Chapter 3
Talaan stood just outside the ter'angreal's outer limits, closer than she'd ever dared to go before. Bode was watching from an open gateway, but she was under strict instructions not to interfere. Bode had told her everything she knew about the logistics of the Aiel ter'angreal, which wasn't much – mostly just that you couldn't stop midway through, you had to go through the whole sequence of whatever it showed you.
They weren't sure how much time it would take, or if the time perceived by Talaan would be different from the time perceived by Bode. Bode had a lot of half-baked contingency plans for explaining their temporary disappearances, which Talaan was desperately hoping would be unnecessary. Talaan was bringing enough air for a few hours, but it was possible that the physical laws inside the ter'angreal would be different enough that she wouldn't need that precaution either.
She nodded one last time to Bode, then took a step past the first low wall of white-grey ceramic. Immediately, her bubble vanished and the hair on her arms rose, but there was air, and it was merely cool, not freezing cold. The shadows seemed to spin dizzyingly around her. It was hard to look at them directly, though she could see paths through the ter'angreal quite well, considering. She took another step, and another.
/
Talaan hovered in the body of a strong young man with light brown skin and dark hair. Like her, he was tattooed, though he had many more than she did. He was Kauri Tenadii Arapeta Aes Sedai, only 150 years old, but with a terrible headache brewing. He was using a ter'angreal to take part in a conversation with many people, none of whom were in the room. Slowly, the sense of separateness eased. He was Kauri.
Kauri closed the conference call to Paaran Disen with a sigh of relief. He'd never had headaches like this before the past few months, but it was just stress. He'd go out to the garden soon and that would help. He longed to dig his fingers in the rich brown earth; it was useful work, and a balm to the soul.
Not like that damned conference call! If the Hall of the Servants hadn't closed the Moon to immigration during the entire War of the Shadow, why would they propose doing it now, several months after the Bore had been sealed by the Dragon's Hundred Companions? It was likely just some political move; in Kauri's opinion, the Hundred Companions were not being treated with the respect they deserved for ending the war. He wasn't surprised that Latra Posae Decume's faction was repeating all those rumors and slanders about the Companions committing atrocities, but it was quite another thing to have libel presented as supporting evidence for a policy decision!
Kauri wasn't naive; he knew it would take some time to get off the war footing they'd all been on, and there were bound to be more setbacks. The Uhura moonbase in the Allen Miere had once been just one of many peaceful research stations, thriving urban hubs, and active spaceports on the moon. It was the first permanent settlement and the longest that had been continually inhabited. His own family had lived and worked there for generations. But now Uhura was the only permanent settlement on the moon. 110 years of diverting research budgets and trained personnel to warfare, and the dwindling ability of earth to supplement lunar industrial capacity, had taken their toll on the other settlements, and stressed even Uhura's ability to be self-sustaining.
Kauri got up and stretched, rubbing his forehead a little. He'd stop by his quarters and change into something more suitable for gardening, and then be off. He could almost smell the loam already. As he walked briskly to the Travelling lobby, he approached Lisyth and Zelera, who had taken the call together from their lab. He gave them a cool nod. They'd argued in favor of closing immigration and setting up a barrier to incoming and outgoing Travel. Never mind what kind of havoc that would wreak on his supply chains! They had the gardens, of course, but there were still some things that it was more efficient to pop down to Earth for.
Lisyth and Zelera paused and returned the nod. "You seem to be in a hurry today, Kauri. Where are you headed?" asked Lisyth.
"I'm going out to the gardens. I just need to change first. Can't get dirt on my work clothes!"
They seemed strangely taken aback by what he said, and exchanged glances with each other. Kauri rolled his eyes. "If you'll excuse me?"
They moved aside to let him pass in the narrow hall, but he saw them start whispering together before he rounded the gentle curve. He'd have to watch his back in the next meeting. And he still had no idea why! They were as paranoid as Decume herself.
He reached the Travelling lobby and nodded much more warmly to his sha'rah buddy Binyel Kashain, who was on duty operating the gateway for non-channelers who needed to enter or leave the floating sphere. Binyel was muttering something under his breath and didn't return the nod. That wasn't like Binyel, but then again, they were all a little preoccupied these days.
