The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 16

No more noise than the breeze in the brush Craw and the rest hurried up the bank, bent double, weapons ready. Scorry was waiting, knife already wiped, peering around the side of the gate post with one hand up behind him to say wait. Craw frowned down at the dead man's b.l.o.o.d.y face, mouth a bit open as though he was about to ask a question. A potter makes pots. A baker makes bread. And this is what Craw made. All he'd made all his life, pretty much.

It was hard to feel much pride at the sight, however neatly the work had been done. It was still a man murdered just for guarding his own village. Because they were men, these, with hopes and sorrows and all the rest, even if they lived out here past the Crinna and didn't wash too often. But what could one man do? Craw took a long breath in, and let it out slow. Just get the task done without any of his own people killed. In hard times, soft thoughts can kill you quicker than the plague.

He looked at Wonderful, and he jerked his head into the village, and she slid around the gate post and in, slipping across to the right-hand track, shaved head swiveling carefully left and right. Scorry followed at her heels and Brack crept after, silent for all his great bulk.

Craw took a long breath, then crept across to the left-hand track, wincing as he tried to find the hardest, quietest bits of the rutted muck to plant his feet on. He heard the hissing of Yon's careful breath behind him, knew Whirrun was there too, though he moved quiet as a cat. Craw could hear something clicking. A spinning wheel, maybe. He heard someone laugh, not sure if he was imagining it. His head was jerked this way and that to every trace of a sound, like he had a hook through his nose. The whole thing seemed horribly bright and obvious, right then. Maybe they should've waited for darkness, but Craw had never liked working at night. Not since that f.u.c.king disaster at Gurndrift where Pale-as-Snow's boys ended up fighting Littlebone's on an accident and more'n fifty men dead without an enemy within ten miles. Too much to go wrong at night.

But then Craw had seen plenty of men die in the day too.

He slid along beside a wattle wall, and he had that sweat of fear on him. That p.r.i.c.kling sweat that comes with death right at your shoulder. Everything was picked out sharper than sharp. Every stick in the wattle, every pebble in the dirt. The way the leather binding the grip of his sword dug at his palm when he s.h.i.+fted his fingers. The way each in-breath gave the tiniest whistle when it got three-quarters into his aching lungs. The way the sole of his foot stuck to the inside of his boot through the hole in his sock with every careful step. Stuck to it and peeled away.

He needed to get him some new socks was what he needed. Well, first he needed to live out the day, then socks. Maybe even those ones he'd seen in Uffrith last time he was there, dyed red. They'd all laughed at that. Him, and Yon, and Wonderful, and poor dead Jutlan. Laughed at the madness of it. But afterwards he'd thought to himself-there's luxury, that a man could afford to have his socks dyed-and cast a wistful glance over his shoulder at that fine cloth. Maybe he'd go back after this fool job was done with, and get himself a pair of red socks. Maybe he'd get himself two pairs. Wear 'em on the outside of his boots just to show folk what a big man he was. Maybe they'd take to calling him Curnden Red Socks. He felt a smile in spite of himself. Red socks, that was the first step on the road to ruin if ever he'd- The door to a hovel on their left wobbled open and three men walked out of it, all laughing. The one at the front turned his s.h.a.ggy head, big smile still plastered across his face, yellow teeth sticking out of it. He looked straight at Craw, and Yon, and Whirrun, stuck frozen against the side of a longhouse with their mouths open like three children caught nicking biscuits. Everyone stared at each other.

Craw felt time slow to a weird crawl, that way it did before blood spilled. Enough time to take in silly things. To wonder whether it was a chicken bone through one of their ears. To count the nails through one of their clubs. Eight and a half. Enough time to think it was funny he wasn't thinking something more useful. It was like he stood outside himself, wondering what he'd do but feeling it probably weren't up to him. And the oddest thing of all was that it had happened so often to him now, that feeling, he could recognise it when it came. That frozen, baffled moment before the world comes apart.

s.h.i.+t. Here I am again- He felt the cold wind kiss the side of his face as Whirrun swung his sword in a great reaping circle. The man at the front didn't even have time to duck. The flat of the sheathed blade hit him on the side of the head, whipped him off his feet, turned him head over heels in the air and sent him cras.h.i.+ng into the wall of the shack beside them upside down. Craw's hand lifted his sword without being told. Whirrun darted forward, arm lancing out, smas.h.i.+ng the pommel of his sword into the second man's mouth sending teeth and bits of teeth flying.

