The entire Vol 2 Num 2 August 2007

Thorby had kept up his resistance training, but he'd been on Boreas for most of a year so he'd worried about agravitic muscular dystrophy. You could never quite trust a gym centrifuge, or the record-keeping software, or most of all your own laziness. You might set things too low, lie to the records, anything to not be quite so sore and stiff for just a couple days, or to have a few days of no aches, and before you knew it you hadn't actually worked out in a month, and you'd be falling down weak at your next port. He'd missed recording the first calcium bombardment of Venus from ground level for that very reason, not working out while he'd been in the orbital station for three months before.

People always said you could make it back by working out in the high gravity on the ships between the worlds, but the ships boosted at a gee and a half until they started braking at four gee, so you spent all your time lying down or doing gentle stretches at best, and most trips weren't long enough anyway. And besides this had been less of a voyage and more of a hop; Boreas was very close to Mars now.

The comfortable grip of his feet on the train station platform, confirming that he was truly ready for Mars's real gravity, was as acute a pleasure as the clean thinness of bioprocessed air lightly stained with smells of coffee, frying meat, lubricant, and fresh plastic, as much as the pink late afternoon light flooding the train station, as much as the restless waves and murmurs of crowd noise.

He could have laughed out loud at how good it felt to be in his skin, standing on the platform at Olympus Station, a throng of eager hikers, sailplaners, and mountaineers all around him, the whole scene turned warm and sentimental by the pink light pouring in through the immense dome that arched above them.

It had been a decade since he'd been on Mars, a planet like the rest of the solar system: a place he always came back to, because he never went home.

"Thorby!" Léoa emerged from the crowd, saw him, and waved; he walked toward her slowly, still relishing the feel of having good ground legs.

"So do I look like me?" she asked. "Did you know that back in the protomedia days, when they had recording tech but things hadn't fused yet, that it was a cliché that people always looked better than their pictures?"

"I've mined protomedia for images and sounds too. My theory about that is that you couldn't get laid by telling the picture that it was the better-looking one."

"You're an evil cynic. Pbbbt." Even sticking her tongue out, she was beautiful.

So was he. All documentarians had to be, the market insisted.

"I never used pixel edit on myself," she said. He wasn't sure if she sounded proud or they were just having a professional discussion. "So screen-me does look unusually like real-me. I'll do a docu about the way people react to that, someday. Want to get a drink, maybe a meal? It's hours till our train." Without waiting for him to say anything, she turned and walked away.

Hurrying to catch up beside her, he called, "Baggins, follow," over his shoulder. His porter robot trailed after them, carrying Thorby's stack of packed boxes. Everything physical he owned still fit into a cube with sides shorter than his height. "Did you have a good trip in?" he asked her.

"For me it's always a great one. I've been here for six Martian seasons, three Earth years, and I'll never be one of the ones that shutters the window to concentrate on work. I came in from Airy Zero City via the APK&T."

"Uh, it's been a long time since I've been on Mars, is that a railroad?"

"Oh, it's a railroad—the grandest on the planet. The Airy Zero City-Polar Cap-Korolev-and-Tharsis. The one that tourists take if they only have one day on Mars. Also the one we'll be taking up to Crater Korolev for jump-off. Among many other things it runs around the edge of the northern ice cap. Strange to think it won't be long before it stops running. They're just going to leave it for the divers, you know, and maybe as a spread path for some of the seabed fauna. More to be lost."

"If we're going to start bickering," Thorby said, smiling, "shouldn't we be recording it? Or will that draw too much attention?"

"Not on Mars. It's a tourist planet—pretending celebs aren't there is de rigueur. And you don't look much like your teenaged pictures anymore."

"They were mostly in a spacesuit where you couldn't see my face anyway," he pointed out. "And I don't use my face in my docus. I was thinking mainly about you."

"Pbbbt. I never was much of a celeb. There won't be fifty people in all these hundreds who have ever seen any of my work. So the short answer is, if anything, it might be some worthwhile free publicity to do the interview while we walk through here. I'll bring out my stalkers." She whistled, a soft high-pitched phweet!—toooeee... wheep.

A hatch opened on the porter humming along at her heels. A metal head on a single stalk popped up. The stalker hopped out and raced ahead of them to get a front view. Four more stalkers leaped out like toy mouse heads roller-skating on pogo sticks, zipping and bounding to form a rough, open semicircle around Thorby and Léoa, pointing their recording cameras back at the two people, and using their forward sensing to zigzag swiftly and silently around everything else.

"I intend to look sincere and charming," Léoa said. "Do your best to look philosophical and profound."

"I'll try. It might come out bewildered and constipated."

She was nice enough to laugh, which was nicer than he was expecting. They descended the wide steps onto the broad terrace, far down the low, northwest side of the dome, and took a table near the dome surface, looking northwestward from Mount Olympus across the flat, ancient lava lake and into the broken, volcanic badlands called sulci beyond it. "Our ancestors would have found a lot of what we do utterly mad," Léoa said, "so I suppose it's comforting that we can find one thing they did explicable."

"You're trying to get me to say something for the documentary."

"You're spoiling the spontaneity. Of course I notice you do that all the time in your own documentaries."

"I do. Spontaneity is overrated when you're covering big explosions and collisions. They only happen once, so you have to get them right, and that means looking in the right place at the right time, and that means a ton of prep."

"All right, well, have you had enough time to prepare to talk about something the ancestors would consider insane? What do you think about putting a train station on top of the highest mountain in the solar system?"

"Where else would you put it? People who want to climb the mountain still can, and then they can take the train home. People who just want the view just take the train both ways. And once it starts to snow seriously around here, the skiing is going to be amazing. So of course there's a train station here. They put it here to attract trains, the way Earth people put out birdfeeders to attract birds."

She nodded solemnly and he realized she was doing a reaction shot on him, showing her sincerity and trust. He looked away, out through the dome.

"You're getting lost in the sky," Léoa said.

"I like the pink skies here."

"Doesn't it bother you that there will probably only be a thousand or so more of those?"

"Not any more than it bothers me that I've missed billions of them before I was born."

"What about the people who will never see it?"

"They'll get to surf the new ocean, and stretch out on the beaches that all the dust washing out of the sulci and down the canyons will form. They'll love that, in their moments. In my moment, I'm relishing a late afternoon pink sky."

The stalker in the center was spinning back and forth, pointing its camera at each of them in turn; so now it was a ping-pong match. They did more verbal sparring and genned more quotes and reactions, ensuring they'd both have plenty to work with when the coproject went to edit. After a while they ordered dinner, and she stopped fishing for him to confess to imperialism or vandalism or whatever she was going to call it.

She told her Stalker Number Three to silhouette him against the darkening sky and the landscape far below. The little robot leaped up, extended its pencil-thin support to a bit over two meters, and silently crept around to shoot slightly down on Thorby and get the horizon into the picture.

When Boreas rose in the northwest, covering much of the sky, they both said "more profounder versions of what we already said," as Léoa put it, while the stalkers recorded them with their back to the dome wall. Léoa had her stalkers stand tall, extending till they were about three meters high, to catch the brilliant white light that the huge comet cast into the sulci below; Thorby positioned his low, to silhouette them against the comet head itself. The huge station mezzanine around them, in the brilliant bluish-white light, looked like some harsh early photograph with artificial lighting.

Over coffee and dessert, they watched the fast-rising comet swim through the northern constellations like a vast snake coiling around Cepheus and the Bears before diving over the northeast horizon, making a vivid arc different from that of anything else in the heavens. Finally it was late and they went to their rooms at the station hotel for the night. Thorby managed not to say anything about liking to see stuff smashed up, and she avoided saying she really preferred bare, dead rock and sand to forests and meadows, so the first day was a tie.

****

They got off at Korolev Station, on the south side of the crater, pulled on Mars suits, loaded the porters, and walked out past the stupa that was another of the most-photographed places in the solar system.

Crater Korolev was as far north on Mars as Novaya Zemlya on Earth, nearly circular, about seventy kilometers across, with sharply reared crater walls all around. It was a natural snow trap, gathering both water ice and dry ice in mixtures and layers.

In a midmorning of Martian spring, the crater floor far below them had its own weather, gas geysers spraying snow, explosive sublimations that sent ground blizzards shooting out radially from suddenly exposed snowfields, and an occasional booming flash-and-crack between the whorls of fog that slithered just above the snow, almost a kilometer below the observation point behind the stupa. Monks in orange Mars suits, on their way to and from the long staircases that zigzagged from the stupa down to another stupa on the crater floor, passed between their stalkers, even less interested in the stalkers than the stalkers were in them.

"This place makes a lot of lists of scenic wonders," Léoa said. She knelt at the meter-high shrine that interrupted the rails of the observation platform, palms together in the ancient prayer gesture. The stalkers closed in on her.

He did the same, to avoid her stalkers' recording him being disrespectful.

When Thorby and Léoa stood, and looked again across the stormy snowfields of Korolev Crater, the stalkers leaped up on the railing like an abstract sculpture of birds on a wire, balancing easily with their gyros. Thorby and Léoa de-opaqued their helmets completely and turned on collar lights. "It doesn't bother you," she asked, "that these snow fields were here before the first human wandered across the African plain?"

"No," he said. "After all, the protons and electrons in the snow were probably in existence shortly after the Big Bang. Everything is made of bits of something older. Everything that begins means something ends. I like to take pictures of the moment when that happens. A day will come when we walk by Lake Korolev and admire the slow waves rolling across its deep blue surface, and then another day will come when this stupa stands on one of the islands that ring Korolev Atoll, and very much within our lifetime, unless we are unlucky, this will be an interesting structure at the bottom of the Boreal Ocean. I hope to see them all; life is potential and possibility."

"That was very preachy," she said, "and you kind of intoned. Do you want to try it again?"

"Not really. Intoning feels right when I'm serious. I like things that will happen once, then never again. That's what my problem is with the animators that make their perfect simulations; they never take a chance on not getting what they're after. Be sure to use that. Let's get some animators good and angry."

"They don't get angry," she said sadly. "Nothing's real to them."

He shrugged. "Reality is just a marketing trophy anyway. Twenty thousand years from now, if people want to walk around on a dry, thin-aired, cold Mars, they'll be able to do it, and it will look so much like this that even a trained areologist won't see the difference. Or if they want to watch the disassembly of Boreas a hundred times, and have every time be as subtly different as two different Tuesdays, they'll be able to. Your recording of what was, and my recording of how it changed, will just be two more versions, the ones with that odd word 'real' attached."

"Attached validly. If reality doesn't matter, why do animators try to fake their way into having their work labeled 'real' all the time? It's the only thing they do that makes me really angry."

"Me too." He could think of nothing else to add. "Catch the gliderail?"

In the half-hour zip around to the north side viewing station, they sat on the top, outside deck. Their stalkers shot them with the crater in the background. It was noon now, and the early spring sun was still low in the sky to the south.

On firm ground, in a Mars suit with robot porters to do all the carrying, a human being can cover about a hundred kilometers in a day without difficulty. Since the country they were crossing was ancient sea bottom (that was the point of everything, really), it would be flat and hard for the next couple of hundred kilometers before the Sand Sea. They could have just taken a hop-rocket to some point in the vast plain, claimed to have walked there, recorded their conversation, and then hopped another hundred kilometers or so to the edge of the Sand Sea, but they were the two most prominent documentarians of the realist movement.

Visually it was monotonous. They had planned to use the long walk to spar for quotes, but there was little to say to each other. Léoa documented places that were about to be destroyed in the Great Blooming; Thorby recorded the BEREs, Big Energy Release Events, the vast crashes and explosions that marked humanity's project of turning the solar system into a park and zoo. They were realist-purists, using only what a camera or a mike could record from the real world. Unable to do anything except disagree or agree completely, they tried arguing about whether a terraformed planet can have wilderness, since the life on it was brought there and the world shaped for it, and about whether it was masculine to like to see things smashed and feminine to like to see things protected, and they agreed that animation had no place in docu, all in the first hour.

For a while she fished for him to tell stories about his brief moment of fame, as the teenager who rode his bicycle around a comet, but he didn't feel like telling that story during that hike, though he did promise to tell it eventually. It wasn't that he minded, it was only that the good-parts version came down to no more than four or five sentences for anyone else, and to inchoate, averbal images for Thorby.

By noon the first day, there was nothing to do but walk and look for something worth recording, or an argument worth having. They walked two more days.

****

The Sand Sea was no more conversational, but it was beautiful: an erg that stretched to the horizon, dune after dune in interlocking serpentines stretching for hundreds of kilometers in all directions. From orbit the regularity of the pattern of dune crests was remarkable, but from the dune crests, where they skied, it was busy and confusing like a choppy sea. Down between the dunes it was just piles of sand reaching to the sky on all sides.

They hadn't spoken in hours. Léoa didn't even ask him if he felt sad that all this would be converted to a mud flat and then drowned under three kilometers of water. He couldn't work up the energy to needle her about protecting a pile of dust the size of France, so that future generations could also visit a pile of dust the size of France.

They went slowly for the last day, as Léoa got visuals of the Sand Sea. She had built her reputation on doomed landscapes; this would be the biggest to date.

Thorby was sitting on top of one of the immense dunes, watching the sunset and talking his notes to one of his stalkers, planning the shooting of the Boreas-pass above the North Pole. He felt a low vibration, and his suit exmike, which had only supplied a soft whisper for days, reverberated with deep bass notes, something between a tuba and a bell, or a choir of mountains.

The dune under him heaved like an ocean wave waking from a long sleep, and he tumbled over, rolling and sliding in a bewildering blur of dust and sky, halfway down the western, windward face before sliding to a halt. The slipping dust piled around him, starting to pin him to the ground.

He pushed up to his feet, and stepping high, climbed back up the dune. It was more than a minute, while the pure tones of the bass notes in his exmike became a continuous thunder of tympani, before he struggled back to the top. The sun was less than a fingerwidth above the short horizon, and the light would disappear in minutes, the smaller solar disk and short horizon of Mars reducing twilight to an instant.

The thunder was still loud, so he clicked up the volume on his radio. "Are you all right?"

"Far as I can tell. It buried me to my waist but I got out." He picked out Léoa, climbing the leeward slope far below. "Booming sands," she said. "One of the last times they'll ever do it. The resonance trips off more distant dunes, one dune triggering another by the sounds, till all the dunes with those frequencies have avalanched and added to the din. There's a scientist I met who sowed microphones all over the polar sea and he could show you maps of how the booming would spread from dune to dune, all over the Sand Sea in a couple of hours. And all that will be silent forever."

"Silent as the Boreal Ocean is now," he said, mindful that their recording mikes were still on and so was the sparring match. All round them, stalkers were finding their way back to the surface, usually stalk first so that they rose like slim reeds from the ground until they suddenly flipped over, spun to clear the dust from their scoop shaped audio pickups, and resumed hopping through the sand like mouse heads on pogo sticks, normal as ever. "There was a time to hear the sands, and there will be a time to hear the waves. And in between there's going to be some of the grandest smashing you ever saw."

She must not have had a good reply, or perhaps she just didn't want to reply to his intoning again, because she got back to her setup, and he got back to his.

The Mars suits shed the fine dust constantly, so that Léoa seemed to smolder and then to trail long streaks as the wind shifted during the few seconds of twilight. They finished under the stalkers' work lights, and lay down to wait on the soft lee of the dune, safe now because it had just avalanched.

"Thorby," she said, "this is not turning into anything that will make either of us famous."

He hunched his shoulders, shaping the fine sand under him. "You're right," he said. "It's not."

"You've already been famous."

"It's one of those things you can't experience while it's happening," he said, "like seeing yourself across a crowded room. Not all that it's cracked up to be. I like making docus and I like selling them, so that kind of 'where is he now' fame doesn't hurt, and it's far enough in the past so I mostly get left alone." He watched Phobos, far south in the sky; from these far northern latitudes you never saw it full, always as a lumpy sort of half-moon.

"If a model or a musician had taken a tumble in booming sands it would sell systemwide, but if we got stranded out here and you killed and ate me to survive, it would barely show up. Docus are what, half a percent of the market? There's not even a market in pirating them." Léoa sighed. "I was just thinking that the mainstream celeb channels haven't even mentioned that the two leading documentarians of the realist-purist movement are here to record the biggest event of the next few hundred years of the Great Blooming, the re-creation of the Boreal Ocean. Not even to mention that we've always feuded and we purportedly hate each other. Not even to do one of those 'Will they reconcile and have sex?' stories they like so much. Not even to mention that one of us is the teenager who took the longest bicycle ride in history. Yet two years ago they covered the fad for learning to hand-read, and a couple guys in the retro movement that produced written books—can you believe it, written books, just code, that stuff people used to hand-read—and they covered a blacksmith last year, but docus are so dead, they didn't bother with us."

"We're not dead enough. Gone but not long enough or completely enough to be a novelty." He tried to decide whether he could actually see Phobos crawling along eastward, down by the equator, and decided he could. "Maybe we should have the blacksmith build us chariots, and race each other, and do a documentary about that."

"Maybe." The scratchy sound in her radio puzzled him till he saw her rolling over; she was looking for a comfortable position on the dune, and he was hearing her Mars suit pushing dust away.

"Hey," he said. "Since you've been trying to get me to miss something, I just noticed something I will miss. Phobos. I like the way it looks from this far north."

"Well, I'm glad something can touch your heart. I'd have thought you were excited about getting to see it fall."

"It won't be much of a show. Phobos'll be busted to gravel from all the impacts as it comes down through the rings, so it won't really be a BERE, just a month-long high point in the spectacular meteor shower that will go on for fifteen Mars-years or so. I wasn't even going to bother to shoot it. But what it is right now—I never realized it's always a half-moon up here in the far north, because it's so close to the equator and so low in orbit, and besides, it's fun just to watch it, because it's so low it orbits really fast, and I'm thinking I can see it move."

"I think I can too." She commanded her stalkers to set up and record the view of Phobos, and then to get the two of them with Phobos behind them as they sat on a dune. "Those shots will be beautiful; so sad though that stories about Great Blooming projects are about as popular as public comment requests by the Global Desalination Authority."

He shrugged, hoping it would show up on the stalker's cameras. "Post scarcity economy, very long life spans, all that. Everything to do and nothing matters. Story of everyone's life. Have you thought about doing anything other than docus?"

"I try not to. I want to get the Great Blooming recorded, even if I call it the Great Vandalism or Bio-Stuff Imperialism. Somebody has to stand up for rocks, ice, and vacuum."

"Rocks make okay friends. They're dependable and loyal."

"I wish somebody wanted to watch us talking to each other," Léoa said. "About all this. About Mars and about the Blooming and all that stuff. I almost wouldn't care what we had to say, or how things came out, if somebody would just find us interesting enough to listen. You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Thorby didn't really feel that way himself but he often didn't know what he felt at all, so he might as well agree.

They began final checkout just a few minutes before Boreas's first aerobraking pass. The stalkers were self-maintaining, and they were already in place, but it felt wrong to just assume everything would work.

"This will be one of your last views of your home," Léoa said. "How do you feel about that?"

He turned toward her, flipped the opaquing on his helmet to zero, and turned up the collar lights, so that his face would be as visible as possible, since this was an answer he knew he needed to get right. Already the northern horizon was glowing with Boreas-dawn. "Boreas is where I grew up, as much as I ever did, but that doesn't make it home," he said. "First of all when I lived there you couldn't walk on most of it, anyway, and they weren't going to let a little boy put on a suit and go play outside. When I went back four weeks ago, all that melting and vaporizing that went on while Boreas worked its way down to the lower system had erased even the little bit of landscape I did know; I couldn't even find Cookie Crumb Hill on radar and thermal imaging, and anyway if I'd found it, it's so dark down there now, with all the fog and grit flying around, that I doubt I could have gotten pictures that penetrated more than twenty meters into the mess. The Boreas I knew when I was a kid, way out beyond Neptune, is more than a decade gone; it's nothing like it was. Nothing at all."

He was crabbier in his tone than he had meant to be, irritated by her question because he'd blown half his share of the budget to buy passage to Boreas so that he could come back with the seven scientists who were the last evacuated from the iceball's surface, and what he'd gotten had been some lackluster interviews that he could as easily have done a year before or a year after. Furthermore, since the station had not had windows, he could have done them somewhere more pleasant. He had also acquired some pictures of the fog-and-grit mix that now shrouded what was left of the old surface. (Most of the old surface, of course, now was fog and grit).

As Boreas came in over the North Pole, it would swing low enough for atmospheric drag, which, combined with the gravitational drag from coming in an "inverse slingshot" trajectory, should put it into a very eccentric, long orbit around Mars. Doing this with a big natural ball of mixed water ice, carbon dioxide, and frozen methane, with a silica-grit center, was so uncertain a process that the major goals for the project began with "1. avoid impact by Boreas, 2. avoid escape by Boreas."

But if all went well, nudgers and roasters would then be installed on Mars's new huge artificial moon, with the objective of parking it in a nearly circular retrograde orbit below Phobos, well inside Mars's Roche limit, so that over a few years, Boreas would break up and form a complex of rings. The billions of bits of it, dragged and shredded by the planet's rotation, would then gradually spiral in across twenty years, creating a spectacular continual meteor shower in the plane of the ring, a carbon dioxide/methane atmosphere at about a bar of pressure, and, as water vapor snowed down, then melted, then rained and ran to the lower parts of the planet, a new ocean in the bed of the dry-for-a-billion-years Boreal Ocean.

The comet's pass would light the sky for many hours, but its actual brush with the atmosphere would last less than three minutes. Thorby and Léoa intended to be directly underneath it when that happened.

"Did you leave anything on Boreas, a memento to be vaporized onto Mars?" she asked.

He started to say, "No."

She picked up her walking stick and knocked off the head of one of his stalkers.

Startled speechless for an instant, he didn't speak or move till she whacked the second one so hard that its head flew in pieces into the sand.

"What are you—"

"Destroying your stalkers." Her voice was perfectly calm and pleasant as she whacked another stalker hard enough to break its stem in half, then drove the tip of her stick down on its head. "You won't have a record of this. And mine will only be recording your face and appearance. You've lost."

He thought lost what? for an instant, and then he wanted to rush to see if Number Four stalker, which had been with him for twenty-five years, was all right because it was crushed and he couldn't help thinking of it as "hurt," and then he wanted to scream why?

The landscape became brighter than day, brighter than Earth lightning, not at all like the Boreas-dawn they had been expecting. A great light flashed out of the north, and a breath later a white, glowing pillar pushed up into the sky. They froze, staring, for some indefinite time; his surviving stalkers, and all of hers, rotated to face the light, like clockwork sunflowers.

Thorby heard his voice saying, "We'll need to run, south, now, as fast as we can, I don't think we'll make it."

"Must have been a big fragment far out from the main body," Léoa said. "How far away do you think—"

"Maybe up close to the pole if we're lucky. Come on," he said, "whistle everything into the porters. Skis on. Run."

Two of his stalkers had not been destroyed, and they leaped into his porter at his emergency call. "Skis and poles," he told the porter, and it ejected them; he stepped onto the skis, free-heelers designed for covering ground and moving on the slick dust, and hoped his few hours practice at a comfortable pace in the last day would be enough to let him go fast now.

"Baggins, follow, absolute." Now his porter would try to stay within two meters of his transponder, catching up when it fell behind, until it ran out of power or was destroyed. If he lost it, he might have to walk hungry for a while, but the northern stations were only a couple of days to reach. His Mars suit batteries were good for a week or more; the suit extracted water and air; he just had to hope he wouldn't need the first aid kit, but it was too heavy to strap onto the suit.

The great blue-white welding-arc pillar had cooled to orange-white, and the main body of Boreas, rising right on schedule, stood behind it as a reflector. The light at Thorby's back was brighter than noonday equatorial sun on Earth, much brighter than any sun Mars had ever seen, and the blazing face of Boreas, a quarter of the sky, spread the light with eerie evenness, as if the whole world were under too-bright fluorescent light.

He hurled himself along the windward side of the south-tending dune crest, using the skating technique he'd learned on Earth snow and practiced on frozen methane beds on Triton; his pushing ski flew out behind him, turning behind the lead ski to give extra push, then reach as far in front of him as possible, kicking and reaching as far as he could. On the slick, small-round-particle sand of the ridge top, in the low gravity, he might have been averaging as much as twenty kilometers per hour.

But the blast front from the impact was coming at them at the local speed of sound, 755 kilometers per hour, and though that was only 2/3 as fast as Mach 1 in warm, thick, breathable air, it was more than fast enough to overtake them in a half hour or less. At best the impact might have been four hundred kilometers away, but it was almost surely closer.

He glanced back. Léoa skied swiftly after him, perhaps even gaining ground. The light of the blazing pillar was dimmer, turning orange, and his long shadow, racing in front of him, was mostly cast by the dirt-filtered light of the Boreas-dawn. He wasn't sure whether Boreas would stay in the sky till the sun came up, but by then it would all be decided anyway.

"Thorby."

"Yeah."

"I've had it look for shelter, read me some directions, and project a sim so I'm sure, and there's a spot that's probably safe close to here. This dune crest will fork in about a kilometer. Take the left fork, two more kilometers, and we'll be behind a crater wall from the blast."

"Good thinking, thanks." He pushed harder, clicking his tongue control for an oxy boost. His Mars suit increased the pressure and switched to pure oxygen; his pace was far above sustainable, but either he made this next three kilometers or he didn't.

Léoa had destroyed his recording setup. He'd known she deplored his entire career of recording BEREs—Big Energy Release Events—at least as much as she disliked the whole idea of the Great Blooming, but he'd had no idea she would actually hash the joint project just to stop him from doing it. So his judgment about people was even worse than he'd thought it was. They had been colleagues and (he'd thought) friendly rivals for decades, and he hadn't seen it coming.

He kept pushing hard, remembering that he was pouring so much oxygen into his bloodstream that he had to keep his muscles working hard, or hyperventilate. His skis flew around him, reached out to the front, whipped back, turned, lifted, flew out around him, and he concentrated on picking his path in the shifting light and staying comfortably level and in control; in the low Martian gravity, with the close horizon that didn't reveal parallax motion very well to eyes evolved for Earth, it was far too easy to start to bounce; your hips and knees could easily eat a third of your energy in useless vertical motion.

The leeward side of a dune crest is the one that avalanches, so he stayed to the right, windward side, but he couldn't afford to miss the saddle-and-fork when it came, so he had to keep his head above the crest. He heard only the hiss of his breath and the squeal of his skis on the sand; the boiling column from the impact, now a dull angry red, and the quarter-of-the-sky circle of the comet now almost directly overhead were eerie in their silence. He kept his gaze level and straight out to the horizon, let his legs and gut swing him forward, kept the swinging as vertical as he could, turning only the ski, never the hip, hoping this was right and he was remembering how to do it, unable to know if he was moving fast enough through the apparently endless erg.

He had just found the fork and made the left turn, glancing back to check on Léoa. She seemed to be struggling and falling a little behind, so he slowed, wondering if it would be all right to tell her she was bouncing and burning unnecessary energy.

The whole top five meters of the dune crest under her slid down to the leeward in one vast avalanche. For one instant he thought, but how can that be, I just skied it myself and I'm heavier. the ground fell away beneath him in shattering thunder as the whole dune slumped leeward.

Of course, how did I miss that? In the Martian atmosphere, a cold thin scatter of heavy CO2 molecules, sound is much slower than it is in anything human beings can breathe; anyone learns that after the first few times a hiking buddy's radio has exmike sound in the background, and it seems to be forever before your own exmike picks it up. But the basalts of the old Martian sea floor are solid, dense, cold, and rigid to a great depth; seismic waves are faster than they are elsewhere.

He thought that as he flipped over once, as if he were working up the voiceover for his last docu. Definitely for his last docu.

In the low gravity, it was a long way to the bottom of the dune. Sand poured and rumbled all around him, and his exmike choked back the terrible din of thousands of dunes, as the booming erg was all shaken at once by the S-waves running through the rock below it, setting up countless resonances, triggering more avalanches and more resonances, until nearly the whole potential energy of the Sand Sea released at once.

