“He is,” Stewart told her. “I don’t know where or how, or what he’s doin’, but he is. Word runs too widely to have no truth behind it.” His voice lifted. “You’ve heard also. You must have. Signs, tokens, precognitions…. Never mind his weaklin’ father. Ivar is rightful leader of free Aeneas—when Builders return, which they will, which they will. And you are his bride who will bear his son that Builders will make more than human.”
Belief stood incandescent in his eyes.
XIII
South of the Green Bowl, hills climbed ever faster. Yet for a while the stream continued to flow peaceful. Ivar wished his blood could do likewise.
Seeking tranquillity, he climbed to the foredeck for a clear view across night. He stopped short when he spied others on hand than the lookout who added eyes to the radar.
Through a crowd of stars and a torrent of galaxy, Creusa sped past Lavinia. Light lay argent ashore, touching crests and crags, swallowed by shadows farther down. It shivered and sparked on the water, made ghostly the sails which had been set to use a fair wind. That air murmured cold through quietness and a rustle at the bows.
Fore and aft, separated by a few kilometers for safety, glowed the lights of three companion vessels. No few were bound this way, to celebrate the Season of Returnings.
Ivar saw the lookout on his knees under the figurehead, and a sheen off Erannath’s plumage, and Riho Mea and Iang Weii in their robes. Captain and chaplain were completing a ritual, it seemed. Mute, now and then lifting hands or bowing heads, they had watched the moons draw near and again apart.
“Ah,” Mea gusted. The crewman rose.
“I beg pardon,” Erannath said. “Had I known a religious practice was going on, I would not have descended here. I stayed because that was perhaps less distracting than my takeoff would have been.”
“No harm done,” Mea assured him. “In fact, the sight of you coming down gave one extra glory.”
“Besides,” Iang said in his mild voice, “though this is something we always do at certain times, it is not strictly religious.” He stroked his thin white beard. “Have we Kuang Shih religion, in the same sense as the Christians or Jews of the Ti Shih or the pagans of the tineran society? This is one matter of definition, not so? We preach nothing about gods. To most of us that whole subject is not important. Whether or not gods, or God, exist, is it not merely one scientific question—cosmological?”
“Then what do you hunt after?” the Ythrian asked.
“Allness,” the chaplain replied. “Unity, harmony. Through rites and symbols. We know they are only rites and symbols. But they say to the opened mind what words cannot. The River is ongoingness, fate; the Sun is life; Moons and Stars are the transhuman.”
“We contemplate these things,” Riho Mea added. “We try to merge with them, with everything that is.” Her glance fell on Ivar. “Ahoa, Sir Mariner,” she called. “Come, join our party.”
Iang, who could stay solemn longer than her, continued: “Our race, or yours, has less gift for the whole ch’an—understanding—than the many-minded people of the Morning Star. However, when the Old Shen return, mankind will gain the same immortal singleness, and have moreover the strengths we were forced to make in ourselves, in order to endure being alone in our skulls.”
“You too?” Erannath snapped. “Is everybody on Aeneas waiting for these mentors and saviors?”
“More and more, we are,” Mea said. “Up the Yun Kow drifts word—”
Ivar, who had approached, felt as if touched by lightnings. Her gaze had locked on him. He knew: These are not just easy-goin’, practical sailors. I should’ve seen it earlier. That coffin—and fact they’re bound on dangerous trip to honor both their ancestors and their descendants— and now this—no, they’re as profoundly eschatological as any Bible-and-blaster yeoman.
“Word about liberation?” he exclaimed.
“Aye, though that’s the bare beginning,” she answered, Iang nodded, while the lookout laid hand on sheath knife.
Abruptly she said, “Would you like to talk about this … Rolf Mariner? I’m ready for one drink and cigar in my cabin anyway.”