'Give Trade Master Golkwin my respects and tell him we are staying for now. He can be on his way, there is no point in him waiting. We could be here for a week or more. The usual form, polite. Tell him I thank him for his service and hope we may meet again.'
Lowink nodded. 'I will do it at once.'
Then I'd like you to perform some other tasks. Contact the main Astro-pathicus Enclave here on Hubris and request a full transcript of off-world traffic for the past six weeks. Also any record of unlicensed traffic, individuals using their own astropaths. Whatever they can make available. And a little threat that it is an inquisitor requiring this data wouldn't hurt. They don't want to find themselves caught up in a major inquisition for withholding information/
He nodded again. 'Will you be requiring an auto-seance?'
'Not yet, but I will eventually. I will give you time to prepare/
'Will that be all, Master?'
I turned to go. 'Yes, Lowink/
'Master…' he paused. 'Is it true that the female Vibben is dead?'
Yes, Lowink/
'Ah. I thought it was quiet/ He closed the door.
The comment wasn't as callous as it sounded. I knew what he meant, though my own psychic abilities were nascent and undeveloped next to his. Lores Vibben was a latent psyker, and while she had been with us, there had been a constant background sound, almost subliminal, broadcast unconsciously by her young, eager mind.
I found Betancore outside, standing under the shadow of one of the gun-cutter's stubby wings. He was gazing at the ground, smoking a lho-leaf tube. I didn't approve of narcotics, but I let it go. He'd cleaned himself up these past few years. When I'd first met him, he had been an obscura user.
'Damned bright place/ he muttered, wincing out at the abominable glare.
A typical over reaction. They have eleven months of pitch dark, so they light their habitat to an excessive degree/
'Do they have a night cycle?'
'I don't believe so/
No wonder they're so messed up. Extreme light, extreme dark, extreme mindsets. Their body clocks and natural rhythms must be all over the place/
I nodded. Outside, I had begun to be disarmed by the notion that the night was never going to end. Now I had the same feelings about this
constant noon. In his brief, Aemos had said the world was called Hubris because after spending seventy standard years getting here aboard their ark-fleet, the original colonists had found the surveys had been incorrect. Instead of enjoying a regular orbit, the world they had selected pursued this extreme pattern of darkness and light. They'd settled anyway, co-opting the cryogenerational methods that had got them here as part of their culture. A mistake, in my view.