Maybe just to annoy Léoa, he intoned a voiceover, deliberately his corniest ever, as he tumbled down the slope and wondered how the sand would kill him. "It is as if the vast erg knows what Boreas is, that this great light in the sky is the angel of death for the Sand Sea, which shouts its blind black stony defiance to the indifferent glaring ice overhead."

He rolled again, cutting off his intoning with an oof! and released his skis. Rolling again, he plowed deep into the speeding current of sand. Something hard hit the back of his helmet. He tumbled faster and faster, then flopped and slid on his belly headfirst.

In darkness, he heard only the grinding of fine sand against his exmike.

****

The damp in Thorby's undersuit and his muzzy head told him he'd just done the most embarrassing thing of his life, fainted from fear. Now it felt like his worst hangover; he took a sip of water. Bruised all over, but no acute pain anywhere; slipped out of his urine tube, that seemed to be all that was wrong. If Baggins caught up with him, Thorby would like to get into the shelter, readjust things in the undersuit, sponge off a bit, but he didn't absolutely have to.

His clock didn't seem to be working—it didn't keep its own time, just reported overhead signal—but the wetness in his undersuit meant he couldn't have been out more than fifteen minutes or so. He'd be dry in another few minutes as the Mars suit system found the moisture and recycled it.

He was lying on his face, head slightly downward. He tried to push up and discovered he couldn't move his arms, though he could wriggle his fingers a bit, and after doing that for a while, he began to turn his wrists, scooping more sand away, getting leverage to push up more. An eternity later he was moving his forearms, and then his shoulders, half shaking the sand off, half swimming to the top. At last he got some leverage and movement in his hips and thighs, and heaved himself up to the surface, sitting upright in the silvery light of the darkened sky.

There was a pittering noise he couldn't quite place, until he realized it was sand and grit falling like light sleet around him. The blast wave that had carried it must have passed over while Thorby was unconscious; the tops of the dunes had an odd curl to them, and he realized that the top few meters had been rotated ninety degrees from their usual west-windward, east-leeward, to north-windward, south-leeward, and all the dunes were much lower and broader. Probably being down in the bowl had saved his life; maybe it had saved Léoa too.

He clicked over to direct voice. "Léoa?"

No answer, and her voice channel hadn't sent an acknowledge, so she wasn't anywhere in radio range, or she was buried too deep for him to reach her.

He tried the distress channel and got a message saying that if he was above thirty degrees north latitude and wasn't bleeding to death within ten kilometers of a hospital, he was on his own. Navigation channel was out as well, but if he had to he could just walk with the Bears and Cassiopeia to his back while they got the navigation system back on, and still get himself to somewhere much safer and closer to other people, though getting out of the dunes might take a week without his skis.

When the crest had avalanched under Léoa she'd been at least 150 meters behind him, and he wasn't sure she'd gone down into this bowl. He tried her on direct voice again, and still had nothing, so he tried phone and was informed that overhead satellite service was temporarily suspended. He guessed that the impact had thrown enough junk around to take down some of the high-ellipse polar satellites that supplied communication and navigation.

If he knew he was alone, the thing to do would be to start walking south, but he couldn't leave Léoa here if there was any chance of finding her. The first aid kit in Baggins had directional gear for checking her transponder, but Baggins was probably buried or crushed, and even if the porter was still rolling it might be a while before it found its way to him.

He would wait a few hours for Baggins anyway; the porter not only had the food, but could also track the tags on his skis and poles, and had a power shovel. A lot better to begin with a shelter, food, and skis than to get one or two kilometers further and a lot more tired. And he did owe Léoa a search.

The best thing he could think of to do—which was probably useless—was to climb to the top of the slope he'd rolled down. The pre-dawn west wind was rising, and the sand swirled around his boots; it was hard going all the way up, and it was dawn before he reached the top. The small bloody red sun rising far to the southeast, barely penetrating the dense dust clouds, gave little light. He clicked his visor for magnification and light amplification, and turned around slowly, making himself look at each slope and into each bowl he could see into, since with the wind already erasing his boot prints, he knew that once he walked any distance he'd have little chance of finding even the bowl into which he'd fallen.

There was something small and dark moving and slipping down the side of the next bowl north; he took a few steps, and used the distance gauge. It estimated the object to be about a meter across and two kilometers away.

He moved toward it slowly until he realized it was Léoa's porter, headed roughly for the bottom of the bowl, so it must be getting signal from her transponder. He descended to meet it and found it patiently digging with its small scoop and plow, rocking back and forth on its outsize dune wheels to get more leverage.

Thorby helped as much as he could—which wasn't much—with his hands. He didn't know whether the porter would try to dig her out if the med transponder showed she was dead, and of course it would ignore him, so he didn't have any way to ask it about anything. The suits usually ran with a couple of hours of stored air as a buffer, and made fresh air continually, but if she'd switched to pure direct oxygen as he had, there might not have been much in her tank, and if the intake was buried and filled with sand, she could suffocate.

Presently he felt a hard object; an instant later the porter reached forward with a claw, took a grip, and pulled one of Léoa's skis from the sand, putting it into its storage compartment, before rolling forward. Thorby stared at it for a long moment, and started to laugh as he followed the porter up the hill, to where plucked out a pole. Presumably it would get around to Léoa, sooner or later; nobody had thought to make life-saving a priority for a baggage cart.

The roiling sky was the color of an old bruise and his temperature gauge showed that it was cold enough for CO2 snow to fall. He followed Léoa's porter and tried the phone again. This time he got her voicemail, and left a message telling her what was going on, just in case she was wandering around on a hill nearby and out of line of sight from the satellite.

Five minutes later his phone rang. "Thorby?"

"Yeah, Léoa, are you okay?"

"No. Buried to my mid chest, I think I have a broken back and something's really wrong with my leg, and I can see your porter from where I am but I can't get its attention" Her voice was tense with pain. "Can't tell you where I am, either. And you wouldn't believe what your porter just did."

"It dug up one of my skis. That's what yours is doing over here. All right, to be able to see it you must be in the same bowl I landed in, one to the south, I'm on my way. I'm climbing without skis, so I'm afraid this is going to be slow."

After a while as he climbed, the wind picked up. "Léoa?" he called, on the phone again because radio still wasn't connecting them.

"I'm here. Your porter found your other ski. Do you think it will be okay for me to have some water? I've been afraid to drink."

"I think that's okay, but first aid class was a while ago. I was calling because I was afraid sand might be piling up on you."

"Well, it is. I'm trying to clear it with my arms but it's not easy, and I can't sit up."

"I don't think you should try to sit up."

They talked while he climbed; it was less lonely. "Your porter is digging about three hundred meters behind me," he told her. "It must be finding your other ski."

"Can't be, if it's already found one, because the other one is bent under me."

"Well, it's getting your pole then. If your ski is jammed under you, it sounds like it hurts."

"Oh yeah, the release must have jammed and it twisted my leg around pretty badly, and walloped me in the spine. So the porter must be finding my pole. Or maybe I dropped a ration pack or something. They've got so much spare processing power, why didn't anyone tell them people first, then gear?"

"Because there probably aren't a hundred million people, out of sixteen billion, that ever go off pavement, or to any planet they weren't born on," he said. "The porters are doing what they'd do in a train station—making sure our stuff is all together and not stolen, then catching up with us."

"Yours just found a pole and it's heading up the hill, so I guess it's on its way to you now."

He topped the rise a few minutes later, just as Baggins rolled up to him and waited obediently for orders. "Skis and poles," he said to his loyal idiot friend, and the machine laid them out for him.

He couldn't see Léoa, still, but there was so much sand blowing around on the surface that this might not mean anything. He tried direct voice. "Léoa, wave or something if you can."

An arm flopped upward from a stream of red dust halfway down the slope before him, and he glided down to her carefully, swinging far out around her to approach from below, making sure he didn't bump her or push sand onto her. He had to wait for Baggins to bring all the gear along, and tell it to approach carefully, but while the porter picked its way down the slope, he put the first aid and rescue gear manuals into his audio channel, asked it to script the right things to do, and listened until he could recite it back. This was one of those times that reminded him he'd always wanted to learn to hand-read.

Meanwhile he kept brushing sand off Léoa; she was crying quietly now, because it still hurt, and she had been afraid she would be buried alive, and now that he was there to keep her intakes clear, she was safe.

Late that afternoon, he had completed digging her out, tying her to the various supports, putting the drugs into her liquids intakes, and equipping Baggins to carry her. She was lying flat on a cross-shaped support as if she'd been crucified. Voice-commanding Baggins, he slowly raised her, got the porter under her, and balanced her on top. With Baggins's outrigger wheels extended as far as they would go, she would be stable on slopes less than ten degrees from the horizontal, and at speeds below three kilometers per hour. Thorby figured that hauling her would be something to do for a couple of days until rescue craft were available for less urgent cases.

Com channels were coming back up gradually, and the navigation channel was open again, but there was still little news, except a brief announcement that the impact had not been an early breakup of the comet, but apparently been caused by an undetected stony satellite of Boreas, about a half kilometer across. Splashback from the impact, as Thorby had guessed, had destroyed most of the satellites passing over the pole in the hours following. The dust storm it had kicked up had been impressive but brief and localized, so that only a half dozen stations and towns in the far north had taken severe damage, and tourist trade was expected to increase as people flocked to see the new crater blasted through the polar ice and into the Martian soil before the Boreal Ocean drowned it.

Authorities were confirming that the pass over the South Pole in seventeen days, to be followed with an equatorial airbrake nine days after that, was still on schedule. Thorby figured he'd be able to cover those, easily, so Léoa's little political action would mean very little.

He wanted to ask her about that but he didn't quite see how to do it.

Shortly after Baggins began to carry the cruciform Léoa in a slow spiral up the inside of the bowl, gaining just a couple of meters on each circuit, her porter appeared over the top of the dune. It had apparently found the last ski pole, or whatever it was digging for, and now followed her transponder like a faithful dog, behind Baggins, around and around the sandy bowl.

Léoa insisted that he get visual recordings of that silly parade, but he quietly killed the audio on it, because all that was really audible was her hysterical laughter. He attributed that to the painkillers.

About dawn he sat up, drank more water and swallowed some food, and skied easily to the top of the dune crest, where Baggins had just managed to carry Léoa after toiling in that slow spiral around the bowl all night. The monitor said she was fast asleep, and Thorby thought that was the best possible thing. Through most of the morning and into the afternoon, he skied along the newly reorganized dune crests, working a little ahead of Baggins and then sitting down to wait for it to catch up, listening to the slow spitting of sand against his suit, and watching the low red dust clouds gather and darken, with only his thoughts for company.

****

When Léoa finally awoke, she said, "I'm hungry." It startled Thorby; he was about sixty meters ahead, using his two remaining stalkers to shoot the dunes through the red dust that was still settling.

"Be right there," he said, and skied back, the stalkers hopping after him. Her mouth, throat, and digestive system were basically okay, according to the medical sensors, though they wanted her to eat mostly clear broth till she could be looked at properly in a hospital. This time she chose chicken broth, and he hooked it up so she could sip it. All the diagnostics from the rescue frame said she was more or less normal, and as far as he could tell the broken leg and spine were the major damage.

After a while she said, "If I call out my stalkers, will you tell the story about the bicycle ride around the comet, and all those things about becoming famous?"

"Sure," he said, "if it will make the time pass better for you. But I warn you it's very dull."

So he sketched out the basics, in his best "I am being interviewed" voice, as the red dusty sky grew darker. When he was fourteen had been sent to live with his grandmother because his mother had a promising career going as an actress and his being visibly a teenager would have spoiled her image as a sex object for teenage boys. His grandmother had been part of the earliest team for the first Great Bloom projects, so he had found himself dispatched to Boreas with her, forty-five AU from the sun—so far out that the sun was just a bright star. He had been bored and unhappy, spending most of his time playing games in VR and bored even there because he was so far from the rest of the solar system that radio signals from anywhere else, even Triton Station, took most of a day for a round trip.

"So on the day of the first fire-off—"

"Fire-off? You mean the atom bomb?"

"Well, sort of atom bomb. Laser initiated fusion explosive, but nobody wanted to call a bomb LIFE. Yeah, the thing that started Boreas falling down into the lower solar system." He skied back to look at her life support indicators; they were all green so as far as he knew, she was fine. "On that day, Grandma insisted that I suit up, which I didn't want to do, and go outside with her, which I really didn't want to do, to sit and watch the sky—the gadget was going to be blowing off over the horizon. They put it in an ellipsoidal superreflecting balloon, at one focus, and then put the other focus of the ellipsoidal at the focus of a great big parabolic parasol—"

"None of this means a thing to me."

"They had these really thin plastic reflectors to organize it into a beam about a kilometer across, so all that light, X-rays, heat, everything pretty much hit one square kilometer and blew off a lot of ice and snow in one direction."

"That's better. So, you got to see one big explosion and you liked it so much you decided to see them for the rest of your life?"

"My helmet's opaqued, did you want a reaction shot to that?"

"I'll make one up," she said. "Or use stock. I'm not that purist anymore. Anyway, I've heard you mention it two or three times, so what was Cookie Crumb Hill?"

"Home. It was where the base was. Basically a pile of sand cemented together with water ice, it was the boat for the base."

"The boat?"

"It floated on what was around it, and if anything had gone wrong it would have ejected as a whole, so we thought of it as a boat. But we called it Cookie Crumb Hill because it was a pile of meter-or-bigger ice clods. The stuff in the core was mostly silica, so the robots spun that into glass fibers, stirred that into melted water, and added enough vacuum beads to make it float on the frost, because otherwise anything we built would have been under twenty-five kilometers of frost."

A virgin Kuiper Belt Object begins as a bit of dust accumulating frost. It accretes water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, all the abundant things in the universe, a molecule at a time. Every so often it adds more dust, and as it grows bigger and bigger, the dust sinks through the loose vacuum frost to the center. At Kuiper Belt velocities, hardly anything ever hits hard enough to cause vaporization, and anyway it's too cold for anything to stay vapor for long. So over billions of years, the frost at the center packs slowly around the dust, and all of it sinks and compacts into a kind of sandy glacier. Frost on top of that sandy glacier packs in to form "fizzy glacier"—water ice mixed with methane and carbon dioxide ice. And always the surface at a few kelvins, where the slight mass and the low gravity are not enough to compact the crystalline structures, grows as thick frost; at the bottom of twenty-five kilometers of frost, on a world as small and light as Boreas, the total pressure was less than the air pressure of Mars. Time alone made Boreas large and its center hard.

"So before people got there," Léoa said, "you could say it was one big snowflake. Fractally elaborated fine structures of ice crystals, organized around a dust center—just that it was over seven hundred kilometers across."

"Small dust center, big compacted ice center," he said. "More like a snowball with a lot of frost on it. But I guess you're right, in a sense. So we called it Cookie Crumb Hill because with the fiber and beads in them, the ice boulders looked sort of like cookie crumbs, and we built it up in a big flat pyramid with sort of a keel underneath to keep it from turning over, so it was also a boat on a fluffy snowball, or if you would rather call it that, a snowflake.

"Anyway, I was a complete jerk as a teenage boy."

"I had twin teenage boys a couple decades ago," Léoa said, "and I might have the reversal and have more babies, but only if I can drown them or mail them away at age twelve."

Thorby skied alongside Baggins to check her indicators; she was farther into the green range, probably feeling better, and that was good.

"Well," he said, "I was unusually unpleasant even for a teenager, at least until the bicycle ride. Though being bad wasn't why Mom got rid of me; more like the opposite, actually." It came out more bitter than he had expected it to; he sometimes thought the only time he'd really been emotionally alive was between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, because everything after seemed so gray by comparison. "Anyway, I sat up there with Gran, and then there was a great light in the sky over the horizon, and about ten minutes of there being an atmosphere—I felt wind on my suit and for just a moment there was a sky instead of stars—and then, poof-click, all this new spiky frost forming everywhere. That was when the idea started, that it would be wonderful to be outside for a long period of time, especially if I could control what I did and how I spent my time.

"So for physics class, I figured out the gadget, and had the fabricators make it. That kilometer-across loop of spinning superconductor that was basically a big flywheel I could spin up to orbital velocity by doing shifts pedaling the treadmill, so over about a month I got in shape. Bicycle that I could ride around the inside of the loop as a maglev, picking up speed and momentum for the loop. That was trivial stuff, any lab could build that now, and our local robots didn't have much to do once the base was done. So I built my loop and my bicycle, or rather the robots did, and pedaled the loop for a few hours a day. In a frictionless very low g environment, the momentum adds up, and eventually that loop was moving at close to six hundred kilometers per hour, more than orbital velocity. With controllable superconduction on my bike tires, I could gradually increase the coupling, so I didn't get yanked off the bike when I first got on, and just ride my relative speed up high enough before getting off the loop and into orbit.

"Then I just needed the right timing, enough air, food, and water, and a way to come down when I got bored. The timing was done by a computer, so that I pulled out of the loop right at the top, while I was riding parallel to the ground, and I just had a one time program to do that, it took over and steered when it needed to, since my launch window was about three meters long and at that speed, that went by in about a sixtieth of a second. A recycling suit took care of the air and water. The food was in the big container I was towing. And the container, when it was empty, could be given a hard shove, and dragged through the frost below, as an anchor to get down to about a hundred kilometers per hour, when I'd inflate the immense balloon tires around the superconducting rims, and skim along the frost back to Cookie Crumb Hill.

"I just put the camera on the handlebars, facing backward, so that I'd have a record when I turned the project in for a grade, and then since I had to take a documentation class the next term, I used the footage. I had no idea people would get all excited about the image of me on that bicycle, food hamper towing behind me, with all that Boreas in the background."

"You looked like you were riding over it like a witch on a broomstick," she reminded him, "because the producer that bought it made it consistent that your head was upright in the picture, and the way a body in a gravitational field positions itself, the bike ended up toward Boreas."

"'It matters not what happened or how it was shot, the editor will decide what it was,'" he quoted, and skied forward a bit to stretch his tired legs and enjoy some exercise in the little daylight there was. Probably it would be another day or two before there was a rescue.

When he came back, and found her still rolling along on the rescue frame (which, to his eyes, kept looking more and more like a cross) on top of Baggins, she was still awake and wanted some more soup, so he set that up for her. "This probably is a good sign for your quick recovery," he pointed out. "The rescue people say they'll pick us up sometime tomorrow, so we could just camp here, but if we cover another fifteen kilometers tonight and tomorrow morning, we can officially say we got out of the Sand Sea all by ourselves. Which is more comfortable for you, stationary or rolling?"

"With my eyes closed I can't tell the difference; your porter is pretty good at carrying a delicate object. I can't get out of the suit anyway, so you're the one who setting up a shelter might make a difference to. So let's keep moving till you want to do that, and then move again in the morning when you're ready."

"That'll work." It was almost dark now, and though he could steer and avoid hazards all right by light amps and infrared, and find his way by the same navigation system that Baggins used, it was a sort of scary way to proceed and he didn't like the idea of risking something going wrong with Léoa. "I guess I'll make camp here."

The shelter took a few minutes to inflate, and then Baggins carried her inside and set her on cargo supports, so he could at least remove her helmet and let her breathe air that came from the shelter's generator, and eat a little bit of food she could chew, mostly just pastelike stuff from tubes that the medical advisor said she could have. When he had made her comfortable, and eaten a sitting-up meal himself, he stretched out on a pad himself, naked but feeling much better after a sponge bath. He told the shelter to make it dark, and didn't worry about setting an alarm time.

"Thorby?"

"Need something?"

"Just an answer to the last part of the question. So how did orbiting Boreas for a month, living on suit food and watching the frost form on the surface as a lot of the evaporated stuff snowed back in—I mean, basically, it was a novelty act, you were just orbiting a snowball on a bicycle—how did that launch everything for you?"

"My big secret is it didn't," he said, not sure whether telling her could change anything. "For most of the ride I played VR games on my visor and caught up on sleep and writing to pen pals. I shot less than five hours of camera work across that whole month. Sure, orbiting a kilometer up from a KBO's surface is interesting for a few minutes at a time. The frost spires and the big lacy ground patterns can be kind of pretty, but you know, a teenage boy doesn't appreciate much that his glands don't react to. I finally decided that I could stand company again, tossed the food container downward on the stretch-winch, slowed down to about a forty kilometers per hour across a few hundred kilometers of frost—the rooster tail from that was actually the best visual of the trip, I thought, with a line down from my bicycle to the surface, and then snow spraying everywhere from the end of the line—came in, got a shower, put it together, and forgot about it till it made me famous. At which point it also made it famous that Mom had a teenage son, which was badly blowing the ingénue image, so she filed repudiation papers with Image Control, and I've never seen or heard from her since. The biggest thing I learned, I'm afraid, was that I like having a lot of time to myself, and people bug me."

"What about big explosions?"

"I like them, I always did. And I liked watching frost re-form after moving Boreas around, and I just like to see stuff change. I know you're looking for something deeper, but you know, that's about it. Things end, new things form, new things end, newer things form. I just like to be there."

She didn't ask again, and he heard her breathing grow slower and deeper. He thought about the visuals he had, and about a couple things he wanted to make sure to do when Boreas did its South Pole pass, and was asleep almost at once in the perfect dark and silence of the Martian wilderness.

****

"All right," she said, "I'll tell you as much as I can, since you are going to ask." He was sitting beside her reconstructor tank in the hospital. "That's why you came back, right, to ask why I would do such a thing?"

"I don't really know if that is why I came here," he said. "I wanted to see how you were, I had some days before I go down to the South Pole, and since I put some effort into having you be alive, I guess I just wanted to see the results. I'm not planning to work with you again, so I don't really have to know why you wrecked my stalkers just before some key shots, only that you might, to avoid you."

"I suppose after what I did there's no question of your ever liking me."

"I'm a loner, I don't like people much anyway."

"Some people might guess that's why you like BEREs. The people who used to love the place the way it was are gone, and the people who are going to love the place it will be aren't there yet. For just that instant it's just you and the universe, eh?"

She must be recording this. It was the sort of thing you asked an interviewee, and her audience in particular would just gobble this down. Perhaps he should spoil it, and pay her back for having spoiled the first Boreas-pass for him?

Except she hadn't spoiled it. He'd be getting plenty of shots of the later passes and anyway good old Stalker Two had gotten most of what he wanted, including the fiery column from the surprise impact. And even if she hadn't done that, they'd have missed most of it through having to grab the stalkers and flee for their lives.

So it mattered, but not a lot; he just didn't want her around when he was shooting anything important. As for rescuing Léoa, well, what else could a guy do? That didn't create a bond for him and he couldn't imagine why it might for her. It was just something he did because it was something people did at a time like that.

"You're looking like you've never had that thought before," Léoa said.

He thought, what thought? and said, "I guess, yeah."

"You see? We're not so different from each other. You like to see the moment when something beautiful changes into something new. And you don't care that things get all smashed when that happens. In fact you enjoy the smash, the beautiful death of something natural and beautiful, and the birth of a beautiful human achievement."

He thought, what? and was afraid he would have to say something.

But by now she was rolling. "Thorby, that was what I wanted to capture. Thorby, Lonely Thorby, Thorby the Last Mountain Man, finds out he can be betrayed by people he thought were his friends. The change of your expression as it happened. The way your body recoiled. The whole—my idea is, I'm going to overlay all that and interact it, touchlinked back and forth everywhere, with the changes on Mars, show Mars becoming a new living world artificially, and show Thorby engaging and rejoining the human race, artificially, in a dialogue. Show you becoming someone who can hate and maybe even eventually love. Someone who can see that the rest of us are here. The way Mars can learn to respond to life on its surface, in a way that it hasn't in the three centuries we've been there."

At least he knew about this. People had been trying to change Thorby his whole life. He'd never been any good at being changed. "So you wanted to get the moment when I changed, for your docu?" It was a stupid question, she'd told him, but interviewers have to ask stupid questions now and then, if they want to get decent quotes, and habits die harder than passions.

"That's it, that's it exactly. Exactly. I'm giving up on the whole purist-realist movement. You can have it to yourself. It not only isn't making me famous, it's not even keeping you famous. I've got an idea for a different kind of docu altogether, one where the human change in celebs, and the Blooming change in the solar system, echo and describe each other in sort of a dialogue. If you're interested, and I bet you're not, I've recorded sort of a manifesto of the new movement. I've put it out already. I told them what I did to you and why and showed your face, which wasn't as expressive as it could be, by the way. Too bad you never want to do another take. And even though in the manifesto I explain it will be at least twenty years before my next docu, instead of the usual five or six, because I want to get at least that much of the Mars changes into it, the manifesto is still getting the most attention I've ever gotten. I've got a bigger audience than ever, even pulling in some of my backlist. I'm going to have an impact."

It all made sense of a sort, as much as people stuff ever did, so Thorby said, "Well, if that's what you want most, I'm glad you're finally having an impact. I hope it's the impact you want." To him it seemed to come out stiff and formal and unbelievable.

But she smiled very warmly and said, "Thorby, that's so beautiful I'd never dream of asking for a second take."

"You're welcome." He brushed her forehead with his hand, and added, "Happy impacts."

Because she looked like she was trying to think of a perfect reply, he left. He needed to get new gear purchased and checked out, then catch a hop-rocket; Boreas-pass over the South Pole was just three days away.

He wondered why he was smiling.

****

Right on Mars's Arctic Circle, just at 66 N, at winter solstice, the sun at noon should just bounce over the southern horizon, and Thorby had an idea that that might look especially impressive with the big new ring arcing so high across the sky. But to his annoyance, here he was, waiting for that momentary noon-dawn, and the new, thick Martian clouds had socked in every point around the Arctic Circle. Above the clouds, he knew, the new rings were vivid with light, a great arc sweeping halfway up the sky; but down here, nothing, and even the constant meteor shower under the rings was invisible, or showed only as flashes in the clouds indistinguishable from distant lightning.

He waited but it never cleared, and the time for the midwinter sun passed, so he turned on the ground lights on his hop rocket to pack up.

Thorby blinked for a moment. It was snowing, big, thick, heavy slow flakes, tumbling down gently everywhere, not many just yet, but some everywhere he looked. It was so fine, and so perfect, that he shot it for twenty minutes, using three stalkers to record the snowfall in big slow pans, and two just to record the lacy flakes as they landed on dark soil and lay exposed for just an instant to his view before the stalker's lights melted them, working at maximum magnification to catch each unique one, wondering if it was even possible for a Martian snowflake shape to fall elsewhere.

He stayed there shooting till the wind rose and the snowfall thickened enough so that he had to worry about getting the hop rocket off the ground. He was laughing as Baggins swallowed up the stalkers and rumbled up the ramp, and he looked around one more time before climbing the ramp and turning off his ground lights. He indulged in a small spiteful pleasure: he knew that his normally expressionless face was cracking wide open with pure joy, and Léoa and her cameras were in some city or on some ship somewhere, farther from him than anyone had ever been.

****

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At the Watering Hole

Written by Edward M. Lerner

Illustrated by R. Stephen Adams

Resplendent in a spatter-pattern robe, K'reediscranth turned two eyes and four ears heavenward. Two more eyes he pivoted toward the sacred text spread across the lectern against which he leaned. His remaining sense organs scanned randomly across the hushed multitudes far below.

It was his nineteenth Festival of Oneness, and yet the ceremony's majesty threatened to overwhelm him. To the horizon in every direction folk gathered in holy assembly. Myriads more waited beyond his sight. The folk only congregated in such multitudes on the Day of Oneness. Stray tendrils of thought reached him even here atop the holy obelisk.

As High Priest, K'reediscranth had long ago committed the liturgy to memory— the Rite must never vary. With all eyes now focused on The Book of Oneness, he intoned: "In the beginning, the folk were scattered and alone, little more than beasts …"

****

Carla Markson dug through the digital debris of a failed career for information that stubbornly refused to reveal itself. Her difficulty was hardly surprising. SETI observations were indexed by coordinates of the celestial sphere and time taken, but she was desperately searching for records of a scarcely remembered pattern she might have seen "about a year ago."

