Look to Windward

Scorched Ground

~ Are our own ships not good enough?

~ Theirs are faster.

~ Still?

~ I’m afraid so.

~ And I hate this chopping and changing. First one ship then another, then another, then a fourth. I feel like a delivery package.

~ This wouldn’t be some obscure form of insult, or way of trying to delay us, would it?

~ You mean not giving us our own ship?

~ Yes.

~ I don’t think so. In an obscure sort of way they may even be trying to impress us. They’re saying that they’re taking so much care to correct the mistakes they made that they won’t spare any ships from normal duty for anybody.

~ Sparing four ships at different times makes more sense?

~ It does the way they’ll have their forces set up. The first ship was very much a war craft. They’re keeping those close to Chel in case the war should begin again. They may loop a certain distance out, for example to ferry us, but no further. The one we are on now is a Superlifter, a sort of fast tug. The one we’re approaching is a General Systems Vehicle; a kind of giant depot or mother ship. It carries other warships they could deploy in the event of further hostilities, if they went beyond the scale their immediately available matériel could deal with. The GSV can loop further out than the war vessel but still can’t stray too far from Chelgrian space. The last ship is an old demilitarised war craft of a type commonly used throughout the galaxy for this sort of picket duty.

~ Throughout the galaxy. Somehow that still always comes as a shock.

~ Yes. Decent of them to take such an interest in our relatively puny well-being.

~ If you believe them, that is all they were ever trying to do.

~ Do you believe them, Major?

~ I think I do. I am just not convinced that that is sufficient excuse for what happened.

~ Damn right it isn’t.

The first three days of their journey had been spent aboard the Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit Nuisance Value. It was a massive, cobbled-together object; a bundle of gigantic engine units behind a single weapon pod and a tiny accommodation section that looked like an afterthought.

~ God that thing is ugly, Huyler said when they first saw it, riding across from the wreck of the Winter Storm in the tiny shuttle with the ship’s black-skinned, grey-suited avatar. ~ And these people are supposed to be decadent aesthetes?

~ There is a theory that they are ashamed of their weaponry. As long as it looks inelegant, rough and disproportionate they can pretend that it is not really theirs, or not really a part of their civilisation, or only temporarily so, because everything else they make is so subtly refined.

~ Or it could just be form following function. However I confess that’s a new one on me. Which university whizz-kid came up with that theory?

~ You will be glad to know, Hadesh Huyler, that we now have a Civilisational Metalogical Profiling Section in Naval Intelligence.

~ I can see I have a lot of catching up to do with the latest terminology. What does metalogical mean?

~ It is short for psycho-physio-philosophilogical.

~ Well, naturally. Of course it is. Glad I asked.

~ It is a Culture term.

~ A fucking Culture term?

~ Yes, sir.

~ I see. And what the hell does this metalogical section of ours actually do?

~ It tries to tell us how other Involveds think.

~ Involveds?

~ Also one of their terms. It means space-faring species beyond a certain technological level which are willing and able to interact with each other.

~ I see. Always a bad sign when you start using the enemy’s terminology.

Quilan glanced at the avatar sitting in the seat next to him. It smiled uncertainly at him.

~ I would agree with that, sir.

He returned his gaze to the view of the Culture warship. It was, indeed, rather ugly. Before Huyler had expressed his own thoughts, Quilan had been thinking how brutally powerful the craft looked. How odd to have somebody else in your head who looked through the same eyes and saw exactly the same things you did and yet came to such different conclusions, experienced such dissimilar emotions.

The craft filled the screen, as it had since they had set off. They were approaching it quickly, but it had been a long way off; some few hundred kilometres. A read-out at the side of the screen was counting the magnification level back towards zero. Powerful, Quilan thought — entirely to himself — and ugly. Perhaps, in some sense, that was always the case. Huyler broke into his thoughts:

~ I take it your servants are already aboard?

~ I am not taking any servants, sir.

~ What?

~ I am going alone, sir. Apart from yourself, of course.

~ You’re going without servants? Are you some sort of fucking outcast or something, Major? You’re not one of these embryonicist Caste Deniers, are you?

~ No, sir. Partly, my not bringing servants reflects some of the changes that have occurred in our society since your body-death. These will no doubt be explained in your briefing files.