Kauri reached for the Source, swallowing against the sour taste in the back of his throat that sometimes accompanied his channeling now- another stress symptom, ugh- and opened a gateway to the lobby outside his quarters. When he opened the door, Rona greeted him with a hug, and he swung little Manaia around, eliciting a stream of giggles. "'Mma moon!" Manaia said. "'Mma moon!"
"That's right, little one," Kauri said. "You go around and around the Earth!" He kissed his child on the forehead and changed into clothes more suitable for gardening in.
"What are you wearing?" asked Rona, when she saw him come out of the bedroom. "I thought I threw that shirt out, it's falling apart."
"I know; I rescued it though. I need it to go work with the plants, and I don't want to get my uniform dirty. I'll be back in time for dinner. I just need to go clear my head, and gardening is the best way to do that."
Rona frowned. "I wish you'd talk to a healer about your headaches, and that nausea you sometimes get after channeling. They might be connected. And I never knew you to be so interested in the hydroponics building before. Are you worried about our food supply? I heard a rumor they were considering an immigration ban, and to enforce that they'd need to set up a blockade—"
"We can talk about it in the evening," he interrupted, with a significant glance at Manaia. "I don't want to get into it now."
Rona still looked concerned, but she kissed him and let him go. A good thing too, as he was dying to get out of there and start working out all of this stress. He could almost see the tall stalks of corn entwined with beans, the rows of cabbages and potatoes, the herbs edging each plot and separating it from the grass. He knew he would feel better if he could get out of the warrens of the base and feel the sun directly on his face. His headache would go away and he'd finally be able to relax.
Kauri stepped into the airlock in his gardening clothes, ignoring the bulky suits hanging on the wall. They'd just get in the way. He smiled happily as the airlock blinked through its ready sequence. In a few moments, he'd be deep in the lunar soil.
The airlock began opening, and it was much colder than he'd expected, and much harder to breathe, it felt like his outsides were turning to ice and his insides to fire – but he could see the beautiful green hills of the Moon. He could— he could—
/
Talaan gasped and coughed and shivered and sobbed as she came back to herself. She felt all the horror that Kauri had been too far gone to notice. When she was in his head, Kauri hadn't seemed insane. Was that what all male channelers had gone through? And was every step through the ter'angreal going to end in the memory of an ancestor's awful death? She wasn't sure she could bear that.
But Bode had said the only way out was through, and that mirrored her own experience with the Accepted ter'angreal. Still sobbing, she took another step, kicking up the ubiquitous moon dust under the flickering shadows of the ter'angreal.
/
They were Manaia Tenadii, and they were 23 years old. They were fiddling with the dials on their latest homemade radio when they caught a snatch of what sounded like a human speaking. Manaia was so surprised, they almost dropped the radio, and it took them a long moment to find the right band again.
Manaia knew radio could both transmit and receive speech, of course. They and their friends sometimes sent signals between radio, but they were all using Manaia's machines for that; no one else owned one, and all of theirs were sitting right there on the shelf. In all their previous experience with the machine, the only signals it had picked up from outside the base were the ubiquitous steady hissing or crackling of background radiation; they kept it on through the night for white noise, sometimes. This was unprecedented, the first message they'd heard from outside the Uhura community in 20 years!
They found the right band and the voice hissed out again: "—seek asylum from Earth. We are Marath'tuatha'an from the sunken lands. We have no channelers of saidin, but some who channel saidar. We request permission to land and settle here, if anyone is alive to answer. Message repeats. Hello. Hello. We come in peace. This is the space vessel Mael an'Onir. We seek asylum from Earth—"
Manaia fumbled with the transmitter and responded, voice shaking slightly, "H-hello Mael an'Onir. This is Manaia Tenadii answering from Uhura moonbase. I— I am not authorized to make a decision about your landing. When will you need an answer by?"
"Hello Manaia Tenadii. We are glad to hear there are still people in Uhura. We will need to correct our course in three and a quarter hours if we are not permitted to land on the moon," crackled the voice from the spaceship.
"Do you need assistance? How many are in your vessel?"