In offices, meeting rooms, and corridors all around, the farewell party had degenerated into a wake. SETI had lost government backing years ago. Now disheartened private patrons had withdrawn support. The funding officially ended at midnight.

"Carla?" an impatient voice called. "Dr. Markson? Everyone's gathering for a final toast in the cafeteria. Please join us."

"In a minute." Images flashed across her computer screen. Two images a second; 120 per minute. False-color coding now accentuated aspects to which no one had heretofore paid attention. Flash, flash, flash . . .

"Carla!"

She snapped out of a hypnotized funk. Annoyance became triumph: Had the director not barked at her, the graphic she had so urgently sought would have flickered past her unnoticed.

"Genie, halt," Carla commanded. "Backwards, ten seconds per frame." Data barely sensed returned to the screen. She examined frequency spikes, power densities, and modulation coefficients, all color-coded and textured for pattern recognition.

Two champagne glasses clutched precariously in one hand, Director Harold Flynn opened her office door. "It's over, Carla. Please join us."

Plucking the glasses from his grasp, she drained both in the time it took her computer to back up three images. "Genie, forward one frame and stop."

To her boss of the next seventeen minutes Carla said, "Hal, I have a counterproposal. The team should join me here— and bring more of the bubbly." She tapped the frozen graphic with a well-gnawed fingernail.

"I've found them."

****

In a pause between chapters, K'reediscranth raised his eyes from the sacred scroll. Gazing over the countless folk gathered for this, his thirtieth Festival of Oneness, he dared to hope: Maybe this year we will succeed.

Stretching his senses to their utmost, K'reediscranth detected the merest suggestion of an imbalance to the north. The holy assembly, in consonance with his will, shuffled until their aggregated thoughts subsided into a background murmur. He grimaced in concentration until their realignment was seemly.

He resumed reading. "After many an age, our forebears learned to live together as families, to harmonize their minds. The families were fruitful and spread across the face of our world. Individuality remained, but families could meld their thoughts upon need.

"In the fullness of time, families cooperated as clans, then tribes, then nations. Each step enriched the mentation of the folk." Three hands nervously stroked the fabric of his slick ceremonial gown —this festival season, an iridescent rainbow— as he kept his place in the liturgy with a fourth. "In the days of the prophet Holgor'roth, all nations merged into one commonwealth. Their power of thought again grew manyfold."

K'reediscranth bared his senses to all the merged minds roaring their yearnings. The slightest wavering of his concentration, the merest chance interruption of the crowd's careful symmetry around the ceremonial obelisk, and he was lost.

This was the very apex of the Rite.

"The folk strove to become yet greater, and they could not. They sought an even higher unity, but they were already as one. They bore sons and daughters and verblans until the world could feed no more. There seemed no path forward.

"And then Vrg'oq'lan the Prophet revealed a way —nay, the way— to the folk."

****

The man with whom Carla Markson amiably chatted was short, pudgy, bland— and the King of Sweden. Tomorrow he would present her with the Nobel Prize in Physics. She didn't exactly do physics; for her, the Nobel Foundation had chosen to bend their definitions.

Awarded just five years after her discovery, the prize was an unprecedented recognition. Carla's fellow laureates, likewise mingling with the Swedish aristocracy, were decades older than she.

"Tell me, please," the king said in his charmingly accented English, while nabbing a canapé from a passing waiter, "why you succeeded."

How to put her insight simply? Carla searched the ballroom for inspiration. She found it at the crystal-laden, forty-foot-long bar to which liveried servants ceaselessly returned.

She pointed. "Behold the watering hole."

The original figure of speech, of course, referred to a water hole —a literal pool of H2O in the African veldt— where lions and antelopes and whatnot came to drink. A woman's reach should exceed her grasp, else what's a meta for?

"Everyone meets at the watering hole. In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI, all species were presumed to meet at some celestial watering hole, discoursing over a natural radio frequency."

"Where is this watering hole?" The king nibbled on wafer-thin toast spread with foie gras, oblivious to the crumbs that dotted his cummerbund.

"There's the problem. People differed on the ideal frequency, but they always picked a characteristic frequency of some common molecule or element, like hydrogen. The argument ran that the frequency must be rational and universal, reflecting the analysis that any technological species would make."

"That's sensible— yet you looked elsewhere." Her royal companion frowned in concentration as he licked essence of hors d'oeuvre from his fingers. "Why?"

"SETI researchers scanned candidate watering-hole frequencies time and again. They heard nothing." Reliving her epiphany made Carla beam. "Their strategy contradicted the one fact we had."

"Which was?" the king asked.

"We consider ourselves a technologically capable intelligent species, yet humans don't broadcast on anyone's proposal for a watering-hole frequency. My colleagues had ignored their only data point."

****

K'reediscranth panted, feeling all his 140 years as High Priest. Next year, he vowed, he would graciously accept an acolyte's assistance to the top of the sacred, and exceedingly tall, obelisk.

He set The Book of Oneness upon the lectern before him. Once his breath returned, K'reediscranth unrolled the scroll and began to read.

****

Amid a crew of geniuses, people deferred to Carla. In her humbler moments she questioned their deference. True, she had discovered the civilization 124.6 light-years distant to which they would soon depart. Still, was that accomplishment greater than the invention of the FTL drive that made this mission possible?

Admiring herself in her stateroom mirror, snappy in a ship's jumpsuit, Carla decided that yes, just maybe, it was. She exchanged toothy grins with her reflection. Eagerness to meet her aliens had saved the FTL project. How much longer, and to what purpose, would star-drive research have continued … if she had not saved SETI?

Strident bleating shattered her reverie.

"All hands to departure stations. Repeat: All hands to departure stations. We leave Earth orbit in five minutes." The speaker above her stateroom door added, "We won't postpone our departure even for you, Dr. Markson."

Nor should they.

Once she found where to look, archives clearly showed that the aliens had signaled Earth every 302.8 days for as long as SETI had records. Like everyone she knew, Carla felt there was one perfect moment for the embassy ship to arrive. They must appear concurrent with, and as though in immediate reply to, the others' next —and now imminent— transmission.

She hurried to her place of honor on the bridge.

****

K'reediscranth poured his hearts and soul into the Assembly although, or perhaps because, those hearts still syncopated from scaling the obelisk. Beneath a fluorescent robe, sweat matted his thinning fur. One hundred forty-three years in service as High Priest … it was almost beyond precedent.

The so-familiar thoughts of the masses comforted him. He intoned the liturgy, countless minds melding as he read. "For Vrg'oq'lan the Prophet showed us the way. With the world united, more worlds, and their folk, must be brought into union."

"Let it be so," shouted the massed minds of the folk, a roar in his head.

****

With the flip of a switch and an instant of vertigo, the blue-and-white-and-brown globe shown on the bridge console transmuted from clearly Earth to clearly … someplace else. The color balance seemed off, consequence of the K-class orange sun. Sensor readings filled the environmental monitor: surface temperature; gravity; rotation; partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen, and trace gases. All were Earth-like; all clearly not of Earth. Another screen spiked with the characteristic microwave signal that had brought them.

A terrestrial world and a new civilization: grand slam on humanity's first step out of its backyard.

In a flurry of activity the bridge crew put the ship into a synchronous orbit over the single landmass. All eyes then turned to Admiral Peltison. He faced the camera that would beam his words and visage to the planet below. The ETs would not understand his words at first, but surely they would record this momentous occasion. Mission Control had decided early on against beginning the interstellar visit with the universality of an arithmetic lesson. Pomp and circumstance first; language lessons later.

His posture manly but not militant and his voice firm, the commander of the mission from Earth spoke. "Fellow citizens of the galaxy, we come in . . ."

****

"And Vrg'oq'lan spake onto the folk, saying, 'Let a holy assembly be held on the first day of the first month of every year. Let all the world unite on that day. Let the folk reach out with its hearts and mind to what other worlds there may be. Let … let . . . '"

Psyches churned as K'reediscranth's concentration wavered. Damnation, he thought, striving with purity of spirit to ignore the sudden buzzing in his head. As an acolyte, he'd thought the old priests' complaints of interference absurd. Now he knew better: His mental and sensory acuity had never been stronger, even as this husk of a body failed him.

He swiveled two more eyes to the lectern, the better to concentrate. "Let the sacred assembly now extend itself to the other worlds."

At his priestly command, 1,354,876,202 of the folk, each spaced from his neighbors in multiples of quarter wavelengths, began to emit, in ten-watt pulses, their microwaved yearnings. His guidance, downward-directed from his perch atop the sacred obelisk, steered the resulting multigigawatt maser of prayers from star to star across the glorious reach of the One Heaven.

His voice resonating as the folk sang of unity, K'reediscranth assigned a third ear to the sporadic buzzing. Noise he could handle: He had not been High Priest so long for naught. Without interruption of his chanting, he snapped the focused voice of the folk's desire. As the venerable ones had taught, that quick flick always eliminated the noise.

Decorum restored, K'reediscranth completed the ceremony.

Creeping down the spiral staircase, his crumbling joints protesting each step, K'reediscranth could only wonder: Why, oh why, was the Assembly of Oneness always held in vain?

****

The fused and lifeless moonlet sailed majestically through the void, the too-orange sunlight glinting unevenly off its tumbling bulk. The only evident hazards to its future serenity came from the large number of like-sized recongealed masses that also orbited the blue-and-white-and-brown world with its single continent.

Little beyond stubborn traces of organic chemicals distinguished this satellite from its many neighbors. The solar wind soon dispersed even those vapors.

And then only scorched paint remained to identify the derelict as the spectacularly ill-named UN embassy starship Galactic Unity.

****

Edward M. Lerner is a physicist, computer scientist, and curmudgeon by training. Now writing full-time, he applies all three skill sets to his science fiction. His web site is www.sfwa.org/members/lerner/

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Concentration of Dogs

Written by Carl Frederick

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog."—Edward Hoagland

Mark, his eyes locked on the brain-scan display, triggered fiber N1032 and the Chihuahua barked. Mark selected N5112, pressed the activate key, and then glanced at the cage; the Chihuahua fell over, asleep. At the base of the dog's skull, Mark could see the small, white transceiver module. But he could only imagine the thousands of conductive organic fibers growing deep into the cerebrum from the dermal interface of that digital-multiplex transceiver.

Mark tapped a few more activations and the Chihuahua woke and padded around the periphery of its cage. Yup. Your fibers are all grown, Miguel. Mark exited the program. The brain-scan disappeared, replaced by Mark's Siamese cat wallpaper, a sign of nonconformity in this world of dogs. "You're all ready for Professor Rottweiler," he said, aloud, "our esteemed guru of canine neurology."

Just then, the door to the lab opened and Claire, a file folder in one hand, rolled in another dog enclosure. Mark stood from his computer and smiled at her—a look of shared suffering to a fellow graduate student slave. "Not another one," he said, lightly, glancing at the cage, its grey metal bars looking cold and clinical under the fluorescent lights. He nodded toward the window beside which his ski jacket hung on a hook. "It's late. I want to go home."

"It's December," said Claire. "It only looks late." She pushed the cage until it sat next to the Chihuahua's.

"Hey," said Mark, peering at the caged dog, an American Pit Bull Terrier. "Isn't that Killer?" Seeing the dog's white, plastic transceiver nodule, he wrinkled his nose. "I wonder why Rottweiler would let his own dog get the implant."

Claire walked over and, from the front, placed a hand on each of Mark's shoulders. "Bad dog!" she said. "No biscuit!" She released one shoulder and shook a forefinger as if she were scolding a naughty child. "Come on! I know you can say it. Repeat after me—Professor Robert Weiler."

"Rowf!"

"I'm serious," she said, the laugh in her voice contradicting her. "If he hears you calling him Rottweiler, you're dead meat."

Mark gently clasped her wrist at his shoulder, gave it a quick furtive squeeze of affection, then drew it away. "What else can he do to me?" he said with a forced smile. "He already passes off my research as his own."

"I know." Claire nodded. "I still think you should take it to the Academic Integrity Board."

"After I get my degree. He's on my committee." Mark's mood turned somber. "I'd like to defend my thesis with a machine-gun."

Claire smiled. "Just goes to show that not everyone who loves dogs is a good guy."

"Not sure loves is the right word. I'd say he identifies with them." Mark glanced at the caged Pit Bull. "With vicious dogs, anyway. But loves?" Mark gave a snortlike laugh and shook his head. "He'd probably like being called Professor Rottweiler."

"Still," said Claire, "you shouldn't call him that." She, too, glanced at the cage. "It is strange though, Professor Weiler experimenting on his own dog. Maybe he can't handle him any more."

"Oh, he can handle Killer, all right." Mark glared at the Pit Bull. "And only he can. Rottweiler seems to take satisfaction in that."

"Mark!"

"Okay, okay. Professor Rottweiler."

"You're incorrigible!" She slapped the file folder down on the cage and Killer growled. Both dogs growled.

Mark gazed over at the Chihuahua's cage. "Hey Miguel. I thought I was your friend."

Claire canted her head. "Miguel?"

"Better than a stupid number." Mark smiled, sheepishly. "I give names to all the dogs that come through here."

"Yes, I can see you doing that." Claire glanced at the tiny dog playing with a rubber bone with an almost raccoonlike dexterity. "But I'm not sure naming them is a good idea." She picked up her file folder from Killer's cage and both dogs growled again.

"A concerted action," said Mark. "Good union, these dogs have." He kneeled and looked into the Chihuahua's cage. "Miguel. Have you joined the local dog union?"

The Chihuahua gave a single, high-pitched bark. At almost the same time, Killer also uttered a single bark, low-pitched and angry.

Mark stood. "It's like a sound system." He chuckled with a thought. "And both the woofer and tweeter are actually woofers." He peered down at Miguel again. "Woof," he said.

Again, both dogs barked in unison.

"There's something weird going on here," said Claire.

"Yeah."

"'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,'" said Claire, softly, seemingly in deep thought.

They stared in silence at the dogs for a few moments. Then Claire said, "By any chance, are the carrier frequencies of the two transceivers the same?"

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe the signals are crossing."

"Hm." Mark went to the computer and pulled up a spreadsheet. "You mean, when Killer barked, the... the barking neurons triggered a fiber. And then the fiber transmitted the signal, and—"

"And the Chihuahua's receiver picked it up and stimulated his barking neurons."

"Geez!" said Mark, shaking his head in astonishment.

"Do you think it's possible?" said Claire.

"Yeah. Could be. The transceiver multiplexer/demultiplexer assemblies would address corresponding cerebral regions." He examined the spreadsheet. "Yeah. The frequencies are the same." He looked over at Claire. "Dog union. Maybe union was actually the right word."

Killer and Miguel barked a few more times, yet again in unison.

"This is sort of spooky," said Mark.

Claire nodded. "It's like telepathy."

"More like a joining of two brains," said Mark. "Look. The transceivers have a limited range. I think we should untelepathize our dogs. Let's move one of the cages to, I don't know, to the biopsy lab at the other end of the complex."

"Definitely," said Claire. "I need some time to think this over. We may have made a major discovery."

"Yeah. I think we have."

****

Wind. Smell of rabbit. Smell of grass. Wind tickles nose. Many smells. House moving fast. Forest smells. Good smells. Tall master. Love tall master. Lap face. Smells nice. Need to run. Hungry. Smell food. Lap face. Lap ear. Other tall master. Nice smell. Want to go out. Tall master scratches ears. Lap hand. Lap face.

While Claire drove from the Cornell Canine Research Institute toward the distant Larger Natural Dog Habitat, Mark in the front passenger seat fought to keep the Greyhound from falling out the window. It was mid-July, midmorning, the countryside thick and verdant, the air sultry, and the road unpaved.

Mark stroked the dog's sleek fur, keeping well clear of the transceiver nodule. "Good boy, Earl. What do you smell out there?" The dog turned and licked his face, and Mark laughed like a child. "Yeah Earl, I like you, too."

"Why did you name him Earl?" said Claire, her eyes on the uneven dirt road. "After a dog you had as a kid?"

"No, why?"

"You seem much more attached to him than any of the other dogs."

"When I was a kid, my best friend had a Greyhound. I used to pretend he was mine—the Greyhound, I mean." Mark hugged the dog. "You’re my dog, aren't you? You great monster." Earl squirmed around and washed Mark's ear and cheek. "I named him after my favorite tea."

"What?" Then Claire shook her head. "You would!"

"It's better than Rottweiler's name, 'Enhanced Canine 26.'" Mark whispered into the dog's ear. "I wish you didn't have to be a part of the experiment." He glanced at Claire. "I wonder if he'll still know me when he's integrated into the collective. I bet he will."

They rounded a curve and there, directly ahead, stood the outer gate to the habitat. "Good," said Claire. "It looks like we'll make it."

"You weren't sure?"

"Well..." Claire patted the dashboard, "this chariot isn't exactly fresh off the showroom floor."

"Yeah, I sort of got that idea from the noisy muffler and the cracked windshield."

"That's the least of it," said Claire. "There's more."

"Much more?"

She threw him a glance. "Don't worry. I've got Triple-A."

"Triple-A! We're thirty miles from civilization. It would take them a week to get here."

"Only two hours." Claire stopped the car at the gate. "At least that's how long it took last time."

"Better keep the engine running, then." Mark hopped out of the car with the Greyhound following close behind. He opened the gate and waved Claire through to the parking area. The lot lay empty and the observation shack appeared deserted.

Rottweiler should have been here by now. Scowling, Mark tromped off toward the inner gate—the locked entrance to the two-square-mile habitat.

As he reached for the lock, Mark noticed the pack, all but hidden in the tall grass about ten yards away. He knew all of them: Miguel, Max the German Shepherd, Beauregard the Bloodhound, the Beagle, the brace of Border Collies, all the rest. The dogs stared intensely at him, apparently captivated by the motion of his hands. Feeling almost as if he were performing for the creatures, Mark keyed the combination. When the hasp clicked free, he heard a soft, low growl from Earl. He looked down at the dog. "What's the matter, boy?" The Greyhound growled again and the sound seemed to reverberate through the woods. Mark glanced up and saw Killer, in the front of the pack, growling. It sounded as if all the dogs had growled.

Mark opened the gate and Earl, without ever looking back, ran through and up to the pack. Mark felt a sense of loss.

Smell of dogs—other dogs. I. I am a dog. We are dog. Tall masters are friends. Not sure. I am the pack. I am the Earl-bit of the pack. I see the others. They are me. Tall masters are enemies. Smell bad. I/We understand many words. The Earl-bit of the pack wants to run. Pack smells good. We are hungry. We are the pack.

"Hey," Mark shouted toward the cluster of dogs, "Max, Miguel, Earl. You know me. I'm your friend." He knelt. "Come on, Earl," he said at just above a whisper. "I just want to pet you."

As one, as if in response to a signal, the dogs bared their fangs.

Mark sighed, stood, then snapped the keypad combination lock back onto the gate. He cast his head down but, as he heard Claire approach, he looked up with a forced smile.

"It's nothing personal," she said softly. "The transceivers connect fibers to equivalent fibers across the full group of dogs. It's really a single entity, not just a pack of dogs."

"I know. I know. It is not self-inclusive," said Mark, trying to intellectualize his feeling of rejection. "As Bertrand Russell might have said—'The set of all dogs is not a dog.'" He turned away from the gate and started toward the observation shack. "Come on," he said. "Let's get set up for Rottweiler." Then he swiveled and headed back to the car. "I forgot my laptop."

"And we'd probably better take out the dog food too," said Claire. "They'll be hungry soon."

Mark opened the rear door of the car and took his laptop, then glanced at the fifty-pound bag of dry kibble. "I'll get the dog chow later," he called out. "After we power up the shack."

Constructed for studying dogs in the habitat, the observation shack, a large rough-hewn cabin, stood just outside the inner fence. Thanks to an external well and an electric pump, the cabin had water. Electricity came via a gasoline-powered generator. The cabin had air-conditioning, indoor plumbing and a propane hot-water-on-demand system—that is, when anyone remembered to bring a fresh propane tank. It also had a clear line-of-sight to a distant transmitting tower, which made possible broadband Internet access by way of a roof-mounted parabolic antenna. There was no phone service but, when it wasn't raining, the shack was in cell-tower range.

Inside, video cameras, two computers, and a few pair of binoculars cluttered a large table drawn up to a picture window. A ratty sofa, a few folding chairs, and a cabinet supporting a hotplate, teakettle, and a table radio filled out the main room—the only room other than a small lavatory. There was a wood stove for heat and cooking—canned spaghetti and frozen dinners, mostly. But, being July, there was no stacked wood.

Mark went to the side of the cabin where an overhang protected the generator. "Damn," he said, eyeing the fuel gage with its needle hovering in the red. Not my problem. As he bent to pull the starter cord, he saw through the fence the pack of dogs staring at him. The dogs' white nodules gleamed in the sunlight. Mark felt himself shiver, wilting under the gaze of the set of dogs. Eight of the dogs were Black Belgian Shepherds, an intelligent breed. Since he'd not been able to tell them apart, he hadn't named them. He gazed at them, alert, silent, cookie-cutter identical like ceramic reproductions. Just one name would do for all of them.

Killer, stiff-legged and with less fierce-looking dogs flanking him on both sides, seemed to be the center, the focus, of the pack. Mark stared into those alert yellow eyes and tried not to hate the animal. He liked dogs, but not Killer. He'd never known the Pit Bull to be anything other than vicious.

Virtually hypnotized by those angry and intelligent-seeming eyes, Mark forced himself to look away at the generator. As he did so, he heard a loud, synchronized, single bark. It seemed a bark of triumph; he was the one who'd flinched; he was the one who'd broken off his gaze.

He pulled the cord and the sound of the generator's engine broke his trance. He kicked at the fence, setting off a ripple of motion along the nine-foot-high chain-link. "All right, get out of here," he yelled. The dogs did not move. Mark turned and stalked away to the front of the shack and then sped through the door, latching it behind him.

Claire, setting up the video camera, looked over at the door. "Expecting unwanted visitors?"

"You mean the latch?" Mark chuckled nervously. "Just habit." He joined Claire in setting things up: turning on the computers, dusting, taking the binoculars from their cases, making the coffee that Rottweiler would expect to have waiting.

"You know," said Mark as he called up a word-processing program. "I feel bad about Earl. I'm really fond of him." He loaded the observation log. "When this experiment is over, I'm going to adopt him."

"But after the..." Claire bit her lip.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Claire looked down on a blank page of her open lab notebook. "You shouldn't have named the dogs."

"The experiment can't last more than six months," said Mark. "That's when the batteries'll give out." He picked up a pair of binoculars and trained them out the window. "There they are. A very disciplined bunch of dogs. They look like they want something to hunt."

Claire also took up a pair of binoculars. "They're closer together than a normal pack."

"Probably the transceivers. They don't have much range so the dogs have to stay pretty close to each other." Mark zoomed in on the dogs. "Looks weird. A vicious pack of purebreds." He zoomed in further. "Miguel and Earl sure don't look like hunters." He panned to the side. "But Killer does."

Claire scanned the dogs. "Weiler said he uses purebreds so that the fibers can go to predicted places," she said, distantly, her concentration clearly on her observations, "and so the temperament and intelligence measurements on the dogs are more precise."

"Maybe. But I think it was just because he was able to sweet-talk the breed rescue clubs into giving him the dogs." Mark's hands shook with indignation. "The fraud!" He flipped on the image stabilizer switch. "I heard him tell one of the clubs the dogs would go to good homes." He lowered his binoculars and sighed. "Who knows? Maybe when this is over, they all will. Earl certainly will."

Claire lowered her field glasses as well, and gave the hint of a sad smile. "Who knows?"

Hearing the sudden revving of a powerful engine, Mark looked out the window on the opposite side. There, just outside the outer fence, sat a sleek, red sports car. "Rottweiler's here." Mark scowled. "Looks like he's waiting for us to open the latch for him—the lazy bastard."

Claire started for the door but Mark shook his head. "No. Let him do it himself."

About thirty seconds later, and after a few blasts from the car's horn, they saw Professor Weiler step out. Weiler opened the latch and, leaving the car where it was, sauntered through the gate.

Weiler, with his long, unkempt hair, looked like a sixties hippy or maybe an aging rock star: jeans, corduroy jacket, dirty brand-name sneakers. But under that veneer, as Mark well knew, there was a personality much like Killer's.

Claire headed for the cabinet. "We'd better get the guy's coffee for him."

There came the sound of approaching footsteps, the doorknob turning, and then a thud against the door.

"Oops," said Mark, darting to the door. He released the latch and Professor Weiler strode in.

"Have you two been doing something you shouldn't?" said Weiler with a toothy smile scarcely distinguishable from a leer.

"Always," said Mark, wisecracking to cover his repugnance.

Ignoring Mark's reply, Weiler crossed over to the observation window and looked out. "EC-26," he said. "In the pack?"

"What?" For an instant, Mark had forgotten the object of the exercise. "Oh, Earl. Yes. He's in the pack."

"Good." Weiler went to the nearest computer. "I think 26 might well bring the entity up to being self-aware." He gave a thumbs-up. "I can't wait to do sectioned brain measurements."

Mark sucked in a breath. "You'd have to kill the dogs to do that."

Weiler gave Mark a quizzical stare. "Yes, of course."

"But... But I thought we were only going to do MEG scans."

"Sectioning is necessary to test an idea that..."—Weiler broke eye contact—"that we've come up with. I've been thinking about it and agree; the electrical stimulation might well cause the growth of new cortical neurons."

"Are you going to put down all the dogs?" said Mark in a voice he knew must sound childish and pleading.

Weiler nodded. "Don't want to be accused of selective statistics."

Mark glared at Claire. She avoided his eyes.

"Hey, what's going on?" Weiler pointed out the observation window where the German Shepherd stood on its hind legs with forepaws resting on the gate, just under the lock. The Chihuahua, Miguel, stood on the Shepherd's shoulders, his tiny paws reaching through the fence-chain and fumbling with the lock's keypad. Several yards farther back, the rest of the dogs sat watching.

"My gosh!" said Claire. "It looks like he's trying to key the combination."

"That's why the dogs looked at me so intently when I opened the lock." Mark went to the cabinet and began to rummage. "There's a lock with a key in here somewhere." He found the lock and started for the door.

"No," said Weiler. "Wait! Let's see if they can do it."

"If the dogs get out," said Mark, "it'll be hell trying to round them up again."

Weiler kept his gaze on the dogs. "They'd still have to get through the outer fence."

"There's no lock on the outer gate," said Claire.

Weiler didn't respond. Claire and Mark exchanged glances, then both turned to watch the agile Chihuahua. The three of them watched the dog in silence.

After about twenty minutes, after countless tries, Miguel got the lock open. With a bark of triumph from all the pack, Miguel batted the lock to the ground. He leapt from the Shepherd's shoulders and then the entire pack rushed the gate and worried it open.

"Hot dog!" Weiler's hands went to the keyboard. "What a great follow-up to my first paper!" He squinted at the monitor. "Wait. This isn't my usual word processor."

Mark walked up behind Weiler and looked over the man's shoulder. "You can just exit X-Windows and invoke—" Mark stifled a gasp of shock as he saw, all but hidden by Weiler's mane-like hair, the white outline of a nodule against the base of his skull.

. "Invoke what?" Weiler twisted around to look at Mark. "What's the matter?" he said.

"You've... I saw..."

"Oh, you saw the nodule." Weiler laughed. "My ultimate experiment." He gazed at Mark, his expression suddenly intense, his eyes bright. "Just imagine it. To be another creature."

"But—"

"Don't worry," said Weiler, lightly, a look of amused superiority replacing intensity. "My nodule is different; it has a gain control and an off switch." He brushed aside his hair and played a hand lovingly over the nodule. "I was going to wait, but now, seeing how intelligent the collective has become, I'm going to do it—essentially, now." He stood from the computer. "I can write this stuff up later."

"How did you..." said Claire. "Who would have even dared such an operation on a human being?"

Weiler uttered a humorless laugh. "What charming innocence. You have no idea what a person would do to get his name associated with a scientific breakthrough like this."

