Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
Held in both hands now, the long slender fingers working the shapes, the
Zimmer's eyes were as glazed appearing as what they looked at. “I've seen some
of the Opening,” Oimit said absently. “On the Alisim side, they didn't have
anything to record with, the ships couldn't land and besides, I don't think
anything they had would have held. What I saw were memory pulls and those
incomplete.”
She looked up and Poss a'ltic thought she must have imagined that those black
ringed eyes had ever been anything other than clear. “What do you want of us?”
the woman repeated, looking to her and then A'in. The girdle fell half onto the
rug, a shower of light accompanied by a faint tinkle. “Is glass supposed to
become sunstone? Another dance?” Her hands couldn't leave it alone; there was
another rustle of glass on glass. They would leave more fragments here. “The
world-net whispers around him,” Oimit said, her voice loosing even more texture,
becoming a monotone singsong. “He said he had become the black and the black,
him. A very long time dancing - how couldn't it happen. Fly said the dark bird, fly
into light...”
“Fly said the light bird...,” Poss a'ltic started. She had heard that tune in
Temple; she hadn't learned it in the farming community where she had grown up.
The start of Kascin's playing had been the same tune, she realized. No wonder it
had sounded familiar. “Fly into night,” she ended, but using old-tongue.
The Zimmer woman stopped when Poss a'ltic spoke. Bent almost double, she
panted heavily. And looked up again, her eyes full black and staring. “Old tongue
was the language that was used to shape the first world-net. Before Temple;
before Empire. How simple it must have been. Branches of decisions, as many
dimensions as you wanted or needed, but perfectly linear. And now? If you want
to understand the Change phoenix, do you need to look any further than the
language you just spoke to me in?”
Poss a'ltic glanced towards Tu'pin before answering. The Zimmer Priest was in
light pattern. “No,” she said. “But 'seeing' might be more accurate than
'understanding' - or it might be more possible. Commander Oimit, the fullest
extent of the Spann Protectorate and the greater Alliance, the principals and the
sphere of influence both, constitute a tiny portion of Empire. Even the ideas, the
Wu'similini heresies, are more a part of the natural ebb and flow of beliefs than
an attack on Empire. The suppression of these beliefs is simply more of the same.
The Wu'similini gives an illusion of freedom from Empire Law, nothing more,
certainly no more than what the Lady Cult gives to the freeborn. Not while the
world-patterns determine the very shape of our existence.
“All that happened is that the ti'Linn maneuvered a decision and those who sat
in judgment were compelled by their nature to take sides. Shall they drink the tea
or leave it? Eat the pastry or not? Habits of either doing something or not doing
it.” She laughed again but a gentler sound than before. She felt grounded again
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca