James P. Hogan Read Free Page B

she said finally.
    Korshak shrugged. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be surprises. Besides, the worst way I know of guarding a secret is to make it known too soon.”
    “What, even to me?” Vaydien looked shocked. “Who would I tell, apart from Mirsto? And I know that you trust him.”
    “You don’t have to tell anyone. People have other ways of communicating themselves, that they’re unaware of, but which those who make it their business to be suspicious are very good at reading…. In any case, Mirsto already knows.”
    Vaydien gave a satisfied nod. “I knew there was something odd afoot the moment he walked in. He talks with his eyes.” She looked mildly reproachful. “He could have just told me, without you risking your neck like this.”
    “Send an old man to speak for me, while I hide like a rabbit?” Korshak shook his head. “That’s not my way.”
    “I know it isn’t. And that’s why I want to go with you – to a new world.” She snuggled more closely against him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me more about it. Another world that turns about a distant star that’s another sun. The light that moves across the sky is the great ship that will take us there.”
    “Yes,” Korshak replied. It was another subject about which he had refrained from divulging too much.
    “But how are we to get to it?”
    “The builders of the ship will bring us there. They are the ones whose images I have seen and talked with in my travels.”
    Vaydien shook her head distantly and dreamily. “What manner of arts can build a ship that travels across the sky, large enough to carry thousands, you say, yet so high that it appears as a speck? Can one sail to the stars?”
    Korshak took her hand, admired it, and lifted it to his lips while he considered the question. “Shandrahl has metalsmiths who work in the forge and armory to shape weapons for his soldiers,” he said.
    “Ye-es,” Vaydien looked at him uncertainly.
    “And in schools and craft shops out in the city, there are those who cut and polish lenses for spyglasses and magnifiers, and others whose artifice enables steam to turn engines that move mills and other ingenious devices.”
    “Secrets that only the specially gifted can know,” Vaydien said, voicing the generally held belief.
    “Those are just a few, isolated techniques that have been preserved without understanding from a far vaster trove of knowledge that once existed, that enabled feats beyond our comprehension.”
    “You mean greater magic than that which you persuade people you command?”
    Korshak snorted and grinned. “If you like.” He had already made it clear to Vaydien that the things he did were accomplished through trickery – although at times he wasn’t sure if she completely believed him.
    “I have seen strange, intricately fashioned parts of metals and other materials that were unearthed, that could serve no discernible purpose,” Vaydien said slowly. “And once, a decayed device with studs that I was told would let its owner talk instantly to anyone, anywhere. But I was never sure whether to believe it.”
    “Oh, such things were once commonplace,” Korshak assured her.
    “And was it that knowledge that destroyed the old world?” she asked.
    “Yes. But it didn’t have to. The world then was not like the one that you know today – divided into many regions like Arigane and Urst, that are cut off from other places and communicate little. The knowledge that existed then was available to all people, everywhere. There are places in the world today where that knowledge has been resurrected, and the ancient wonders have been created again. But those who have rediscovered that knowledge will not, this time, give it freely to the world to be misused again. It is shared only with selected adepts. To be accepted, they must show themselves worthy in spirit and disposition, as well as aptitude of mind.”
    “And is that how you were chosen?”
    Korshak nodded. “But the