He walked to the front window and looked out. The pack was in front now, nosing around Claire's car. "I wonder what's on their mind."

"They, it, probably smells the bag of kibble in the back seat," said Claire in a flat voice, looking not out the window, but at Weiler with a look of bewilderment

Weiler returned the gaze and said nothing.

Mark didn’t care for the hungry look in the man's eyes. "Don't you think it might be better if you did this under a controlled—"

"It's my decision," Weiler snapped. Then he smiled and raised a hand to the back of his head. "I do know what I'm doing."

As Mark watched, Weiler's expression transformed from amused condescension to wide-eyed astonishment and then to savagery.

Mark jumped back as Weiler—the new Weiler component of the collective—howled, the sound echoing and amplified from the pack without.

Standing frozen, muscles tensed, Mark had no idea what to do. From the corner of his eye, he saw Killer through the window. The Pit Bull's expression mirrored its owner's.

Weiler drew his lips back and exposed his teeth. He growled, bent to a crouch, and stalked toward Claire.

Claire backed away, stopping only when forced to by the wall.

Getting over his initial shock, Mark shouted. "Professor... Professor Weiler. Stop!"

Weiler paid no attention. He snarled at Claire and appeared set to leap. From the rear, Mark sprang at him, grabbing him around the neck. The two fell to the floor. Weiler, his head jerking from side to side, snarled and snapped at Mark's wrists, his teeth clacking as they missed their target. Mark only hoped the man didn't have aiDS or rabies.

Weiler rolled around on the floor, kicking and scratching. The man was strong—unnaturally strong. Mark struggled to hold on. With one arm around Weiler's throat, Mark, when he could, probed behind Weiler's neck for the nodule. As they fought, Mark caught fleeting glimpses of the white transceiver buried under the brown mass of hair. Tiring, Mark desperately grasped for the nodule, fumbled for the switch, found and threw it. Weiler went limp and collapsed to the floor. Mark fell with him.

On the floor, supine and shaking, Mark took a few shallow breaths. He'd just assaulted his thesis advisor and maybe even killed him. Hearing a grunting sound from Weiler, Mark rolled to a sitting position and took another breath, this time of relief. At least he hadn't killed the man.

Mark threw his gaze to Claire who had pressed herself into a corner. "Are you okay?" he gasped, scrambling to his feet.

"His eyes. They were like..." Claire rubbed a hand across her face, then stood erect and took a step forward. "I'm fine," she said, her gaze locked on Weiler who was beginning to stir.

Groggily, Weiler pushed himself to a sitting position, then leaned back against a wall. "What a trip!" He shook his head as if to clear it, then turned to Claire.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I lost control." Again, he shook his head, slowly, this time. "You can't believe what it was like." Smiling, Weiler moved a hand to the back of his head. Mark tensed, but Weiler took his hand away.

"I'm sorry that I..." said Mark, hesitantly, trying to decide exactly what he was sorry about.

Weiler waved him silent. "Having this implanted," he said in a collegial tone, "might not have been the best idea I've ever had."

"I guess not," said Mark, eying the man with some suspicion. "Didn't you try it out first?"

"I've had the fibers growing for a couple of weeks now, but just had the transceiver installed this morning. I came straight out here."

Gone was Weiler's air of superiority, but Mark found he still didn't particularly like him—especially not after the way he'd terrified Claire.

Weiler got to his feet and looked over to Claire. "Forgive me?" he said.

"Yes." Claire looked wary. Then she smiled. "Yes, of course."

"Good." Weiler took a few unsteady steps to the front window and peered out. Not twenty feet away, the dogs, sitting attentive like second-graders in a classroom, stared in. "I felt it," said Weiler, softly, more to the dogs than to the grad students. "Near sentience. A trigger is all it would take." He locked eyes with his Pit Bull and from his expression, a mirror of his dog's, Mark could almost believe Weiler's nodule was still switched on. "I've got to know what's in Killer's mind," said Weiler under his breath.

"I hope," said Mark, "that you're not thinking of trying it again."

Weiler jerked his head around, breaking eye contact with Killer. "No, of course not," he said, his eyes showing a feral gleam. Then he seemed to soften. "No," he said again, but softly. "The dogs just took me by surprise." He turned back to the window. The pack still stared in. "Human against dogs," said Weiler. "I'll be able to handle it."

"What!" said Mark, almost at a shout.

Weiler spun around and eyed him coldly. "That is, should I ever decide to do it again."

Mark, feeling uneasy about raising his voice to his professor, went to the computer. "Your word processor is up," he said. "You can write up your thoughts now"—Mark saw Weiler begin to pace—"if you want to."

Back and forth, the man paced, staring out the window whenever he passed it. Mark smiled, grimly, noting the similarity to an animal in a cage.

Weiler paused by the door. "I've got to know."

Mark studied the man. Weiler's eyes blazed with the intensity of a single-minded researcher—or of an animal.

"I'm sorry," said Weiler. With one hand, he began to open the door while reaching with the other to the back of his head. "I can handle this. I'll lower the receiver gain."

"It's digital," said Mark, stunned. "Gain only affects distance. The intensity won't—"

Weiler's expression abruptly turned wild. He growled, flung the door open and darted through.

"Damn!" Mark ran to the door and slammed it shut.

"Wait!" shouted Claire. "We can't leave him out there."

"Let him go." Mark latched the door. "Let him be Lord of the Dogs if he wants it. Anyway, there's nothing we can do." He pointed out the window. The two of them gazed out.

"'But since I am a dog, beware my fangs,'" said Claire under her breath.

Weiler, crouching forward and moving with a gait suggesting he'd only recently learned to walk on two legs, staggered about fifteen feet toward the dogs and then stopped.

The dogs, in silence, drew back their lips, exposing their incisors.

"The dogs don't seem to like him much," said Claire, her voice a little above a whisper.

"Especially Killer." Mark watched as the Pit Bull, stiff-legged, inched forward.

"Odd," said Claire. "Killer is, or at any rate was, his own dog."

"My point."

Killer stopped and the scene became a frozen tableau.

"I wonder what's going on out there," said Claire after a silent minute.

"From Killer's and Rottweiler's expressions, it looks as if they're engaged in some sort of struggle." Mark smiled, self-conscious about what he was saying. "Like a fight for the heart and soul of the pack."

"Why is he doing this?" said Claire. "What does he get from being a dog?"

"It gives one paws," said Mark, making pawing motions with his hands.

Claire looked at him as if he were some sort of monster.

"Sorry." Mark cast his eyes down. "My way of dealing with stress. Tasteless jokes."

We know who we are now. And we know what now is. And the tall masters, humans. They are just animals—single, not a pack. They know much but they have poor noses and they can't hunt without tools.

But a human is part of us. We are sick. The human-bit doesn't belong. This human brings us knowledge and understanding but it is not a dog-bit. It must be removed from us. Can not understand. One part of us wants to serve them, another part wants to kill and eat them. That part is stronger. But humans know things we don't. A human is a pack-bit now and we know many new things. We know many more ways to hunt. And we can think. But we do not understand what humans want. The human-bit is not necessary. Understanding is not necessary.

The pack barked, again in unison. Weiler barked as well, but a little late, like a chorister who'd missed his cue.

"Not quite of the pack," said Claire. "Sort of sad, in a way."

As Mark threw a quizzical glance at her, he saw motion out of the corner of his eye. He snapped back toward the window. "Uh oh."

The dogs had each crouched low, and Weiler trembled, visibly.

"This doesn't look good." Mark started for the door.

"Wait!" said Claire. "What are you doing?"

"If he makes a run for it," said Mark, his hand on the latch, "I'll let him in."

Claire nodded, then took a deep breath.

"Yeah, I know," said Mark. "But I handled him before. I imagine I can do it again." I hope. He looked through the window at Weiler. The man looked scared. He's not the only one.

"If we had the brain-scan controller," said Claire, "we could just key them all to sleep."

"I wish." Mark clung to a thin hope. "You know. He might not want to fight it this time."

"Maybe you could open the door a little and call to him."

"Yeah." Mark started to release the latch, but then, his eyes on the window, he froze. "Oh my God!"

The dogs, as if reacting to the shot of a starting pistol, had leapt forward, engulfing Professor Weiler. The man managed to stay on his feet until Max clamped his teeth over his lower thigh. Weiler fell to his knees. Killer lunged for his throat. With one hand splayed on the ground to stop his fall, Weiler punched wildly out, catching Killer in mid-leap. Landing on the nose, the blow deflected the dog's jaws from their target.

Then Miguel, small but with needle-sharp teeth, sank his fangs onto the grounded hand. Weiler shrieked, raised his arm above his head, then slammed his hand onto the ground. He flung his arm back into the air. Miguel flew off, his head canted at an unnatural angle, his neck clearly broken.

Pain. We are dead. And we are alive. We hurt. The smallest dog-bit is gone. We howl. Dead! Smells like food. We are afraid of death. What is after? We have only just learned what after means. Until now, we have only lived in the now—with memories but no understanding of the past. Now we understand. There is past, present and future. And, bit by bit, we will die. We are afraid. We must howl. The human-bit did this to us.

The pack went motionless. Seizing his chance, Weiler got to his knees. He struggled to his feet and hobbled frantically toward the door. Mark flung it open and started forward to help. But after a single step toward the professor, Mark stopped short. He watched in horror as the dogs, with a great angry peal of coordinated barking, flew at the man. Weiler looked back over his shoulder. At that same instant, Killer leaped. Its great jaws closed around Weiler's throat.

We hurt. Can't breathe. Scared. Want to lick wounds but can't find them. Losing something. Growing harder to think. Human-bit is... Tall animal enemy gone. Smells like food. We are the pack. We must howl.

Claire screamed.

Mark stepped back, slammed the door, latched it, and leaned his forehead against it for a moment, trying to control his queasy horror. Then he turned to Claire.

"I'm okay," she said before Mark could speak. Outside, the dogs uttered a single howl, then went silent.

Mark shot a glance at the window. The dogs stood motionless. Frozen. He returned his attention to Claire. "Are you really okay?" Then he added under his breath, "I'm not."

"'When the time came, he was torn to pieces by dogs.'" said Claire in a singsong voice. "God, I can't get that quote out of my mind."

"It's okay to be horrified," said Mark. "You don't have to keep it in."

"I'm okay," she insisted. But a moment later, she broke into tears and slid to a sitting position. Mark went to comfort her.

"I love dogs," said Claire, her words punctuated by sobs. "But... I feel betrayed, somehow."

Mark, seeing more horror out of the corner of his eye, moved so that Claire couldn’t see through the window. The pack was frozen no longer. "These aren't dogs," he said. "It's another class of animal, a new entity. You said so yourself." He talked with the hope that the sound would calm her. "It should have a separate taxonomic name—like maybe, Canis Res Ferox. Ferocious dog-thing." His stratagem seemed to work. Claire dried her eyes.

"Weiler died doing his experiment," she said. "He'd probably have liked that."

Mark nodded. "Yeah."

Claire appeared thoughtful. "I wonder," she said, "how did the collective feel—with it being both dead and alive at the same time."

"Who can say?" Mark gave a tiny shake of his head. Schrödinger's Dog.

"I wonder why they killed him." Claire looked toward the window, but Mark's body blocked her view. "Professor Weiler was... was part of their pack."

"Biology probably—like an organ rejection. Or revenge for Miguel. Who knows?" Mark hoped she wouldn't look around him. "Maybe it's just that Weiler was not a dog—not a genuine one, anyway. And dog-brains are much—"

Claire, having gotten to her feet, screamed, her eyes locked on the scene out the window. "They're eating him!"

"Don't look," said Mark, moving to take her by the hand.

"I'm okay," she said, with a tight smile. "It was just a shock."

They both gazed out the window, watching the entity feed. Mark didn't want to watch but he couldn't pull his eyes away.

"'Cry Havoc!'" Claire quoted in a low, even voice, "'and let slip the dogs of war; that this foul deed shall smell above the earth, with carrion men, groaning for burial.'"

Mark spotted Earl at the periphery of the pack and close to the shack. Suddenly feeling a heavy sense of loss, he went to the door.

"What are you doing?" said Claire.

Ignoring her, Mark eased open the door a crack and called to his Greyhound. "Hey boy, come here. You remember me."

The dog snarled and bared its fangs. Mark closed the door and leaned his head against it.

Claire came up to him. "You seem more broken up by your Greyhound spurning you than by—"

"He's my dog," said Mark with more intensity than he'd intended. "Was my dog," he added softly.

Claire touched his arm, gently. "These aren't dogs anymore."

Mark raised his head from the door and brushed down his hair. "You'd think a collective intelligence would make the dogs more, well, human."

"Intelligence is too broad a word, I think." Claire bit her lip. "The map is not the territory, and all that."

"Still, together, they, it, must have a very large vocabulary. They can't speak it, of course, but I'd think it would make them very smart... very intelligent."

"There are different kinds of intelligences." Claire gave a tightlipped smile. "A more intelligent dog isn't necessarily closer to a human. I would think it would be a more doglike dog."

"Yeah, I guess." Mark glanced at the window. "Hey, what're they doing now?" The dogs were nosing around the car, pawing at the doors, and leaping to the hood and back to the ground."

"They probably smell the kibble."

"Yeah." Mark walked to the window, slowly took in the panorama, then shuddered. "They probably want a two-course meal."

"You're terrible!"

They watched as the dogs continued to worry the car. Then, as a group, the dogs abandoned the vehicle, explored the ground and then began digging at one spot.

"What now?" said Claire.

"No idea."

Then, as the dogs dug deeper, Mark could make out the form of a brick-sized rock. "Looks like they're digging out a small boulder."

"Why?"

"I don't like this," said Mark. "They're working with purpose. I think they're preparing a tool."

"Using tools? Come on. They can't be that intelligent."

"Why not?" Mark gazed at the dog-entity with growing apprehension. "It's a distributed intelligence." He shuddered as the dogs freed the rock. "Who knows. Maybe even a distributed sentience. Maybe Weiler was right."

The larger dogs pushed the rock to the front of the car and then, awkwardly and after many tries, they managed to convey the rock to the car's hood. There, smaller dogs rushed the rock toward the windshield, clumsily propelling themselves as well as the rock against the glass. The windshield held and Mark saw the rock slide off the hood and hit the ground, sending up a plume of dusty topsoil.

Claire let out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad it didn't break. I know it's silly, but it feels good that my car, at least, can stand up to the dogs."

"I wish it weren't weakened by the crack though," said Mark.

"What does it..." Claire visibly recoiled as the dogs raised the rock again.

Mark winced, hearing the clattering impact of stone and dog against glass. The dogs, repeatedly and with enormous effort, raised the rock to the hood and smashed it and their bodies into the windshield—all to no effect.

Mark felt himself hypnotized by the repetitiveness of the scene. Claire seemed mesmerized as well. They watched in silence.

It came as a shock then, when the windshield shattered and a shimmering flurry of gemlike fragments rained to the ground.

"Damn it!" said Claire, coming alert.

Mark snapped out of his trance as well and watched as the dogs pulled the bag of kibble from the car and let it fall on top of the pebbles of safety glass. For a moment, the dogs paused. Then, as one, they savaged the bag and gorged themselves on the contents.

"I'd hate to be caught here after dark," Mark mumbled under his breath. He shivered at the thought, then pulled out his cell phone. "We've got more to worry about than a windshield," he said, dialing 911. "We need the State Police."

"What do you mean?"

Mark gently tapped at the window glass. "If they could break the windshield, they can certainly break this." He looked down at the phone. "No service? That's odd." He flipped the phone closed. "Probably interference from the dogs' transceivers. Damn it!" He ran to a computer. "I only hope we still have Internet service." He brought up a browser. "Should have. We've got a direct line of sight antenna." He clicked on a bookmark and sighed with relief. "We've got it. I'll Google for the sheriff's department and send them an e-mail. I really hope they're compulsive about reading their e-mail."

"I'm not sure we can hold out that long," said Claire softly, with a tremor in her voice.

Mark looked up from the monitor. Outside, he saw dogs pushing the rock toward the window. "Don't worry," he said, hoping his voice wouldn't betray him. "The wall is sheer. They won't be able to get the rock high enough to do any damage."

Mark, hoping the dogs would give up, scarcely dared to breathe as he watched the dogs push the rock up close to the window, then move back and stand as if thinking. All at once, they started digging again—gathering soil and piling it under the window, making a ledge.

"It's amazing how fast twenty-five dogs can pull up dirt," said Claire calmly. But the quaver in her voice revealed her anxiety.

"Yeah," said Mark under his breath. "It won't take them long." Knowing it was futile, he pulled up the keyboard and began a search for the sheriff's department. He'd barely tapped a few keys when he stopped with an idea. "The dogs. Their transceivers are jamming my cell phone," he said.

Claire looked at him as if he'd suddenly lost his mind.

"Well," he said, "maybe we can jam the dogs." He ran around to the back of the computer. "Ha. We're in luck. It's a quick release case—no screws." He flipped some latches and removed the computer's case.

"What are you doing?" said Claire. "And do you think it's a good idea doing it with the power on?"

"See if you can find some wire—coat hangers or something. Long and conductive. Anything."

"What!"

"For an antenna." Mark rushed to the other computer and switched it on as well. "Without their cases, computers produce a ton of RF radiation."

"Are you—" Claire began.

"Please," Mark insisted. He threw a glance at the dogs. "We don't have much time."

"Will an extension cord do?"

"What?" Mark followed her gaze toward the ten-foot cord between the hotplate and the wall. "Perfect! And do you by chance have a scissors in your bag?" Again, he glanced at the dogs. Their earthwork looked close to complete. "I'll use my teeth, if necessary."

Claire fetched the cord and withdrew a nail-clipper from her bag. "Best I can offer," she said, handing it over.

"Excellent!" Mark grabbed the clippers and used it to nibble the plug and sockets free of the extension cord. Then he separated the 16-parallel wire into two lengths and stripped an end on each to expose two or three inches of bare copper. "You don't have any Band-aids, do you?" he said as he worked.

"No. Did you hurt yourself?"

"I would have used them to tape down the wire. But..." Mark threaded the bare wire around the cooling fins of the heat sink. "Damn, this thing is hot." Gingerly, he stretched out the wire horizontally, weighing down the end with a book. "Turn on the radio," he said as he rushed to repeat the process on the other computer.

"The radio?"

"Turn it on!" Mark concentrated on his work. "If we hear static, it'll show this is working."

"It's not plugged in."

"Then plug it in!" Mark regretted the harsh tone of his voice. "Please."

Claire moved the radio close to the wall socket, plugged it in, and flipped it on. She scanned for a station—and found one. But over the country and western music, there was static.

"I hope that static's because of the computers," said Mark, "and not just because we're out of range of the transmitter."

Claire pointed out the window. "Take a look."

Still, the dogs dug, but their actions were less coordinated than previously. They seemed more at play than in concentration.

"It's working!" Mark hollered, his arm raised in victory. "The dogs are defocusing."

But, as the dogs ran haphazardly, they apparently reached a point beyond the range of the jamming signal. Slowly, over the course of the next five minutes, the dogs, one by one, reassembled into a compact group near the outer gate some twenty yards from the window. The dog-entity gradually formed anew.

"Stalemate," said Mark, staring at the pack.

"What'll we do now?" said Claire.

"Well, despite the RF noise, the computers still work. Now, I'll try to raise the State Police by e-mail. We've got some time." He switched off the radio.

"Do you think we could get to the car?"

"The car?" Mark glanced at the car, then at the pack, and then at the outer gate. "Yeah. I think so." He paused. "But it might be a little tricky getting the gate open; I wouldn't want to get out of the car."

"We could drive along the fence, open the latch, then circle around and push open the gate with the car." Claire scrunched her shoulders. "That would be better than just staying here, waiting."

"Okay." Mark took a deep breath. "But if the car stalls, we're toast."

Claire looked down at her feet and slowly shook her head. "We'd better wait for the police."

Just as she'd finished speaking, silence and a dullness came over the observation shack. "Damn!" said Mark, casting a frantic glance at the dark computer monitors. "The generator. Out of gas."

"Look," cried Claire, pointing out the window. The pack was inching back toward the cabin.

Mark looked desperately around for something to use as a weapon. His gaze fell on his laptop. He rushed to it and switched it on. "God, I hate to do this." He turned to Claire. "I need your nail clippers again."

"On the table. Why?"

"I'm going to try to cut away the case." Mark flipped over the laptop and ran a fingernail along its seam, "And pull off the RF shield and connect an antenna."

She handed over the clippers. "Can that little laptop do it?"

"It should be good for a couple of feet—I hope." He started nibbling away at the case. "Then we'll make a run for the car. Hopefully, this gadget will act as a dog repellant."

"The car?" Claire's voice sounded fearful. "Do you think we'll..."

"We'll be fine," said Mark, hoping his voice wouldn't expose his uncertainty. With his head, he gestured toward one of the desktop machines. "Could you get me one of the antennas?"

Five minutes later, Mark had converted his laptop computer into what he prayed was a radio jamming device.

"This should work," said Mark, throwing a longing glance to the dead radio.

Claire started to say something, but didn't.

Mark sighed. "Sorry, but there's no way to test it." He carried the laptop, antenna trailing on the floor, toward the door. "Car keys ready?"

Claire nodded.

"Okay." Mark positioned the laptop so he could carry it under one arm. "When you open the door, I'll lead the way. Run like crazy—and scream and shout. It might confuse the dogs." Looking into Claire's frightened eyes, he paused. "Look. We're going to make it," he said softly. Claire smiled, but it looked labored.

"Okay," said Mark. "At the car, we'll split—you to the driver's side and I'll go to the other side. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go!"

Claire flung open the door and, screaming like banshees, they ran for the car. The dogs in front scattered out of their way and then chased after, but kept a foot or two behind. As Mark, with averted eyes, leapt over the bloody gristle that had once been Professor Weiler, the antenna fell off. A Jack Russell Terrier snapped it from the ground and shook it in his jaws as if trying to kill a snake.

With a thunderous bark, the dogs drew in close, snapping at their heels. Mark yanked open the car door. He jumped into the passenger seat and kicked out at a dog, Killer. The Pit Bull darted to the side, giving Mark the clearance he needed. He slammed the door, then glanced over and saw that Claire had made it as well. "Okay. Get us out of here!"

She jammed the key in the ignition and the starter revved—but the car didn't start.

Three dogs leapt to the hood and jumped for the shattered windshield. A further four or five dogs followed behind them. Kicking and poking at them with his laptop, Mark fended them off.

"Claire, please. I can't hold them off much longer!"

"I know. I know." She revved the starter again, and then again.

"Hurry!"

On the fifth try, the car started. Claire threw the car in reverse and some of the dogs fell off.

"Terrific!" shouted Mark, fighting with hands and feet to keep the few remaining dogs at bay. "Now, forward, pedal to the floor. Let's get out of here!"

"But the latch."

"Forget it!" said Mark. "Drive at the gate. The latch'll break." He batted the laptop at a Springer Spaniel. "It had better," he added under his breath.

At the impact of the car hitting the gate, Mark lurched forward, almost hitting the spaniel with his head. But the dog, scrambling to regain its footing, was too busy to bite.

There came a loud snap and the gate flew open. Narrowly skirting Weiler's fancy sports car, Claire sped away. The remaining dogs jumped or fell off.

"Oh my gosh," said Mark, breathlessly. "I really thought we'd had it."

"They're chasing us," said Claire, looking in the side mirror. Her hair fluttered wildly from the absence of a windshield.

We must catch the car. We must kill the humans. Kill the... the tall animals. Why? Many words are going. The Killer-bit of the pack is fading. Knowledge and understanding are fading. Pack is dissolving. Smell of dogs—other dogs. I am a dog. I?

Forest smells. Good smells. Must catch tall masters. Love to run. Love tall master.

Mark, breathing easier now, snapped on his seat belt—the car moved very unpredictably—and looked back. "Now they're dogs doing what dogs do." The clump of the pack became more a line as the faster dogs outpaced the slower, the sight-hounds in front and scent-hounds behind. Beauregard the Bloodhound plodded in the rear, his nose mere inches above the tire tracks.

As he listened to the barking of the pack, Mark wondered if a particular car's tire had a unique smell. Then, it registered.

"Wait!" he shouted. Slow down!"

"What? Are you nuts?"

"Listen," said Mark. "The dogs are barking."

"You are nuts."

"But they're not barking in unison. They're running full out. They're not clumped together anymore. They're getting out of range of each other."

"So you want me to slow down so they can become superdog again?"

"Dogs love to run, especially Greyhounds." He pointed. "It's Earl. He's way in front. Slow down so he can catch up."

Claire didn't answer.

"It's Earl. He's out of range. He's my dog again. Please."

Claire sighed. "I hope you're right." She brought the car down to about thirty miles an hour. As Earl drew close, Mark opened the door, bracing it with his foot against the wind. Earl leaped in. Claire, watching the dog, nearly drove off the road.

Mark grabbed the dog to keep it from falling out the door due to the car's erratic motion. Earl turned and licked Mark's face. "Thank God," said Mark.

Claire regained control of the vehicle and sped up to sixty; the pack grew small in the distance, soon becoming obscured by the dust kicked up on the dirt road. "You do know," said Claire, "that if the pack ever sneaks up close to Earl, he'll likely rip you to shreds."

"Well, I'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen," said Mark, feigning a confidence he wished he had.

Earl twisted and licked Claire on the cheek. "That's Claire," said Mark. "She's nice. I like her." He glanced at Claire. "Very, very much. Rowf."

Claire smiled. "Okay," she said. "Where to now?"

"State Police. Turn left at Ringwood." Mark grew serious. "There's a new beast in the woods. A savage, intelligent killer." He leaned in to his Greyhound. "And we've got to keep it well away from you—at least until we get that nodule removed."

"I wonder," said Claire, "how much of the savagery is due to Professor Weiler's influence—or Killer's, which comes to the same thing."

"I couldn't ever understand that guy," said Mark, staring vacantly out the window. "Dog people are, well... good people."

"Strindberg didn't think so," said Claire. "He said, 'I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.'"

"Well, I guess that didn't apply to... to Professor Weiler," said Mark. "That's one thing we can say for him." He gazed ahead through the jagged outline of the windshield, quiet with his thoughts. Claire remained quiet as well. Even Earl seemed to be in a reflective mood. At length, when the State Police barracks came into view, Claire broke the silence. "God," she said, softly. "I hope we can make them believe us."

"We've got to."

****

Between dog and wolf, as the Romans called dusk, that time when color fades to grey, Mark took Earl for a walk. Claire had stayed in the barracks playing chess with the desk sergeant. It would be at least another half-hour before the police car would return from the dog habitat. By badgering and cajoling, Mark and Claire had persuaded the Sergeant to send a car out to investigate. They'd been asked go along, but refused, agreeing instead to wait at the barracks.

Walking in the dark parking lot with Earl padding in front of him, Mark stared at two parked police cars—mechanical twins. He wondered if Earl could tell them apart by scent. And if not Earl, could Beauregard?

Thinking back to his escape, Mark shivered at the mental image of the dogs chasing after their car. He visualized the Bloodhound lumbering steadily along, its nose to the ground, pursuing the tire tracks like a caboose following a train. Mark glanced over at Claire's car. A cool breeze came up and again Mark shivered—but not from the breeze.

In mid stride, Earl froze. Slowly, he turned his muzzle toward the wild thicket bordering the parking lot.

Mark took a step toward the dog, then slowly retreated a few paces. "Earl," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "What's the matter, boy?"

****

A bibliography of Carl Frederick's short fiction may be found at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi

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Free Space

Written by Carrie Vaughn

Illustrated by Laura Givens

"Control, what does this look like to you?"

Hart moved closer to the diagnostic monitor to be sure her helmet camera picked up the details on the display.

The reply from Control sounded over her suit comm. Drexler's even voice said, "Explain."

She matched his level of calm. "Those radiation levels. They're too high."

"Those are readings from the storage units, correct?"

"Yes."