~ Yes, well, I’ll be taking a further look at those when I have the time. You wouldn’t believe the amount of tests and stuff they’ve been putting me through, even while you were asleep. I had to remind them that constructs need naps, too, or they’d have burned me out in here. But look, Major; this thing about servants. I read up on the Caste War, but I thought it ended up a draw. Dear scum in heaven, does this mean we lost it?

~ No, sir. The war ended in a compromise following the Culture’s intervention.

~ I know that, but a compromise which involves having no servants?

~ No, sir. People still have servants. Officers still employ squires and equerries. However I am of an order which eschews such personal help.

~ Visquile mentioned you were some sort of monk. I didn’t realise you’d be quite so self-denying.

~ There is another reason for travelling alone, sir. If I might remind you, the Chelgrian we are being sent to meet is a Denier.

~ Oh, yeah, this Ziller guy. Some spoiled, fur-rending liberal brat who thinks it’s his God-given duty to do the whining for those who can’t be bothered whining for themselves. Best thing you can do with these people is kick them out. These shits don’t understand the first thing about responsibility or duty. You can’t renounce your caste any more than you can renounce your species. And we’re indulging this arse-leaf?

~ He is a great composer, sir. And we didn’t chuck him out; Ziller left Chel to go into self-exile in the Culture. He renounced his Given status and took—

~ Oh, let me guess. He declared himself an Invisible.

~ Yes, sir.

~ Pity he didn’t go the whole way and make himself a Spayed.

~ At any rate, he is not well disposed to Chelgrian society. The idea was that by going without an entourage I might make myself less intimidating and more acceptable to him.

~ We should not be the ones having to make ourselves acceptable to him, Major.

~ We are in a position where we have no choice, sir. It has been decided at cabinet level that we must try to persuade him to return. I have accepted that mission, as indeed you have yourself. We cannot force him to return, so we must appeal to him.

~ Is he likely to listen?

~ I really have no idea, sir. I knew him when we were both children, I have followed his career and I have enjoyed his music. I have even studied it. However that is all I have to offer. I imagine people closer to him by family or conviction might have been asked to do what I am doing, but it would seem that none of them were prepared to take on the task. I have to accept that while I may not be the ideal candidate, I must be the best of those available for the job, and just get on with it.

~ This all sounds a little forlorn, Major. I worry about your morale.

~ My spirits are at something of a low ebb, sir, for personal reasons; however my morale and sense of purpose are more robust and, when all’s said and done, orders are orders.

~ Yes, aren’t they just, Major?

The Nuisance Value carried a human crew of twenty and a handful of small drones. Two of the humans greeted Quilan in the cramped shuttle hangar and showed him to his quarters, which comprised a single cabin with a low ceiling. His meagre baggage and belongings were already there, transferred from the Navy frigate that had taken him to the hulk of the Winter Storm.

Something like a Navy officer’s cabin had been created for him. One of the drones had been assigned to him; it explained that the cabin’s interior could deform to create something closer to his desires. He told the drone he was content with the present arrangements and was happy to unpack and remove the rest of his vacuum suit by himself.

~ Was that drone trying to be our servant?

~ I doubt it, sir. It may do as we ask if we do so nicely.

~ Huh!

~ So far they all seem quite diffident and determined to be helpful, sir.

~ Right. Suspicious as hell.

Quilan was attended to by the drone, which to his surprise did indeed act as an almost silent and very efficient servant, cleaning his clothes, sorting his kit and advising him on the minimal — almost nonexistent — etiquette that applied on board the Culture vessel.

There was what passed for a formal dinner on the first evening.

~ They still don’t have uniforms? This is a whole society run by fucking dissidents. No wonder I hate it.

The crew treated Quilan with fastidious civility. He learned almost nothing from them or about them. They seemed to spend a great deal of time in simulations and had little time for him. He wondered if they just wanted to avoid him, but didn’t care if they did. He was happy to have the time to himself. He studied their archives through the ship’s own library.

Hadesh Huyler did his own studying, finally absorbing the historical and briefing files that had been loaded along with his own personality into the Soulkeeper device within Quilan’s skull.

They agreed a schedule that would allow Quilan some privacy; if nothing important was taking place then for the hour before sleep and the hour after waking, Huyler would detach from Quilan’s senses.

