Empress of Earth by Melissa Scott

Author:Melissa Scott [Scott, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative
ISBN: 6230000000593
Goodreads: 836603
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2013-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Silence woke to the sound of rain, familiar even on this alien world, and a strange, damp smell. She sat up in her cocoon of blankets, nose wrinkling. It was not exactly unpleasant, she decided, but it was very strange.

"I think it's the vegetation," Balthasar said, rather doubtfully, and reached for the shirt Silence had discarded the night before. The pilot took it from him, shrugging it over her shoulders just as the Delian said, "And now what?"

Silence scowled, and concentrated on the shirt's clasps. Why ask me? she thought, but before she could think of a better answer, Marcinik said from the doorway, "I suggest we bring her Serenity and the magus here, and discuss it with them." He closed the door gently behind him, and leaned against it, a ragged towel dangling from one hand.

"Discuss what with who?" Chase Mago sat up, his mattress groaning, and rubbed at his eyes and beard.

"What we're going to do," Balthasar said.

Silence glanced quickly at him, but the Delian didn't seem inclined to continue. "Aili should be here," she said, "and so should Isambard." She lifted her hand as Balthasar frowned, cutting off his automatic retort. "Look, no matter what we decide, we're going to have to stay here a while, assuming the Javerrys will have us. They know Earth, which we don't, and we're going to need their help if we're going to get off-world again. And we're going to need everybody's knowledge — especially Isambard's, but Aili's, too — if we're going to come up with a plan that stands even half a chance of working."

"You're right," Chase Mago said, yawning. Balthasar nodded, and made no further protest.

"Then I'll bring them," Marcinik said. "Assuming Sieura Javerry permits."

To Silence's surprise, Emma Javerry raised no serious objection to bringing the other off-worlders to her farm, suggesting only that they wait until the rain stopped. The star-travellers agreed to that readily enough, and Silence set herself the task of persuading Quin to tell her about his father's researches. It wasn't particularly difficult work — Quin was proud of his father's discoveries — but Silence found the whole experience unexpectedly depressing. The senior Javerry had been, from Quin's description, at least potentially a fairly skilled practitioner, but without a coherent paradigm to shape his work, he had drifted away from his earlier, successful symbolic experiments into attempts at prediction. He had been better at those that most, as he had the wild-card talent for it, but Silence found it even more frustrating that the father had just resumed his symbolic work a month before the attack that killed him. That tends to support Quin's theory that the farm was attacked because of the elder Javerry's work, Silence thought, but I'd better not take sides in that argument. Instead, she questioned Quin further about his father's predictions, and particularly the empress he'd seen.

Quin shrugged uncomfortably, searching for the right words. He was afraid of offending her, Silence realized, both because of the images themselves and the rituals involved, and she did her best to look relaxed and unjudging.

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