While he was toppling back like a felled tree, arms spread wide, the third tried to raise a club. Craw hacked him in the side, steel biting through fur and flesh with a wet thud, spots of blood showering out of him. The man opened his mouth and gave a great high shriek, tottering forward, bent over, eyes bulging. Craw split his skull wide open, sword-grip jolting in his hand, the scream choked off in a surprised yip. The body sprawled, blood pouring from broken head and all over Craw's boots. Looked like he'd come out of this with red socks after all. So much for no more dead, and so much for quiet as a spring breeze, too.

"f.u.c.k," said Craw.

By then time was moving way too fast for comfort. The world jerked and wobbled, full of flying dirt as he ran. Screams rang and metal clashed, his own breath and his own heart roaring and surging in his ears. He s.n.a.t.c.hed a glance over his shoulder, saw Yon turn a mace away with his s.h.i.+eld and roar as he hacked a man down. As Craw turned back an arrow came from the dead knew where and clicked into the mud wall just in front of him, almost made him fall over backwards with shock. Whirrun went into his a.r.s.e and knocked him sprawling, gave him a mouthful of mud. When he struggled up a man was charging right at him, a flash of screaming face and wild hair smeared across his sight. Craw was twisting round behind his s.h.i.+eld when Scorry slid out from nowhere and knifed the running b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the side, made him shriek and stumble sideways, off-balance. Craw took the side of his head off, blade pinging gently as it chopped through bone then thumped into the ground, nearly jerking from his raw fist.

"Move!" he shouted, not sure who at, trying to wrench his blade free of the earth. Jolly Yon rushed past, head of his axe dashed with red, teeth bared in a mad snarl. Craw followed, Whirrun behind him, face slack, eyes darting from one hut to another, sword still sheathed in one hand. Around the corner of a hovel and into a wide stretch of muck, scattered with ground-up straw. Pigs were honking and squirming in a pen at one side. The hall with the carved uprights stood at the other, steps up to a wide doorway, only darkness inside.

A red-haired man pounded across the ground in front of them, a wood axe in his fist. Wonderful calmly put an arrow through his cheek at six strides distant and he came up short, clapping a hand to his face, still stumbling towards her. She stepped to meet him with a fighting scream, swept her sword out and around and took his head right off. It spun into the air, showering blood, and dropped in the pig pen. Craw wondered for a moment if the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d still knew what was going on.

Then he saw the heavy door of the hall being swung shut, a pale face at the edge. "Door!" he bellowed, and ran for it, pounding across squelching mud and up the wooden steps, making the boards rattle. He shoved one b.l.o.o.d.y, muddy boot in the gap just as the door was slammed and gave a howl, eyes bulging, pain lancing up his leg. "My foot! f.u.c.k!"

There were a dozen Fox Clan or more crowded around the end of the yard now, growling and grunting louder and uglier than the hogs. They waved jagged swords, axes, rough clubs in their fists, a few with s.h.i.+elds too, one at the front with a rusted chain hauberk on, tattered at the hem, straggling hair tangled with rings of rough-forged silver.

"Back." Whirrun stood tall in front of them, holding out his sword at long arm's length, hilt up, like it was some magic charm to ward off evil. "Back, and you needn't die today."

The one in mail spat, then snarled back at him in broken Northern. "Show us your iron, thief!"

"Then I will. Look upon the Father of Swords, and look your last." And Whirrun drew it from the sheath.

Men might've had a hundred names for it-Dawn Razor, Grave-Maker, Blood Harvest, Highest and Lowest, Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, and so on, and so on-but Craw had to admit it was a disappointing length of metal. There was no flame, no golden light, no distant trumpets or mirrored steel. Just the gentle sc.r.a.pe as long blade came free of stained leather, the flat gray of damp slate, no s.h.i.+ne or ornament about it, except for the gleam of something engraved down near the plain, dull crosspiece.

But Craw had other worries than that Whirrun's sword wasn't worth all the songs. "Door!" he squealed at Yon, scrabbling at the edge of it with his left hand, all tangled up with his s.h.i.+eld, shoving his sword through the gap and waving it about to no effect. "My f.u.c.king foot!"