Huyler’s reactions to the detailed history of the Caste War, which against Quilan’s advice he turned to first, went through amazement, incredulity, outrage, anger and finally — when the Culture’s part became clear — sudden fury followed by icy calm. Quilan experienced these varying emotions from the other being inside his head over the course of an afternoon. It was surprisingly wearing.

Only afterwards did the old soldier go back to the beginning and study in chronological sequence all the things that had happened since his body-death and personality storage.

Like all revived constructs, Huyler’s personality still needed to sleep and dream to remain stable, though this coma-like state could be achieved in a sort of fast-forward time which meant that instead of sleeping all night Huyler could get by on less than an hour’s rest. The first night he slept in the same real-time as Quilan; the second night he studied rather than slept and partook of just that brief period of unconsciousness. The following morning, when Quilan re-established contact after his hour’s grace, the voice in his head said, ~ Major.

~ Sir.

~ You lost your wife. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

~ It’s not something I talk about much, sir.

~ Was that the other soul you were looking for on the ship where you found me?

~ Yes, sir.

~ She was Army too.

~ Yes, sir. Also a major. We joined up together, before the war.

~ She must have loved you a lot to follow you into the Army.

~ Actually it was more me following her, sir; enlisting was her idea. Trying to rescue the souls stored in the Military Institute on Aorme before the rebels got there was her idea too.

~ She sounds like quite a female.

~ She was, sir.

~ I’m really sorry, Major Quilan. I was never married myself, but I know what it is to love and to lose. I just want you to know I feel for you, that’s all.

~ Thank you. I appreciate that.

~ I think maybe you and I need to study a bit less and talk a bit more. For two people in such intimate contact we haven’t really told each other that much about ourselves. What do you say, Major?

~ I think that might be a good idea, sir.

~ Let’s start by dropping the ‘sir’, shall we? Doing my homework, I did notice the bit of legalese attached to the standard wake-up briefing which basically says that my admiral-generalship lapsed with my body-death. My status is Reserve Honorary Officer and you’re the ranking grade on this mission. If anyone’s going to get called sir around here it should be you. Anyway, just call me Huyler, if you’re happy with that; that’s how people usually knew me.

~ As you say, ah, Huyler, given our intimacy, perhaps rank isn’t entirely relevant. Please call me Quil.

~ Done deal, Quil.

The few days passed without incident; they travelled at absurd speed, leaving Chelgrian space far, far behind. The ROU Nuisance Value passed them via its little shuttle craft to a thing called a Superlifter, another big, chunky ship, though with a less extemporised look to it than the war craft. The vessel, called the Vulgarian, greeted them by voice only. It had no human crew; Quilan sat in what looked like a little used open area where pleasantly bland music played.

~ Never married, Huyler?

~ An accursed weakness for smart, proud and insufficiently patriotic females, Quil. They could always tell my first love was the Army, not them, and not one of those heartless bitches was prepared to put her male and her people before her own selfish interests. If I’d only had the basic common sense to have been taken with airheads I’d have been happily married with — and probably even more happily survived by — a doting wife and several grown-up children by now.

~ Sounds like a narrow escape.

~ I notice you’re not specifying who for.

The General Systems Vehicle Sanctioned Parts List appeared on the screen in the Superlifter’s lounge as another point of light in the starfield. It became a silver dot and grew quickly to fill the screen, though there was no sign of detail on the shining surface.

~ That’ll be it.

~ I suppose so.

~ We’ve probably passed near several escort craft, though they wouldn’t be making their presence so obvious. What the Navy calls a High Value Unit; you never send them out alone.

~ I thought it might look a little more grand.

~ They always look pretty unimposing from the outside.

The Superlifter plunged into the centre of the silver surface. Within it was like looking from an aircraft inside a cloud, then there was the impression of plunging through another surface, then another, then dozens more in quick succession, flicking past like thumbed paper pages in an antique book.

They burst from the last membrane into a great hazy space lit by a yellow-white line burning high above, beyond layers of wispy cloud. They were above and aft of the craft’s stern. The ship was twenty-five kilometres long and ten wide. The top surface was parkland; wooded hills and ridges separated by and studded with rivers and lakes.

Bracketed by colossal ribbed and buttressed outriggers chevroned in red and blue, the GSV’s sheer sides were a golden, tawny colour, scattered with a motley confusion of foliage-covered platforms and balconies and punctured by a bewildering variety of brightly lit openings, like a glowing vertical city set into sandstone cliffs three kilometres high. The air swarmed with thousands of craft of every type Quilan had ever seen or heard of, and more besides. Some were tiny, some were the size of the Superlifter. Still smaller dots were individual people, floating in the air.

