Planet Walkers

Chapter 5

Chapter Three

Journey to the New World

The navigator’s voice rang on and on as it hurtled the Uri’madu through the vast emptiness of space toward an unnamed planet on the edge of the Known. The chord had surrounded them at every moment for over a month now, pervading their souls with the song of passage.

Although an Imperial Scryer had been to this planet in spirit, this was the first time anyone had made the physical journey, so this was an exploration as much for their navigator as it would be for the Uri’madu once they arrived.

Andel of Trianog sat on a crate and watched the crew operate. Of the seven spinners, three would be singing at any one time, four when the navigator himself rested. They were experts in their field, of course, but there was always a blanching of tone in Kandät Enna’s absence, as if the heart had gone out of it.

During the early stages of their journey the jumps between rest-stops had been short – no more than a day or two between the inner planets of the Realm, but those times were well gone. Now they were traversing unknown territory, weeks had passed in eerie monotony and there was nowhere to rest.

After a while, the richness of the material world had come to seem dreamlike and barely relevant. Team members occupied themselves with games of ashut but she didn’t know how to play and no one offered to teach her. She longed to feel something solid beneath her feet again, to reclaim her reason for life. Only the storytelling brightened the hours, and as the Uri’madu vied with props and charms to make their tales more entertaining, it became clear that Huldar was the best of them all.

The envelope juddered. Andel shuddered slightly as the chord wandered the edges of dissonance.

Kandät Enna waved a spinner forward and the thin Tiamäti entered the song with seamless precision. Andel watched as the navigator wandered toward his sleeping mat. His lean frame folded to the floor with a barely audible sigh. Most navigators were of House Maatu, but this one was of House Tiamät, the Imperial House. Shamkarun Kandät Enna, he was called, and woe betide anyone who did not address him by his full title.

He noticed Andel’s attention and brushed her mind with reassurance. She smiled her thanks, but looked away when he winked, hoping he wouldn’t sense her embarrassment.

It was said that navigators had a lover waiting for them on every planet, and recalling the amber flash in this one’s eyes, she could see the allure – mystery and intelligence – the status of the extensive Shamkarun’s mark on his cheek – but the instability of a navigator’s lifestyle would be hard to deal with, and she knew they rarely married.

She looked up as their team leader, Huldar of Leth, laughed and continued his chat with Casco. He was also a Shamkarun, but his vocal talents lay in a quite different direction. He was taller than the navigator and perhaps not as handsome – but nowhere near as arrogant, and his clear blue eyes and a ready smile were hard to look away from.

Andel smoothed her thumb along the top of the crate and barely noticed its woody grain. She wished she’d been in on the joke, but he’d made it perfectly clear at their first introduction – if she were to be accepted into the tight-knit group she would have to prove herself.

She knew about the terrible death of the team’s last diviner, killed by a moment of carelessness. She would have to be sharp if she wanted to survive, and never complacent. But that misfortune had been her gain, because there she was, a member of the Explorers’ Guild at last, team Uri’madu, no less, and on her way to an adventure of her own.

She lifted her hand to the memento against her chest, a delicately patterned driftwood twig suspended on a leather thong. She’d carried it with her since childhood. Her brother had found it in a cave on the turbulent wilderness world of Germane, its rounded ends tumbled to smoothness in an ancient watercourse. She closed her eyes to envisage the complex trails of honey brown and ashen silver on the dark wood, and remembered the grace of his hand as he’d presented it to her. They had often played at being explorers. It had been his fondest dream. Would he be have been proud of her?

She wondered how the new atmosphere would taste. What strange life forms would she see? The world they were assigned to spent much of its cycle as a snowball … how would the cold have shaped it? She wished she could share it with him. Soon after their arrival her work would begin. As a diviner, it would be her job to search the bones of a planet for mineral ores and assess whether they could be mined. As planetary ecologist and team leader, it was for Shamkarun Huldar to decide if they should be.

Kandät Enna summoned Huldar to his side. The navigator leaned close and said something. A palpable sense of excitement rippled from their conversation.

Huldar raised his hand to gain the team’s attention.

“Best get some sleep now,” he said. “The navigator tells me it will be a big day tomorrow.” His thick Lethian accent brought a covert smile to her lips.

The Uri’madu cheered.

“Daylight at last, and the wind on our faces!” said Casco.

“And silence,” called Nachiel. “The chord, it never stops!” The gentle artist seemed out of place among the rest of the team; however his partner, Ronnin, looked more than rugged enough to make up the difference.

“We’d be in trouble if it did.” Ronnin growled.

Andel turned to the angel by her side. “To be honest, Sari,” she said, “I thought the journey might never end.”

“Never end?” Sari replied. Her gentle manner and lilting speech always made Andel smile. “Yes, it has been a particularly lengthy translation. Is this the longest time you’ve been in the chime, Lady Andel?”