She didn't want to deal with this, another malfunction for Control to add to the maintenance schedule and then drag its feet over. This wasn't even her shift. She was covering for Matson, who had come down sick with the flu that seemed to have struck half of Covenant Station's residents. Control had promised to bring in more crew to take up the slack and get the station back on schedule. In the meantime, the rest of the techs worked double shifts. She resisted a futile effort to rub a hand on her face.

The station's refit was six months behind schedule. After twenty years of spinning empty in the space above Mars, another six months wouldn't have made much difference. But settlers had already moved into the living quarters, and many of the systems were still running on temporary stop-gaps. Quietly, slowly, Control was bringing the permanent systems on-line. Problems kept cropping up.

Drexler, Control's Chief, said, "The readings are noted. Finish your job assignment and come inside."

She was supposed to be certifying the cooling system on the station's fourth sector arm, which contained empty storage units awaiting supply deliveries. She couldn't do that, given these readings. The cooling system looked fine, every diagnostic she ran on it came up negative, which meant the excess radiation on the monitor didn't indicate a failure in the cooling system--it had to be coming from somewhere other than the usual background radiation. This had implications Control couldn't ignore. These levels were way above maximum standards for a residential station.

She attacked the problem one piece at a time, scanning part by part rather than the whole system. Radiation levels on the hull were normal. The cooling system itself was normal, although dealing with the spike in this sector was taxing it. The source of the radiation spike then was inside the storage units.

The title-transfer survey said these units were empty. When the Trade Guild abandoned the station after moving its operations to a more modern facility, it was supposed to have cleaned everything out, but they might have left something behind--radioactive waste, depleted plasma cores. When Covenant Control bought the station and the charter to start an independent trading colony, it might not have been the wiser. Now that she'd seen how Control handled the maintenance schedules, she could believe that it might miss something this significant in the preliminary surveys.

"I think I've got a heading. The radiation is coming from the storage units. There's something in there."

"It's not your concern. Come inside, Hart."

"Sir, if that much radiation is getting through to the station, there might be a danger--"

"I said don't worry about it."

Did he think the radiation would go away if they ignored it? Okay, so it would go away, given a few thousand years or so. She didn't want to wait that long. Time to show a little initiative. She'd get Drexler's job one day, at this rate. Between working out crew schedules and submitting supply invoices, she already seemed to be doing most of it.

Two hundred settlers had already come aboard, people who'd put their trust in Control's assurances that the station was operational and safe. Maybe that trust had been misplaced. Maybe that bug that had been going around wasn't the flu.

The optical scanners on the first two compartments weren't working. The third, after she rerouted enough power to charge the device's battery, came to life and the optic began a sweep of the unit.

At first, she thought the device wasn't focusing. After a moment of staring she realized what she was seeing on the monitor: a dozen cylindrical plasma canisters, about six feet across; beryllium-nickel casings and mountings; piping and high-energy nozzles. While she hadn't had any direct experience with weapons-grade plasma generators, she knew the specs. Those nozzles would fire the plasma in a wide, destructive dispersal pattern, not in the focused, controlled beam used for mining and construction. The storage compartment was filled with large generators for converted plasma drills designed for military use. These weren't personal units, but ship-mounted models.

The diagnostics monitor went black.

****

Drexler lifted his finger from the keypad. He'd switched off power to the storage unit monitors. The management tech on duty watched him with an expression of concern and confusion.

He had to stay calm. He couldn't punch the screen like he wanted, couldn't scream at Technician Hart's inability to follow orders. He was in charge here, and he had to act like it.

The plan was still good. Hart's diligence wasn't going to ruin anything.

"Why don't you take a meal break," he said to the tech.

"I'm not scheduled for another--"

"Take a break," Drexler said, wondering if maybe he was the problem. Had something happened to his voice, that no one could follow his orders? "I'll cover for you."

"Yes, sir." The young man swiveled out of his chair and scurried away.

When the door slipped shut behind him, Drexler took his seat and settled in for the duration.

Hart was complaining over the audio feed. "Control? Control? Drexler, are you there? The monitor just went dark. Did you see what was in there?"

"Technician Hart, return to the sector airlock, please." He could talk to her better in person. In person, he could confine her to quarters.

"Drexler, do you have any idea what's in that compartment? I wasn't even able to look inside them all--"

"Never mind. Return to the sector airlock. Now."

She knew. She'd figured it out. Covenant was sitting on enough weaponry to turn the station into a fortress. Illegally sitting on the weaponry, if he wanted to get technical. He didn't.

Telemetry readings on her suit indicated she hadn't moved. She wasn't going toward the airlock. She was thinking. She was going to try to be a hero.

Her beacon showed when she started to move. Drexler traced her--moving toward the station hub. Away from the airlock.

He'd try this one more time. "Technician Hart, you are to report to the sector airlock."

Nothing. Damn her, what did she think she could accomplish?

"Technician Hart, please respond. What is the problem?"

"No problem, sir."

Then the comm cut off, as well as her telemetry reading. She'd manually cut off power to her suit's communications systems. He couldn't contact her, he couldn't trace her.

He'd simply find her using the external visual monitors. He had other systems at his beck and call as well. Maintenance bots on the hull exterior, for example.

Working in space was a dangerous business. Even with the most stringent precautions, accidents happened. Accidents happened all the time.

He clicked a few commands into the computer and called up the manual control sequences for the maintenance bots.

****

Never mind the legality of having weapons aboard a station licensed for commercial and residential use, those storage units weren't shielded for large plasma cells. The radiation was leaking into the station. Two hundred settlers.

If Drexler knew about the plasma generators, if Control itself was trying to keep it secret, then Covenant Station wasn't about building an independent trading colony. Drexler had other plans, and the techs and settlers were pawns. A cheap labor force.

Clicking a set of buttons on the panel on the arm of her suit, she did a quick diagnostic. The suit data recorder was still working. She had the whole exchange on a chip. If Trade Guild saw what was in those storage units. . . .

Two hundred lives. Trade Guild was the only organization with enough authority to find out what Drexler was doing with those weapons.

Drexler expected her to reenter the station at the fourth sector arm airlock. Her target--where she had to end up if she was going to go through with this--was in the first sector ring living area. There, the Trade Guild liaison who supervised code compliance kept an office. That was a long way to go, across a two-kilometer-long station, outside. Time to see if her non-Trade Guild training was worth anything.

She had two hours of air left. The easiest route would be to head toward the hub, then back out on the first sector arm. She'd have to walk, untethered, with mag boots, as the pounding of her heart filled her helmet.

Taking steady breaths, she checked the boots' hold on the station's hull. She lifted each boot, re-placed it, bounced a little to test it. The magnetic grips stuck and released on cue. She unhooked the tether and let it recoil on its belt spool.

Walking now, step by careful step, she kept her eye on Covenant's hub. The station spun on an axis, the ruddy surface of Mars arcing below, then away, as the rotation turned her view from the planet. She didn't look at the planet, didn't think of the station's movement. If she kept her eye on the hub, the station wasn't moving at all. Step by careful step. The airlock was behind her now.

The hub would be the hardest part to cross. The massive cylinder bristled with docking tubes, antennae arrays, and maintenance portals. It would be like walking through a junk heap. On the other hand, the hub offered many means of access to the station's interior. She considered slipping into the station at the hub. It would be safer, getting inside as quickly as possible, then making her way to the ring. But inside, Drexler was much more likely to stop her. Just because she was no longer in communication with Control didn't mean he wasn't still tracking her. As soon as she entered the station, he'd know. The long trek it was, then.

She paused at a flash of movement. A hull bot crossed her path, about twenty feet ahead. Hull bots, hemispherical machines about a foot in diameter, constantly swept the outside of the station, repairing micrometeor impact points. Other kinds of bots, programmed for basic external repairs, also traveled the station's surface. From another direction, a welder rolled toward her on its magnetic treads. It held its tool arm, bearing the nozzle of its torch, outstretched.

The bots had optics, so their operators could visually monitor their work. Drexler had found her.

She turned and walked away from the bot, one step at a time, letting her boots grip and release.

Ahead, she spotted more movement, glinting as it flashed from shadow to sunlight, sliding from behind an array right in front of her. She gasped, startled, when its torch lit, jetting a finger of plasma.

The two bots came toward her, forcing her back. When she tried to skirt around them, they tracked her, while a third, a cutter, surprised her from behind. Scuttling a slow two steps away, she dodged.

Its laser cutter clipped her before she found shelter behind an antenna array. The dark line of a slice appeared in the leg of her suit. The cut was small, just through the two outer layers. The suit's material was tough, it would hold up until she got inside. Assuming she could, without taking more damage.

Drexler wanted to kill her. She'd seen something she shouldn't have, of course he'd want to stop her. But kill her?

Whenever she tried to move toward the first sector arm, a bot intercepted her. Drexler must have activated every one on the station.

Rattled, she almost tripped on one of the automated hull bots.

Taking hold of its edges, she lifted, struggling for a moment against the grip of its magnetic treads. Popping its control panel, she punched keys to shift power to the vacunamel spray nozzle.

She pointed the underside of the hull bot at the nearest welder, and a spray of white hull enamel showered it. Keeping her arms rigid against the pressure, anchored by her mag boots, she aimed the bot until white paint covered the welder. The vacunamel completely masked the optics of the machine; it couldn't see her anymore. It stopped, its operator unable to guide it. She turned to the next bot and blinded it as well.

More replaced them. She couldn't stop them all. Most of the hull bot's paint sprayed uselessly into empty space. Soon, it ran out. She released the bot, which tumbled away.

The maintenance bots had cornered her and were herding her methodically toward the hub airlock. No doubt Drexler's security detail waited inside. As long as Drexler kept her on the hub, he knew exactly where she was, and it was only a matter of time before he caught her. She had to go someplace he wasn't expecting. She looked up.

A great silver pathway, lined with running lights that flashed in the shadow while its sun side gleamed, lay above her.

A thousand meters away, the ring arced overhead. The arms radiating to it were all blocked. She could get to the ring if she could launch herself. Calculate a trajectory to account for the station's spin, launch from a point that would send her to the mid-ring airlock between sectors one and two, shove off, and cruise through empty space. And if she overshot the ring? If her aim were a little off?

She had a few moments before the bots surrounded her completely. Her mental calculations faltered--the physics of it were not that difficult, but she kept having to start over. Her speed--her speed in space, with nothing to hold onto. Insane. That was the conclusion of her calculations.

She double-checked the sector markings. Between the first and second sector arms was the mid-ring airlock she wanted, the closest one to the Trade Guild office.

Her suit gear included a pair of compressed air packs. One burst of air would give her the momentum she needed. Another to steer. As long as she paid attention, she wouldn't go off course. She wouldn't miss the ring and shoot into space, solving Drexler's problem for him. She took one of the packs off her belt, ready to use it.

Crouching, she released the magnetic grips on her boots. Then she launched toward the ring, pushing against the hull as she stood.

The hub fell away.

****

In retrospect, he marveled that it had never even been a question. Would he kill to protect himself, to protect the revenue represented by the contents of those storage units? He hadn't even stopped to consider. He'd just done it, and he felt a touch of pride that he'd acted with such certainty, with such single-minded purpose. Really, it hadn't been a choice at all. He was too far committed to not take such drastic action. To back down now would be to lose everything.

Knowing that he would go so far to ensure the success of his plan made the next steps easier. He had no limits.

The external monitors on the station hub had lost sight of Hart. She'd avoided the bots he'd sent after her, half of which were now flashing red warning lights indicating some kind of damage. More time and effort wasted. He'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why that many bots would malfunction at once.

Hart was the more immediate concern. Where had she gone? Where would she go? What did she think she was doing, running all over the hull exterior to avoid him? This was a closed station--where did she think she could hide? Did she think she could escape on a shuttle without him knowing? Impossible. If she'd guessed what he was doing and wanted to expose him, where would she go?

Assuming her suit comm had recorded what she was able to see before he shut down the monitors, she'd try to get that information somewhere. Broadcast it maybe. That was easy enough to prevent. He keyed in an override on the station-wide comm system. Made some excuse about the system undergoing a diagnostic that required it being taken off line. That wasn't too much of a stretch, with all the maintenance issues Covenant had been having. No communications, intra-station or off station, were to be uploaded without his authorization.

That wasn't Hart's only access to help, however. The Trade Guild kept an office on Covenant, to deal with bureaucratic nonsense. She might go there, to give the information to the Trade Guild. Then again, she was one of those independent spacer types. She might slit her own wrists before running to the Guild with a problem.

Whether she did or didn't go to the Trade Guild office, Drexler couldn't afford to have the liaison find out about the secret cargo. That was the next step, then.

He clicked on his comm and contacted the security detail. "I need someone to meet me at the Trade Guild office. Quietly, please."

****

She floated free, drifting, the station turning under her.

She swallowed a lump of panic as all her instincts rebelled against her situation. All her training, all her experience told her she couldn't be safe in space unless she was anchored to something solid with a stable orbit or a decent propulsion system.

She checked her target. So far, so good. As the hub grew smaller, so the surface of the ring grew larger, its running lights sliding past. The approaching airlock was just out of sight, around the curve of the ring, properly oriented with the artificial gravity. Its markings approached--too quickly. She was going to land far beyond the airlock.

Battling inertia, she twisted her body, flailing like a landed eel, and turned so her back faced the ring. Her gut wrenched; she could no longer see the target. She wanted her whole body to take the force of the compressed air's propulsion and not have the pack rip out of her hand when she pushed the button. She held the air pack to her chest, double-checked that the air nozzle faced out, and pressed.

She flew faster now.

With luck, the monitors on the bots hadn't tracked her unexpected move--their optics were only designed to scan the hull--and Drexler wouldn't yet have found her on the station monitors. She should have just disappeared. Now, if only the risk she had taken wasn't too great.

This was taking too long. She had too much time to think.

She turned again, writhing. The ring, a hundred fifty feet across, slid past like a conveyor belt. This was going to be like jumping off a speeding car and hitting the ground.

She gave another burst from the air pack, this time to change her direction, to parallel the ring. She had to match its velocity more closely, or she'd just ricochet off and fly into space. She used short bursts, and her path changed. She was still moving too slowly, the ring was moving too quickly. She'd hit hard. She had to be ready to hold on. In preparation, she reactivated her boots' grips. Making another adjustment to her position, she put her feet in front of her and bent her knees.

The ring hull filled her whole sky. She couldn't miss. She only had to keep from skipping off the surface.

She held her breath, in preparation for getting it knocked out of her.

Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five, four, three, two--

Her boots hit and she rolled. She rolled fast. The grips didn't have time to catch hold, and her legs flailed above her, where the grips didn't do any good. She let go of the air pack.

Bouncing around the curved surface of the ring, she scraped along the metal hull. Had to catch hold, or she'd keep going.

Her shoulder snagged on something. A ladder railing. She reached out both hands. Her gloves brushed protrusions, but the force of her fall kept yanking them away.

Bending her knees, she flattened her feet against the hull. Her leg twisted, nearly wrenching her hip out of its socket as one boot caught. Then the other. She let out a cry and a hiss of breath as her tumble stopped, twisting her body, jerking her as she floated a moment then slammed against the steel. Finally, she lay at rest, spread-eagle across the hull. Weight pulled at her, her suit felt heavy. Gravity was back.

She grabbed the end of her belt tether and searched for someplace to hook it. The maintenance ladder that ran around the entire ring was an arm's length away. Rolling toward it, she hooked the tether and breathed a sigh of relief, fogging the inside of her helmet.

Just beyond the ladder was a depression in the hull, covered with warning lights and safety markings. The airlock. She used the tether to help climb to her feet. Pulling herself along, she crossed the few steps to the airlock.

Now, if she were very lucky, Drexler wouldn't have changed her access codes.

She collapsed by the control panel, still clinging to the tether with one hand, using the other to punch the keypad. Her hand was shaking so much she had a hard time finding even the oversized keys designed for use with bulky suit gloves. She paused, taking a few deep breaths, letting her heartbeat slow. She'd come too far to panic now. A few more steps, that was all she needed. Rest later.

She thought about trying a universal emergency code, which even Drexler couldn't cancel. But the station computer would alert Control immediately if she used it. Drexler could still track her using her personal codes, but the computer wouldn't sound an alarm.

Holding her breath, she faced her suit keypad to the hatch's scanner. A laser reader tracked her. Another light flashed to green. A warning signal lit inside the hatch as the air cycled out. At last, the door slid open. She dove inside and punched the keypad to reverse the airlock's cycle.

When the outside hatch locked and the air monitor flashed safe, she finally took off her helmet. She'd been breathing her own recycled air for so long, the station's recycled air smelled good.

In a panic, she hit the control to open the interior door. She knew better than to sit in an airlock without a helmet. Drexler could have just flushed her.

She fell out of the lock and onto the deck outside, rolling out of the way as the door closed.

The airlock opened into a small prep room. A couple of spare suits hung on racks in an open closet. A door led to the corridor.

Segment by segment, she peeled out of the suit. Her body was bruised from being knocked around inside the suit, her muscles sore from fighting with it for every move she'd made in the last hour. Carefully, she removed the data chip from the recorder in the helmet--all her proof, everything she'd been fleeing for--and tucked it into a breast pocket on her jumpsuit. She shoved the rest of the gear back into the airlock in the hopes that it would escape notice long enough for her to get away.

She wore a gray jumpsuit and a set of thermals underneath. Maybe she could blend in, lose herself among the rest of the crew. Except she was stocking-footed. Her shoes were back in the fourth sector EVA suit-up.

Her best plan was to act normal. Just a technician en route from one place to another, in stocking feet. She ran her hands through her short blond hair in an attempt to comb it straight. She was dripping with sweat. After wiping her face on her sleeves, her hands on her pants, she slid open the door to the corridor, and tried to act normal.

The corridors on Covenant were never crowded. The station could hold a thousand people; a few hundred dispersed through it nicely. The fewer people she saw before she reached the Trade Guild office, the better.

Ahead, the corridor branched. She took the narrow side hall which led to a set of cramped offices designed for lower level bureaucrats. Most were empty, but Covenant Control had relegated its Trade Guild liaison to the farthest one. Just because the Guild demanded compliance to certain regulations, Control didn't have to like it.

The hallway was clear. A small, glowing label on the door's exterior control panel marked the Trade Guild office. It wasn't locked, it had no message asking visitors to announce themselves, so she pushed the key to open to the door.

The office consisted of two rooms. The first, a small annex with a plastiform desk and chair tucked to the side, was empty. She went through the doorway to the next room.

There, a man sat behind a larger desk. He rested his elbows on the bare surface, held his hands folded calmly before him. He was thin, with milk-pale skin and close-cropped gray hair, and he wore a station issue gray jumpsuit.

"Drexler," she murmured. The Control Chief smiled. Her glance shifted, taking in the two figures standing behind him. They had web guns hooked to their belts.

"Technician Hart. What do you think you're doing?"

It was fairly obvious. "Where is the liaison?"

"Not here, for the moment. He had business elsewhere."

"You had something to do with that?"

He shrugged, his smile never wavering.

Drexler had second-guessed her. The whole race had been for nothing.

The Control supervisor stood and came around the desk.

"Walk with me, Hart."

"Where?"

He didn't answer. The two security people fell in step on either side of her as they walked to the corridor.

Drexler might even have cleared the corridors ahead of time so no residents would see the suspicious scene: one of their own technicians, escorted under armed guard. No witnesses.

They walked back the way she'd come, toward the airlock, and she had a sickening thought. She almost caused her own accident out there with that insane free jump. Drexler could cause another one, and he'd never have to explain why she'd disappeared. He still had his chance to flush her.

She said, "So. What do you plan to do with all those plasma guns?"

The Control Chief smiled thinly. "Despite what you might think, I'm not the villain in some video melodrama. I don't have to explain myself. I wouldn't expect you to understand." You're just a tech, was the unspoken thought that always accompanied statements like that.

She mentally examined deck layouts, level plans, access vents, anything between here and the airlock that might help her escape, give her hope.

The ring held three levels, plus an innermost maintenance level occupied solely by pipes, wires, and vents. One level down, where the sector two arm met the ring, was a communications relay station. Now, if only she could get there. . . .

The male security guard walked to her right, just behind her. His web gun was closest. She only had a second to move.

She ducked back a step and grabbed the gun, pulling it from his belt as she rammed his side with her shoulder. He crashed against the wall. The other guard, the woman, was fast. She drew her gun and fired before Hart could recover. The web gun spewed a stream of a viscous compound.

Hart stumbled away. Most of the shot hit the other guard, plastering him to the wall with a brown, gooey mass of tendrils. One of the tendrils caught her leg. She pulled away. It stretched; she pulled harder, standing and trying to run. She thought the guard would fire again, trapping her this time. Drexler got in the way.

She thought she could ignore Drexler; he had security with him because he couldn't fight. Of course, neither could Hart, but she was desperate and that counted for a lot. But he came at her, grabbing the hand that held the gun.

As long as he wrestled with her, she was safe from the other web gun. In a straight fight, she could beat Drexler; she was in better shape, from time spent running all over the station on his errands.

At some point, the web tendril trapping her leg broke. She planted her feet on Drexler's chest and pushed. The move wrenched him away. He kept hold of her arm, but he was at such an angle now that she could bend her wrist and fire.

The stream shot directly into his face. He screamed, the sound becoming muffled as the substance completely covered his mouth and nose. When he reached to scrape the stuff off, he let her go. She fired again at the guard, then ran. She didn't take the time to look behind; she'd either hit the guard or she hadn't. She still heard Drexler's muted screams. If he couldn't peel the stuff off, he'd suffocate.

At the sector two arm, a lift provided access to the other levels. Down one level. She reached the communications center. There, one lone tech on duty looked up wide-eyed from his console, no doubt surprised to see her standing in the doorway pointing a web gun at him.

"Get out." She waved with the gun. Web guns didn't kill--usually--but somehow, just the shape of the thing awakened a primal fear. The young tech scampered out of his chair. She stepped aside to let him slip through the doorway.

She shut the door and shorted every control she could.

She didn't know enough about the communications systems to be able to institute any fancy tricks. She depended on the automated controls.

Which were locked by a Control override.

She shouted and slapped the terminal. Couldn't anything about this be easy?

She didn't have to be quiet anymore. She didn't have to avoid sounding any alarms. She used her emergency code, hoping it would work on the comm systems the way it worked on maintenance.

The ready light went green. She pushed the command to broadcast to various Trade Guild locations on Mars. Universal broadcast.

She plugged the data chip from her suit into the computer. The trip hadn't damaged it. It still held the information, the radiation readings, the video from the storage units, and Drexler's avoidance. She copied the data to a broadcast message. All the displays showed systems positive.

Do you wish to broadcast? the display asked.

She pushed the button. Yes. Yes yes yes. She set the message on continuous repeat.

Then she sent the message through all internal communications systems. The data was now flashing on every on-board comm panel and monitor. Let Drexler explain radiation poisoning and illegal weapons possession to Covenant's two hundred residents.

For the first time in what seemed like hours, she had a moment to think. She sank into the chair and held her head in her hands. Spreading the information inside the station might start a riot. Covenant Station might be destroyed by this. She hadn't thought so far ahead.

She had to believe that she was doing the right thing.

Before too long, the display flashed a malfunction warning: power to the broadcast array had been shut down from another location, message no longer broadcasting. Then, power to the entire communications console failed. She had now lost contact with the outside.

She'd expected that. Now, she had to wait and see what damage her message accomplished. She waited calmly, hopefully, for a rescue from Trade Guild, or for the protest of the station residents. If she could only wait long enough. She was so focused on the goal of transmitting the data, she hadn't thought about what happened next. She had run out of good ideas.

****

He screamed and struggled, trying to pull that junk off his face while he ran out of air. The compound had slapped him like wet rubber. His ears were still ringing from it. Then his lungs burned from lack of air. He really ought to stop screaming.

Finally, one of the guards sprayed a releaser on the webbing compound, which melted away. The stuff smelled foul, tasted worse--like ethanol and sour lemons. Then he'd shouted at the guard, his temper breaking at last. She'd scrambled away to help her comrade, still tangled in the goo.

That was when a technician found him and bleeped an urgent update at his handheld. "Sir, someone's bypassed the comm override, they're using every frequency to blast a message to the surface--sir, oh my God--"

Drexler shut off his handheld comm, cutting off the panicked, amazed voice. He found the nearest peripheral control terminal. He still had the station's command codes, the overrides. For a little while longer yet, he was still in charge.

He was so tightly wound he might have been spring loaded. This wasn't about protecting the plan anymore. This wasn't about moving forward. The thing burning along his nerves wasn't calm, wasn't pride at how well he was handling the situation. It was rage. This was about revenge, now.

She'd destroyed him. He could return the favor.

He found the comm terminal that was broadcasting. Shut it down. A little checking found that she'd already sealed the room, locking herself in. Good. Made his next step easier.

For all its problems, Covenant's foundations were sound. It had been solidly built. Had to be, like all good stations. Airtight.

The ventilation system fed air into that tiny little room. All he had to do was reverse the flow. It wasn't just enough to stop the flow and seal off the room. She'd still have a few hours of air. A few hours to wait for rescue. No, that wasn't good enough at all.

She'd destroyed him with the touch of a button when she broadcast that data. Now, he could do the same. Reverse airflow to that room. Done.

Then he turned, and saw the crowd coming for him.

****

She wasn't going to get out of this alive, was she?

The room was completely silent. The background noise on a space station was so ubiquitous she didn't notice it--the sound of air hissing through vents was as constant and familiar as the sound of her own breathing. But when it stopped--

The flow of air started again a moment later. When she stood on the chair and reached to the vent on the ceiling, she felt the air flow--past her fingers, into the vent. Flowing out of the room.

She shut her eyes and pressed her cheek to the cool wall. She'd fought so hard. She'd won, hadn't she? Could she still fight, with only one life to save now, even if it was her own?

She found the comm station's tool kit in a wall cabinet and dug out the grips needed to lift the deck plates. She lifted one that looked the right size out of the floor, held it over the vent, and bolted it in place. The kit's tube of hull sealant gave her a scare when she thought it was empty. But she managed to squeeze out enough to seal the plate over the vent.

The fix was temporary at best. She had air now, but only a limited supply. She'd last longer than she would have if Drexler had managed to pump out all the air in a matter of minutes.

So, more waiting. For rescue, for her air to run out. To stop breathing. To think of a better plan.

She lay propped against the wall--conserving her air and her energy, she told herself. The temperature in the room had risen ten degrees, at least. A sheen of sweat covered her, made her clothing stick to her skin. She couldn't fight her way through another plan if she tried. Her wrist chronometer told her that two hours had passed since she locked herself in the comm room. It seemed longer.

A banging on the door started. Drexler and a security detail, no doubt. Almost, she was ready to let them find her.

They stopped the direct approach fairly quickly, after discovering the mess she'd made of the door control. She crawled closer to the door--not too close, as she thought of explosives--and pressed her ear to the wall to listen.

Someone was patiently removing deck and wall plates to gain access to the actual mechanism of the door.

She grabbed the biggest, meanest looking wrench she could find from the tool kit.

The door slipped, lurched. A couple of men groaned as they took up the weight and lifted it out of the way. She stood by the wall, the wrench gripped in both hands, waiting.

"Hart? Hart? Are you in there?"

It wasn't Drexler calling.

"Matson?" Her voice came out a scratching whisper. With everything else, she'd gotten dehydrated as well. She coughed and tried again, slumping against the wall.

A small, stocky man, with close-shaved hair and beard, leaned into the room, his eyes widening when he saw her, wrench still raised as a weapon.

"Matson," she sighed and dropped the wrench.

A few hours later, she lay on a bed in the medical ward. Calm and comfortable, at last. This was a precaution. She'd been dangerously dehydrated from overexertion, and the medics wanted to keep her for observation. And, she suspected, to keep her safe. No one knew who'd been part of Drexler's plan. The Control Chief was under arrest, but he wasn't talking. The investigation would go on for weeks, months maybe.

But a hazmat crew was already outside taking care of those storage units.