Yon roared as he pounded up the steps and rammed into the door with his shoulder. It gave all of a sudden, tearing from its hinges and crus.h.i.+ng some fool underneath. Him and Craw burst stumbling into the room beyond, dim as twilight, hazy with scratchy-sweet smoke. A shape came at Craw and he whipped his s.h.i.+eld up on an instinct, felt something thud into it, splinters flying in his face. He reeled off-balance, crashed into something else, metal clattering, pottery shattering. Someone loomed up, a ghostly face, a necklace of rattling teeth. Craw lashed at him with his sword, and again, and again, and he went down, white-painted face spattered with red.

Craw coughed, retched, coughed, blinking into the reeking gloom, sword ready to swing. He heard Yon roaring, heard the thud of an axe in flesh and someone squeal. The smoke was clearing now, enough for Craw to get some sense of the hall. Coals glowed in a fire pit, lighting a spider's web of carved rafters in sooty red and orange, casting s.h.i.+fting shadows on each other, tricking his eyes. The place was hot as h.e.l.l, and smelled like h.e.l.l besides. Old hangings around the walls, tattered canvas daubed with painted marks. A block of black stone at the far end, a rough statue standing over it, and at its feet the glint of gold. A cup, Craw thought. A goblet. He took a step towards it, trying to waft the murk away from his face with his s.h.i.+eld.

"Yon?" he shouted.

"Craw, where you at?"

Some strange kind of song was coming from somewhere, words Craw didn't know but didn't like the sound of. Not one bit. "Yon?" And a figure sprang up suddenly from behind that block of stone. Craw's eyes went wide and he almost fell in the fire pit as he stumbled back.

He wore a tattered red robe-long, sinewy arms sticking from it, spread wide, smeared with paint and beaded up with sweat, the skull of some animal drawn down over his face, black horns curling from it so he looked in the s.h.i.+fting light like a devil bursting straight up from h.e.l.l. Craw knew it was a mask, but looming up like that out of the smoke, strange song echoing from that skull, he felt suddenly rooted to the spot with fear. So much he couldn't even lift his sword. Just stood there trembling, every muscle turned to water. He'd never been a hero, that was true, but he'd never felt fear like this. Not even at Ineward, when he'd seen the b.l.o.o.d.y-Nine coming for him, snarling madman's face all dashed with other men's blood. He stood helpless.

"Fuh... fuh... fuh..."

The priest came forward, lifting one long arm. He had a thing gripped in painted fingers. A twisted piece of wood, the faintest pale glow about it.

The thing. The thing they'd come for.

Light flared from it brighter and brighter, so bright it burned its twisted shape fizzing into Craw's eyes, the sound of the song filling his ears until he couldn't hear anything else, couldn't think anything else, couldn't see nothing but that thing, searing bright as the sun, stealing his breath, crus.h.i.+ng his will, stopping his breath, cutting his- Crack. Jolly Yon's axe split the animal skull in half and chopped into the face underneath it. Blood sprayed, hissed in the coals of the firepit. Craw felt spots on his face, blinked and shook his head, loosed all of a sudden from the freezing grip of fear. The priest lurched sideways, song turned to a guttering gurgle, mask split in half and blood squirting from under it. Craw snarled as he swung his sword and it chopped into the sorcerer's chest and knocked him over on his back. The thing bounced from his hand and spun away across the rough plank floor, the blinding light faded to the faintest glimmer.

"f.u.c.king sorcerers," snarled Yon, curling his tongue and blowing spit onto the corpse. "Why do they bother? How long does it take to learn all that jabber and it never does you half the good a decent knife..." He frowned. "Uh-oh."

The priest had fallen in the fire pit, scattering glowing coals across the floor. A couple had spun as far as the ragged hem of one of the hangings.

"s.h.i.+t." Craw took a step on shaky legs to kick it away. Before he got there, flame sputtered around the old cloth. "s.h.i.+t." He tried to stamp it out, but his head was still a touch spinny and he only got embers scattered up his trouser leg, had to hop around, slapping them off. The flames spread, licking up faster'n the plague. Too much flame to put out, spurting higher than a man. "s.h.i.+t!" Craw stumbled back, feeling the heat on his face, red shadows dancing among the rafters. "Get the thing and let's go!"