Two other giant vessels, each barely an eighth of the size of the Sanctioned Parts List, shared the envelope of the GSV’s surrounding field enclosure. Riding a few kilometres off each side, plainer and more dense-looking, they were surrounded with their own concentrations of smaller flying craft.

~ It is a little more impressive on the inside, isn’t it?

Hadesh Huyler remained silent.

He was made welcome by an avatar of the ship and a handful of humans. His quarters were generous to the point of extravagance; he had a swimming pool to himself and the side of one cabin looked out into the chasm of air whose far wall, a kilometre distant, was the GSV’s starboard outrigger. Another self-effacing drone played the part of servant.

He was invited to so many meals, parties, ceremonies, festivals, openings, celebrations and other events and gatherings that the suite’s engagement-managing ware filled two screens just listing the variety of different ways of sorting all his invitations. He accepted a few, mostly those featuring live music. People were polite. He was polite back. Some expressed regret about the war. He was dignified, placatory. Huyler fumed in his mind, spitting invective.

He walked and travelled through the vast ship, attracting glances everywhere — in a ship of thirty million people, not all of them human or drone, he was the only Chelgrian — but was only rarely forced into conversation.

The avatar had warned him that some of the people who would want to talk to him would be, in effect, journalists, and might broadcast his comments on the ship’s news services. Huyler’s indignation and sarcasm were an advantage in such circumstances. Quilan would have carefully measured his words before speaking them anyway, but he would also listen to Huyler’s comments at such moments, seemingly lost in thought, and was quietly amused to see that he gained a reputation for inscrutability as a result.

One morning, before Huyler had made contact again after the hour of grace, he rose from his bed and went to the window which gave out onto the external view, and — when he ordered the surface transparent — was not surprised to see the Phelen Plains outside, scorched and cratered and stretching into the smoke-filled distance beneath an ashen sky. They were traversed by the punctured ribbon of the ruined road on which the blackened, crippled truck moved like a winter-slowed insect, and he realised that he had not awakened or risen at all, and was dreaming.

The land destroyer jerked and shook beneath him, sending waves of pain through his body. He heard himself groan. The ground must be shaking. He was supposed to be beneath the thing, trapped by it, not inside it. How had this happened? Such pain. Was he dying? He must be dying. He could not see, and breathing was difficult.

Every few moments he imagined that Worosei had just wiped his face, or had just sat him up to make him comfortable, or had just spoken to him, quietly encouraging, gently funny, but each time it was as though he had somehow — unforgivably — fallen asleep when she had done these things, and only woken up after she had slipped away from him again. He tried to open his eyes but could not. He tried to talk to her, to shout out to her and bring her back, but he could not. Then a few more moments would elapse, and he would jerk awake again, and feel certain once more that he had just missed her touch, her scent, her voice.

“Still not dead, eh, Given?”

“Who’s that? What?”

People were talking around him. His head hurt. So did his legs.

“Your fancy armour didn’t save you, did it? They could feed most of you to the chasers. Wouldn’t even have to mince you up first.” Somebody laughed. Pain jolted from his legs. The ground shook beneath him. He must be inside the land destroyer with its crew. They were angry that it had been hit and they had been killed. Were they talking to him? He must have dreamt it turretless and burning, or perhaps it was very big inside and he was in an undamaged part. Not all dead.

“Worosei?” said a voice. He realised it must be his own.

“Oo, Worosei! Worosei!” another voice said, mimicking him.

“Please,” he said. He tried to move his arms again, but only pain came.

“Oo, Worosei, oo, Worosei, please.”

In the old faculty building, beneath the Rebound courts, in the Military Technical Institute, Cravinyr City, Aorme. That’s where they had stored them. The souls of the old soldiers and military planners. Unwanted in peace, now they were seen as an important resource. Besides, a thousand souls were a thousand souls, and worth saving from destruction by the rebel Invisibles. Worosei’s mission; her idea. Daring and dangerous. She’d pulled strings to make it happen, the way she had before when they’d joined up, to make sure that she and Quilan would be posted together. Time to go: Move! Now! Jump!