She'd been about to fall asleep--definitely enjoying the peace and quiet--when the Trade Guild liaison came to see her. He was one of Trade Guild's finest up-and-coming, a younger man, sharp and well dressed. Everything she wasn't. Everything she'd avoided. To think, if only she played by the rules, she could have a suit like that.

If she played by the rules, Drexler would still be duping them all.

"May I?" he said, not waiting for permission before taking the seat by her bed. She listened quietly. "We've located one of Drexler's contacts off-station. An arms dealer. They wanted Covenant Station to front a warehouse for shipping large-quantity orders of Earth and Mars manufactured weapons to colonies and mercenary outfits staging conflicts on the frontier. Without having to pay taxes and tariffs for shipping out of system, Drexler could undercut industry prices. By keeping it secret, he wouldn't need to obtain the licenses for handling the weapons. As you might imagine, Earth and Mars governments as well as the Trade Guild are very grateful for the information you delivered."

And of course Drexler had had no intention of sharing the profits with his labor force, in the spirit of Covenant's founding principles. What a jerk.

"So," she said, smiling up from her pillow. "Do I get a medal? Or are you just going to shut the whole place down and send the personnel to work camps on Mars?"

Of all things, the liaison blushed, glancing away even as he pulled a hand terminal out of his attaché case.

"Well you see, Ms. Hart, this is the odd thing. We have this little bit of policy--which the Guild would like to keep secret, so if you wouldn't mind keeping this conversation between ourselves I'd appreciate it."

He paused; she waited. "Well?" he said finally.

"Okay. I won't tell anyone."

He nodded once. "Good. You see, Ms. Hart, the Trade Guild wants a non-Guild colony here on Covenant Station. Most worlds where the Guild operates, we prefer there to be at least a couple of independent operations running. It provides a place to collect and control non-Guild spacers, and a point through which we can import resources without paying planetary government tariffs." He presented her the handheld, the screen of which was covered with dense, legalist type. "The Guild is prepared to extend Covenant's original charter to the remaining residents, assuming said residents can establish a provisional Control to manage it properly.

"My next question for you, Ms. Hart: would you like Drexler's job?"

****

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Murphy's War

Written by James P. Hogan

Illustrated by Laura Givens

The hillbilly with the bathtub was what finally did it. A prominent Beijing morning newspaper ran a cartoon showing the United States President in Appalachian garb and setting, aided by caricatures of his administration, gleefully ladling from a vat labeled "Moonshine" to an eager throng of bearded, toothy, cup- and bucket-proffering yokels tagged with the collective label, "Gullible American Public." The rest of the Asian press took it up with chortles and gusto, and by evening it was being reproduced worldwide and had spread all over the Internet.

That in itself would probably have been insufficient to precipitate the crisis, had it not been for the changes that had been evident in President Byrne's demeanor and manner ever since he attended a White House showing of the movie High Noon. The presidential staff should have been alerted when he began cultivating a hands-on-hips gait, talking about "facing down" villains on the global Main Street, and was caught several times practicing narrow-eyed, squared-jaw stares in front of the hallway mirrors, but their attention at the time was focused on scheduling spontaneous photo ops with the media and rehearsing the press corps for Question Time.

Even so, the matter of this new personal peculiarity would likely never have spread beyond the bounds of Washington cocktail-party-circuit gossip if the secretary of state hadn't alluded to it in an interview with a fashion magazine as a concession to the distaff side of the first family's early frontier origins. Although the remark came as a reflex feminine tactic of opportunity directed at a social rival, it was received among members of the predatory sex as intimating the unforgivable transgression on the part of the of the First Lady, of snaring a catch that was worthy of better talent. Retaliation was clearly called for, but since the First Lady's image did not permit descent to the level of personal involvement, a leak contrived via one of the tabloids disclosed the secretary of state as having changed her name from one Samantha Ramsbottom, born in Cleveland and a one-time croupier in Las Vegas known as "Ditzy Mitzi." Her rise to sudden eminence and an honorary degree from Vassar had apparently followed rumors that a weekend political strategy planning conference by the party currently controlling the Senate had been held in what a Nevada tour guide described as an exclusive "gentlemen's club."

Even then, such an eruption of feline infighting over pedigrees would not normally have led to repercussions of international dimensions. However, the subject of ancestry happened to be one of extreme sensitivity to the Chinese Premier, Hao-Li Neng, who was acutely conscious of having risen to power via sleazy capitalist dealings involving Mongolian real estate and price-fixing cartels, at a time when popular reactions against Western cultural invasion were avalanching into demands for a return to more traditional values and ways. Somehow, in the logical acrobatics that bedevil East-West communication, the insinuations and innuendo being relayed around the Western media became linked to foreign affairs commentaries. The results were interpreted in Beijing as questioning Neng's ancestral lineage, and hence a calculated challenge to the basis of his political authority at a time when his position was precarious, which in Chinese eyes amounted to a personal insult before the world. A directive from the Chinese Foreign Ministry called upon the state-managed press for a riposte in kind, and the notorious hillbilly cartoon was the result. Thereupon, supporters and opponents, new political contenders, and uncommitted opportunists who never let any chance for visibility go by, piled in from all sides.

The U.S. Defense secretary, who had gained fame and fortune as a TV evangelist, "Elias Maude, Sword of the Lord," made a fiery speech in which he implied affinity between Asiatics and monkeys—which was his standard form of gibe to infuriate Darwinists. The escalation to religious proportions drew in the Chinese minister of culture, a closet hard-line communist who had been engineering groundwork for a revolution along Maoist revival lines, and Maude in return declared China's a godless society, war against which would fulfill the prophecy of "yellow hordes from the east," bringing on Armageddon as the prerequisite for the Rapture. Corporate America backed any prospect of ending foreign competition now that Chinese labor rates were comparable, while the unions welcomed the prospect of an across-the-board boost to wages and employment. The Pentagon's analysts and simulations predicted that the conflict would be a cakewalk, as they had for every war that had been lost in the previous half century, citing intelligence reports that everyone had forgotten were manufactured on order to justify increased military funding in the first place. President Byrne appeared in a rousing address to the nation, which he ended narrow-eyed and square-jawed, buckling on a pair of ivory-handled, Patton-style six shooters and declaring, "It's time for men to walk tall!"

****

Alexander Sullivan had begun his nefarious career as a software hacker at an early age in high school by breaking into game-hosting servers and rigging the results. It wasn't so much from any need or desire to see himself high on the lists of tournament winners. In fact, in a gesture toward what he supposed would count as observing a higher moral principle, he seldom intervened to favor his own playing interests at all—although others whom he judged deserving or otherwise would often find their luck and fortunes affected in mysterious ways, as if by strange, inexplicable forces. He did it purely for the satisfaction that comes from beating challenges that require diligence, skill, and tenacity. In addition, it played to the exuberance of youth at finding ways into forbidden territory and crossing any bounds set by authority—especially the kinds of authority that operate through force and intimidation. By its nature, the business of mastering computer software means accepting and conforming to a world prescribed by rules that others have devised. Breaking the rules at a higher level provided that freedom for creativity which to any innovative spirit was as essential as air.

Later in life, when he was developing a political awareness, Alex became incensed by revelations, passed around his circle of computing cognoscenti intimates, of remotely accessible tampering mechanisms written into the programming of voting machines. However, as befitted his emerging style, rather than add to the babble of accusations and denials that were achieving nothing in the public domain, he staged his own rebellion by leading a small, trusted group in exploiting that same vulnerability to reverse the intended result at the next election, with repercussions that sent heads rolling throughout the more sordid reaches of the IT underworld for months afterward. Endeavors of that nature are seldom without risk, however, and some enterprising investigative work commissioned on open budget resulted in the culprits being tracked down, and the commencement of charges being prepared against them. But the case had to be dropped when the material it was founded on inexplicably vanished from the records of the agency in charge of the proceedings, and the backups were found to be corrupted.

News of such a feat does not take long to get around in the modern world, and regardless of superficial reactions voiced for form's sake, the bids to recruit such potentially invaluable talent quickly followed. The next few years saw Alex Sullivan's spectacular rise through the ranks of the industry's technically gifted, leading to a senior appointment with the prestigious but low-profile firm of Multimex Systems Developments and Integration Inc., headquartered in Maryland. A busy schedule of international travel brought a quality to the social side of his life commensurate with its professional advancement, all of it culminating in an announcement to delighted friends and colleagues of his engagement to be married the coming fall.

However, despite having much to be pleased with in his all-round situation, and the ordinarily buoyant and imperturbable disposition that came with his nature, he was in a somber mood today as he sat in the work cubicle at one end of the System Test Area on the third floor of the Development Wing. Although he had been assigned one of the executive offices on the penthouse floor of the main office building as befitted his position of Technical Development Director, he was still young enough to prefer working in the coffee-and-shirtsleeves environment among the programmers and engineers, down where the action was. And just at this time, quite a lot of action appeared to be in the immediate offing indeed.

The screen above the litter of charts and manuals covering the desk was displaying the response Abel 15, that had come in minutes before to a query Alex had sent out earlier, denoted by the one-time code word Cain. Although his otherwise hard-set mouth conceded slight upturns at the corners, they were not due to any cryptic humor hidden in the message. He was thinking of Joe Koler, the person who had sent the response—known among the group who had scammed the election scammers and who still kept in touch as "Tapperware"—and the time Joe had taken a job with a cleaning company to get inside the offices of the software contractor retained by the then-incumbent administration and install a keystroke capturing device to obtain the passwords for getting through their encryption software. Joe was on the West Coast now, with one of the prime contractors responsible for maintenance of the Air Force's Ground-Based Strategic Launch System. His response to Alex's query meant that the missiles had been primed with their target codes fifteen minutes previously.

The return from Maeve Ingleman came in while Alex was still staring at the screen, wondering just how far this was likely to go. Maeve had devised the trapdoor code that made their tampering with the vote-tampering routine invisible to regular software checking procedures. These days she headed a section concerned with cryptological security in the Defense Department. Her input, responding to Alex's prompt, Mutt, was Jeff-4: "Arm Authorization code transmitted from the War Room four minutes ago."

One space remained unfilled in the format displayed on the screen, opposite the final query code that he had sent out: Laurel. That had been to his one-time drinking buddy and rock-climbing partner, Mike Welby, who could change the microcode to get a computer to do anything but make toast. Mike was now a team supervisor with the War Room Close System Support Office. A response from him would indicate that final Launch Enable had been issued. Alex bit his lip apprehensively. At the bottom of the screen, the sequence initiation command Murphy glowed red and primed. Time had run out to let the risk run any longer. The moment had come that would decide between years of work yielding dividends beyond calculation, or coming to nothing in an instant's premature panic. He took a long breath and steeled himself, yet was unable to suppress a tremor as he extended a hand. The last thought to flash through his mind before he pressed the key to activate the command was that maybe there wouldn't be any wedding day at all. The link changed from red to gray; at the same time, the confirmation Issued and Acknowledged appeared alongside.

Moments later, the empty space a few lines higher up filled suddenly to deliver the response Hardy-2:30 from Mike.

****

Professor Orstein Orvington Orst, senior scientific advisor to the White House, was noted among other things for his theoretical studies developing the concept of the neutrino bomb. While providing an image and terminology capable of terrifying the public, the potential to absorb unlimited funding, and novel strategic implications that would keep planners occupied and pundits talking for years, it suffered from none of the drawbacks of threatening to kill anybody or damage property, thus making it in the eyes of many the ideal advanced weapons system. Orst had also authored the interesting theory that the decrease of entropy brought about by living things was due to local time reversals on a molecular scale, and shown statistically why statistics can never prove anything.

But such things were far from his mind as he stood with Oskar Eissensatt, a computation director with one of the Pentagon's task groups, just outside the flurry of aides and officials surrounding the President in the underground War Room twenty-five miles in an undisclosed direction from the center of Washington D.C. Not that Orst had given any great amount of detailed thought to the likely effects on tomorrow of the events resolved upon today and about to be unleashed. But there was a distinct probability of the world's weather patterns being disrupted, which would invalidate the computer models that he had obtained generous funding to advise on, which would cause no end of demands for explanations and budget allocation reviews. It was all very inconvenient.

President Byrne emerged ahead of his coterie, effecting a swagger, still wearing the Patton-style revolvers. "That's right, we're going to do it!" he told the array of uniforms and suits. "Who do they think they're calling a cowboy? Those slopes have gone too far. It's time to stand tall and deliver the reckonin'. Where's muh hat?"

General Elmer Craig, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heavy with medals and braid, was close beside him. Orst had little time for Craig. If it hadn't been for military mentalities and their obsession with megatons and pyrotechnics, a viral or other biological solution could have been far more efficient, without all the messiness and disruption. Besides that, Craig was a mathematical Neanderthal, who had once instructed an adjutant to look up General Relativity in the staff lists. "Just let us at 'em, sir," Craig enthused to the President. "With the new ECMs and decoys, our birds will be hitting them before they even know anything's left the roost."

"Smiting God's enemies with death, vengeance, and destruction," Elias Maude boomed from Byrne's other side. "Laying waste the land. Bringing tears, anguish, and grief. All as the Good Books say. Good Christian values. He will reserve us a special place in Heaven for today."

"I know," the President replied. "He talked to me this morning." On the edge of the group, Eissensatt wrinkled his nose in response to Orst's frown. Orst had always harbored reservations about this kind of thing as a guide to shaping national policy. He didn't trust prophecies and assertions that couldn't be expressed in numbers. There was no better way of carrying an argument than showing it as the necessary outcome of manipulating symbols that nobody else could understand.

"Teamwork," Eissensatt murmured. Orst nodded sourly, causing wisps of thinning hair to wave about his birdlike head. They were always being reminded of the importance of keeping up a unified public image.

Byrne turned and drew himself up to a dramatic pose in the center of the floor, hands resting on the butts of the pistols, head high, chin thrust forward, legs apart and loosely bent. "Gentlemen, today we're about to become history. Nobody here knows better than all of you how I've busted my... that is, how hard I've tried in these days of trial and error to do an intelligent thing and act like a statesman. But we are left with no choice other than the course I have decided. An evil power thinks it can bring our great country to its knees by aggressive, unrestrained, military power. Well, we'll show the world that we can do it better."

"Damn right!" Craig agreed darkly.

"Hallelujah!" Maude intoned.

President Byrne paused a moment to let the ripple of approving nods and murmurs subside. "They brought this on themselves when they elected a tyrant who doesn't let them have democracy. Let it be a lesson to all the others who hate us for our tolerant and peaceful way of life.... General, issue the order to commence the attack."

Craig turned imperiously toward his second-in-command, General Filbert, one star down, who was waiting several paces back. "Order General Launch, Fire Plan A, Phase One."

Filbert relayed to the Fire Control Commander, seated at a supervisory desk in the center of a row of consoles on a raised dais at one end of the room. "Immediate, to all sector flight controllers. General Launch, Fire Plan A, Phase One."

Despite the President's stirring words of a few moments before, a solemn hush fell as the commander entered the codes into his console and validated the requests for confirmation, broken only by the voice of Burton Halle, the Vice President, muttering into a cell phone somewhere in the rear. "...and schedule a meeting for tomorrow morning to discuss assigning the reconstruction contracts." All eyes turned expectantly toward the large Situation Display dominating the room.

It presented the world in regular Mercator projection, with hostile territories shown in red, U.S. in blue, its assortment of allies, in varying shades of beige through burnet brown, depending on the assigned level of dependability, and the remaining neutrals in gray. Principal targets were indicated by icons according to category, along with ground launch bases and the present positions of submarines, bombers, and orbiting attack satellites. The display's design was the work of Eissensatt's people. He looked toward Orst invitingly as a side panel added itself, providing a legend of icon identifiers and symbol descriptions.

"It needs more numbers," Orst murmured in answer to the unvoiced question.

"We've been upgrading it," Eissensatt told him. "Wait." Even as he spoke, new lines began appearing, superposed on the general display.

S2/5C, 8 x 2 Megatons, Coordinate cluster 6, ETT 22 min, 30 sec

Success prob'y 88%; α/φ = 2.76; Δτ₀ = 27; (θ_A_/θ_B - γ) = 0.25; Status = Green 3

Orst nodded happily and was about to express approval, when the unrolling data froze suddenly, and the map behind dimmed. Eissensatt's expression just had time to change from a satisfied smile to a frown before the entire display blanked out, to be replaced by a blue background and the message:

THIS PROGRAM HAS PERFORMED AN ILLEGAL OPERATION AND WILL SHUT DOWN. ERROR ANALYSIS NOT AVAILABLE. PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE.

President Byrne blinked and looked at General Craig. Craig mustered his most demanding glare and turned to General Filbert. Filbert spread his hands. "I don't know, sir. It's totally irregular. Nothing like this has ever..." He looked helplessly across toward the Fire Control Commander, who was already snarling instructions at a technician manning a monitor console below and in front of him. Eissensatt hurried across, followed by Orst.

"Forget that. Revert to direct manual override." The FCC's voice came from above. The technician hammered in a command string, which elicited on his screen the response:

PROGRAM NOT RESPONDING

and buttons for the options:

END TASK SHUT DOWN TRY AGAIN

Byrne and his entourage arrived as a medley of bemused expressions and angry scowls. "What in hell's going on?" the President demanded. The FCC could only shake his head as his gaze darted over the console displays, looking for clues. Nothing in the exercises and operation manuals had prepared anyone for this. Beside him, the Operations supervisor was tapping in befuddlement at a keyboard beneath a screen reading:

Page Not Found. Try clicking Refresh or select one of the following options...

"Get whoever's in charge of IT," Craig snapped. His neck and brow were turning purple. The FCC hesitated, not seeming sure who that would be.

"Try Sigmund Velorski at the Pentagon," Eissensatt suggested.

The FCC nodded to the Operations supervisor. "Use Priority Channel Red." Above the War Room floor, the main Situation Display had reverted to showing wallpaper consisting of bouncing smiley faces. Somewhere in the background a phone started ringing. An Air Force officer picked it up and answered in muffled tones behind a raised hand.

The Operations supervisor looked up with the uncomprehending expression of a human cannonball watching the net slide blithely by below. "It says, Invalid Password. Request Denied."

Byrne jerked his head impatiently from side to side. "What is all this shit?"

"This is ridiculous!" General Craig blared. "Somebody get him on the phone. Put it on speaker. I'll talk to him myself."

General Filbert accepted a handset proffered by an aide and thumbed the number that was highlighted. A ringing tone sounded from the speaker, followed by, "We're sorry, but the person you are calling is not available just now to take your call. If you would like to—"

General Craig snatched the phone savagely and cut the connection. "What's their main number?" he yelled. Filbert obtained it from an aide.

"If this is for a military operational matter, press One. For matters of national domestic security, press Two. For all other—" Craig cut the call again and stood gaping at the room, evidently at a loss for how to continue.

Orst stepped forward, took the phone from Craig's unresisting fingers, and looked inquiringly at Byrne. "If I might suggest, Mr. President, I recall there was someone with the main systems integration contractor who seemed to have a good grasp of just about everything. Multimex—in Maryland, not far from here. A young man called Sullivan, I think it was."

Byrne nodded numbly. "Why not? Anyone who can make some kind of sense out of anything. It's not as if things could get any crazier."

Orst copied the phone to one of the console displays and got through to the company. The operator who answered said that Alex Sullivan's line was busy right now, but she would put the call through to that department. A bearded, bespectacled youth in a baggy sweater that gave him somewhat studentish look appeared on the screen and announced himself as the "Support Desk." Was Orst calling to report trouble with a Multimex system? Orst confirmed that he was.

"Have you checked that the machine is plugged in?"

"What?... Well, yes, of course it is."

"Which operating system and version are you using?"

Orst was momentarily too disoriented to give a coherent answer. "Which...? I really don't know. That isn't what I do. Look, I can assure you that the problem is nothing of that nature. My questions have to do with the applications that your company installed and integrated."

"Do you have a support contract? If not I may have to charge at a rate of sixty dollars an hour. Would that be okay?"

General Craig exploded. "Gimme that goddam phone!... You look here, Mister whatever your name is. See this uniform I'm wearing? Do you know what these medals mean? You are talking to the highest level of the United States government. The President himself is here with me, and this call concerns topmost matters of national security. Now if you don't know your own ass from a hole in the ground and can't help, then get somebody on the line who can. Is that clear enough? I mean now! Immediate! This moment!"

If the youth was impressed, it failed to show in the view coming through on the screen. He glanced away for a moment , then came back without missing a beat. "Oh, I think you were asking for Alex Sullivan," he said. "It looks as if he's free now. I'll put you through."

The new face that appeared was of a man perhaps in his early thirties. He had sandy colored hair, cut conventionally in a shaggy but neat and easy style, the suggestion of casualness enhanced by the three-day matching growth of beard softening his features, which were lean and angular, framing a narrow nose and chin. His eyes were sharp, with creases at the corners hinting at a mirthful bent. The part of his upper body that was visible showed a dove gray jacket and navy shirt worn with a tie sporting a silver and blue abstract design.

Craig squared up to face the screen directly. "Are you the person in charge of whatever goes on there?"

"My name is Alex Sullivan. I'm the Technical Development Director."

"General Elmer Craig, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Military."

"Yes, I recognize you from media pictures." The general's glare, which had never failed to command and intimidate, drew an affable smile that seemed to form naturally. "What can I do for you, General?"

"I take it you're aware that the government uses some highly complex and extremely sensitive computer systems that were put together by your company? Specifically, I'm talking about a system that goes by the code designation Symphony. It cost four billion dollars."

Sullivan nodded. "Yes, the strategic launch command sequencing and control network. In fact, I was responsible for coordinating a large part of it."

Consternation was breaking out among the presidential and Pentagon staff. General Filbert appealed to Craig. "Sir, this is an open line! We need to switch to a secure circuit."

Craig nodded. "Do it." As an operator intervened to make the adjustment, the general glanced back at the President, who was looking lost and as if trying to appear in charge at the same time. "Well, at least we seem to be onto the right guy."

The reconnection was made, and Sullivan reappeared. While Craig launched into a diatribe of woes and threats, Eissensatt moved closer to where Orst was standing. "You know what this is?" he said, keeping his voice low. Orst lifted his chin and eyebrows. "For years I have been telling everyone how stupid is was to use the Chinese for procurement. They tempted us with low prices because they knew we never see anything beyond a bottom line, and we walked right into it. We let them supply everything—hardware, maintenance, training... Even many of the software contracts!"

"What are you getting at?" Orst was only half listening. He was wondering why simulations and testing hadn't picked up these faults long ago.

"They built it all in!" Eissensatt whispered. He gestured to indicate the screens, consoles, and electronics cubicles all around them. "Can't you see what is happening? The Chinese buried special functions in their chips, that they could activate remotely. It is they who are doing this. It's a Trojan horse!"

Orst registered what he was saying, finally, and stared at him incredulously. It was preposterous, of course. Yet it had to be! What else could explain why all the testing had detected nothing?

"But it gets far worse," Essensatt went on. "Don't you see?"

"What?" Orst found his voice but was still too much in shock to fully think the implication through.

"They know!" Eissensatt moaned. "Do you think they'd sneak something like that into our launch system without making it capable of reporting back to them?"

Orst gulped. "You mean they've got Spyware in there too?"

"Of course, Spyware! So it means they know we've attempted to launch. And what do you think that means? Do you think they'll just sit there?"

Engineers and programmers had crowded around a nearby console, and were taking turns to try various stratagems and offer advice. The one currently in the operator's chair sat back and threw up his hands. "I give up. It doesn't like anything I tell it. No version of anything is compatible with anything else."

Orst looked back bleakly to where the President and his group of senior officials had moved closer behind General Craig. Sullivan was speaking from the screen.

"It appears that the project manager quit and didn't update his documentation. It will probably take some time to figure out what the programmer was trying to do, I'm afraid."

Craig's color deepened. "Didn't update the documents? What kind of main contractor do you call yourselves? Four billion dollars! Don't you have anyone there who knows how to manage supervision?"

"Er, with respect, General, it appears to have been one of your own supervising officers assigned from the Pentagon."

"Hmph."

General Filbert interceded to rescue the situation. "I think I know who he means. I might be able to trace him and get a cell phone number. Craig nodded mutely in a way that said they might as well try exorcism if there was a chance it might do any good.

President Byrne stood in the middle of it all, looking dazed. "I don't believe this," he mumbled to Vice President Halle. "The mightiest war machine that the world has ever seen. And we can't do a thing with it because of a bunch of..." he broke off, seeing that Orst was trying to get his attention. "What?"

"Mr. President, there is a further ramification that doesn't seem to have been considered," Orst said gravely. "Since it's not functioning, it can no longer be considered the mightiest anything. So how long do we have before the sky turns black with incoming enemy hardware?"

The color drained from Burton's face, while the others around who were within earshot froze. "Holy shit," somebody whispered.

Burton almost choked. "My God! We're wide open. There's nothing to stop them!"

"Exactly," Orst agreed.

And now they would probably never find out if the neutrino bomb would have been feasible. It was all very upsetting.

****

The Chinese underground War Room, twenty-five miles in an undisclosed direction from Beijing, was a disaster area of crashed computers and stalled programs when Tsien-Tsu was led in after being rushed across from the adjacent Defense Ministry building and given special emergency clearance to be admitted. The senior of the two officers who had been sent to fetch her—polite enough, but oddly robotic in the way the military conditioning tends to instill—indicated for her to wait, then moved to stand respectfully behind a gray-haired, heavy-set man in a dark suit, whom Tsien knew from her work to be Xen Lu Jiang, principal scientific advisor to the National Security Cabinet.

"So why isn't the sky already black with incoming American warheads?" Xen was saying, vainly trying to gain the attention of a stern, heavy-joweled figure in a field marshal's uniform, who had to be the Chief of Staff, Yao Ziaping. Technicians scurried among the cabinets and consoles, while on every side engineers and supervisors babbled into handsets, with more phones ringing and lights flashing incessantly. Above it all, the huge mural panel that was supposed to have presented a blow-by-blow portrayal of the end of America was displaying a series of pop-up ads for magazine subscriptions, adult web sites, and software products that nobody, apparently, had found a way to stop.

"What do you mean, the Submarine Launch Designator isn't a recognized system device?" Ziaping screamed at a man in a blue tunic, cringing behind a desk on which stood a name plate bearing the words Command Director.

The director showed his hands helplessly. "That's what it's saying."

"Restart the command executive," an engineer in white shirtsleeves said from where he was standing behind a console operator wading through what looked like a labyrinth of Disk Copying Error and File Not Found error messages.

"We've already tried. It says the User Name is invalid."

"This is insane!" Ziaping wheeled upon a general behind him, wearing a lapel badge with the name Piao, who was watching anxiously over the shoulder of another operator. "Haven't you managed to raise that Head Designer yet?"

"We're still trying, sir," Piao replied. "But we keep getting connected to some kind of help desk in India."

Hao-Li Neng, the Chinese premier, was standing amid a gaggle of military staff officers and civilian high officials, looking bewildered. Even though she had been expecting it, Tsien found herself mildly awed to find herself in such a presence. The doctor of philosophy who had made such an impression on her at university in his discourses on reason and imperviousness of reality to human passions, and the political science professor who had held off-campus debates at his home in which students debated things like a social order based on individual freedom and merit, would probably have scoffed at such acquiescence to tradition. But reactions cultivated through years of cultural exposure and social pressures couldn't be forgotten entirely. Tsien enjoyed meeting visitors from the West. Life there sounded interestingly different in many ways—challenging and stimulating in some; uncertain and insecure in others. She hoped to live there one day. The experience would be an invaluable complement to the form of upbringing she had known. The result would surely be to shape a more complete and fully aware, all-round person.

A woman in Air Force uniform, who had been following events at an adjacent console, looked up at Piao. "We have something coming up here via the backup system, General," she said. Piao moved over to join her, with Ziaping stumping testily behind. By edging a little closer, Tsien was able to get a glimpse of the text appearing on the screen. It read:

Dear Friend,

My name is Ido Mayanga, and I am Financial Operations Controller of the First National Bank of Nigeria. You have been referred to me as a trustworthy person who might be able to help in a most important matter. I urgently need to move $10,000,000 (TEN MILLION US DOLLARS) currently held in a private account that is threatened with confiscation by unscrupulous and illegal agencies..."

