A Deepness in the Sky

The outer wall was a tesselation of hundreds of transparent plates, held in a grid of titanium. Some were diamond, some were quartz, some were almost opaque to Pham's eyes. The Spiders still preferred direct views. Video wallpaper and human display technologies didn't come close to matching the range of their vision. The polyhedral surface swept outward to form a bubble fifty meters across. At its base the Spider designers had built a terraced mound, rising to the dining tables at the top. The slope was gentle by Arachna standards, with broad sweeping stairs. To human eyes, the mound was a cliff-walled pinnacle and the stairs were strange, broad ladders. But the overall effect was—for humans or Spiders—that wherever you were sitting around the dining table, you could look out on half the sky. The Grand Temp was a long structure, tidally stabilized, and the ballroom was on the Arachna-facing end. To someone looking straight up, the Spiders' world filled much of the view. To someone looking off to the side, the rockpile and human temps were an orderly jumble, every year longer than before. In the other direction, you could see the Royal Shipyards. At this distance, the Yards were an undistinguished cluster of lights, flickering now and then with tiny flashes. The Spiders were building the tools to build the tools. In another year or so they would lay the spine for their first ramscoop vessel.

Anne and Pham arrived at precisely the appointed time. Small this banquet might be, but the hosts had specified formality. They floated up past tier after tier of the mound, touching the stairs here and there to guide themselves to the circular table at the top. The hosts were already present, Trixia and Viki, Qiwi and Ezr, as were all the other guests, both Arachnan and human. Anne and Pham were last to arrive, the guests of Farewell.

After they were settled, Spider attendants came out from the base of the mound, carrying a mix of Spider and human dishes. The two races could actually eat together, even if each found the other's food mostly grotesque.

They ate the welcoming appetizers in the Spider-traditional silence. Then Trixia Bonsol rose from her place among the Spiders and made a set speech as stately as anything at Jirlib's Farewell. Pham groaned to himself. Except for Belga Underville, all here were close friends. He knew they were scarcely more formal than himself. Yet there was a sadness in this occasion and it seemed greater than even a normal leavetaking should be. He sneaked a look around the table. So solemn, the humans in freefall formal dress that went back at least a thousand years. But it was not like they had to follow diplomatic niceties here. Underville was probably the prickliest creature here, but even she wasn't big on formalities. Now if someone didn't speak up, they might go the whole dinner without really talking.

So when Trixia finished and sat down, Pham gently dumped a half-liter of wine into the air above his place at the table. The dark red liquid wobbled back and forth upon itself, an embarrassing spill that would be even more embarrassing depending on who it splashed onto. Pham stuck his finger into the bobbling wetness, and wiggled it just so. The blob stretched out, braided itself with its own surface tension. He definitely had their attention now, the Spiders even more than the humans. Pham waved off an attendant who floated close with a vacuum napkin. He grinned at his audience. "Neat trick, isn't it?"

Qiwi leaned forward, to look across at him. "It'll be a neater trick if you can land that thing clean." She was also grinning. "I should know; my daughter plays with her food, too."

"Yes. Well, I'll keep it in one piece as long as I can." His hand formed the spinning braid back into a wobbling sphere. So far he hadn't even stained the lace on his cuffs. Qiwi was watching with intent, professional interest. This was the sort of trick she had once done with billion-tonne rocks. He didn't doubt that little Kira Vinh-Lisolet played with her food; Qiwi probably encouraged the little devil.

He left the red bauble floating above his place, and waved for the attendants to bring the next course. "I'll show you some other tricks later; just watch me."

Victory Lighthill rose a little from her perch. Her mouth hands modulated her voice into a sad chirping. "Tricks...long sad gone... drexip." At least that's what Pham thought she said. Even after all this time—even with the downshifter gadget to make all the phonemes audible—Spidertalk was harder than any human language he knew of. Sitting next to Lighthill, Trixia smiled and gave her own translation. "We will miss your tricks, Magician." Her voice held the same sadness that he recognized in the Spider's sounds.Damn. They make this sound like awake.