“That’s not too bad a time-debt,” I said. I last saw Aenea just after her sixteenth birthday. She would gain a few months on me. Her hair might be longer. “We had a greater time-debt jumping to Renaissance System.”

“That is not time-debt, M. Endymion,” said the ship. “That is shiptime.” This time the chill along the length of my body was real. My tongue seemed thick.

“Three months’ shiptime… how much time-debt?”

“For someone waiting on T’ien Shan?” said the ship. The jungle world was a speck behind us now as we accelerated toward a translation point.

“Five years, two months, and one day,” said the ship. “As you are aware, the time-debt algorithm is not a linear function of C-plus duration, but includes such factors as…”

“Ah, Jesus,” I said, raising my wrist to my clammy forehead in the autosurgeon coffin. “Ah, damn.”

“Are you in pain, M. Endymion? The dolorometer suggests you are not, but your pulse has become erratic. We can increase the level of painkiller…”

“No!” I snapped. “No, it’s all right. I just… five years… damn.”

Did Aenea know this? Had she known that our separation would cover years of her life? Perhaps I should have brought the ship through the downriver farcaster. No, Aenea had said to fetch the ship and fly it to T’ien Shan. The farcaster had brought us to Mare Infinitus last time. Who knows where it would have taken me this time.

“Five years,” I muttered. “Ah, damn. She’ll be… damn, Ship… she’ll be twenty-one years old. A grown woman. I’ll have missed… I won’t see… she won’t remember…”

“Are you sure you are not in pain, M. Endymion? Your vital signs are turbulent.”

“Ignore that, Ship.”

“Shall I prepare the autosurgeon for cryogenic fugue?”

“Soon enough, Ship. Tell it to put me under while it heals my leg tonight and deals with the fever. I want at least ten hours’ sleep. How long until translation point?”

“Only seventeen hours. It is well inside this system.”

“Good,” I said. “Wake me in ten hours. Have a full breakfast ready. What I used to have when we celebrated “Sunday” on our voyage out.”

“Very good. Anything else?”

“Yeah, do you have any record holos of… of Aenea… on our last trip?”

“I have stored several hours of such records, M. Endymion. The time you were swimming in the zero-g bubble on the outer balcony. The discussion you had about religion versus rationality. The flying lessons down the central dropshaft when…”

“Good,” I said. “Cue those up. I’ll look through them over breakfast.”

“I will prepare the autosurgeon for three months of cryogenic sleep after your seven-hour interlude tomorrow,” said the ship.

I took a breath. “All right.”

“The surgeon wishes to commence repairing nerve damage and injecting antibiotics now, M. Endymion. Do you wish to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“With dreams or without? The medication may be tailored for either neurological state.”

“No dreams,” I said. “No dreams now. There’ll be time enough for those later.”

“Very good, M. Endymion. Sleep well.”

I am on the Phari marketplace shelf with A. Bettik, Jigme Norbu, and George Tsarong when I hear the news that Pax ships and troops have finally come to T’ien Shan, the “Mountains of Heaven.”

“We should tell Aenea,” I say. Around us, above us, and under us, thousands of tons of scaffolding rock and creak with the weight of crowded humanity buying, selling, trading, arguing, and laughing. Very few have heard the news of the Pax’s arrival. Very few will understand the implications when they do hear it. The word comes from a monk named Chim Din who has just returned from the capital of Potala, where he works as a teacher in the Dalai Lama’s Winter Palace.

Luckily, Chim Din also works alternate weeks as a bamboo rigger at Hsuan-k’ung Ssu, the “Temple Hanging in Air,” Aenea’s project, and he hails us in Phari Marketplace as he is on his way to the Temple. Thus we are among the first people outside the court at Potala to hear of the Pax arrival.

“Five ships,” Chim Din had said. “Several score of Christian people. About half of them warriors in red and black. About half of the remaining half are missionaries, all in black. They have rented the old Red Hat Sect gompa near Rhan Tso, the Otter Lake, near the Phallus of Shiva. They have sanctified part of the gompa as a chapel to their triune God. The Dalai Lama will not allow them to use their flying machines or go beyond the south ridge of the Middle Kingdom, but he has allowed them free travel within this region.”

“We should tell Aenea,” I say again to A. Bettik, leaning close so that I can be heard over the marketplace babble.

“We should tell everyone at Jo-kung,” says the android. He turns and tells George and Jigme to complete the shopping—not to forget arranging porters to carry the orders of cable and extra bonsai bamboo for the construction—and then he hoists his massive rucksack, tightens his climbing hardware on his harness, and nods to me.

I heft my own heavy pack and lead the way out of the marketplace and down the scaffolding ladders to the cable level. “I think the High Way will be faster than the Walk Way, don’t you?”

The blue man nods. I had hesitated at suggesting the High Way for the return trip, since it has to be difficult for A. Bettik to handle the cables and slideways with just one hand.

Upon our reunion, I had been surprised that he had not fashioned a metal hook for himself—his left arm still ends in a smooth stump halfway between his wrist and elbow—but I soon saw how he used a leather band and various leather attachments to make up for his missing digits.

“Yes, M. Endymion,” he says. “The High Way. It is much faster. I agree. Unless you want to use one of the flyers as courier.”

I look at him, assuming that he is kidding.

The flyers are a breed apart and insane. They launch their paragliders from the high structures, catching ridge lift from the great rock walls, crossing the wide spaces between the ridges and peaks where there are no cables or bridges, watching the birds, looking for thermals as if their lives depended on it… because their lives do depend on it. There are no flat areas on which a flyer can set down if the treacherous winds shift, or if their lift fails, or if their hang gliders develop a problem. A forced landing on a ridge wall almost always means death. Descent to the clouds below always means death. The slightest miscalculation in gauging the winds, the updrafts, the downdrafts, the jet stream… any mistake means death for a flyer. That is why they live alone, worship in a secret cult, and charge a fortune to do the Dalai Lama’s bidding by delivering messages from the capital at Potala, or to fly prayer streamers during a Buddhist celebration, or to carry urgent notes from a trader to his home office to beat competitors, or—so the legend goes—to visit the eastern peak of T’ai Shan, separated for months each local year from the rest of T’ien Shan by more than a hundred klicks of air and deadly cloud.

“I don’t think we want to entrust this news to a flyer,” I say.

A. Bettik nods. “Yes, M. Endymion, but the paragliders can be purchased here at the marketplace. At the Flyer’s Guild stall. We could buy two and take the shortest route back. They are very expensive, but we could sell some of the pack zygoats.”

I never know when my android friend is joking. I remember the last time I was under a parasail canopy and have to resist the urge to shiver. “Have you ever paraglided on this world?” I say.

“No, M. Endymion.”

“On any world?”

“No, M. Endymion.”

“What would you think our chances would be if we tried?” I say.

“One in ten,” he says without a second’s hesitation.

“And what are our chances on the cables and slideway this late in the day?” I say.