Glory Season

This time, Leie reacted quickly. The brush of illumination the man had noticed still lay in the upper left corner. At first glance, it was almost pure white, although there were pale dustings of blue and reddish yellow. Leie moved over to the finely knurled measuring wheels, which controlled lateral motion. Nudging them gently, she coaxed the object into view.

It was a bright, pinwheel shape. A "cyclone," one sailor identified. A hurricane, or whirlpool, suggested others.

But Maia knew better. Old Bennet would have identified its species on sight. Renna would perceive a friend and signpost.

She stared in wonder at the majesty that spread across the forward wall, a galactic wheel, its spiral splendor filled with shining stars.

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Captain Poulandres sent word for her to come. There was to be another parley with the foe. Maia's curt message of reply, carried by the hesitant cabin boy, suggested irritably that the captain choose someone else.

"I need time!" she snapped over her shoulder, when Poulandres came in person. "I was just there for show, last time. All I ask is that you buy us more time!"

Maia barely heard his muttered promise to try, "And send your navigator down here, will you?" she added, calling after him. "We can use help from a professional!"

Relieved from guard duty with the rifle, the young, dark-complexioned officer arrived as Leie and Maia managed to pull back from the spiral nebula, revealing its membership in a cluster of gauzy galaxies. And that cluster proved to be but one glittering ripple in a sinuous arch that lay draped across the void, shimmering like a cosmic aurora. The navigator exclaimed upon seeing the wondrous display.

Maia agreed it was a sight, but what did it mean? Was this a clue to whatever path Renna had taken? She had to assume so, since nothing else in the vast game-simulation seemed to make the slightest sense. Were they supposed to find a particular destination amid this macrocosm, and "go" there? Or were the whirlpool entities meant to be guideposts in another sense?

Problems barred progress at many levels. Nudging the controls was like trying to pilot a coal barge through a narrow, twisty channel, a trial of fits and starts and over-compensations. Inertia and mechanical backlash kept jerking the image too large in scale, then too small. Moreover, Maia soon realized that nobody, not even the navigator, had any idea where in the sky they "were."

"We, don't use galaxies to chart our way at sea," he started to explain. "They're too fuzzy and you need a telescope. Now, if you could show me stars .. . ."

Unable to keep her frustration from spilling out, Maia muttered, "You want stars? I'll show you smuggy stars!" She took the controls and with a yank caused the point of view to dive straight toward one of the galactic wheels. It ballooned outward at frightful speed, causing some of the onlookers behind them to moan. Suddenly, the wall was filled with sharp, individual pinpoints, spreading out to fill the artificial sky with constellations.

But what constellations? Among the patterns sifted by her mind, no familiar friends leaped forth. No well-known markers flashed out longitude, latitude, and season to a practiced eye.

"Oh," the navigator murmured slowly. "I get it. They'd be different, dependin' on … which way we looked, an' from where . . ." He paused, struggling with new notions implied by the wall. "It's prob'ly not even our galaxy, is it?"

"Great insight!" Leie snorted, while Maia's own irritable mood shifted toward sympathy. These concepts were probably difficult for a man rooted in traditional arts. "We don't know that any of these galaxies is ours," she commented. "They may all be just artificial models, arising out of a complicated game, having nothing to do with the real universe. We better hope not, if my idea's to mean anything. Back up again, Leie. We've got to try finding something familiar."

As the island starscape receded to take its place once more among the others, Maia knew the search might prove impossible. The only intergalactic object she had much hope of recognizing was Andromeda, nearest neighbor to the Milky Way. What were the odds against catching sight of that particular spiral, from just the right angle, however long they searched?

All of this assumes my hunch is right and that maneuvering around inside this fancy pretend reality has something to do with how Renna escaped.

If so, it would have been much easier for him. The Visitor might have programmed his game board to search for traits specific to the Milky Way. A shape to the spiral arms, or perhaps even a color profile. Once specified, the machine would do the rest.

Whereas I don't have a game board. Nor his knowledge. Nor the slightest idea how any of this relates to escaping from pirates.

"You move around by twiddling that little se'xter?" asked the navigator as he bent over to watch Leie delicately prod the tiny, recalcitrant controls. "Does it have to be this one?"