War in Heaven Read Free

forehead.
    "Well, what have you discovered, Pilot?"
    Danlo waited a moment as he breathed deeply the scent of flowers and rocket fire filling the air. He swallowed to moisten his throat; he had a warm and melodious voice but he was unused to speaking. "If you'd like, I will tell you a thing," he said.
    "Well, then?"
    "I have found Tannahill, sir. I ... have been with the Architects of the Old Church."
    At this astonishing news, the Sonderval stood as still as a tree and stared at Danlo. The Lord Pilot was the coolest of men and seldom betrayed any emotions other than pride in himself or loathing for his fellow man. But on that day, under the hot, high sun, with a crowd of people watching him from the end of the run, he punched his fist into his open hand and shouted out in envy, joy and disbelief, "It can't be true!"
    And then, noticing that a couple of olive-robed programmers were staring at him, he motioned for Danlo to follow him away from the run. He led him down a little walkway leading to one of the run's access streets. Danlo looked over his shoulder to see the cadre of professionals converge upon his ship like hungry wolves around a beached seal. Then he walked with the Sonderval up to the gleaming black sled which would take them into the city of Lightstone.
    "We'll talk as we ride," the Sonderval said. He opened the sled's doors and invited Danlo to, sit inside. He explained that this long, wheeled vehicle should have been named differently but for the Lord Akashic's nostalgia for Neverness and the sleek sleds that rocket down her icy streets.
    "On Tannahill, I have been inside such vehicles before," Danlo said. "They call them choches. "
    While the Sonderval piloted the sled along the streets leading from the field into Lightstone, Danlo told of another city far across the Vild — and of hard plastic choches armoured against bombs and ancient religious disputes and war.
    "You amaze me," the Sonderval said. "We've sent two hundred pilots into the Vild. And no one has returned with even a breath of a hint as to where Tannahill might be found."
    "Truly?"
    "I, myself, have searched for this world. From Perdido Luz to the Shatarei Void. I, myself, Pilot."
    "I ... am sorry."
    "Why is it that some men have so much luck? You and your father — both born under the same lucky star."
    Just then, as Danlo gazed at the colours of the city looming up beyond him, an old pain stabbed through his head. He thought of the sudden death of the entire Devaki tribe: his found-father and mother and sisters who had raised him until he was fourteen years old; he remembered the betrayal of his deepest friend, Hanuman li Tosh, and the loss of Tamara Ten Ashtoreth, she of the golden hair and golden soul — the woman whom he had loved almost more than life itself. With the hurt of his head pressing deeply into him like an iron fist, he recalled the very recent War of Terror on Tannahill, the eye-tlolts and burning lasers and hydrogen bombs. In a way, he himself had brought this war upon the Architects of the Old Church. In a way, although a kind of victory had been achieved, this war was not yet over.
    "I ... have not always been lucky," Danlo said. He pressed his palm against his left eye, which seemed to be the source of his terrible headaches. "In my life there has been much light, yes, and I have always sought its source, its centre. But sometimes I am afraid that I am only like a moth circling closer to the flames of what you call my star. Sometimes I have wondered if I am only being pulled towards a terrible fate."
    For a while, as they moved down a sunlit boulevard towards the three hills gleaming with new buildings, they talked about fate: the fate of the Order, the fate of the Civilized Worlds, the fate of pilots on desperate quests to the Vild's deadly stars. The Sonderval told of pilots who had returned to Thiells having made significant discoveries. Helena Charbo, out by the great Ilias Double, had found a world of lost Architects