my ship isn't all it's swallowed!"

  His cheeks flamed scarlet and his mouth tightened ominously. "And just what is that plain speaking meant to say?"

  "Only that it's gained possession of your mind; made its own existence paramount, so that you risk Ship and Captain and—aye!—Crew to aid it. Damn the Ship, you dared to tell me, Anjemalti—recall it? Well, I say, damn that fool stick! Space it and have done; cease toying with destiny—you have destiny! You have folk who need you, who wait on your arrival! Seven hours until you're home—"

  "Home." His mouth was hard, and his eyes. He turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. "You hear my cousin, friend? She claims that the Smiter has eaten both her ship and myself."

  "It is not Recalled that the Smiter has ever eaten any but enemies, Anjemalti; though Chiefs and Seekers have fallen valorously, striving with it to bend event." There was a slight pause while Corbinye strained to see him around Anjemalti's shoulders, and failed.

  "As for the ship—it is all around us. That the Smiter did taste of it seems certain. Newly wakened to fullness, it would require information regarding its location within the state of event. That the Smiter has swallowed ships is Remembered. Witnessing does not support the theory that this ship has been swallowed."

  Anjemalti looked at her, eyes sapphire-bright, sapphire-hard. "Satisfied?"

  "Oh, certainly!" she cried, rolling away from him and coming to her feet, despite all the body's protest. "I shall take the word of a madman who claims memories a thousand years old that my ship is intact and that—" she pointed at the Trident, quiescent now among the litter, ringed around with spiders "—is my best friend, second only to my Captain in commanding my trust! My heart is eased, Anjemalti—behold my calmness, my tranquillity. In seven hours, you are home and I wash my hands of you both!" She turned toward the hall, foot clinking against the fallen teacup.

  "Corbinye Faztherot?" Witness was looking at her from bright brown eyes.

  "What madness now?" she snapped.

  "Only that the Memories I may draw upon are much older than a mere thousand of your standardized years," he said mildly. "I thought it meet that you should know it."

  She closed her eyes; drew breath for the gods only knew what retort.

  "Saxony Belaconto is most likely even now on course for Bindal," said Anjemalti.

  She opened her eyes wide at him. "No concern of mine where the bitch goes, so long as she fails to come alongside the Ship."

  "She will terrorize the Bindalche," Anjemalti persisted, as if it had something to do with her—or with him. "She'll kill for hesernym, enslave who might not die—"

  "You forget The Combine," she said sweetly; "Bindal is well-protected."

  He brushed that aside with an impatient hand, snapped to his feet and stood over her, face and eyes intent. "We must go to Bindal," he said, slow and excruciatingly calm. "We must return the Smiter and the Witness to the Telios. A Seeker will come forth from the ranks of the Bindalche. The Smiter is rewired—functioning as it should. With it the Seeker and the Bindalche will be able to repel the Vornet." He paused, then repeated. "We must go to Bindal."

  Corbinye sighed. "Well, and if you must, Anjemalti, who am I to tell you nay? I only do my duty, as given me by Acting Captain and First Mate Mael Faztherot. That duty is to bring her Captain-to-be Anjemalti Kristefyon, so that his Crew may know him and he may be about the business for which he was foretold." She shrugged and decided against bending to retrieve the cup. All were lost, should she swoon again. . ..

  "And if I require you to give over command of this ship to me?"

  "As much as it must grieve me to disobey the Captain-to-be, he is not as yet the Captain-in-fact," she said, though her heart wept for the lie.

  His face was tight, but he asked the question anyway, voice deadly soft. "And if I take command of this ship?"

  "Alas," she said, her own voice as soft, and meeting his eyes most straightly. "I have anticipated you, I fear, cousin. The board is geared for my hand only; Navigation requires a set response to an imposed list of queries. If my hand fails and even one question is answered incorrectly, this ship dies." She gestured, encompassing Witness, spiders, Trident—himself. "And all within it."

  "My duty shall be dispatched with honor," she said, though she wanted only to weep at the look of his face. "It has always been so, and with all else that has changed for me, this will not."

  Silence, except for the rattling hum of the air scrubbers, valiantly striving against the odor of epoxy and fear. Corbinye licked her lips. "Seven hours, Anjemalti."

  "Seven hours, Corbinye," he returned, dead-voiced, and showed her his back.

  Swallowing hard against nausea and dizziness, she went out of the cabin and down the hall, feeling nothing but ashes where her heart should be, and no joy at all that she had won the bluff.

  She went and sat in the pilot's chair to wait the hours out, and if she cried while she sat there, none knew it, for even Number Fifteen did not come near.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Gardenspot, fifth to be commissioned of a Class of 36 GenerationShips designed, patented and built by Doctor Sir Albee K. Messenger of GriffithPod L5, Father of the Crew, hung in viewscreens six through nine.

