Innervisions

by John Gribbin

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

Because of the length of time that a voyage takes, knowledge of the purpose and nature of the universe often becomes lost to the succeeding generations of starship occupants. Through the experiences of a woman, and the people she encounters in a journey, the truth of their existence is revealed.

Release date: April 23, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 176

Sample

Elyse woke from the dream slowly, with heavy lidded eyes that were reluctant to open, even though she knew she was awake. Her tongue felt thick in her dry mouth. Her neck ached. When the dreams came upon her, she seemed to waken more tired than when she had fallen into bed, if that were possible. And it was worse when the dream made no sense, just as this one had made no sense.

When she dreamed of the great ships, or the bird-men, or other strange people going about their incomprehensible tasks, at least she had the anchor of their obvious peopleness to cling on to. A dream about people, no matter how strange, and whatever strange business they were about, was at least in part related to the comforting familiarity of everyday life. But to dream of metal spiders, crawling about over a metal egg, floating in a black sea, surely carried the stamp of madness.

This dream, recur though it might, she would never reveal to anybody. But the others? How much could she, dare she, reveal to the Elders?

Her gift, if it were a gift and not a curse, was known to them already, thanks to her childish indiscretions. Now, on the threshold of womanhood, she knew better how to guard her tongue. But discretion had come too late to prevent the curiosity of the Elders from being roused, to prevent her being brought here, to the Halls, spared the heavy labour of the fields but treated no better than a serving-girl while being watched as closely as if she were, indeed, imprisoned. The Elders knew she had a Talent, but they did not know if it was for good or ill. And until they decided, Elyse would have no freedom.

Suddenly, breaking out of the spell cast by the dream, she sat up in bed, shrugging off the thin cover that was all she needed during the warm season, and hugged her knees, gazing out past the rough logs of the wall, through the window, at the hills beyond. Although nearly eighteen summers old, Elyse still had the figure of a young girl, her chest almost as flat as that of a boy. Her black hair scarcely reached to her shoulders; the dark eyes, wide in the face that, in spite of its freckles, was pale from the long hours she now spent indoors, were focused on nothing at all, as she pictured in her mind not the real hills outside the window but the ones where she had run as a child, freely, before the suspicion of her Talent grew into a certainty and she was sent by her parents into the care of the Elders.

If they decided that her Talent was not in the interests of the people, then before another summer came, she would be married. Bedded by a man chosen for her by the Elders from a bloodline rich, as far as any were, in Talents – but probably someone she would never meet before the wedding ceremony. She felt a fluttery queasiness in the pit of her stomach at the thought, like the scared but pleasurable feeling when she had, long ago, climbed to the top of a high tree where the light branches, swaying in the breeze, threatened to throw her to the ground at any minute. The prospect excited her physically even though she recoiled from it with her mind. For then, with her Talent gone, she would be free to leave the Halls, and return to the fields and hills outside. But free only to be the companion of a farmer, to help him tend the fields, to bear children who, if they were girls, would be particularly carefully watched for any signs of burgeoning Talent.

And if the Elders approved of her Talent? If they found a way to turn it to advantage? Why, then she would become an Elder herself, one of the rulers of the people, a prospect as exciting mentally as the prospect of being paired with a man affected her body. But as an Elder, she would be for ever a prisoner of the Halls, obedient to their forms and customs, using her Talent for the good of all, kept locked away like a precious work of art, and never to feel the touch of a man – never, indeed, to be alone with a man.

The one certainty in the road mapped out for her when she entered the Halls at the age of fourteen was that, one way or the other, she would never be free to travel the Land alone, to run where she liked across the hills, accountable to nobody but herself. And that, of course, was the one thing that Elyse craved above all else.

There was certainly plenty of Land to travel, for those with the inclination and the freedom to do so. From the Halls, set back from the shore by the side of the Little River, you could ride for four days in either direction, eastward to the Great River or west, to where the mountains came down to the sea, and never leave the dominion of the Elders. Inland, the region of settled farms and coppiced woodlands extended all the way to the White Mountains, where gentle hills shaded into the sheer, unclimbable cliffs, shrouded in the cloud that gave them their name, that reached up to unimaginable mysteries beyond. And both to east and to west, beyond the Great River and the coastal mountains, there were further settlements, accessible only by the small vessels that plied the coastal waters. These owed nominal allegiance to the Elders, but were rumoured to be the homes of wild Talents and strange, barbaric practices. Beyond them lay the wilderness itself; but even so adventurous a spirit as Elyse recoiled from the thought of ever going that far.

The outer villages, though. She could day-dream if nothing else, of finding a home there, concealing her Talent, and leading a normal life. Or even, if the stories were true, of using her Talent, an important person in a small community, not just one very junior Elder among many, free from the forms and customs of the Halls. That was the most exciting prospect of all both to mind and body – even if it was the least likely to come to fruition, and even if she still had no idea, after four years of Dreaming, of what use her Talent might be to anybody at all, if it was indeed a true Talent.

But neither Dreaming nor day-dreaming could keep her from her duties as a probationer in the Halls. And the great bell, tolled by the sister probationer on duty by the water-clock, said that it was already the seventh hour. Hurriedly, Elyse slid off the bed and washed the remaining sleep out of her eyes. Slipping out of her nightdress, she pulled on undergarments, and then the ankle-length, high-necked blue gown with white collar and cuffs. It would be over-warm in the summer heat, but modesty was more important than comfort in the Halls. It would never do for any man to be excited by the sight of even a probationary Elder. Though Elyse thought, not for the first time, as she ran her hands down her slim body to smooth the gown into place, that there was precious little chance of any man even noticing that she was more than a child, except for her height. She ran her fingers through her hair, not bothering with a comb, and hurried from the room. Kitchen duty first – waiting at table on the Elders, clearing away, washing up, and only then would she be allowed her own morning meal. No time to lose.

