“I’m trying to build up a picture of Chandra—its nature, its surrounds,” Nilis said earnestly. “I have the material I discovered in the Olympus Archive, the data from the neutrino telescope, and now Blue’s firsthand experience. I need to put it all together—to assemble a theoretical model of our objective. I was there, you know,” he said with a sort of modest pride. “In the Cavity. I sent in an avatar to ride with Pirius Blue. I like to think I acquitted myself well enough! But even that experience isn’t enough. I need to know what Blue himself perceived.”
Pirius nodded slowly. “So why don’t you talk to him?”
“It is a question of nuances,” Nilis said. He reached out his big hands toward Pirius. “I’m not sure I understand you, you see. We discussed this before. Our backgrounds are so different! Of course nobody knows Pirius Blue as well as you do. Nobody will be able to understand his words, his body language—what remains unsaid—as well as you. This is very important. Listen to your time brother, Pirius Red; listen to his feelings. . . .”
Pirius took the assignment.
For the rest of the day, he sat in Nilis’s musty cabin watching Virtual recordings of Pirius Blue, more battered, more weary, even older, as he described his extraordinary jaunt into the core.
Pirius Red still felt a lingering resentment at this stranger from the future who had sent him into involuntary exile. But mostly, Red felt envy: envy for a man who had once more had the opportunity to carry out his duty in the most testing of circumstances, and envy for the companionship of his crew. Watching this scratchy Virtual report, Pirius Red felt shut out, denied.
At the end of the day, Torec and Pirius retired to their small shared room on the corvette. They didn’t speak.
Pirius stripped off his uniform and allowed it to slither into the closet. He got into his bunk, turned his face to the wall and closed his eyes, hoping for sleep. At least he wasn’t on Earth; at least he was back in space, and he could hear the comforting sigh of cycled air, feel the thrumming of the corvette’s drive.
He was surprised when Torec slid into his bunk.
He turned to face her. Her face was so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. Her eyes, dimly visible in the low light, were closed, her mouth tight shut.
He put his hand on her arm. He felt firm flesh and muscle. He whispered, “Things aren’t the same.”
He could feel her roll onto her back. “The trouble is, Pirius, things have changed for me. While you’ve been away, I’ve been useful.”
He knew that was true. There had been her work on the CTC processor, the test flights of the modified greenships, even this early work on the black-hole cannon. He remembered her confusion when they had first been brought to Sol system, when she hadn’t even wanted to get out of bed.