Chapter 17
Three hundred kilometers west of the mainland lifted Cliffness, the prow of Zacharia. Thence the island reached another two hundred, and from north to south eighty at its widest. Diana first saw it as the vehicle bearing her came into clear air. It still lay well ahead and below, but spread in its entirety by the strange perspectives of Daedalus. “O-o-oh-h,” she breathed.
“A beautiful sight, true?” Kukulkan Zachary said. She barely noticed at first how his arm slipped around her waist, and later she didn’t mind. “How glad I am that the seeing conditions were right for you.”
Together with Axor and Targovi, they stood in an observation lounge. Since a good-sized craft was needed to carry the Wodenite in comfort, Kukulkan had gone all-out and summoned a first class passenger cruiser. It wasn’t plying the global lanes anyway in wartime. Only ribs of metal crossed this section of the hull; the rest was vitryl, thick and strong but totally transparent. Apart from bulkheads fore and aft, you stood above the world in the middle of heaven.
Given the swift spin of Daedalus, Patricius did not much affect the doings of humans. This was a night flight because the hour chanced to be convenient. The sky ranged from deep violet-blue overhead, where a few stars glimmered, to berylline near the waters. Eastward towered clouds, their peaks and ridges frosted by the moon they hid, their lower steeps and canyons amethyst, their rains gleaming bronze and silver from the sun-ring. That lay around the rest of the Phosphoric Ocean, not as a boundary but as a shiningness unimaginably remote, within which the curve of the planet lost itself in its own vastness. There the sea gleamed like damascened steel; inwardly it shaded through turquoise to jet. Upon those darknesses swirled and sparked green fire, the light of tiny life that rode the surges.
Amidst all else, Zacharia was splendor and enigma. Most of it showed dimly verdant, the contours making intricate patterns, argent-threaded with rivers, lakes, and mists. Not far from the north coast a mountain range ran east to west, its snowpeaks now roseate, its flanks falling down into valleys which were mazes of blue-black. Light from dwellings sprinkled diamond dust across the island and several outlying cays. Movable motes betokened travelers in the air or down on the water.
The transport throbbed and the deck tilted subtly underfoot as it began descent toward the wonder.
Kukulkan slightly tightened his embrace while he steered Diana toward a sideboard.
“Lacking a spaceship’s acceleration compensators, we shall soon have to take seats for our landing,” he said, his voice livelier than the words. “Let us enjoy a glass of champagne first—and many afterward.”
“You’re so, so, uh, kind,” she stammered.
His exotic features lofted a smile. “Elementary courtesy, donna,” he said, lips close to her ear; his breath stirred her hair. “Although in your case—” He let her go in a hand-gliding fashion and poured into both their goblets, with a glance toward Axor and Targovi. That was pro forma, when neither of them cared for the wine. But it was typical of him, Diana thought.
He could not have been more gracious back in Lulach. Nor, granted, could Pele Zachary have been, his—sibling?—but she was reserved and formal while Kukulkan had laid himself out.
Oh, yes, Diana knew full well when a man was undertaking to be charming. The question was whether he could manage it or not, and the answer depended on him, on how much thoughtfulness was behind the fine manners. For instance, no matter the skill with which he flattered her, she would have understood him entirely and scornfully if he had neglected her friends. Instead he gave them, if anything, more attention, and not just time but obvious concentration, real listening. Especially to Axor—Sure, he did have the responsibility of deciding whether to import such an odd pilgrim. However, he could have gone about it like some kind of personnel officer, brisk and overbearing. After all, it was the wanderers who were asking to be taken there, not the other way around.
Kukulkan had not. He’d arranged a lovely lunch at Pele’s house and been marvelous to everybody. Diana had not yet sorted out her memories of the conversation. They were too dazzling. Kukulkan had been out, across the Empire, to world after world … At the same time she was haunted by one remark. “Oh, yes, we need newness, we Zacharians, more than ever in this year of enclosure; we need it as we need food and air and light. I begin to believe that you can provide some, and so put us in your debt.”