Sitting at the rough table in the kitchen hall, she watched the dying embers of the cooking fire as she mechanically shovelled the last of the porridge from the wooden bowl into her mouth. The thin coil of grey smoke, rising from the bed of the fire, seemed to take on the shapes of her dreams, puffing out like the fat sails of the ships of her imagination. Automatically, she pushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes with her free hand, while the hand holding the spoon stopped moving. Perhaps it was just imagination. Or perhaps not. Just how the Elders expressed their own Talents was a carefully guarded secret. Each probationer had to find her own path to the truth. But there were stories of sisters who could shape clouds to their will, or who made the branches of living trees move to their whim. Would it be so strange if her Talent, gaining strength from her dreams, were now to be manifested in the control of fire smoke? And did it mean she was ready at last to be Tested?

She would never be ready to be Tested. Pulling her eyes away from the fire and its smoke, Elyse looked about her. Lifting the spoon to her lips, she licked the last traces of porridge from its surface. At least the food was plentiful here, and good, if plain. The Elders said that too much pandering to the weakness of the body made it soft, and thereby weakened the spirit. But no Talent could function properly if the body it chose to occupy was not healthy and strong.

Only the two youngest probationers were at the table with her. They treated Elyse, the oldest probationer, with almost as much deference as they gave the Elders, and had made no attempt to interrupt her reverie, whispering quietly to each other as they completed their simple meal. There were only six probationers in all; soon, one way or the other, there would be only five. Nobody could become an Elder before the age of sixteen; nobody could stay a probationer beyond the age of eighteen. Time was closing in on Elyse. She could feel the change coming over her, the power of her Talent growing within. A Talent to control smoke; to see visions not just in her dreams, but in the coils of writhing grey given up by the living wood in its fiery death throes. But would she be able to control those visions? And would they be able to tell her of things of value to the people? Or would she still only see strange lands, strange ships, and even stranger metal eggs and spiders?

Karyn, slightly the elder of the two children on the opposite side of the table, glanced up at Elyse, half smiled, then ducked her head as if concentrating on her now empty bowl. Elyse smiled in return, remembering when she had been like them, new to the Halls, nervous but excited, wondering what it would be like to be an Elder, still not sure whether or not she really was the bearer of a Talent herself.

‘Well, Karyn. If you scrape much longer at that bowl, you’ll wear a hole in it. What duties do you have this morning, that keep you so long at the table?’

The child looked up again, and blushed. Her companion, Miryam, giggled.

‘Oh, please, Elyse … we have lessons, until the midday bell.’

‘Then perhaps you should hurry along to Sister Tutor, while there are still a few moments left before the bell.’ She reached across the table for their bowls and spoons. ‘I will attend to these.’

‘Yes, Elyse.’ The two small figures pushed back their bench, and hurried away, still giggling. Maybe she would have been more at home here, Elyse briefly thought, if she had entered with a companion her own age. But it hadn’t happened that way. There had only been four other girls, all much older than her, one of whom, once called Marretta, was now Sister Tutor. Her chosen name, like those of the other Elders, reflected her Talent. A gift for communication, for imparting knowledge; and maybe even wisdom; clearly, a Talent of great value to the people.

And little Karyn, what name would she take? It was easy for her to be so happy, who had such an obvious Talent so young. Since Karyn had been ten years old, her father’s farm had been the talk first of his village, then of the Eastern Settlements, and then of the whole people. The crops that little Karyn tended grew tall and straight, free from any blight; the animals she fed never took sick. Sister Green, that would suit her. And surely she would be taking her name as soon as she was of age, at sixteen summers. While Elyse, already nearly eighteen, still awaited a decision and a name. A useless Talent at best; a talent for seeing pictures in the grey of wood-smoke. Sister Grey, that would suit her, she thought bitterly, the smile vanishing from her lips. If not Mistress Grey.

She pushed her own bench back and picked up the utensils. Might as well get used to a life of chores and drudgery.



It was unreasonably hot for the time of day. The sun beat straight down on Rantor’s head from the zenith with scarcely any protecting cloud layer, even though it would soon be night. Pausing in his purposeful march to the shipyard he pulled a large kerchief from the leather pouch on his belt and mopped first his forehead, then the back of his neck. Wadding the cloth in his right hand as he prepared to put it away, he glanced up at the four flag-poles on the high tower of the castle at the head of the bay. Sure enough, three of the poles were bare, while on the fourth a single flag flapped limply at half-mast in the unusually weak sea breeze. More than halfway through the fourth quarter; dark in less than two candles. And hardly a cloud overhead. Freak winds. Nothing to worry about, just one of those things. But where would a sailor be if he couldn’t depend on the sea breeze by day and the land breeze by night?

Rantor shivered at the thought, in spite of the heat. The reliable winds provided the only sure means of navigation around the Archipelago. Which was why it was worth following up any lead that might provide a means to navigate beyond the Archipelago, out in the broad ocean. Even a lead as half-baked as the mission he was now on. Once again, he stepped out briskly towards the yard, the small shadow cast by the almost unbearably bright pinpoint of light overhead flickering beneath him as he strode along.

It had begun several fivedays before with a summons from his Lord, Kyper, the most powerful man in the Three Islands, perhaps the most powerful in the entire Archipel. . .