Yon was already fumbling with the straps on his leather pack. "Right y'are, chief, right y'are! Backup plan!"

Craw left him and hurried to the doorway, not sure who'd be alive still on the other side. He burst out into the day, light stabbing at his eyes after the gloom.

Wonderful was standing there, mouth hanging wide open. She'd an arrow nocked to her half-drawn bow, but it was pointed at the ground, hands slack. Craw couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her surprised.

"What is it?" he snapped, getting his sword tangled up on the doorframe then snarling as he wrenched it free, "You hurt?" He squinted into the sun, shading his eyes with his s.h.i.+eld. "What's the..."And he stopped on the steps and stared. "By the dead."

Whirrun had hardly moved, the Father of Swords still gripped in his fist, long, dull blade pointing to the ground. Only now he was spotted and spattered head to toe in blood and the twisted and hacked, split and ruined corpses of the dozen Fox Clan who'd faced him were scattered around his boots in a wide half-circle, a few bits that used to be attached to them scattered wider still.

"He killed the whole lot." Brack's face was all crinkled up with confusion. "Just like that. I never even lifted my hammer."

"d.a.m.ndest thing," muttered Wonderful. "d.a.m.ndest thing." She wrinkled her nose. "Can I smell smoke?"

Yon burst from the hall, stumbled into Craw's back and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling down the steps. "Did you get the thing?" snapped Craw.

"I think I..."Yon blinked at Whirrun, stood tall in his circle of slaughter. "By the dead, though."

Whirrun started to back towards them, twisted himself sideways as an arrow looped over and stuck wobbling into the side of the hall. He waved his free hand. "Maybe we better-"

"Run!" roared Craw. Perhaps a good leader should wait until everyone else gets clear. First man to arrive in a fight and the last to leave. That was how Threetrees used to do it. But Craw weren't Threetrees, it hardly needed to be said, and he was off like a rabbit with its tail on fire. Leading by example, he'd have called it. He heard bow strings behind him. An arrow zipped past, just wide of his flailing arm, stuck wobbling into one of the hovels. Then another. His squashed foot was aching like fury but he limped on, waving his s.h.i.+eld arm. Pounding towards the jerking, wobbling archway with the animal's skull above it. "Go! Go!"

Wonderful tore past, feet flying, flicking mud in Craw's face. He saw Scorry flit between two huts up ahead, then swift as a lizard around one of the gateposts and out of the village. He hurled himself after, under the arch of branches. Jumped down the bank, caught his hurt foot, body jolting, teeth snapping together and catching his tongue. He took one more wobbling step then went flying, crashed into the boggy bracken, rolled over his s.h.i.+eld, just with enough thought to keep his sword from cutting his own nose off. He struggled to his feet, laboured on up the slope, legs burning, lungs burning, through the trees, trousers soaked to the knee with marsh-water. He could hear Brack lumbering along at his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and behind him Yon's growl, "b.l.o.o.d.y... s.h.i.+t... b.l.o.o.d.y... running... b.l.o.o.d.y... s.h.i.+t..."

He tore through the brush and wobbled into the clearing where they'd made their plans. Plans that hadn't flown too smoothly, as it went. Raubin was standing by the gear. Wonderful near him with her hands on her hips. Never was kneeling on the far side of the clearing, arrow nocked to his bow. He grinned as he saw Craw. "You made it then, chief?"

"s.h.i.+t." Craw stood bent over, head spinning, dragging in air. "s.h.i.+t." He straightened, staring at the sky, face on fire, not able to think of another word, and without the breath to say one if he had been.

Brack looked even more shot than Craw, if it was possible, crouched over, hands on knees and knees wobbling, big chest heaving, big face red as a slapped a.r.s.e around his tattoos. Yon tottered up and leaned against a tree, cheeks puffed out, skin s.h.i.+ning with sweat.

Wonderful was hardly out of breath. "By the dead, the state o' you fat old men." She slapped Never on the arm. "That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they'd catch you and skin you sure."

"You hoped, you mean," said Never, "but you should've known better. I'm the best d.a.m.n runner-away in the North."

"That is a fact."

"Where's Scorry?" gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.

Never jerked his thumb. "Circled round to check no one's coming for us."