"We will not need assistance unless, possibly, we are not permitted to land; we have supplies and materials and are prepared to create our own moon settlement away from yours if necessary. There are 147 of us on board."
"Wh—" Manaia began, but was interrupted by flashing lights and a whining siren. Command had seen the ship approaching on their instruments, then. They had to move fast, or things might get ugly.
"Hang on, I need to take this to command! Keep broadcasting the message!" Manaia said before closing the channel and booking it down the hallway. Luckily they lived relatively close to the Command ready room, and slid in while the door was still open.
"Manaia, now is not the time, please—" said Lisyth Sedai, but Manaia interrupted her, waving the radio and saying "The ship, the one you saw, I was talking to them just now, listen!"
"How do you know about the ship?" said Lisyth sharply, but Manaia started playing the message and everyone quieted.
Once everyone had heard it repeat twice, Manaia turned it off and quickly listed off the time limit, number of refugees, and what they could tell about the ship's capabilities and intentions. "They have supplies and materials and could start their own settlement, but I think they'd rather join us. That's all I know."
"Excellent work, Manaia. You asked them good questions," said Zelera Sedai. She continued wryly, "You have my permission to stay for the argument. Besides, we'll need you and that radio of yours again."
Zelera was right about it being an argument. Uhura had closed immigration and set up the barrier to Travelling a month after Manaia's father Kauri died. He was the first male Aes Sedai on the moon to die as a result of the taint on saidin, but not the last. Not by a long shot. The station had made hard choices to protect itself, and any purely humanitarian impulses had to wait their turn behind practicalities.
As far as Manaia knew, they had the space and production capacity to house the refugees in the moonbase. Uhura had not been at full strength for decades, and there had been attrition just prior to closing immigration, as well as in the years afterwards. Those in favor of the refugees joining them made the same points, as well as some that Manaia had only heard whispered about – concerns about genetic diversity and the lack of certain raw materials on the moon, which people planning a long-term settlement would have brought.
Those against the refugees settling here were worried about the immediate and long-term drain on resources, especially since it was still clearly not safe to go back to earth. Everyone had tracked the long-term (and sometimes terrifyingly short-term) changes to landmasses, and the Earth already looked worryingly different from the maps in Manaia's 25-year-old textbooks. They'd had a satellite's-eye-view of the slow sinking of the Tomakan continent that had sent the refugees out in the first place.
There was also a concern that the refugees would not adjust well to Uhura's culture. For their part, Manaia thought that flying to the moon in an actual physical rocketship was maybe the most Uhuran thing they'd ever heard of, but their opinion was not solicited.
Aware they were the youngest person in the room by a long shot, and more importantly not Command Staff at all, Manaia kept their mouth shut even when they longed to enter the fray. But then Culeon Harolin spoke.
"We could get the best of both worlds, you know. They're trespassing, and they know it. Why shouldn't we claim their spaceship and materials as salvage, and send them off the way we dealt with the mad Aes Sedai?"
Manaia scrambled to their feet so fast their head spun a little. "EXCUSE ME?! Are we Darkfriends now? I don't know about you, but that's not how I was raised. We are a community here, maybe the last standing community of humans, and we should act like one. I wouldn't condemn anyone to die the way my father did, by cold and suffocation. I didn't take you for a murderer and a graverobber, Culeon Harolin. My mistake."
Everyone in the room stared at them. Manaia focused on the familiar faces. Zelera Sedai looked proud. Lisyth Sedai looked thoughtful.
"Manaia Tenadaii speaks truth beyond their years," Lisyth Sedai said into the silence. "Let us confer further with the crew of Mael an'Onir about their supplies and needs, to confirm that we would not be foreshortening the lifespans of both groups by accepting them. But I believe we have the capacity to support them, and they may prove to be a solution to many incipient problems." She turned to Manaia. "If you will open the channel?"
It took more back-and-forth, but in the end, the Command Staff were satisfied with the information they received and the motion to accept the refugees as immigrants was passed. Zelera Sedai even let Manaia convey the news:
"Mael an'Onir, you are cleared for landing at Uhura moonbase. Welcome to your new home!"