  Corbinye allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation. "Pretty piloting indeed," she murmured approvingly, and felt a quiver as Number Fifteen stirred beneath her collar. She ran the board-checks and flipped open the hailing frequency. Although still too distant for rational conversation, they would have read her ID by now, and news of Anjemalti's presence must be published as soon—

  "Tight piloting," Anjemalti's voice was in her ear a bare instant before he hit the second's chair. She glanced over at him, noting that he had bathed and cleaned his clothing and perhaps even rested. His shining hair was tied neatly back with a strip of ribbon. The side of his face was what he showed her, so she could not read him that way; his eyes were all on the screens.

  "Thanks to you, for your praise," Corbinye said softly; still he did not look at her, but only stared at the Ship.

  Well, she thought suddenly, and why should he not? Nine years old when last he saw so brave a sight. Let it fill his heart now and recall to him the magnificence of his heritage. Let him be made proud, who had forgotten so much of what it was to be Crew. Let him weep with the glory of it and with the joy of—

  "In hard need of repair, isn't she?" Anjemalti murmured, with no hint of awe in his voice.

  Corbinye started, raked a glance at the screens and spun back to him. "What's meant by that?"

  He blinked as if startled by her vehemence and flicked his own glance at the screens before shrugging. "I meant no offense—and it is difficult to tell without full magnification. But just from what I see here—that scar in the fifth quad where something's been ripped free of the hull—not recently. Solars are missing, and the master vane in the third quad seems out of true. . .."

  Corbinye opened her mouth—and closed it, for how could she rebut the truth? She bent to the board and ran the full check series again, although there was no need.

  "I see its glory," she said, hearing the sullen note in her voice and wishing it were gone. "Its past splendor. It is home, Anjemalti, though the past years have not been—kind—to us. There have not been so many contracts with the Grounders, and, we have, after all, our own troubles with The Combine, that thinks all of space belongs to it, to police and to say who goes where and who may not enter at all." She sighed.

  "Truth told, to many of the Crew less contact with Grounders seemed not a bad thing, but a good."

  He frowned. "There is no Ship's treasury?"

  "Oh—aye," she said slowly, uncomfortable discussing these things, which should be told him by Acting Captain Faztherot. "But gold is—cheap—many places, Anjemalti. And such gemstones as we have are of military grade. We work, for whatever coin is current, or in trade for repair. For a time, we had work as a freighter—goods, mostly, from this world's warehouse to that. And we hauled ore, time and enough. But, the work is less plentiful of late. I—the reasons are complex, Anjemalti, and best told you by the Acting Captain."

  "Reasons such as there are faster ships to be had, and crewhands who are less xenophobic," he said. "And captains who will speak with ground-traders without insisting upon an interpreter."

  She licked her lips. "We are the Crew. We have our ways."

  "As do others. Inquire of the Witness."

  The radio spat and from the static came a voice.

  "Ho, the ship! Name yourself and state your business!"

  Corbinye started, half-choked and snapped the toggle to the left.

  "Name myself, shall I, when the Ship has pulled my ID these fifteen minutes and more? Who do you think it will be, Veln Kristefyon? Space vampires? And where is your mother?"

  "Navigation," the imp gave back, unholy glee overriding even the static. "Dolfiata took a burn when the second comp gave out and he's in sick bay, wrapped in jelly and cursing like a Grounder, Jelbi says. Half the techs on-shift are in Navigation, doing repairs, Mother and Acting Captain Faztherot are piloting and they said for me to man the mike and warn everyone away." There was a slight giggle—interference, Corbinye thought, though it could as well have been Veln.

  "Should I warn you away, cousin Corbinye?"

  "You would do better to clear me for marriage and pipe down to Acting Captain Faztherot that Captain-to-be Anjemalti Kristefyon is returned to the Ship."

  The silence was longer this time, as if her announcement had stilled even Veln's chatter, though she had never previously known him to quiet for anything but sleep.

  "Veln Kristefyon?" Anjemalti murmured next to her and she glanced over to find him still staring at the screens.

  "The child of Indemion Kristefyon and Siprian Telshovet," she said. "He will have—nine or ten Standard Years, I believe. Perhaps eleven. I have been away—some time."

  "Yes," said Anjemalti and—

  "Gardenspot to outrider ship Hyacinth." This transmission was nearly clear; the woman's voice crisp and no-nonsense. "We have you tracked and identified. Expect you will adjust course and local velocity to marry the Ship at thirty-two hundred hours, targeting Level Two, Bay One. Transmitting orientation data." Corbinye's board beeped and she shunted the information to NavComp.

