Book 3 - Ceremony by Glen Cook Page B

sat
here and waited . . . I know what I’ll
do. I’ll make this world our new base. We’ll continue
the hunt from here.”
    “Which means a whole new globe of space to search,”
Grauel countered, showing no excitement. “It will be like
starting from the beginning.”
    “Think positively, Grauel. Think lucky. Let’s go
tell the others.”
    “What I think is I wish I had not called you down
here.”
    That evening Marika climbed a peak while the others rested. She
stood staring at the stars. There were few to be seen, for the dust
cloud spanned the heavens of that world. She selected the next half
dozen stars that should be investigated. Into the cloud itself this
time? Yes. What better place to hide?
    For the most part she had avoided going into the cloud during
her search. She was much less comfortable operating there because
there were so few landmark stars. She had reasoned that the Serke
explorers would have suffered the same reluctance. But perhaps one
of their more daring Mistresses of the Ship, possibly a Bestrei,
might have dared the darkness and have found the aliens.
    What lay beyond the cloud? No one knew. No one had tried to
reach its nether side. Maybe no one but the Serke had had any
contact with the aliens because they were over there and they too
were reluctant to enter the dust.
    The dust cloud it would be, for a time.
     
----

----

II
    Marika’s bath had again been rotated. Grauel and Barlog
had begun to show gray and even lose a little fur. Marika herself
had begun to feel age in her bones when she rose some mornings. And
there were moments when the homeworld called so strongly that her
resolve almost broke. There were moments when she was tempted to go
home just to discover what had happened in her absence. Sometimes,
during the on-planet resting pauses, she lay awake when she was
supposed to be sleeping, wondering about Bagnel, longing for his
company, and wondering about the progress of the mirrors she had
imagined into reality, and even about the warlock, her littermate,
Kublin.
    She knew very little about what had happened since her
departure. But for the regular visit of
High Night Rider
,
and the occasional appearance of a Mistress of the Ship with an
adventurous spirit, a desire to visit the strange worlds Marika had
reported, and a knack for assembling bath of like temperament, she
had no ties with home.
    Grauel and Barlog had recognized the process at work and had
ceased their importunities for abandoning the quest, fearing their
petitions would harden her resolve.
    She was finding it increasingly difficult to convince herself
that the hunt was worthwhile. There was no end to the universe,
even within the dust cloud. There was always another star. And,
inevitably, always another disappointment.
    It was time for
High Night Rider
to come again. She
felt she had reached a time of decision. If the news from home were
bad, she would return.
    The mirrors, insofar as she knew, were coming along well. A
brief note half a year earlier, written by Bagnel, had told her the
mirror in the leading trojan was well ahead of schedule. So much
for his doubts about his management skills.
    But he had mentioned trouble down on the homeworld’s
surface. The old rogue male trouble had begun to reassert itself.
The Communities seemed unable to stem it. This time the outlaws
seemed to be working independent of the brethren, under the
dominance of their wehrlen, but there were those, according to
Bagnel, who did not believe the warlock was the true source of
their witchcraft. Silth did not want to believe a male could be so
strong, so felt the rogues had to be getting aid and encouragement
from silth smuggled in by the Serke.
    On its last visit
High Night Rider
had brought word
that the rogues were sabotaging the brethren as well as silth, that
assassination had become their primary weapon. They were using
their talent-suppressing device again, and the sisterhoods could
not cope.
    Marika suspected they could