/
Talaan drew a deep, necessary breath as Manaia's triumph and pride faded from her awareness, though now she felt a strange prickling all over her body. She was relieved this memory had not ended in her avatar's death, though the emotional weight of an entire continent sunk beneath the sea was almost as hard to process. She had not heard the phrase Marath'tuatha'an before— The People Compelled to Travel? She shivered, and not just from the coolness of the air.
As she looked around, Talaan saw she had moved far deeper into the arch maze than she expected from a single step, and the shadows of the arches around her created an intricate crosshatch that shimmered in a blinding moiré pattern. The geometry was very strange, there were far too many shadows for the number of arches. She took another step forward, regardless.
/
She was Maimouna den Juma, 57 years old, de facto leader of Uhura moonbase, and she was having an extraordinarily bad day.
This morning her mentors, Lisyth Sedai and Zelera Sedai, had died within minutes of each other. On the one hand, it was blessedly romantic; they'd been partners for nearly 600 years, and there was something incredibly sweet about the fact that they didn't want to be parted for even a moment. But it was a blow to lose both of them at once. A blow for her heart— they'd been friends of the family from at least her great-grandparent Manaia's day— and a blow for the Uhura moonbase, which had never needed them more.
Lisyth and Zelera had been the last channelers on the moonbase who had been able to Travel, and their deaths meant that no one could access the bedamned floating spheres that made up a not-insignificant portion of the moonbase. The materials and functions that could be shifted to ground-based buildings had been moved long ago, but there was essential machinery still up there.
Maimouna wished she could reach back into the past and give her ancestors a piece of her mind. Why did they have so many buildings you could only teleport in or out of? What was the sense in that? She'd heard the place they'd originally drilled the Bore, back on Earth, had been a floating sphere like the ones in Uhura, but even larger. Floating spheres were a damn fool place to do anything, and she wasn't surprised that they had led to the collapse of civilization.
They were likely to do it again, too, because this afternoon the bedamned artificial gravity in the lower buildings had gone out. There might have been a way to fix it if they could get into the floating spheres, but they couldn't, and as much as Maimouna wanted to blame the spheres for everything wrong in the universe, she had to admit that she wasn't very confident that they could fix the artigrav even if they had had access to the still-working floating spheres. No one really knew how it worked at this point.
And this was an enormous, enormous problem, because without the artigrav, in 2-3 years they would all lose too much bone density to ever be able to return to Earth and function under normal Earth gravity. Uhura had always been conceived as a long-haul project, Maimouna knew, but in theory they were supposed to be able to immigrate back and forth. They'd even lowered the barriers to Travelling after allowing the Mael an'Onir to land, though only a few people had ever showed up, and none for the last hundred years.
And now, with no Travelling, a fourth of the base permanently closed off, and no useable artigrav, not to mention a whole host of previous shortages, deficiencies, and breakdowns, she was very much afraid that moving back to Earth was a matter of now or never.
She laid out the facts to the assembled people of Uhura. She was a calm, collected leader, for all that she was furiously swearing inside her own head half the time. They agreed with her assessment. She thought it helped that the seismic activity on Earth had been steadily decreasing for years; a small miracle, but she'd take all she could get.
"How are we going to get back?" asked Saeve.
"The way many of us got here in the first place," Maimouna said. "We're going to take the Mael an'Onir."
Calim butted in, as usual. "Where will we land?"
Maimouna grinned, a bit ferally. People responded well to her devil-may-care confidence, and she needed to project every inch of confidence she had to cover her own doubts and fears.
"I was thinking an island, or worst-case, the ocean. The Marath'tuatha'an first rode out the Sinking on the ocean, and at least as of one hundred years ago, we knew other groups of them were still there. And since Uhura did them a good turn by accepting them when they came knocking, I'm hoping the Marath'tuatha'an on Earth will return the favor. We're family, after all."
As she gave the orders to refurbish the Mael an'Onir and begin the rest of the preparations for emigration, she considered again the idea of talking across generations. They still had channelers with them, even if they couldn't Travel. Perhaps they could build a monument to Uhura, a memorial ter'angreal.
Maimouna wanted very badly to believe that they would survive the trip back to Earth, and that someday her descendants might return to the city on the moon.