Montrose said, “Another delay. What if Ain never agrees to Mickey’s plans?”

Del Azarchel smiled. “Do you recall once, long ago, a swan told us that you and I were like Caliban and Tarzan, absurdly primitive beings compared to the monsters in the heavens? Well, one of those monsters is Ain, a machine made of a cloud of dendrites larger in mass than our solar system circling a sun larger than ours, a machine made by an extinct race of whelks or clams who never lied to each other or told less than the whole truth. I suspect Mickey will have a psychological edge when it comes to the bargaining process.”

Montrose said, “You and I could pretend we did not hate each other long enough to prevent Ain from using us to undermine the other.”

Del Azarchel shook his head. “In my life, once I was at oneness with Jupiter, a brain so large all words fail. And this being is far wiser, far more insightful, than that. Unless I were willing, honestly and entirely, to foreswear my hate for you, and you to foreswear your love for my Rania, we could not fool Ain. But with no deception at all, and no mental reservations, I can trust Mictlanagualzin of Tormentil—because I know his true name. I know his character.

“And he knows mine. No one who serves me can ever truly come to hate me, because I know the hearts of men. Of course I trust him.

“So he can tell Ain that mankind will not cooperate without any deception, because his desire to see us sail is less than his desire to see the men of Tormentil live free.”

Montrose whistled. From a nearby swarm of glittering firefly-glinting units shaped like lacy-winged courtiers, the nearest of several identical figurines darted down to him. A tiny figurine, no more than six inches tall, of a princess with a fairy wand, landed on his finger. “Twinklewink, this is Montrose. Do you recognize me?”

The tiny figurine curtseyed. “Montrose, Menelaus Illation, morganthic husband of Her Serene Highness Rania of Tellus, mistress of this vessel. How may I serve?”

“This is an order. Now hear this: Allow Del Azarchel access to the mind replication and broadcast circuits, as well as the long-range astronomical instruments. He is locked out of any and every other central system, until and unless I specifically order otherwise. End.”

“Roger,” said the figurine and flew over to land on the finger of Del Azarchel.

Del Azarchel, with many an orotund and flattering word, said his farewells, and walked a little ways away. There were no control interfaces in this ship, no bridge, nor need of any. Instead, Del Azarchel seated himself on the green grass beneath a white-blossomed cherry tree and spoke to the fairy figure on his finger. She raised her wand, and images, data streams, and memory chains were electronically distributed into his cortex and midbrain. He closed his eyes, and his skin turned white.

Montrose shook hands for the last time with Mickey. “Make sure only volunteers go!” he said. “Being trapped in the mind of an alien being is hell.”

Mickey said, “Menelaus, I shall not fail you. I foresee that you will meet your princess again, nor will this be the end of your travails, but more than this galaxy will be changed by the love you bear her. You think yourself selfish, seeking nothing but this one woman, but all this is arranged by Providence. Sorrow and pain is all along the path before you, but beyond it, I see, like a mountain in the distance, the final end of that path, beyond the walls of this world. Therefore, I do not say farewell, for a spirit of prophecy tells me we shall meet again, not in this life, but in a country of joy. I say only Godspeed to you, and may the ghost grant you the strength to cross the darker parts of the cruel path awaiting!”

Montrose found nothing to say, but gave Mickey a bear hug.

Trey stood on her tiptoes and kissed Montrose on the cheek. “It has to be a happy ending. It has to! Otherwise the universe doesn’t make sense, does it? But you have to tell me: Is she really real? The real one?”

Montrose said, “She is alive. I know. I ain’t got no clue how I know, but I do. I’ll get her back. I know that, too. I am in love. That makes her real.”

Without bothering to strip, the two of them, holding hands, stepped down into the fluid of the pool, which also served as a suspension coffin and neural reading unit. Nanomachines held in suspension in the clear liquid gathered around them like swarms of diamonds. The surface grew solid and turned opaque as a mirror. Less than half an hour later, an airlock opened beneath the pool, and the solid disk of icy material carrying the two fell away from the spinning vessel.

The landing boat detached from the axial dock and swooped after them, growing the wings it would use for reentry, once her passengers were aboard.

Montrose raised his hand and commanded the little sun of his miniature world to go out. Then he bowed his head. His skin turned white as he entered biosuspension. From his feet, like the concentric ripples seen in a pond disturbed by a stone, pale hues spread across grass and trees as all the vegetable life entered suspended animation.

The Solitudines Vastae Caelorum then was silent, and all around the circular garden, the quiet stars turned and turned.

3

Cradle of the Stars

1. Parity

A.D. 80100

Twinklewink, the tiny fairy queen, landed on the ice-white nose of Montrose and commanded him to wake. Waking from suspension no longer required hours or days of cellular readjustment, nor even a few minutes of nausea. Montrose sat up suddenly, fully awake, and found himself thrown toward the ceiling. He flew two yards into the air, striking a mass of green leaves and hard branches and twigs that covered the ceiling.

“What the pox?” he snarled, trying to extricate himself.

The light here was gloomy and wavering, dusty beams swaying like moonlight seen through a shifting canopy. He was in Rania’s bedroom, but the futon and tatami mats, the thinking glasses and painted wall screens were covered over with leafy debris, mold, and a nest of clinging branches. The light came from the arched window overlooking the circular garden of the ship.

He moved hand over hand, needing to tap his foot on the leaf mass or bent floor matting only once every yard or two. The window had three or four prodigious branches thrust into the opening, and the action of clinging twigs had broken the window frame in several places.

He pushed his head and one shoulder out through the narrow gap in the wood, scraping himself on the bark. Outside, the lanterns of the miniature sun were quenched, and the whole area between the ring of the garden at the circumference and the black sphere of the rive core at the axis was crowded with a fantastical array of knots, loops, and labyrinthine twists and spirals of wood. Whether it was one tree or many, Montrose could not be sure, but the effect of low gravity on the Earthly trees had been well known ever since the Second Space Age. He knew he was seeing hundreds of years of growth, maybe a thousand.

“Twinklewink!” he snapped. “How long has the carousel been spinning at less than one gravity of acceleration?”

The little fairy queen fluttered over and landed on his shoulder, a spark of acetylene light gleaming from her wand. “Three thousand three hundred years, Captain Montrose.”

That was very close to half their travel time.

He and Blackie had woken up out of suspension to share a glass of wine at the halfway point of the voyage. A tradition as old as star-sailing hallowed the occasion: it was the moment of weightless maneuvering when the ship was to rotate and place her sails behind her, to occlude the aft stars and let the fore stars for the first time become visible.

Montrose had then returned to biosuspension. Del Azarchel evidently had not.