Had they been there?

He seemed to remember the look of the place, the warren of corridors, the heavy doors, all dark and cold, glowing falsely in the helmet visor. The others; two squires, Hulpe and Nolica, his best, trusted and true, and the Navy special forces triune. Worosei nearby, rifle balanced, her movements graceful even in the suit. His own wife. He should have tried harder to stop her but she’d insisted. Her idea.

The substrate device was there, bigger than they’d been expecting, the size of a domestic chiller cabinet. We’ll never get this onto the flyer. Not with us at the same time.

“Hey, Given? Help me get this off. Come on. It might help.” Somebody laughing.

Get this off. Never get this back. The flyer. And she’d been right. Two of the Navy people went with the thing. They’d never get off. Never. Was that Worosei? She’d just wiped his face, he could have sworn. He struggled to call her back, to say anything.

“What’s he saying?”

“No idea. Who cares?”

One arm was very sore. Left arm or right arm? He was angry at himself for not being able to tell which. How absurd. Ow ow ow. Worosei, why…?

“You trying to tear it off?”

“Just the glove. Must come off. He’ll have rings or stuff. They always do.”

Worosei murmured something in his ear. He’d fallen asleep. She’d just gone. Worosei! he tried to say.

The Invisibles came, with heavy weaponry. They must have a ship, probably escorted. The Winter Storm would try to stay hidden, then. They were on their own. Waiting for the flyer to return for them. Then the discovery, attack, and losing them all. Madness, flashes and explosions all over as the Loyalist side shelled and counter-attacked from who-knew-where away. They ran out into the rain; the building behind them burned and slumped and fell, turned to glowing slag by the energy weapons. It was night by then and they were alone.

“Leave him alone!”

“We just—”

“You just do as you’re fucking told or I’ll drop you on the fucking road, understand? If he lives we’re going to ransom him. Even dead he’s worth more than you two brain-dead fuckwits, so make sure he’s alive when we get to Golse or you’ll be following him to heaven.”

“Make sure he’s alive? Look at him! He’ll be lucky if he lasts the night!”

“Well, if we pick up any medics less fucked up than he is, we’ll make sure they deal with him first. In the meantime; you do it. Here. Medpac. I’ll see you get extra rations if he lives. Oh, and there’s nothing worth taking.”

“Hey! Hey, we want a cut in the ransom! Hey!”

They’d dived into the crater, sliding and falling. A big explosion had punched them half into the mud. Killed them if they hadn’t been suited up. Something whacked into his helmet, sending the speakers crazy and filling the visor with blinding light. He pulled the helmet off; it rolled into the pool of water in the foot of the crater. More explosions. Stuck, jammed into the mud.

“Given, you’re just a heap of fucking trouble, you know that?”

“What’s this do?”

“Fuck knows.”

The land destroyer, turretless, trailing smoke and leaving one wide segmented track unravelled on the slope behind it, ground and skidded and rumbled its way into the crater. Worosei had recovered first, hauling herself out of the ooze. She tried to pull him free, then fell back as the machine rolled down on top of him. He screamed as the huge weight pressed him into the ground and his legs caught against something hard, breaking bones, pinning him.

He saw the flyer leave, taking her to the ship, to safety. The sky was full of flashes, his ears were pounded by the concussions. The land destroyer shook the ground as its munitions detonated, each pulse making him cry out. Rain lashed down, soaking his face and fur, hiding his tears. The water in the crater was rising, offering an alternative way to die, until another explosion in the burning machine hammered the ground, and air blew out of the centre of the filthy pool and it all frothed and drained away into a deep tunnel. That side of the crater collapsed into it as well, and the land destroyer’s nose tipped down, its rear went up and it pivoted off him, thundering down into the steam of the hole and shaking with another series of explosions.

He tried to drag himself out with his hands, but could not. He started trying to dig his legs free.

The next morning, an Invisible search and recovery team found him in the mud, semi-conscious, surrounded by a shallow trench he’d dug around his legs but still unable to free himself. One of them kicked his head a few times and put a gun against his forehead, but he had just enough wits left to tell them his rank and title, so they pulled him from the mud’s embrace, ignoring his screams, dragged him up the slope and threw him into the back of a half-wrecked armoured truck with the rest of the dead and dying.

