9 - Too Many Problems

Kyrus looked across his room at Werfas who lay sprawled across the floor cushions, fingers laced behind his head.  Hara sat cross-legged on a cushion of her own, next to Kurazon, who settled herself carefully down.  She would be giving birth soon.  Shashi lay on her stomach on the carpet chin propped on her hands.  Her baby lay next to her, sleeping.

If it weren’t all krashnall silk pillows in every colour under the sun, with handwoven feather veils and hair-feathers.  If it weren’t in a room so high that if it weren’t for the water flowing down over the windows it would be so hot we might as well be steamed.  If we didn’t have a scattering of silver and alabaster bowls and plates instead of red clay... we could be a bunch of Basin rats hiding out, hanging out, in a soak under the city.

“I think it’s the wrong approach to try and rediscover how to fly, much less fly over the air,” Werfas was saying.

“We need to get to the communications equipment on the moon, though.” Kurazon put in.

“And once we’re there we need to find out who to contact to make sure that Prime doesn’t just wipe us out and claim we just died of some disease or disaster.” Hara said.

“So, wing-brother, if we don’t rediscover how to fly... how do we do it?”

“We steal a flying warbird from Prime.”

Everyone was silent at that, and the baby stirred and made a chirpy noise in her sleep.  Shashi sat up slowly.

“I like that idea,” Kyrus said.  “But there’s some problems.”

Hara snorted.  “Only some?” She held up her fingers... “We would need to send someone to Prime’s continent and suborn someone... someone who flies there.  Or someone would need to go there and learn to fly and then steal one without alerting Prime and all his manders.  If they didn’t manage to pull you back where would you get away too?  They’d come looking for their missing flyer...”

“... and find and obliterate us...” Kurazon chimed in.

“It would be possible to get someone over there... but to set them up as a high enough tech class... a high enough pedigree to be able to have the knowledge to learn how to fly... it will take years,” Shashi said.  “I believe that His Radiance and the Warmaster have already set that particular plan in motion, to be activated if we succeed at nothing else.”

How exactly does she know that? She’s like that old Amir who wasn’t really an Amir, Kyrus thought. “There are so many problems with that idea that whoever goes –“ he paused for a moment before continuing.  “—or has already gone, better be really good.  Do we even know if Prime’s current people look more like Lainz or Milar, or what?”

“They look mostly like Nadumon, but without the hair, as nearly as we can see.”  The Nadumon cultivated elaborate, matted, beaded and braided hairstyles.

“This is too big a problem,” Werfas said grumpily, flinging one arm over his eyes.  “I mean, how do we even start to get caught up to where we were at the time of the first Radiances?  They’d already destroyed a lot of their knowledge, given it up, burned it and booted it out the door, idiots that they were.”

“They were likely like that Komeni fellow,” Hara said.   

“Lotechers and Pysonits.  Ky, your ma’s found more of Empress Petra’s lesson files?”

He shrugged.  “Bits and pieces.”

“There’s enough there to build on,” Shashi said firmly and Kurazon nodded.

“Werfas, you need to remember that it’s not just us trying to solve this problem.  We’ve got hundreds of thousands of people working together.  Like the Hive.  We’ll get our tech back, with improvements wrought out of our experience living under where Prime would even think to look.”

He rolled over and propped up the side of his head with one hand.  “We’ve just now found out how to build a thing to scan for the fancy power Prime uses.  We don’t use anything other than muscle and he hasn’t thought to look for all the heat we’d put out... we’re just a bigger blot of heat at night... hmmm.  During the day we’d be invisible in the background heat.  It’s the cities and villages on the surface at night that would be visible.  As heat and light.”

“What we need is to cline evidence of us being there, just in case someone slips up and alerts Prime.”

“That’s a good start,” Shashi said, and sat up as her little girl fussed herself awake.  “We don’t need to solve any more than that.  Why don’t we concentrate on that, day after tomorrow?”

“Why not tomorrow?” Kyrus asked.  Fak me, I hope its not –

“Another ceremonial you have to do as siwion,” Shashi said.   

“With all this change going on people need to know that all of life hasn’t changed.  They need some stability.”

Even if it’s a bell-ringers dinner or a wax cleanser ball, or both. Kyrus tried not to sigh.