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I hadn’t made the evaluations, but the feelings from my body, and the fact that not all the farscreens and diagnostics were even working, suggested a certain truth to her words. Still, I’d untranslated closer than normal, and that was good, given our situation.

“AUGUSTA STATION, this is ISS W. B. Yeats, inbound from Silver-ston. Authentication follows.” I pulsed off the authentication, trying to ignore the aches that seemed to cover most of my clamshelled body, as well as the tightness in my chest, and the feeling that I was still drowning.

There wasn’t any immediate answer. There never is, not with the real-time, speed-of-light delay.My head continued to ache, and I had to boost the oxygen to my self-system as we headed down and in-system.

It was more than a few standard hours before the Yeats, with passengers and cargo intact, docked at Augusta Station, the trans-ship terminal for the planet Jael of the New Roman Republic. The pilot and ship were less intact than the passengers and cargo.

“Captain Henry, Augusta control here. External diagnostics indicate extensive maintenance required. Interrogative medical attention.”

I scanned the ship systems once again, although I knew control was right. The fusactors were both close to redline, and the translation generators were totally inoperative. Two of the farscreens were junk. As for me, my nanetics had told me more than once that I was bruised over 21.4 percent of my body, that I had more than a few sub dural hematomas, and that 20 percent of my lung function was impaired. But there hadn’t been anything I could have done until we were in-locked.

“Affirmative. Class three removal requested.” Class two would have meant half my body would have needed attention. Class one would have come from the ship systems or Alora, because Class one med alerts meant the pilot was dead or close to it.

As I waited for the med crew and shuttle, I downlinked to the Roman infosystems, running through the search functions as quickly as I could. Then, I went up a level, for the information on the other worlds of the New Roman Republic. There was no Gortforge on Jael, or on any of the other Roman worlds, nor anything resembling it in name. That didn’t matter. It existed somewhere—and so did the Countess Kathryn O’Shea. Of both I was certain.

The universe is thought, wrapped in rhyme and music, and that’s why the best pilots hold the blood of the Emerald Isle.We know what we are . . . and each time we fly, we have to discover that anew.

For, as a pilot, I have always held to my own two beliefs. First, science is not enough to explain all that is in the wide, wide universe, and without magic, science is as useless as . . . a man without a soul. Second, so long as there are Irish, there will always be an Ireland.

After the med crew rebuilds me, again, I will fly the swan ship that is the Yeats to as many worlds as I can, and must, until I find the Countess Kathryn.

With whom else could a swan pilot trust his found soul?

The Isle of Women

BY JACQUELINE CAREY

We are nameless in the stories told by men.

Even the Lady, my gracious Lady, who wore her beauty as lightly as a garment of the finest-combed wool, on whose shoulders the mysteries perched like twin doves. It is no wonder they hailed her as Queen, although it was not what she was. For that, there is no word. Lady, we called her. But she had a name, too, although it was seldom spoken aloud. In the stories they told afterward, none of us have names.

I saw them first, from the ramparts. I saw their hide-bound cur-ragh riding the green swell of the waves, a curragh so vast it might have been a small whale, making its way to our shores. Truly, it was a mighty vessel to hold such men; seventeen, bold and fearless, and boldest of all was their leader, Máel Dúin.

I did not know that, then. I did not know if they were kinsmen or foes, reavers come to wreak violence upon us. Then, I merely picked up my skirts and hastened down the stairs to tell our Lady. She sat at her spinning wheel within her day chamber. I knocked and was