Whirrun ambled back into the clearing now, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid's yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.

"I take it they're not following?" asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.

Whirrun shook his head. "Nope."

"Can't say I blame the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You're one serious f.u.c.ker with that sword."

"You get the thing?" asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.

"That's right, Raubin, we saved your skin." Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They'd done it, and his sense of humor was starting to leak back in. "Hah. Could you imagine if we'd left the b.a.s.t.a.r.d thing behind?"

"Never fear," said Yon, flipping open his pack. "Jolly Yon c.u.mber, once more the f.u.c.king hero." And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.

Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light, and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. "That ain't f.u.c.king it, Yon!"

"It's not?"

"That's a cup! It was the thing we wanted!" He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. "The b.l.o.o.d.y thing with the kind of b.l.o.o.d.y light about it!"

Yon stared back at him. "No one told me it had a b.l.o.o.d.y light!"

There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off, startled from a branch it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the gray sky.

"Why the h.e.l.l are you laughing?" snapped Wonderful.

Inside his hood Whirrun's twisted face was glistening with happy tears. "I told you I'd laugh when I heard something funny!" And he was off again, arching back like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.

"You'll have to go back," said Raubin.

"Back?" muttered Wonderful, her dirt-streaked face a picture of disbelief. "Back, you mad f.u.c.ker?"

"You know the hall caught fire, don't you?" snapped Brack, one big trembling arm pointing down towards the thickening column of smoke wafting up from the village.

"It what?" asked Raubin as Whirrun blasted a fresh shriek at the sky, hacking, gurgling, only just keeping on his feet.

"Oh, aye, burned down, more'n likely with the d.a.m.n thing in it."

"Well... I don't know... you'll just have to pick through the ashes!"

"How about we pick through your f.u.c.king ashes?" snarled Yon, throwing the cup down on the ground.

Craw gave a long sigh, rubbed at his eyes, then winced down towards that s.h.i.+t-hole of a village. Behind him, Whirrun's laughter sawed throaty at the dusk. "Always," he muttered, under his breath. "Why do I always get stuck with the fool jobs?"

ALONE.

ROBERT REED.

Robert Reed was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and has worked as a lab technician. He became a full-time writer in 1987, the same year he won the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and has published eleven novels, including The Leesh.o.r.e The Leesh.o.r.e, The Hormone Jungle, The Hormone Jungle, and far future science fiction novels and far future science fiction novels Marrow Marrow and and The Well of Stars The Well of Stars. An extraordinarily prolific writer, Reed has published over 200 short stories, mostly in Fantasy & Science Fiction Fantasy & Science Fiction and and Asimov's Asimov's, which have been nominated for the Hugo, James Tiptree, Jr., Locus, Nebula, Seiun, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and World Fantasy awards, and have been collected in The Dragons of Springplace The Dragons of Springplace and and The Cuckoo's Boys The Cuckoo's Boys. His novella "A Billion Eves" won the Hugo Award. Nebraska's only SF writer, Reed lives in Lincoln with his wife and daughter, and is an ardent long-distance runner.

1.

The hull was gray and smooth, gray and empty, and in every direction it fell away gradually, vanis.h.i.+ng where the cold black of the sky pretended to touch what was real. What was real was the Great s.h.i.+p. Nothing else enjoyed substance or true value. Nothing else in Creation could be felt, much less understood. The s.h.i.+p was a sphere of perfect hyperfiber, world-sized and enduring, while the sky was only a boundless vacuum punctuated with lost stars and the occasional swirls of distant galaxies. Radio whispers could be heard, too distorted and far too faint to resolve, and neutrino rains fell from above and rose from below, and there were ripples of gravity and furious nuclei generated by distant catastrophes-inconsequential powers was.h.i.+ng across the unyielding, eternal hull.

Do not trust the sky, the walker understood. The sky wished only to tell lies. And perhaps worse, the sky could distract the senses and mind from what genuinely mattered. The walker's only purpose was to slowly, carefully move across the s.h.i.+p's hull, and if something of interest were discovered, a cautious investigation would commence. But only if it was harmless could the mystery be approached and studied in detail. Instinct guided the walker, and for as long as it could remember, the guiding instinct was fear. Fierce, unnamed hazards were lurking. The walker could not see or define its enemies, but they were near, waiting for weakness. Waiting for sloth or inattentiveness. Regardless how curious it was or how fascinating some object might be, the walker scrupulously avoided anything that moved or spoke, or any device that glowed with unusual heat, and even the tiniest example of organic life was something to be avoided, without fail.

