Administrative Tower
Halfway through the shift, he began to wonder what had become of his leathers.
It was an odd thought, and not just because it had nothing to do with the updated star maps he’d been studying. Surely, he had sent his leathers away on the back of that…other Jen Sin, who had taken Lantis out from the Light, and sent a message to his delm before initiating the self-destruct sequence.
He would not have sent that Jen Sin out naked to do what was needful to preserve the universe. Not even a duplicate would be so foolish as to think himself the original if he lacked so basic a thing as clothing. Simple logic therefore led one to the answer—his leathers had gone with the duplicate Jen Sin and destroyed along with ship, pilot, and whatever treacherous systems might have been introduced into both by Tinsori Light.
And, yet, now that the thought had visited him, it would not be put aside. Where were his leathers? Ships were due in. The starry robe of Lorith’s Sanderat Order was perfectly functional, but he was not one of the Order.
No, he was—he had been—a courier, a Scout, a yos’Phelium pilot, right enough, quick-tempered and trouble-prone as any of the breed.
That this was no longer the case; that his young cousin Val Con—thodelm and delm, only see the child!—could call upon fewer pilots in the Line Direct than Theo Waitley numbered among her crew, was nothing short of baffling.
The war—well. He would have to read history—general and specific. The delm had been generous with files and précis, the information streamlined and ordered so that he could bring himself quickly current.
He appreciated the thoughtfulness while understanding that such methods necessarily left out details; and he rather thought he would find his answer to Korval’s current straits in the details.
Perhaps he might ask his clever cousin Tocohl to share particulars of the past, such as the fates of his cousins. They had been every bit as quarrelsome as their bloodline demanded, yet he’d been fond of several—and kin was kin, after all.
That, however, was for later. For now, the thought had circled around again—where were his leathers?
He sighed, impatient, and cast his mind back.
It seemed to him that he had been wearing leathers the first two or three times he wakened on Tinsori Light. And then, he had…he had…
Gods take it, he had what?
Jen Sin took a deep breath against the spurt of ill-temper, pushed his chair away from the screen, and closed his eyes.
There was a technique taught to Scouts, by which one could recapture wandering memories. He closed his eyes, and merely followed his breath for one hundred forty-four increasingly deep, slow inhales and exhales, then sat with his heartbeat until his mind was mirrored silver, giving back no reflections. After a timeless time, there rose to the surface of that lambent pool an image of a stasis locker.
He allowed the image to float there on the surface of his mind, waiting.
No other images arose, and at last he blew his breath out, opened his eyes, and snapped to his feet.
It was of course the very last locker that he tried, the hallway in which it was located raising no memory at all. Frowning, he broke the seal, removed the drawer, and opened it.
His jacket was folded on top—the leather supple and scarred. He held it for a moment, breathing in the scent, and suddenly it was imperative that he dress himself credibly—now. Immediately.
He set the jacket aside and reached again to the drawer, pulling out leather pants, a soft knit sweater, boots…
Dressing quickly in the chilly hall, he stamped into his boots, and shrugged into his jacket, feeling the weight settle across his shoulders like the arm of a comrade. Automatically, he swept his hands down, checking pockets, finding his piloting license, a few coins, a leather-rolled tool kit, and a stained leather courier pack, sealed.
He froze when he found the pocket where he stored the ship key empty—then relaxed. No, of course, there was no key. He had sent that away with the ship, with the duplicate.
So, all was as it should be.
Or not.
He swept his hands down in the familiar pattern again, eyes narrowed against the dull throb of a headache.
His hideaway was gone—the pocket where he normally stored the little pistol flat. Worse, his blade—the flip-knife from his days as a Scout—was also missing.
He checked the drawer—empty—and the drawers above and below, his breath shortening and the pain in his head more pronounced.
Deliberately, he stepped back, closed his eyes and once again concentrated on his breathing. Panic profited no one. Very likely, he had put his weapons into some safe place before he changed his leathers for the robe of Lorith’s Order. He would want them to hand, and not sealed away. He would undertake to recall just exactly what that safe place might have been—later. For now, he was dressed as befit a pilot, and a working station master, and that after all had been his goal.
One last time, he inventoried his pockets, and this time his fingers found a shape in an inner pocket that he rarely used. He fingered the thing out—and stood staring at a Jump-pilot’s ring.
In particular, at his Jump-pilot’s ring, the same in every detail as the one he wore on his finger.
“Which one of these is real?”