Premier Neng had also come forward to see. He took in the first couple of lines, stared nonplused for several seconds, and looked around for an explanation. Xen Lu Jiang, the scientific advisor, seized his opportunity to address the Chief of Staff. "Field Marshal Ziaping, the systems coordinator who was recommended from the Strategic Technical Directorate is here as commanded: Specialist Tsien-Tsu."

Ziaping turned to look her up and down. His expression didn't conceal a trace of disdain. She lowered her eyes and inclined her head demurely as protocol required. "We've been trying to contact the head of the design group," Ziaping informed her. "But either his phone is not working, or he's not answering. I'm told you know something about the system here."

"I was involved in formulating the original conceptual approach, and contributed to producing some of the implementation and proving software," she replied.

Ziaping made a contemptuous gesture, indicating the chaos around them. "Nothing works. It hasn't managed to get a single thing off the ground. Nobody can make sense of anything. What do you have to say?"

Tsien looked up but stopped short of meeting his gaze confrontationally. "Honorable sir, some of us tried from the beginning to advise against the adoption of technical procedures modeled on decadent Western methods. Their concern is always for immediate returns and considerations only, with no provision for the longer term. My surmise would be that the inevitable consequences of such practices are now manifesting themselves."

Ziaping glowered from side to side with a look that would have stopped an attacking lion dog. "Did you all hear that? They gave good advice. Who overrode them?"

Heads turned toward one another uncertainly. Nobody was going to volunteer this one. Xen Lu Jiang looked inquiringly at a woman in a gray business suit who seemed to be a secretary or assistant. "I, er... think it might have been Director Wou-Pang Lee," she offered hesitantly. Ziaping jerked his head around to confront General Piao.

"If you remember, sir, he was removed to Mongolia some time ago," Piao responded.

Premier Neng raised his hands protectively, evidently having heard enough. "This isn't the time to be thinking about recriminations," he declared. "We have more pressing concerns to attend to. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Of course, Excellency," Xen Lu Jiang acknowledged. Ziaping conceded with a dip of his head. Only Tsien continued holding the premier's eye. The appeal written across her face conveyed an urgent desire to say something.

"Yes, what is it?" Neng asked her. "You may speak."

"Your Excellency, the honorable member of the security cabinet was saying it when I arrived," she replied, glancing at Xen Lu Jiang. "We have been powerless for almost an hour, yet there has been no move by the other side to exploit the situation. Why isn't the sky black with incoming American warheads?"

Chinese strategic planning took little stock of trying to keep a General Launch order secret, since such an event would hardly be something that could be concealed. Even if the American warning system of satellites and radars failed by some miracle to detect the physical evidence, the whole business was so ridden with spies, bugs, communications taps, and informers, and so many people would be involved, that the news would probably have found its way to Washington before the first missile entered U.S. air space. Yet they hadn't retaliated. Such had been the panic around the War Room that it seemed only Tsien and the scientific adviser had seen it.

"They must know that we are defenseless," Xen-Lu Jiang said, making the point.

Ziaping shook his head. The mental momentum that he had accumulated was too much for any abrupt change of direction. "They know they have us cold, yet they do nothing? They have the chance to take out a billion people? Why wouldn't anyone in their right mind go for it?" Baffled looks went this way and that around the War Room. Premier Neng looked from one to another of the faces. None of the generals or ministers of state had a suggestion to offer.

Tsien cast her eyes around and bit her lip hesitantly. When the silence persisted for several more seconds, she said, "Maybe they are trying to tell us something."

Xen Lu Jiang looked shocked and opened his mouth to speak, but Premier Neng stayed him with a wave of his hand. "Hear the young lady." He looked at Tsien curiously. "Trying to tell us what?"

Tsien took a deep breath. "The situation reminds me of a philosophical problem that I was once required to study," she replied. "It demonstrates how seeming antagonists can both prosper more from cooperating instead of seeking to destroy each other."

Neng's eyebrows arched upward in surprise. He looked around his retinue of officers and advisers again, but they seemed equally puzzled. "What an extraordinary notion!" His gaze came back to Tsien, betraying a hint of amusement. "Do tell us more," he invited.

There could be no going back or extricating herself now. Tsien swallowed and nodded timorously. "If it pleases Your Excellency, the problem is one known among logicians and students of human behavior as the Prisoner's Dilemma. As originally formulated, it describes two suspected accomplices in a crime who are arrested and questioned separately. Each is given the following offer, and is made aware that the other has been told the same. He can betray the other by confessing in return for a reduced sentence. But if both confess, each confession is less valuable and the sentences will be harsher. However, if they cooperate with each other by refusing to confess, the prosecutor will only be able to convict them on a minor charge." She paused to let everyone think about it. Ziaping had a look on his face that seemed to be asking, What does this have to do with anything? Tsien explained, "If there is no trust between them, it is to both their immediate advantage to confess and betray the other first. However, they would both fare better if they did trust each other and were resolute in refusing to confess.... But it requires equal nerve and reasoning ability in both of them to arrive at that conclusion."

Neng's brow furrowed. "Do you really believe the Americans would expect anyone to read it that way?"

"I cannot say," Tsien answered. "But the notion of Chinese wisdom does have a strange mystique in the West...." She took a moment to choose her words in a way that would avoid sounding disrespectful, while at the same time remaining pointed. "Perhaps, by some quirk of fate, an opportunity has presented itself for our esteemed and honorable leadership to extricate the country from the predicament that it is at this moment facing." Which was as near as she dared come to saying that the West could wipe them out as soon as it got tired of waiting for them to catch on.

Ziaping's suddenly stunned look, and the deflation of his posture, said that this time even he had gotten the message. An expression of slowly intensifying horror was creeping across General Piao's face as the full meaning of the predicament that Tsien was talking about seeped in. Somebody to the side began gibbering incoherently, while others in the room looked apprehensively up at the roof as if expecting it to vaporize at any instant.

"Perhaps our decision to assume the offensive was a little hasty, after all," Xen Lu Jiang said, licking his lips dryly and directing the words at Neng. His face creased into a toothy grimace that seemed to be the closest it could manage to a smile.

Tsien amplified the point. "This administration could go down in history as one led by the greatest philosophers and statesmen that China has ever produced," she said. "Architects of a new world dedicated to peace and prosperity."

All of a sudden the prospect seemed to have more appeal to Neng than having gone down or up, as the case may be, as a great war leader. "Dare we compromise and risk being seen as backing down now?" he asked, looking at Xen-Lu Jiang.

"Dare we?" the scientific advisor echoed. "The girl is right, Excellency. What other choice do we have? Go for it."

Neng looked across at the Communications director, manning a console beneath the main wall display. "Open the Hot Line to Washington," he instructed.

****

From the privacy of his office on the penthouse floor in the headquarters of Multimex Systems and Integration Inc. in Maryland, Alex Sullivan sat before the screen still connected to the War Room. A very different mood had taken hold there. Nobody was talking about facing down black-hats or standing tall anymore. President Byrne stood in the middle of the floor among the rows of consoles and panels, wearing the sick look of a boxer who had just learned that the champ who was supposed to throw the fight was reneging on the deal. The figures around him had expressions that varied from stupor through consternation to the kind of disbelieving, frozen look that accompanies an unexpected wet fart.

Elias Maude, the former evangelical Defense secretary, was the first to recover. He looked down to brush an imaginary wrinkle from his suit, then turned his head and eyed Byrne uncertainly. "It, er, occurs to me that perhaps aggression isn't in keeping with the kind of Christian tradition that we should be upholding," he said. "Our duty is to be compassionate and tolerant, and spread the Word." To one side, Professor Orst, the scientific adviser, emitted a visible sigh of relief.

Vice President Halle picked up the theme. "It would be good for corporate America, too, Mr. President. There's no need to send the other guy down. We've always welcomed and thrived on honest, healthy competition."

"For the good of the American people," Oskar Eissensatt of the Pentagon endorsed, from where he was standing next to Orst.

A light of sudden hope had come into Byrne's eyes. He swung his head around questioningly toward Craig. The general nodded emphatically.

"I've always said that the Chinese threat was exaggerated. This kind of overkill isn't necessary. And it violates the principles of honor, magnanimity, and fair play that have always constituted the hallmark of the United States military."

Byrne shifted his gaze jerkily from one to another. "The President should be a Lawman and a Peacekeeper. That's what you're telling me, right?"

"Blessed are the peacemakers," Maude intoned.

"Our policy has always been Rule of Law," The VP agreed.

"Deterrence is the purpose of strength," General Craig affirmed.

Byrne drew himself up into a posture of a man feeling back in control. "Open the Hot Line to Beijing. Get me the Premier, what's his name?..."

"Neng," an aide muttered.

"Neng."

The atmosphere of a new lease on life spread across the War Room like air freshener. Everywhere, figures were mopping brows and exchanging relieved looks, while the controller at the communications desk turned to his panel and began entering commands. Then, as Byrne began moving toward him in anticipation, he sat back in his seat suddenly with a surprised look.

"What is it?" Byrne asked.

The controller gestured at the screen. "There's already a call coming in the other way, from them."

General Filbert moved into the viewing angle of the screen, stopped suddenly, and turned to stare at the camera. "An unauthorized person is still connected through on that channel," he said to someone off screen. "Kill it." Moments later, the screen in Alex Sullivan's office blanked out.

Alex smiled to himself, leaned back in his chair, and stretched long and luxuriously while the accumulated effects of the last half hour dissipated. He hadn't realized how much the tension had affected him. His limbs felt as if they had been released from lead weights. He picked up the untouched cup of coffee that he had set down when he came in, and tried a sip. It had gone cold and insipid, but the taste triggered an urgent need for caffeine. He half rose to get a refill from the pot in the outer office, but on second thoughts lowered himself back into the chair and leaned forward to the keyboard. There was one more thing to do first....

****

Back at her section in the Defense Ministry building, Tsien-Tsu checked for any urgent messages that might have come in while she was away, then took a moment to relax and compose herself. As the strain that she had been under gradually abated, her breathing eased, and the pattering in her chest returned to normal. She opened her eyes, and a tired but happy smile came over her face. Incredibly, it had worked!

She pulled the keyboard closer and entered the code to unlock and reactivate the screen that she had been using when the two officers arrived to take her to the War Room. She'd just had time to confirm command initiation on receipt of the incoming code Murphy before hastily hiding it and having to leave. Murphy was still there, glowing in red at the bottom of the displayed exchanges.

Two years ago, when she and her friends met the visiting Americans at the cultural exchange weekend organized for young computer people, she wouldn't have believed it possible. But the kids had all agreed that the business of international affairs was getting too serious to be entrusted to the likes of politicians and generals. And what had started out as a crazy joke by the lean, laughing-eyed American with fair hair at the party they all ended up at on the Saturday night, had, piece by piece, transformed itself into a reality.... Except that now she knew him better, Tsien was not so sure it had been a joke at all. He had a strange charisma that inspired and motivated people.

As she watched absently, absorbed in her thoughts, the icon that indicated another incoming request started flashing. Tsien touched a key to accept, and a new line appeared, accompanied by the same originating identifier as the one attached to Murphy. It read:

Operation Defuse completed 100 percent. Nice work, guys.

Tsien-Tsu clapped her hands softly in silent elation. She had to admit there had been moments when she'd found herself wondering, but there were no doubts now. Their wedding would take place after all. And she would have her chance to live in the inscrutable West, and look forward to getting to know him even more over the years. The older generation, with all its talk of wisdom and experience, had had its chance to build and shape a livable world—and look what the result had been! It was up to the young people, now, to take charge of the one that would be theirs.

****

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The Lord-Protector's Daughter

Written by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Illustrated by Emily Tolson

The sound of Mykella's boots echoed dully as she descended the stone staircase to the lowest level of the Lord-Protector's palace. When she reached the small foyer at the bottom, she paused and glanced around. The ancient light-torch in its bronze wall bracket illuminated the precisely cut stones of the wall and floor with the same tired amber light as it always had—so far as she could remember.

Why was she down in the seldom-visited depths? Had it just been a dream? Had she actually seen the gauzy-winged and shimmering figure no larger than a child—though full-figured—who had appeared at the foot of her bed. The soarer had touched her. A tingle had run through her body, and then the soarer had "spoken" to her . . . and vanished, but those few words echoed in Mykella's thoughts.

If you would save your land and your world, go to the Table and find your talent.

Could that figure have really been a soarer—one of the Ancients? She'd heard tales of people seeing soarers, but whenever the Southern Guard or the city patrollers tried to track down someone who had been rumored to have seen them, the reports turned out to be groundless.

Mykella sniffed. Rumors and tales, tales and rumors. Golds were far more reliable in predicting what folk did and did not do. That, she had learned in her informal oversight of the Finance Ministry for her father. Still, she thought she had seen and heard a soarer, and family lore had held that the legendary Mykel, the first Lord-Protector, had been directed to Tempre by a soarer after the Great Cataclysm. Almost for that reason alone, Mykella had thrown on tunic, trousers, and boots and slipped out of her chamber. The guards patrolling the corridor outside the family quarters had only nodded, whatever they might have thought.

She looked through the archway separating the staircase foyer from the long, subterranean hallway that extended the entire length of the palace. The dimly lit passageway was empty, as it should have been. While the ground-level door to the staircase she had just descended was always locked and guarded, as the Lord-Protector's daughter, she had the keys to all the locks, and no guard would dare refuse her entry to any chamber in the palace itself. She'd never quite figured out the reason for the boxlike design of the Lord-Protector's palace, with all the rooms set along the corridors that formed an interior rectangle on each level. The upper level remained reserved for the family and the official studies of the highest ministers of Lanachrona; but there was only one main staircase, of graystone, and certainly undeserving of the appellation "grand staircase," only one modest great dining chamber, and but a single long and narrow ballroom, not that she cared for dancing. More intriguing were the facts that the stones of the outer walls looked as if they had been cut and quarried but a few years earlier and that there were no chambers truly befitting the ruler of Lanachrona.

Mykella walked briskly down the underground corridor toward the door set in the middle of the wall closest to the outside foundation. Once there, she stopped and studied it, as if for the first time. The door itself was of ancient oak, with an antique lever handle. Yet that lever, old as it had to be, seemed newer than the hinges. The stones of the door casement were also of a shade just slightly darker than the stones of the corridor wall. Several of the stones bordering the casement were also darker, almost as if they and the casement had been partly replaced in the past.

After a moment, Mykella tossed her head impatiently, hardly disarranging short-cut black locks, then reached out and depressed the lever. The hinges creaked slightly as she pushed the door open, and she made a mental note to tell the steward. Doors in the Lord-Protector's palace should not squeak. That was unacceptable.

At first glance, the Table chamber looked as it always had, a windowless stone-walled space some five yards by seven, without furnishings except for a single black wooden chest and the Table itself—a block of blackish stone set into the floor, whose flat and mirrored surface was level with her waist—or perhaps slightly higher, she had to admit, if only to herself. She was the shortest of the Lord-Protector's offspring, even if she did happen to be the eldest. But she was a daughter and not a son, a daughter most likely to be married off to some heir or another, most probably the Landarch-heir of Deforya, a cold and dark land, she'd heard, scoured by chill winds sweeping down from the Aerlal Plateau. She only seen the Plateau once, from more than thirty vingts away while accompanying her father on an inspection trip of the upper reaches of the River Vedra. Yet even from that distance, the Plateau's sheer stone sides had towered into the clouds that enshrouded its seldom-glimpsed top.

Her thoughts of the Plateau and Deforya dropped away as she realized that there was another source of illumination in the chamber besides the dim glow of the ancient light-torches. From the Table itself oozed a faint purplish hue. Or did it?

Mykella blinked.

The massive stone block returned to the lifeless darkness she'd always seen before on the infrequent occasions when she had accompanied her father or her brother Jeraxylt to see the Table.

"Because it is part of our heritage," had invariably been what her father had said when she had asked the purpose of beholding a block of stone that had done nothing but squat in the dimness for generations.

Jeraxylt had been more forthright. "I'm going to be the one who masters the Table. That's what you have to do if you want to be a real Lord-Protector." Needless to say, Jeraxylt hadn't said those words anywhere near their father, not when no Lord-Protector in generations had been able to fathom the Table.

Mykella doubted that anyone had done so since the Cataclysm, even the great Mykel, but she wasn't about to say so. Before the Cataclysm, the Alectors and even the great Mykel had been reputed to be able to travel from Table to Table. Another folktale and fanciful fable, thought Mykella. Or wishful thinking. No one could travel instantly from one place to another.

Yet . . . once more, the Table glowed purple, and she stared at it. But when she did, the glow vanished. She looked away, and then back. There was no glow . . . or was there?

She studied the Table once again, but her eyes saw only dark stone. Yet she could feel or sense purple. Abruptly, she realized that the purplish light was strangely like the soarer's words, perceived inside her head in some fashion rather than through her eyes.

What did it mean? How could sensing a purple light that wasn't there save her land? How could that be a talent? If the soarer had not been a dream, if she had appeared, why had she appeared to Mykella and not to her father or to Jeraxylt?

Slowly, she walked around the Table, looking at it intently, yet also trying to feel or sense what might be there, all too conscious that she was in the lowest level of the palace in the middle of the night—and alone.

At the western end of the Table, she could feel something, but it was as though what she sensed lay within the stone of the Table. She stopped, turned, and extended her fingers, too short and stubby for a Lord-Protector's daughter, to touch the stone. Was it warmer? She walked to the wall and touched it, then nodded.

After a moment, she moved back to the Table, where she peered at the mirrorlike black surface, trying to feel or sense more of what might lie beneath. For a moment, all she saw in the dimness was her own image—black hair, broad forehead, green eyes, straight nose, shoulders too broad for a woman her size. At least, she had fair clear skin.

Even as she watched, her reflection faded, and the silvery black gave way to swirling silvery-white mists. Then, an image appeared in the center of the mists—that of a man, except no man she had ever seen. He had skin as white as the infrequent snows that fell on Tempre, eyes of brilliant and piercing violet, and short-cut jet-black hair.

He looked up from the Table at Mykella as though she were the lowest of the palace drudges. He spoke, if words in her mind could be called speech. She understood not a single word or phrase, yet she felt that she should, as though he were speaking words she knew in an unfamiliar cadence and with an accent she did not recognize. He paused, and a cruel smile crossed his narrow lips. She did understand the last words he uttered before the swirling mists replaced his image.

". . . useless except as cattle to build lifeforce."

Cattle? He was calling her a cow? Mykella seethed, and the Table mists swirled more violently.

The Table could allow people to talk across distances? Why had no one mentioned that? There was nothing of that in the archives. And where was he? Certainly not within the sunken ruins of Elcien. Could he be in far Alustre, so far to the east that even with the eternal ancient roads of Corus few traders made that journey, and fewer still returned?

Alustre? What was Alustre like?

The swirling mists subsided into a moving border around a circular image—that of a city of white buildings, viewed from a height. Mykella swallowed, and the scene vanished. After a moment, so did the mists.

The strange man—could he have been an Alector? Hadn't they all perished in the Cataclysm? Mykella didn't know what to think. Still . . . she had thought of Alustre and something had appeared. Could she view people?

She concentrated on her father. The mirror surface turned into a swirl of mists, revealing in the center Lord Feranyt lying on the wide bed of the Lord-Protector, looking upward, his eyes open. Beside him, asleep, lay Erayna, his mistress. After the death of Mykella's mother, her father had refused to marry again, claiming that to do so would merely cause more problems.

Mykella felt strange looking at her father, clearly visible in darkness, and she turned her thoughts to Jeraxylt. Her brother was not asleep, nor was he alone. Mykella quickly thought about their summerhouse in the hills to the northeast of Tempre. The mist swirled, and then an image of white columns appeared, barely visible in the dark.

She tried calling up images of places in Tempre, and those also appeared. So did an image when she thought of Dereka, and she viewed the city squares in Vyan and Krost, but even the mists vanished when she tried to see Soupat or Lyterna. Finally, she stepped back from the Table. It still glowed with the unworldly purple sheen, but she could now distinguish between what she saw with her eyes and what she sensed.

She shivered. Telling herself that it was merely the chill from the cold stone of the lower levels, she eased back out of the Table chamber, carefully closing the door behind her.

Once she had climbed the two flights of stairs and returned to her own simple room, Mykella sat on the edge of the bed. What had really happened?

Mykella hadn't thought she would sleep, not with all the questions running through her head, but she had. She even overslept and had to hurry in getting washed up on Duadi morning. Dressing wasn't a problem for her, not the way it was for her two younger sisters, particularly Salyna. Mykella just wore black nightsilk trousers and tunic over the full-shouldered black nightsilk camisole and the matching underdrawers, with polished black boots. Her father insisted on those undergarments whenever they were to leave the palace, and it was simpler to wear them all the time. It seemed almost a pity that few ever saw them, and most of those who did would not have recognized them for what they were, since they cost more than a season's earnings for a crafter. Soft and smooth as they were to the touch, they could stop any blade or even a bullet, although a bullet impact would leave a widely bruised area of flesh beneath.

More than a few had tried and failed to learn the herders' secrets, but now few tried, especially since the Iron Valleys were so cold and forbidding and their militiamen were vicious fighters. What was the point of fighting and losing golds and men when the only thing of value was nightsilk that was cheaper to buy than to fight battles over?

Mykella hurried down the corridor and tried to ease into the breakfast room of the family quarters through the service pantry.

Feranyt looked up from the head of the table, polished dark oak that had endured many Lords-Protector and their families. "Mykella . . . I had wondered when you would join us, especially when I heard you had gone prowling through the lower levels of the palace last night."

Mykella managed a rueful smile as she took her place on the left side of the table—the place that had once been her mother's. "I couldn't sleep. I knew I could walk around down there safely—and quietly." She looked directly across the table at Jeraxylt, seated to her father's right. "There were others who weren't exactly quiet or sleeping, either."

Jeraxylt smiled lazily, even white teeth standing out against his tanned face and the dark blue uniform of the Southern Guard, then shrugged. "I got a very good night's sleep."

Mykella lifted the mug of already-cooled tea. Jeraxylt wasn't about to admit anything, and her father certainly wouldn't press his son, not when they'd both been engaged in a similar fashion. She took a slow sip of the cool tea and waited to be served.

"You look good in that uniform." Salyna smiled at her older brother. "The seltyrs' daughters and the High Factors' daughters think so, too."

"How would you know, little vixen?" Jeraxylt grinned at his youngest sister.

"I'm a girl, silly brother. I know."

Rachylana raised her left eyebrow. Lifting a single eyebrow was one of the skills Rachylana had pursued, as if such unusual talents were required of a middle daughter.

Jeraxylt ignored the gesture.

"What are you doing today?" Mykella asked. "Playing Cadmian again?"

"I'm not playing. I'm going through all the training a Southern Guard gets."

"Father won't let you serve, not in a combat position, anyway." Mykella eased her head sideways to let the serving girl—Muergya on that morning—set a platter with an omelet and ham strips, along with candied prickle, before her.

"Lord-Protectors don't serve. They command."

"Didn't Mykel the Great serve?" Mykella asked innocently.

"That was different. Besides, we don't know that. He probably just had the scriveners write the history that way," replied Jeraxylt.

"Be careful how you speak of history, Jeraxylt," cautioned the Lord-Protector. "You are the heir and will be Lord-Protector because of that history. Disparage it, and your disparage your own future."

"Lord-Protector . . ." Rachylana looked to her father. "Why don't you just call yourself Landarch or prince? That's what you are, Father, aren't you?"

Feranyt offered his middle daughter a patronizing smile. "Rachylana . . . names and titles carry meaning. The words 'Lord-Protector' tell our people that our duty is to protect them. A Landarch or a prince rules first and protects second, if at all."

Mykella caught the hint of a frown that crossed Jeraxylt's brow. The fleeting expression bothered her, as did a feeling, one that was not hers, yet that she had felt. That feeling had combined pride, arrogance, and a certain disdain.

After hurriedly eating the undercooked omelet and greasy ham, and gulping down the candied prickle because she knew she needed to, Mykella stayed at the breakfast table only until her father rose. Then she departed, washing up slightly before making her way to Finance chambers on the east end of the palace—still on the upper level.

Kiedryn was already at his table desk in the outer chamber, and the door to the smaller study that belonged to Joramyl, as Finance Minister, was closed, not that Mykella expected Joramyl to appear anytime soon.

Mykella glanced at the white-haired chief clerk. If anyone would know what the soarer had meant, Kiedryn might. He'd claimed to have read every page in the archives.

"Do you know if the Mykel the Great had a special talent?" she finally asked, standing beside the smaller table that was hers. "Do the archives say anything about that?"

"He had many," replied Kiedryn. "He could kill men without touching them. He could walk on water and even on the air itself. He could disappear from sight whenever he wished. He brought an army through the steam and heat when the River Vedra boiled out of its banks during the Great Cataclysm. He was called the Dagger of the Ancients because he cut anyone or anything that stood in his way. He married Rachyla because she was the only one who could stand up to him."

"Do you believe all that?"

"Mostly," replied the chief clerk. "No one with less ability could have created Lanachrona out of the chaos that followed the Cataclysm. The western lands are still mired in chaos, with all their little lordlets and the seltyrs of Southgate playing them off against one another, and the situation with the nomads to the southeast is even worse . . . and always has been."

"But you didn't say he had a talent, one talent."

Kiedryn laughed sardonically. "You didn't ask it that way. Talent—that's what they say that the nightsheep herders have up in the Iron Valleys. Maybe Mykel had it, and maybe he didn't. The archives don't say." He shook his head, almost mournfully. "You'd have to have something like that to handle those beasts."

Mykella bit back the reply she might have made. Why couldn't anyone just answer her questions? Rather than upset Kiedryn, and to no avail, she settled at the table and began to look over the latest entries in the master ledger. When she reached the end of the third page, she frowned.

Then she stood and walked to the rows of individual account ledgers set on the dark wooden shelves built into the inner wall, picking out one and taking it back to her table desk. After studying the second ledger for a time, she turned to the chief clerk.

"Kiedryn? The barge tariffs on shipments from the upper Vedra are down for the harvest season. They're even lower than those for the spring, and spring tariffs are always the lowest."

"Mistress Mykella," replied the chief finance clerk with a shrug, "I cannot say. We did send patrollers to visit all the factors and bargemasters."

"And?"

"They all claimed that they had paid their tariffs, and most of them more than last year. Almost all still had their sealed receipts."

Mykella stiffened. "What did Lord Joramyl say?"

"He claims that some of them must be lying, or that some of the tariff-collectors had pocketed the tariffs. He told your father this last week."

What Kiedryn was not saying was that no one except the Lord-Protector was likely to contradict Joramyl, since he was not only the Finance Minister of Lanachrona, but the only brother of the Lord-Protector as well.

But why had her father said nothing?

Mykella went to the cabinet at the end of those set beyond Kiedryn's table desk and opened it, leafing through the folders there until she found the list of factors. She carried the list back to her table and began to copy names.

III

By Quinti afternoon Mykella had studied the accounts enough to estimate that at least two thousand golds had been siphoned out of the Treasury over the past two seasons, just from the seasonal tariffs on the bargemasters and the seltyrs and High Factors . . . or rather that those golds had never been put into the Treasury after having been collected. But her calculations were only estimates based on past years' collections and various ratios between barge landings and other records—and she might be wrong. Nonetheless, she would have wagered almost anything that more than a few golds that should not have now rested in Joramyl's strongboxes in his westhill mansion, with its high walls and guarded gates. But there was not a shred of hard proof, and she'd been careful to be polite to Joramyl when he had come into the Finance chambers.

She'd been careful as well in not letting Kiedryn know what she had been doing, other than her normal supervision and questioning. The last thing she needed was for the clerk to mention anything to Joramyl.

How could she discover proof? Could the Table show her anything?

It was certainly worth a try.