They were the slowest of the slow, the expected-to-die consigned to a wagon which itself was not expected to complete the journey. The truck had lost its tail doors in whatever engagement had resulted in its being unable to travel at much more than walking speed. Once they’d moved him and cleaned the blood from his eyes he could look out to watch the Phelen Plains unroll behind. They were black and scorched as far as the eye could see. Sometimes smudges of smoke adorned the horizon. The clouds were black or grey and sometimes ash fell like soft rain.

Real rain pelted down only once when the truck was on a part of the road sunk below the level of the plains, turning the roadway into a greasy stream of rushing grey and washing over the tailgate and into the rear compartment. He had been lifted, mewing with pain, to a sitting position on one of the rear benches. He could move his head and one arm very weakly, and so watched helplessly as three of the wounded died struggling on their stretchers, drowned under the swirling grey tide. He and one of the others shouted, but it seemed that nobody heard.

The truck went light and slewed from side to side as it was nearly washed away in the flood. He stared wide-eyed at the battered ceiling as the filthy water swirled over the submerged bodies and around his knees. He wondered if he cared any more whether he died or not, and decided that he did because there was just a chance he might see Worosei again. Then the truck settled and found traction and climbed slowly out of the waters and grumbled onwards.

The slurry of ash and water drained out through the rear, exposing the dead, coated in grey as though by shrouds.

The truck took frequent detours round shell holes and larger craters. It crossed two makeshift bridges, swaying. A few vehicles whizzed past them going in the other direction, and once a pair of aircraft slammed overhead, supersonic, so low their passing raised dust and ash. Nothing overtook the wagon.

He was attended to, minimally, by the two Invisible orderlies who’d been told to look after him by their CO. They were really Unheards; a caste above Invisibles by the Loyalist way of thinking. The two seemed to veer unpredictably between relief that he was going to live and perhaps furnish them with part of his ransom, and spite that he had survived at all. He had named them Shit and Fart in his head, and took some pride in not being able to recall their real names at all.

He daydreamed. Mostly he daydreamed about catching up with Worosei without her having heard that he had survived, so that when she saw him it would come as a complete surprise. He tried to imagine the look on her face, the succession of expressions he might see.

Of course it would never happen that way. She would be like him, if their circumstances were reversed; she would try to find out for sure what had happened to him, hoping, no matter how hopelessly, that by some miracle he had survived. So she would find out, or she would be told, once news of his escape became known, and he would not see that look on her face. Still, he could imagine it, and spent hours doing just that, as the truck squealed and thumped and rumbled its way across the sintered plains.

He had told them his name, once he’d been able to speak, but they hadn’t seemed to pay any attention; all that appeared to matter was that he was a noble, with a noblemale’s markings and armour. He wasn’t sure whether to remind them of his name or not. If he did, and it was communicated to their superiors, then Worosei might find out all the quicker that he was alive, but there was a superstitious, cautious part of him that was afraid of doing that, because he could imagine her being told — that hope against hope fulfilled — and imagine the look on her face at that point, but he could also imagine himself dying even yet, because they hadn’t been able to treat his injuries properly and he was feeling weaker and weaker all the time.

That would be too cruel, to be told that he had survived against all the odds, and then discover later he had died of his wounds. So he did not press the point.

Had there been any chance of paying for rescue or even faster passage he might have made more of a fuss, but he had no immediate means of payment, and the Loyalist forces — along with any privateers that might have been acceptable to both sides — had dropped even further back into home space around Chel, regrouping. It didn’t matter. Worosei would be there, with them. Safe. He kept on imagining the look on her face.

He lapsed into a coma before they got to what was left of the city of Golse. The ransom and transfer took place without him being aware that anything was going on. It was quarter of a year later, the war was over and he was back on Chel before he discovered what had befallen the Winter Storm, and that Worosei had died in it.

He left during the GSV’s night, when the sun-line had dimmed and disappeared and a deep red light bathed the three great ships and the few lazily flying machines weaving about them.

He was on yet another vessel, a thing called a Very Fast Picket, on the last leg of his journey to Masaq’ Orbital. The craft disappeared through the interior stern fields of the Sanctioned Parts List and a little later exited and separated from the silvery ellipsoid’s exterior, curving away to set course for the star and system of Lacelere and leaving the GSV to begin its long loop back to Chelgrian space, a vast bright cave of air flashing through the void between the stars.