'My work in the last few years has required me to develop an understanding of divination and prophesy/ Gideon said slowly. Things have been… revealed to me. Things of great significance.'
I could tell he was being very careful about what he said. It was as if he wished to tell me more but didn't dare. I decided I should respect his caution, and allow him to tell me only what he felt he could.
'One of those revelations – a vision, if you like – forecast mat a violent fate would befall the Distaff on Messina. The event was predicted to the precise hour. But I couldn't get there in time to prevent it.'
'The destruction of the Distaff was predicted?' I said.
"With distressing accuracy/ he replied.
I suddenly realised I was hearing his voice, by which I mean the voice Ravenor had used before his terrible injuries, a voice produced by a man whose mouth and larynx had not been melted by burning promethium. I had become so used to the monotone synthetic speech of his chair's psi-activated voxsponder.
'My work has also allowed me perfect stronger psionic abilities/ he said, and one of them was clearly reading my surface thoughts. 'I ditched the voxsponder about a year ago. I have developed enough psionic control to broadcast my speech naturally/
'I'm hearing you in my head?'
Yes, Gregor. Hearing the voice you're used to. It doesn't work with untouchables or psychically shielded individuals of course – THATS WHY I KEEP THE OLD VOXSPONDER ON STANDBY/
He uttered the last part of his sentence mechanically via the toneless voice box built into his chair and the grating, emotion-free electronic words made us all laugh with surprise.
Though I was too late to save the Distaff, I got Kara, Harlon and Alize-beth to safety off-world/
'For that, you have my gratitude. But why summon me so far off the beaten track to meet with you?'
'Promody has secrets that we need/ he said.
'What manner of secrets?'
'I have been allowed to see the future, Gregor/ Ravenor said. 'And it isn't pretty/
'Imperial culture has never set much store by divination/ Gideon told me. 'I have come to suspect that is a great weakness/
It was much later. Night had fallen over the swampy bayou and the air was dancing with bioluminescent flies. Ravenor and I had taken a stroll along the grav walks behind his camp.
A weakness? Surely it is a greater weakness to take it seriously? If we believed the rantings of every dribbling marketplace seer, of every demented Ecclesiarchy prophet who claimed to have been granted divine revelations-'