Andel nodded.

Around them, the discussion went on.

“At least I’ll have something to do besides beating you at ashut.”

“I let you win,” Ronnin grumbled. “Otherwise you’d sulk.”

Glass clinked as a box of ale was opened.

“Oh, yes please – and one for me brother!” … A male voice, Andel thought it was either Topper or Bush. The brothers sounded so alike that if her back was turned she found it hard to tell them apart. Then she heard the confident voice of Lind: “Breath, that’s good!”

The festivities continued but Andel slipped away and shuffled into her bedroll. Around her, the pseudo-liquid walls of the envelope resonated softly to the noise of the party. It was fortunate they were in a quiet part of the chime. When things got wild, silence was crucial.

“Big day tomorrow,” she repeated to herself. “Tomorrow …” She tried to imitate Huldar’s accent, but Lethian vowel sounds were hard to reproduce and before long she had given up and drifted off to sleep.

She was woken by loud clapping, and saw the Imperial Overlord, Duvät Gok, stagger as he tried to find something to hold onto.

Bags and boxes jostled back and forth. Andel clung to a crate, ashamed of the startled squeak that had escaped her lips. How could she have slept through the onset of this?

“Why are the sides heaving? she cried. “Is it meant to do that?

A surge of song pounded through her mind as Kandät Enna and his full crew fought for control.

The Overlord clung to a sturdy wooden desk and shouted, “Stay calm! Have no fear!” but his face was white and his eyes were very wide.

Huldar swayed in place as if the wild motion was to be expected. Casco even seemed exhilarated by it. Andel strove for similar bravado but it was a difficult façade to maintain.

The envelope shuddered again. Its sides fluctuated like cloth in the wind.

“I saw stars!” she gasped. “There are stars out there!”

“This is the final approach,” Huldar said quietly. “Bound to be a little rough with an un-tried entry. The navigator needs silence right now.” He looked pointedly at Duvät Gok.

Andel pictured her mother’s disparaging face and strove even harder to veil her fears. I am tough, she recited to herself, I am resilient. Of course she was up to the challenge. They were the Uri’madu, not tourists traveling in tameness.

Huldar’s mind was calm and strong, his gaze steady, and suddenly Andel knew how much she wanted to be one of this team. Once they made landfall, the Uri’madu would be there for her, and she for them. If they died during the entry phase, they would taste the Breath of El together.

Then the navigator’s chord chimed in resolution and the envelope shuddered to stillness. The spinners’ voices softened at last and Andel released a breath she had barely known she held.

Kandät Enna strode to one end of the envelope and lifted his arms. Before him, the envelope dissolved into a doorway and the new planet was revealed at last.

“Theatrical.” Casco sniggered.

Huldar shook his head. “Tiamäti,” he said quietly.

The Overlord glared as if he’d heard their disrespect.

The landing site, or Djan’rū, was on a plateau surrounded by huge grey boulders. Fresh air caressed Andel’s face with lively fingers. She took in sights and sounds unseen by another annangi. Poised on the threshold, she waited for the signal, for the first touch that would make this reality hers.

As she blinked in the sunlight, the Navigator pointed to the ground and sang a few phrases. Huldar echoed him as if committing the sounds to memory.

“Come on,” said Sari. “Let’s start unloading.” She glanced across to a group of team members and called out, “Casco! Lind! Work to do!” then she leaned closer to Andel. “If we left it up to them they’d be lazing about till nightfall,” she chuckled. “And he’s no help!” she added, and tipped her head.

Andel followed her gesture and saw the Overlord standing as if transfixed by the view.

“Huh!” Sari pitched her voice so that only Andel could hear. “Clan Gok are famous for it! Three years we’ll be here, Tsemkarun Andel, and I’m sure that stretch will do nothing to sweeten him.”

The Overlord lurched into action as someone lifted his desk – “Mind out! Be careful, you oaf!”

Andel gave a dry grin. “Lord Duvät Gok is a real charmer, but I guess our navigator earned his moment.”

“Earned his moment, that he did.” Sari’s eyes twinkled.

The cool air seemed clean and sweet, and in the absence of the constant ringing chord, Andel could hear the chirrup and clack of small creatures in the landscape with absolute clarity.

A light breeze moaned softly through the stones. “Brrr!” She shivered. “I thought the Djan’rū was supposed to be at a tropical latitude, but look, there’s snow in the shadows, and the ranges are cloaked in white.”

She looked up as Huldar came toward them.

“Don’t worry, Tsemkarun Andel,” he said. “The planet’s in its warming phase, or so we’ve been told. Soon white will turn to green and the long summer will begin!”

Something about his smile jogged Andel’s memories of her brother, and with a quiet nod she patted the twig in her pocket.

Here we go!