Lorith looked up from the repair bench, pushed the glasses to the top of her head, and considered the rings he had thrust at her, one on each open palm.
She gave them careful study, which was Lorith’s way, picking them up, one, then the other, considering the gems, the pattern they made, and the metal in which they were set, before replacing them in his hands, and meeting his eyes.
“They are both real,” she said, definite.
“They are both solid and present,” he agreed, keeping his voice calm, and his face smooth. “However, they are also identical, which is what shapes my concern. There had been only one—unique. Now, there are two, exact. I wonder how this has happened.”
“Oh! It happened when we caused the unit to produce the second pilot. When he emerged, he was in leather, as you had been, and wearing the ring, as you had been. You took the ring away from him, Jen Sin. Don’t you recall?”
He stared at her. No. No, he did not recall. Panic cramped his stomach, but Lorith was speaking again, in a tone of enlightenment.
“Of course not! You’ve taken your beads off, and your memory is incomplete. I remember it plainly.”
“Why did I ask that of him?” he whispered.
“You said, in case something went awry—the message intercepted and the debris analyzed—that they should not find traces of the ring. You said, because the message referenced leaving it as earnest on repairs.”
That unfortunately sounded too much like him to be anything but a true telling.
“I was wearing the beads by then…” he murmured.
Lorith frowned. “Of course you were. The second pilot had to know everything that you knew, as you knew it, or he would not have seen the necessity. We discussed this at the time.”
He almost remembered that conversation. In broad outline, he did recall the plan. Tinsori Light had been evil; its purpose subjugation and violence. Had it the means, it would have consumed the universe. It might have placed—unquestionably it had placed inimical systems into the core of his poor Lantis. Had it been him, alone, he would have destroyed her and himself, not knowing what inimical systems he had been seeded with. But the proper—the best—solution to a situation beyond horrifying had required two pilots willing to accept duty. One willing to die with the ship; the other willing to stay on the Light and do what was necessary to keep it contained.
So much he remembered. The calling forth of the second pilot was lost to him, as was the manner of his going. He had been in the habit of dismissing that pilot as the duplicate, when he thought of him at all. And he wondered at himself, that he had so coldly called a man into existence only to murder him.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that I would like to hear the whole scene as you recall it.”
Lorith frowned.
“All of it?”
“Only from the moment the…second pilot emerged, wearing his leathers and his ring.”
“It went much as we had planned. He emerged from the unit, as I have said. He was wary at first. You stood forward and spoke to him. ‘Brother,’ you said, ‘do you know what you must do?’
“His face was very sad, but he spoke readily enough. ‘There is no other way. I will go with Lantis. The pilot is no less a risk than the ship.’”
“It was then that you asked him for the ring, and he gave it over with a little laugh. Then, he left us, for of course he knew the way down to the dock, where he boarded the ship, and left.
“You and I went to the control room, and watched him on his way. He sent the message, and destroyed the ship, exactly as he had agreed to do.”
Relief rocked him, tears starting to his eyes. He recalled none of it, but Lorith did not lie.
Both pilots, then, had understood and accepted their separate missions.
All honor to them—brave and futile, both.
“Jen Sin,” Lorith said sternly, “you must have your beads back. You need your memories. Researcher Veeoni does not.”
He took a slightly shaky breath—and another, steadier.
“There is something in what you say. I will speak to her.” Indeed, he would speak to Seignur Veeoni, and soon.
He slid his own—the original—ring back onto his finger, and put the other away into the inner pocket of his jacket.
“Why have you taken up leathers again?” Lorith asked.
He frowned briefly, almost at a loss—then recalled himself.
“We will be welcoming ships, pilots, and crew from the across the wide universe. They will need to understand me as a pilot-administrator of Clan Korval. I must therefore dress to the role.”
He smiled, gently.
“And, you know, I am not an initiate of Sanderat.”
“No,” Lorith said, her voice slow and sad, “you are not an initiate of Sanderat. I am the last of those.”
So she was; the last of her Order and the last of her universe. He at least had kin to hand, if not precisely the kin he recalled. Lorith was utterly bereft, save for himself.
She would form connections, he told himself. Soon, in the terms he had become accustomed to, the station would come to host all manner of persons. Surely, she would find those with whom she could form bonds.
“All things in their time,” he murmured, and produced another smile for her uplifted brows.
“I believe I will go to Seignur Veeoni now,” he said.
“Good,” said Lorith, and pulled the work glasses back down over her eyes.