Solitude was its natural way.

Alone, the ancient fear would diminish to a bearable ache, and something like happiness was possible.

Walking, walking. That was the purpose of existence. Select a worthy line, perhaps using one of the scarce stars as a navigational tool. Follow that line until something new was discovered, and regardless whether the object was studied or circ.u.mvented, the walker would then pick a fresh direction-a random direction-and maintain that new line with the same tenacity.

There was no need to eat, no requirement for drink or sleep. Its life force was a minor, unsolvable mystery. The pace was patient, every moment feeling long and busy. But if nothing of note occurred, nothing needed to be recalled. After a century of uninterrupted routine, the walker compressed that blissful sameness into a single impression that was squeezed flush against every other vacuous memory-the recollections of a soul that felt ageless but was still very close to empty.

Eyes shrank and new eyes grew, changing talents. With that powerful, piercing vision, the walker watched ahead and beside and behind. Nothing was missed. And sometimes for no obvious reason it would stop, compelled suddenly to lower several eyes, staring into a random portion of the hull. From the grayness, microscopic details emerged. Fresh radiation tracks still unhealed; faint scars being gradually erased by quantum bonds fighting to repair themselves. Each observation revealed quite a lot about the hyperfiber, and the lessons never changed. The hull was a wonder. Fas.h.i.+oned from an extremely strong and lasting material-a silvery-gray substance refined during a lost age by some powerful species, perhaps, or perhaps a league of vanished G.o.ds. They were the masters who must have imagined and built the s.h.i.+p, and presumably the same wondrous hands had sent their prize racing through the vacuum. A good, glorious purpose must be at work here; but except for the relentless perfection of the Great s.h.i.+p, nothing remained of their intentions, their goals, or even an obvious destination.

When the walker kneeled, the hull's beauty was revealed.

And then it would stand again and resume its slow travels, feeling blessed to move free upon this magnificent face.

2.

There was no purpose but to wander the perfection forever: that was an a.s.sumption made early and embraced as a faith. But as the centuries pa.s.sed, oddities and little mysteries gradually grew more numerous. Every decade brought a few more crushed steel boxes and empty diamond buckets than the decade before, and there were lumps of mangled aerogel, and later, the occasional shard of some lesser form of hyperfiber. As time pa.s.sed, the walker began to come across dead machines and pieces of machinery and tools too ma.s.sive or far too ordinary to be carried any farther once they had failed. These objects were considerably younger than the s.h.i.+p. Who abandoned them was a looming mystery, but one that would not be solved soon. The walker had no intention of approaching these others. And in those rare times when they approached it-always by mistake, always unaware of its presence-it would flatten itself against the hull and make itself vanish.

Invisibility was a critical talent. But invisibility meant that it had to abandon most of its senses. Even as they strode across its smooth back, these interlopers were reduced to a vibration with each footfall and a weak tangle of magnetic and electrical fields.

Days later and safe again, the walker would rise up carefully and move on.

Another millennium pa.s.sed without serious incident. It was easy to believe that the Great s.h.i.+p would never change, and nothing would ever be truly new; and holding that belief close, the walker followed one new line. No buckets or diamond chisels were waiting to change its direction. As it strode on, the stars and sky-whispers silently warned that it was finally pa.s.sing into unknown territory. But this did happen on occasion. Perfection meant sameness, and the walker could imagine nothing new. Then what seemed to be a flat-topped mountain began to rise over the coming horizon. Puzzled, it made note of the sharp gray line hovering just above the hull. More years of steady marching caused the grayness to lift higher, just slightly. Perhaps a mountain of trash had been set there. Perhaps a single enormous bucket upended. Various explanations offered themselves; none satisfied. But the event was so surprising, enormous and unwelcome, and the novelty so great, that the walker stopped as soon as it was sure that something was indeed there, and without taking one step, it waited for three years and a little longer, adapting its eyes constantly, absorbing a view that refused to change.

Finally, curiosity defeated every caution, and altering its direction, the walker steered straight toward what still made no sense.