Luke felt himself girding for an argument with Akanah. The Fallanassi didn’t go straight to Atzerri from Teyr—so why is it so important that we do? Did they know when they left that they would end up there? Why didn’t the pointer point to Darepp? I wish I knew exactly what the message at the commonal said.
But it was the third discovery Luke sifted from the report that seemed the most urgent. That was the one that prompted him to leave his couch and go back to the service access compartment, where Akanah was putting on a good show of being otherwise occupied.
Akanah’s vehicle for that was what Luke thought of as her stretching exercises and what she called active meditation. At that particular moment she was sitting with eyes closed and, without evident stress, with her ankles crossed behind her neck. A light touch of the tips of her forefingers on the deck pad maintained her upright balance.
“Found something,” he said quietly, and waited for her to acknowledge him. When that acknowledgment was slow in coming, he added, “Akanah?”
Drawing a deep breath, she let her body roll forward and unfold, then sat back up in a more conventional position. Her eyes opened slowly, and her gaze was steady. “What did you find?”
“Star Morning,” Luke said. “For most of the last few months, she’s been way over in Farana, on the far side of the Corporate Sector. But she put in at Vulvarch not twelve hours ago.”
“Why do you think that that’s important?”
“Vulvarch is just thirty-four light-years away,” Luke said. “We could be there in half the time it would take us to get to Atzerri. Less than half.”
“The ship is not important,” Akanah said. “Our path leads to Atzerri.”
“That path’s overgrown with fifteen years of bramble,” Luke said.
“Look at what’s happened so far—the chances are that all we’ll find on Atzerri is another message telling us to go somewhere else, to Darepp, or Bab-badod, or Arat Fraca. Star Morning’s been all over the galactic map.”
“The ship is not important,” Akanah repeated. “It’s a tool—property.
We were told to go to Atzerri.”
“Anything or anyone waiting for us on Atzerri has been waiting fifteen years and can wait a few more days,” Luke said, growing frustrated with her stubbornness.
“But this lead is only twelve hours old. If we jump right now, we should be able to reach Vulvarch before Star Morning lifts again.”
She shook her head. “We won’t find the circle there.”
Luke’s tone betrayed his impatience. “The same pilot’s been listed for the ship since Kell Plath took it over.
She has to be one of you, or at least in the know.
Akanah, we could spend months following the circle’s movements over fifteen years. But Star Morning could send us—maybe even take us—right to where the Fallanassi are today. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“I’ll follow the way left for me,” Akanah said. “It’s what I know.
It’s what I was promised—the way home will be marked.”
Luke turned his face away, one hand clenched in a fist at his side, then retreated to the forward compartment.
When he had shed the anger, he returned. She had already resumed her meditation.
“Will you at least talk to them before we jump out of here?” Luke asked. “I have Star Morning’s hypercomm receiver address—I can set up a secure link for you. You can have all the privacy you want to exchange whatever recognition signs you need to with the crew. Maybe they can save us at least one wasted trip.”
“No,” Akanah said without looking up. “They can’t.”
“Why not?”
She paused and turned her face to him. “Even if the crew of the ship is of the circle, they will never reveal themselves to a stranger such a distance away. As I will not reveal myself to anyone I cannot feel in the Current.
The outward signs and spoken words are only ritual—the recognition lies in sensing another adept beside you.
I’m sorry.”
Her refusal left Luke wordless with frustration, and she saw it in his eyes.
You should understand,” she said. “It’s the same with you and those like you. The only recognition that matters is what you feel here.”
She tapped between her breasts with three fingers of her left hand.
“That is the truth that can never deceive.”
The dispute hung in the air between them as unspoken suspicion and resentment.
Akanah did not try to forbid Luke to contact Star Morning on his own.
But she hovered close enough to the flight stations to make it impossible for Luke to do so without her knowledge. It was absolutely clear that she meant to prevent any more surprises like the one that had greeted her after her nap.