  "Received." She hesitated. "Reporting the presence, in addition to Captain-to-be Kristefyon and myself, of a male person."

  "Designation?"

  "Grounder—" she closed her mouth before "barbarian" escaped; glanced at Anjemalti, who was watching her now, rather than the screens. "He calls himself Witness for the Telios."

  "Claim upon the Ship?"

  Anjemalti shifted; stilled himself. Corbinye drew a breath. "He travels with the Captain-to-be."

  "So." A space of mere crackling, then: "The Ship shall receive him."

  "Noble of the Ship," Anjemalti murmured. Corbinye shot him a quelling look, though his voice had not been loud enough to penetrate the static.

  "Please inform the Captain-to-be of our great joy in his return," the radio instructed. "Ending official transmission. Corbinye."

  "Mother?"

  "Are you well?"

  She hesitated, looked down at the soft hands, that moved with incongruous briskness across the board. She tipped her head and felt the braid pull and swing, was aware of the weight of her breasts. She thought the thought and one of the soft hands flicked the send toggle.

  "I am well."

  "You sound—unlike yourself," Mael Faztherot said, penetrating all.

  "It has been some years—and the connection is poor."

  "So it is. Until docking then, daughter."

  "Mother . . ."

  The transmission light went dark.

  She sat, frozen, staring at the darkened stud and trying to think. . ..

  "Corbinye." Anjemalti, that. She spared him a look.

  "There are accommodations to make in preparation for docking," he said neutrally. "I would make them myself, except that you indicated the board might find my touch—repellent."

  "Yes," she said, and forced the soft stranger's hands to move, matching her equations with those sent from the Ship. It was duty, after all. The same duty that had sent her away from home and safety, among Grounders on a dozen worlds and eventually into the Blue House. Duty was all that was left. And she would dispatch her duty with honor, until such time as even duty were denied her.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Docking was achieved, among various moanings and creakings offered up by the Ship's mechanism. At the end of it, Corbinye sat in the pilot's seat, hands cold and sweaty, and stared at the board, seeing this telltale, then that, then that, go from green to yellow, as Gardenspot took over Hyacinth's functions, one by careful one.

  Finally, the entire board glowed amber. Yet she sat, staring at the lights until they blurred into one light, glowing like a small sun. Soon, now.

  "Corbinye?"

  Anjemalti, again, returned from wherever he had taken himself off to, when he was satisfied that the docking maneuver was well in hand. She sighed and closed her eyes against the blurred brightness of the board lights.

  "Corbinye." Stubbornness sounding there, and a note of command. She sighed, spun the chair and opened her eyes.

  He stood in the doorway, the Trident in one hand and a repair beacon in the other. Witness for the Telios could be glimpsed over his right shoulder.

  "Is docking complete?"

  "We are at one with the Ship," she told him, hearing the weariness resonate in the voice that was not hers. She swept a hand at the board. "Married, and at peace."

  "Cleared for entrance?"

  "Oh—aye." She stood, frowned at the beacon. "Why bring that?"

  "My recollection is that, save for the Garden, the Ship is dark, and my eyes have always been weak. Allow me to indulge myself with the means to look plainly upon the faces of my Crew."

  Dark. She had not considered. The Ship to her had never been dark. She nodded. "Let us proceed, then, cousin."

  She popped the hatch and swung out first, entering a darkness so absolute that she cried aloud and thrust her hands before her and all but fell. Fingers closed around her wrist, digging into her flesh, and a voice snapped from somewhere over her head to be still, and she was let go, but there was nothing to see, though her eyes strained until the darkness bled rainbows—

  Light, glorious and golden, wavery with weakened batteries, timorously bathed the bay.

  "Much better," Anjemalti commented, and dropped lightly to the decking, Witness for the Telios coming immediately after, bearing the second of Hyacinth's lanterns.

  "Now." Anjemalti held his beacon high and frowned a moment at the ring of Crew faces confronting him. "Ah." He went forward, carrying the Trident with him, and paused before a worn-faced woman, slightly taller than the rest, and slightly thinner.

  "I expect you must be my Aunt Mael—at least, I called you that, didn't I? My mother's best friend."

  "So I was," Mael Faztherot allowed. "And hope to be her son's, as well." She hesitated. It is the blue eyes, Corbinye thought, or that he looks so Grounder. . ..

  "I doubt you'll find much of her in my face," Anjemalti said gently. "My uncle had always said I looked as my father."

  "Not entirely true," said Mael. "Though I recall his eyes were blue. . .. His name was Jova Flanry. I will show you where it is written in the Log."