Late that afternoon, just before the palace guards were relieved by those on evening duty, Mykella carried a stack of ledgers down from the Finance chambers to the door to the lower levels. She could feel the eyes of one of the patrolling guards on her from a good ten yards away. She maintained a resigned expression as she neared the door.

As she stopped short of the door, the guard looked at her directly, and she could sense a feeling of curiosity, a question why the Lord-Protector's daughter was lugging around ledgers by herself.

"These are the personal accounts of the Lord-Protector, but they're several years old. They aren't needed often, but they need to be kept in a safe place, and the older records are stored on the lower level," she explained. "I'll be there a bit because they have to be put in order." She tried to press the need for safety toward the guard.

Abruptly, the man nodded and stepped forward. "Do you need help, Mistress Mykella?"

"If you'd hold these while I unlock the door, I'd appreciate it. These records are only for the Lord-Protector, the Finance Minister, and the head clerk. They'd prefer to keep it that way." She offered a pleasant smile.

She could sense his feelings as she closed and locked the door behind her—too handsome for a Lord-Protector's daughter.

Handsome? That was a word for men, not women. Yet Mykella knew she didn't possess the ravishing beauty of Salyna or the exotic looks of Rachylana. She was moderately good-looking, if less than imposing in stature, but she could think . . . and liked thinking—unlike all too many of the women in her family and in Tempre, where a woman's duty was always to her husband and her sons.

It took Mykella only a few moments to add the ledgers to those in the Finance storeroom, and she was about to leave and lock the chamber when she realized that she sensed something. She whirled toward the door to the corridor, but no one had entered, and she heard nothing except the sound of her own breathing. Her eyes traversed the rows of simple wooden shelves that held the older ledgers, covered in a fine layer of dust. The shelves had been built against the stone walls, and there was nowhere to hide.

She frowned. It felt as though someone had been in the chamber, but how could she sense that? She looked at the ledgers to the left of those she had added. The dust was gone from one of the ledgers—and she realized that one volume was missing. Since the black leather binding and spine did not reveal the contents, she had to look through three others before she determined that the missing volume held, not surprisingly, the details of barge tariffs from five years previously.

A chill ran down her spine. She shook her head, then stepped back and left the chamber, locking it behind her. She crossed the corridor and walked back toward the Table chamber, where she entered cautiously, although she felt that no one was around. The chamber was empty, and the Table looked the same—dull dark stone with a mirrored surface, but she could sense more easily the purplish glow. This time, though, the purple felt almost unclean. She could also sense, somewhere beneath and below that purple, a far stronger and deeper shade, what she could only have called a blackish green.

Were the two linked? How? She tried to see or sense more, but could discern only the two separate shades—one superficial and linked to the Table and the other deeper and somehow beneath it, trailing off into the earth.

She finally stepped up to the Table and slipped a sheet of paper out from her tunic, concentrating on the first name on her list—Seltyr and High Factor Almardyn. All that the Table showed were swirling mists. The same thing happened when she tried Barsytan, only a High Factor, and then Burclytt. Had she just imagined that she had been able to see people in its mirrored surface? She concentrated on Rachylana.

The mists barely appeared and swirled before revealing Rachylana. She sat on a stone bench in the solarium on the upper southeastern corner of the palace. Beside her, with his arm around her, was Berenyt–Joramyl's only surviving offspring—for now, at least.

Mykella shook her head. Cousin or not, Berenyt would flirt with anyone, even the Lord-Protector's daughter. After what Mykella had discovered, she had to question whether Berenyt's flirtation with Rachylana was merely his nature . . . or part of something else. Yet Rachylana knew nothing about finances and cared about the workings of the Lord-Protector's government even less.

After a moment, Mykella let the image lapse. She tried the name of another factor, but the Table only showed the mists. She glanced down the list until she found a name she recognized–that of Hasenyt. This time, Table displayed an image of the sharp-featured and graying factor standing at the barge docks just north of the grand piers. Hasenyt gestured to a man in a dark gray vest—a bargemaster, from his garb.

In the end, the Table proved useless for what Mykella had in mind because it would only show what people were doing at the moment when she was looking, and it would only display images of those whom she knew. In addition, except for a handful of the oldest cities on Corus, the Table would not show her anyplace that she had not visited.

That meant she would have to find a way to visit the factors on her list, and that required help. She hated to ask anyone for assistance, but there was no other way, not in Tempre, where a woman, especially a Lord-Protector's daughter, never appeared in public unescorted.

That night, Mykella lay in her bed, looking up at the unadorned ceiling, thinking. What was the darkness below and beneath the purple glow of the Table? Why hadn't she seen it earlier? Why did the purple feel almost unclean and repulsive?

Question after question swirled through her mind. Was Joramyl the one diverting tariff golds? If so, why? Just to line his pockets and pay for his extravagances? Or was he plotting more? And if he were not the one, who could it be?

It would be so much easier if she had the powers that Kiedryn had claimed for Mykel the Great—even being able to move around unseen would be helpful.

From her bed, she absently scanned the wall shelf to the right of her small dressing table, taking in the carved onyx box that had been her mother's and the pair of silver candlesticks, the base of each a miniature replica of eternal greenstone towers that flanked the grand piers. At that moment, she realized that the room was pitch-dark, with the window hangings closed and not a single lamp lit, yet she could discern the shape of every object in her chambers.

Another facet of her talents? Or had she always been able to do that?

That had to be something awakened by the soarer's touch. But why her? She had no real power in Lanachrona. She didn't even have any real influence over her father or her brother.

She shook her head, then smiled wryly in the darkness. Too bad the palace corridors weren't kept that dark.

Mykella was up early on Sexdi and one of the first in the family at breakfast. She had to force herself to wait to ask what she wanted to know until her father was well settled and taking a second mug of spiced tea.

"What was Lord Joramyl like when you were growing up, Father?" Mykella asked, taking a sip of the plain strong tea she preferred to the cider most women drank or the spiced tea her father liked. "He seems so proud and distant now." Arrogant, self-serving, and aloof were what she really thought, but saying so would only have angered her father.

"He's always been proud, but he was always kind to Mother and Lalyna. He'd bring them both special gifts from all the places he served in the Southern Guard. Your aunt's favorites were the perfumes he brought back from Southgate when he was your grandfather's envoy there. She even took the empty bottles when she left for Soupat." He shook his head. "I knew she'd have trouble with the heat there, but Father insisted on it."

"Did you play games together?" Mykella pursued.

Feranyt shook his head. "Joramyl was never one for games. Except for leschec. He got to be so good at it that he beat old Arms-Commander Paetryl. We didn't play it together. He was too serious about it for me."

Mykella could sense that even thinking about Joramyl and leschec bothered her father. "Did you spar with weapons?"

"Father forbid it after I broke Joramyl's wrist. I was better, but Joramyl wouldn't ever quit."

The more her father said, the more concerned Mykella became. It wasn't that his words revealed that much new, but what she had discovered about the missing tariff golds gave a new meaning to her father's childhood memories. "Do you think that he feels he'd be a better Lord-Protector than you?"

"Mykella! How could you ask that?" murmured Rachylana, leaning close to her sister.

"Father?" Mykella kept her voice soft, curious, hard as it was for her.

"I'm sure he does." Feranyt laughed. "Each of us thinks we can do a better job than anyone else, but things turn out the way they do, and usually for good reason."

Mykella couldn't believe what she sensed from her father–a total lack of concern and a dismissal of Joramyl's ambitions.

"Joramyl's passion for detail serves us well, dear, as does yours. I'd like to think that my devotion to doing what is right should be the prime goal of a Lord-Protector. If one does what is right, then one doesn't have to worry about plots and schemes nearly so much." Feranyt smiled broadly. "Besides, you can't please everyone. Joramyl only thinks you can, that ruling is like finance and numbers, that there is but one correct way to approach it. If he were ever Lord-Protector, he'd quickly discover that's not the way it is."

"If anything happened . . . do you think he'd be a good Lord-Protector? As good as you are?" Mykella pressed.

"Probably not, but he'd be far better than anyone else in Tempre, except for Jeraxylt, of course." Feranyt inclined his head toward his son. "But enough of such morbid speculations." He rose. "I need to get ready for a meeting with an envoy from the Iron Valleys. Their council is worried about Reillie incursions from Northian lands."

"What does that have to do with us?" asked Jeraxylt.

"I'm certain I'll find out," replied the Lord-Protector. "They are claiming that the Reillies have been armed with weapons having a Borlan arms mark."

"We sell to whoever pays," Jeraxylt said. "Are they going to demand that we stop selling goods because they can't defend their own borders?"

"I doubt that they will express matters . . . quite so directly, Jeraxylt. Nor should you, outside of the family quarters." Feranyt smiled, then turned and left the breakfast room.

Rachylana quickly followed, as did Jeraxylt.

Salyna looked to Mykella. "You know Rachylana will tell Berenyt everything you said this morning?"

"I hope she has better sense than that." Despite what she said, Mykella knew that Salyna was right. She rose and offered her youngest sister a smile. "What are you doing today?"

"Watching Chatelaine Auralya supervise the kitchens. I'm learning from her. It's more interesting than adding up numbers in ledgers. For me, that is. I don't have your talents."

"We all have different talents," replied Mykella. What else could she say?

"You ride well," Salyna pointed out.

"So do you, better than I."

"I'm not bad with a blade, Jeraxylt says." There was a shyness and diffidence in Salyna's words, but pride beneath them.

"You've been using a sabre?"

"A blunted one," Salyna admitted. "It's fun. I can see why Jeraxylt likes the Guard."

Mykella couldn't imagine sparring with blades as being fun, but she just smiled as she slipped out of the breakfast room. After leaving Salyna, Mykella walked slowly toward the Finance chambers.

Kiedryn was already at work, and Mykella settled herself at her own table, where she began to check the individual current account ledgers. There were no new entries of tariff collections from the bargemasters or the other rivermen. She didn't expect any, since all the accounts were current, and the next collections were not due until after the turn of spring. So she turned her attention to the Southern Guard ledgers.

The accounts there showed a surplus. Mykella frowned. The Guard had not used what had been set aside. In fact, the expenditures were almost one part in ten lower than at the same time in the previous year, and that was with less than half of winter left to run.

At that moment, she heard a hearty voice in the corridor outside the Finance chambers—Berenyt's booming bass.

"Just heading in to see my sire—if he's there. If not, I'll harass old Kiedryn." Berenyt was two years older than Mykella, despite the fact that his father Joramyl was younger than his brother the Lord-Protector. Berenyt had taken a commission as a captain in the Southern Guard and ended up in command of First Company, one of the two charged with guarding the palace and the Lord-Protector.

Mykella couldn't make out to whom Berenyt was speaking, but she could sense that the other was male, and vaguely amused. She was not. After what she'd seen in the Table and what she'd discovered, she didn't want to see him anytime soon, much less talk to him.

"Is Father in?"

"No, ser," replied Kiedryn. "I haven't seen him yet this morning."

Mykella could easily sense what the chief clerk had not said–I've never seen him this early. She tried to visualize herself with the shelves of ledgers between her and Kiedryn . . . and Berenyt.

Berenyt turned in her direction, frowning, and blinking. "Oh . . . there you are, Mykella. For a moment . . ." He shook his head. "You haven't seen Father this morning?"

"We seldom see him in the morning," Mykella replied. "I've always assumed that he had other duties."

"He does indeed."

Behind the words Mykella detected a sense of more than she could possibly understand, mixed with condescension and amusement. She managed a simpering smile, although she felt like gagging, and replied, "He offers much to Lanachrona."

"As does your Father." Berenyt's words were polite enough and sounded warm enough, but the feeling behind them was cool. He turned from Mykella back to Kiedryn. "I'll find him somewhere, but if I don't, please tell him I was here."

"Yes, ser."

Mykella merely nodded, if courteously.

After Berenyt had left, she just sat at her table, not really looking at the ledger before her. For just a moment when he had first looked in her direction, she thought, Berenyt had not really seen her. Had that been her doing? Or his abstraction and interest in other matters? How could she tell?

She really wanted to work more with the Table, but she dared not go down too often because, sooner or later, the guards would reveal how often she was going there, and either Jeraxylt or her father would discover her destination. That would lead to even more questions, and those were questions she dared not answer truthfully–and she detested lying, even though she knew that sometimes it was unavoidable, especially for a woman in Tempre.

The soarer's words kept coming back to her, although she had not seen or sensed the winged Ancient except the one time. Was using the Table her talent? Just to be able to see what was happening elsewhere? And what about her growing ability to sense what others were feeling? Or the sharper sight in the darkness?

That evening after dinner, Mykella sat in the family parlor, a history of Lanachrona in her lap. She'd read some of the parts about Mykel, but there was nothing there about how he had accomplished anything—except a paragraph dismissing the legend that he had been a Dagger of the Ancients. Mykel suspected that dismissal was proof that he had been, but what a Dagger of the Ancients might have been she had no idea. Kiedryn's explanation had conveyed nothing, and her own brief searches of the archives had revealed nothing she did not already know.

Rachylana had not joined them after dinner. She had eaten little at table, claiming she had not felt well. Mykella had sensed the truth of her words and the physical discomfort behind them. Jeraxylt and her father rarely joined them in the evenings, not with their other evening interests. So the youngest and eldest daughters had the parlor to themselves.

Mykella stared at the darkness beyond the window, a darkness broken only by the scattered lights of Tempre, those that could be seen from the second level of the palace and beyond the gardens that surrounded it on all sides—except the hillside to the northeast beyond the walled rear courtyard. She knew that unseen danger surrounded them all, especially her father and brother, not only from the warning of the Ancient, but from what she had begun to sense.

After each of the times she had visited the Table, Mykella felt that she had gained something in what she could feel or sense. Yet . . . how could merely sensing or feeling more than others could save her land? She thought about Berenyt's momentary reaction once more, then glanced to the green velvet settee closest to the fire in the hearth, where Salyna was sitting, working on a needlepoint crest. Finally, she spoke. "Salyna . . . I need your help."

"I'd be happy to, but . . ." Her younger sister's forehead wrinkled up into a puzzled expression. " . . . how could I help you?"

"I just want you to look out the window for a little while, and then look back at me. Take your time looking out the window."

"Look out the window and back at you?"

"Please . . . just do it."

"I can do that." Salyna's words continued to express puzzlement, but she turned and stared out the window.

Mykella concentrated on trying to create an image of the armchair in which she sat—vacant without her in it, the lace doily just slightly disarrayed . . .

"Don't do that!" Salyna's words were low, but intense.

"What did I do?" asked Mykella, releasing the image of the empty chair.

"It . . . it was awful. You weren't there. I knew you had to be . . . but you weren't. What did you do?"

Mykella wished she hadn't tried the shield. "I hid. I did it to see if I could move so quietly that you couldn't see me. What else could I have done?" She could sense Salyna's confusion, as well as her sister's feeling that Mykella couldn't have gone anywhere else.

For a long time, Salyna looked at Mykella without speaking. Finally, she asked, "What's happened to you?"

"Nothing," Mykella replied.

"Don't tell me that. You haven't been the same for the last week. You look at Jeraxylt—when he's not looking—as if he were roasting baby hares alive. You've asked Father more questions this week than in the last year. Now you're practicing hiding, and hiding from me."

"I'm worried," Mykella confessed. "I feel that something's not right, but I can't even say what that might be." That was certainly true, if not quite in the way Salyna would take it.

"Are they talking about marrying you off to that autarch-heir in Deforya?"

"Landarch-heir," Mykella replied. "Not in my hearing."

"You can't stay here, Mykella." Salyna straightened herself on the settee. "What would you do? Who would dare marry you? Father wouldn't let anyone of any status do so, because your sons would have a claim on being Lord-Protector, and he wouldn't accept anyone who didn't have position. You don't have any choice."

Mykella bit back what she might have said. "We'll have to see what happens. Has Father said anything about you?"

"He's said that one of the seltyrs in Southgate has a son."

Mykella couldn't help but wince. Southgate was far worse than Tempre for women.

"They say he's nice." Salyna's voice was level.

Mykella could sense the concern. "I do hope so."

Salyna finished a stitch, then rolled up her needlework. "I can only do this so long before my eyes cross." She yawned, then stood. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night." Mykella closed the history and set the volume on the side table, watching as Salyna left the parlor. She could tell her sister was disturbed.

What could she do? Except for functions like the upcoming season-turn celebration and parade and ball, or the High Factors' ball, or riding with escorts, she was effectively confined to the palace. And when she was out, she was never alone.

Could she use her "disappearing" skill when she took the inside main corridor back to her chambers? Getting past the guards at night should be easier because their post was in the main corridor, well back from the corner of the palace that held the family quarters, and they walked a post between the main staircase and the quarters rather than standing in one place in front of a single door or archway.

Mykella stood and walked to the doorway. How could she do what she had in mind? Sitting in a chair was one thing, but she needed to move. She couldn't keep creating a new image of the hallway without her in it with every step. Could she just create the feel of everything flowing around her as if she were not there?

She moistened her lips and eased the door open. Then she tried to visualize the light from the parlor flowing around her, as if the door had swung open without anyone there. Her vision seemed to dim, but she could sense the doorframe and the open door when she stepped out into the main corridor. One of the guards turned.

She had no idea if he saw her or if the light from the open door had attracted him. She closed the door, and it creaked as she shut it. After a moment, the guard turned away. She moved as quietly as she could, putting down one boot carefully, then the next, walking not toward her chambers, but toward the guards.

". . . thought I saw someone there . . . woman . . ."

The other guard turned in her direction. "There's no one here. Who would be up except for his regal heirness, strutting around in a tailored uniform that would never do in combat, panting after another pretty ass?"

Mykella stopped, hoping the guard would say more.

"He looks good in uniform . . . have to say that."

". . . jealous?"

"Wouldn't you be?"

The other guard snorted. "Just walk the post."

Mykella neared the two, but neither even looked at her, and they turned away. So did she, but by the time she stepped into her chambers, Mykella was breathing heavily. She was so light-headed that she felt as though she had raced up and down the main staircase of the palace a score of times.

But . . . the guards had not seen her. She smiled broadly as she sat on the edge of her bed. Her smile faded as she recalled Salyna's words.

VII

The gray light of a winter Septi morning seeped around the edges of the heavy window hangings. Mykella sat up in her bed. Her chamber, while not excessively chill, was far from comfortable, which was not unexpected since it had neither stove nor hearth.

Thrap.

"Yes?"

"It's Zestela, Mistress."

Mykella wanted to tell the head dresser to go away, but that would only postpone matters. She smiled. Perhaps she could test her skills and give the presumptuous dresser a bit of a shock as well. She slipped from under the covers and took three steps so that she stood against the wall beside the large armoire that held her everyday garments. She shivered at the feel of the cold stone tiles on her bare feet. Even the flannel nightdress didn't help. Still, when Zestela stepped into the chamber, she would not be able to see Mykella at first.

Mykella then twisted the light—that was the only way she could explain it—and called, "You can come in."

"Yes, Mistress."

The door opened, and Zestela bustled in, cradling a long formal gown in her arms and glancing around, seeking Mykella. She frowned as she stepped toward the foot of the bed, then looked back toward the armoire. "Mistress?"

Mykella waited until the dresser looked back toward the door before releasing the sight-shield . . . if that was what it was. "I'm here."

Zestela jumped. "Oh! I didn't see you."

"Sometimes I feel like no one does," replied Mykella dryly.

Rachylana entered the chamber. "No one overlooks you, Mykella."

Mykella ignored her sister's words and turned to the dresser. "What is it?"

"Lady Cheleyza sent this gown. She thought you might find it suitable for the reviewing stand for the season-turn celebration."

Mykella glanced at the drab beige fabric with the pale green lace. She shook her head. "I'd look like a flour sack in that. I'll wear the blue one I wore at the last turn parade."

"But . . ." stuttered the dresser.

Rachylana frowned. "Cheleyza is only being kind, and you have worn the blue before . . . several times."

"People will have seen me in it before. Is that so bad?"

Rachylana and Zestela exchanged glances.

"You can't keep wearing the same blue dress," Rachylana finally said.

"Then," Mykella said, "have the dressmakers make me one just like the blue, except in green, brilliant green. The next time, I'll have something else to wear that looks good on me."

"Yes, Mistress." Zestela bowed and slipped out.

Rachylana stared down at her older sister. "You're being difficult. Salyna said you were in a terrible mood last night, and I can see that hasn't changed."

"Because I don't want to look drab in public? Perhaps you'd do anything for dear Berenyt and his mother, but I do draw the line in some places. I'd rather represent Father, in wearing something that looks good and doesn't cost more golds."

Rachylana just looked at Mykella, then, without a word, turned and left.

Mykella could sense the anger, and she should have managed something far less direct, and only gently cutting, but she'd never been that good at fighting with words and expressions.

The rest of Septi was more routine, and, although conversation at breakfast was more than a little cool, neither Feranyt nor Jeraxylt seemed to notice. After eating, Mykella hurried to the Finance chambers and continued her quiet efforts to check on all the receipts that had been recorded in the past few seasons.

She knew she had to visit the Table chamber again, if only to see if she could learn more about how it worked, but that would have to wait until evening, when she could plead tiredness and retreat to her chambers.

The day dragged, and when she finally reached her chambers after dinner, it felt like torture to sit and wait, but she knew Salyna or Rachylana would come by and ask how she was.

Salyna did, announcing her presence with the lightest of knocks. "Mykella?"

"Yes?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I just need to be alone."

"You don't want company? Sometimes that helps."

"Thank you, Salyna. I appreciate it, but I need to think some things out."

"You're sure you're all right?"

"I'm sure." Mykella couldn't help smiling fondly at her sister's good-hearted concern. "I know where to find you if I need to talk."

"I'll hold you to it."

Mykella waited longer, a good glass, or so she thought, before she snuffed the wall lamp, not that she needed it much anymore at night, except to read, and moved to the door. She could not sense anyone nearby, and she drew her sight-shield around her, eased the door open, then closed it behind her. The guards didn't even look as she slipped along the side of the corridor, down the main staircase, and along the west corridor toward the rear of the palace.

The staircase guard at the rear of the main level posed another problem because he was stationed almost directly before the door she needed to unlock. She thought for a moment, then moved to one of the doors directly in his line of sight. Using one of her master keys, she unlocked the door, then depressed the lever and gave it a gentle push, moving away and hugging the side of the wide hallway. She stopped a good two yards short of the guard and flattened herself against the wall, waiting.

Several moments passed before the guard saw the open door.

"Who goes there?" He took several steps forward, peering through the dimness only faintly illuminated by the light-torches in their bronze wall brackets, not that all of them worked. It was a miracle that so many devices of the Alectors still functioned.

The corridor remained silent. Unseen behind her sight-shield, Mykella eased toward the stairwell door. Behind her, the guard advanced on the open door. Mykella slipped the key into the lock, then opened the staircase door, slipped through it, and closed it, quietly locking it behind her.

She took a long, slow breath before starting down the steps.

When she entered the Table chamber, she had the feeling that something had changed. A purplish mist seemed to rise from the mirrored surface of the Table, and the air even felt heavy and slimy. She wanted to turn and run. She didn't, but instead moved toward the Table.

Before she could even think about what she might wish to see, the swirling mists appeared, followed by the visage of the same Alector she had seen before.

You have returned. Excellent. The violet eyes fixed on her.

"Where are you? In Alustre?" She avoided looking directly at the Alector, sensing that was what he wanted.

Alustre? That would be most unlikely at present. But you are in Tempre, are you not?

"Where else would I be?" Mykella tried to feel what was happening with the Table.

You could use the Table to see all of Corus, and with my help, you could rule it all.

Mykella distrusted those words, even as the wonder of the possibility that mastery of the Table could create that kind of power washed over her.

She glanced up, only to see a pair of misty arms rising from out of the Table itself, arms and hands that began to extend themselves toward her, arms that exuded a cold and purple chill. With absolute certainty, she understood that if those arms ever touched her, she would be dead. Her body might live, but what was Mykella would be dead.

She stepped back, but the arms kept moving toward her. She created a sight-shield between her and the arms. The arms pressed against the shield, pushing it back and forcing Mykella to retreat as more purpleness flowed from the Table into those icy extensions that threatened her.

What could she do? Frantically, she tried to add another layer of sight-shields, only this time trying to make them stronger, welding them together.

She could feel herself being squeezed, pressed against the stone wall, but she could not give in. She had to hold on. Abruptly, the flailing of the arms against the barrier of her shields lessened. Then the arms themselves began to dissipate, fading and collapsing into the Table.

Were it not for the distance, steer, you would be mine.

Yet the unspoken words sounded hollow, and the purplish glow of the Table subsided, dropping until it almost vanished, as if the struggle between the distant Alector and her had exhausted it.

Mykella uttered a single sigh, almost a sob, shuddering as she stood there in the dimness of the Table chamber. She had to get out. She had to leave.

She forced herself to stand there, breathing deeply, waiting until she was no longer shaking or shuddering. Only then did she leave the chamber, making sure that the door was firmly closed behind her before she made her way to the staircase up to the main level. Once she reached the landing, she paused. The guard was back in position, standing less than a yard from the door.

As quietly as she could, she unlocked the door, then, holding the key in her hand, slowly depressed the lever and eased the door ajar, gathering her sight-shield around her. She could squeeze out, but barely, so long as the guard did not turn. Even if he did, he would not see her, but she wanted no attention paid to the lower level and the Table chamber.

She managed to get the door closed, but not locked, before the guard whirled. Mykella froze, standing unseen beside the door.

The guard stared at the closed door. "Not again."

Mykella eased a coin from her wallet and threw it down the corridor. It clinked loudly.

The guard turned, then stepped forward as he caught the glint of silver.

Mykella locked the door, then eased along the side of the hallway. She was exhausted and trembling by the time she reached her chamber, where, after sliding the seldom-used door bolt into place, she just sat dumbly on the edge of her bed.

As she sat there, still shaking, a greenish golden radiance suffused the room, and in its center hovered the Ancient, a winged and perfect version of a feminine figure, if less than the size of a six-year-old girl.

You have done well, child.

Mykella wasn't certain what to say to the Ancient . . . or if she could. She had so many questions, but she knew she could not delay. "Was that an Alector?"

Rather an Ifrit from the latest world they are bleeding of life. You must watch the Table to see that they do not try again, and you must become stronger. You will not take them by surprise again.

"I hardly know what I'm doing," Mykella protested.

You must learn to use your Talent.

"How can I learn with all the plotting and scheming going on here?"

If you learn, then the plotters can do little to you. If you do not, it matters little whether the plotters succeed or fail.

"Give me some useful advice." Not all these general platitudes.

Seek and master the darkness beneath the Table. With that, the Ancient faded and vanished.

Mykella sank onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow, trying to stifle the sound of her sobs and frustration.

VIII

On Decdi morning, nearly three days after her last and nearly deadly encounter with the Alector—or Ifrit—Mykella finally made her way back down to the Table chamber. Continuing her critical review of the ledgers holding the Lord-Protector's accounts had been slow, and less than encouraging, because she saw the same patterns everywhere. There were revenues missing from almost all the accounts, she thought; but any given amount was small, and, again, she had no real proof, only calculations and estimates and comparisons. That lack of real evidence was yet another reason why she had forced herself to revisit the Table, although she was dreading doing so. But the Ancient had been most definite, and Mykella had the feeling that matters were not about to improve by themselves, and greater control of the Table seemed to be the only possible way she could help her father against what appeared to be her uncle's machinations.

Because it was light, the only guards on the main level were posted in the rotunda of the main entrance, although, since it was end day, they took turns walking the halls. With her sight-shield, however, that arrangement was much easier to avoid.

Mykella entered the Table chamber with trepidation, but the Table itself continued to hold a diminished purplish glow, and she released a long sigh as she approached it. Once there, she tried to perceive more than the vague sense of what the Ancient had called the darkness beneath. For a time, all she could feel was the slimelike purpleness, faint as it was.

Then she gained a stronger feeling of the darkness below, deeper and darker and far more extensive than she had sensed before yet carrying a shade of green much like that of the soarer herself. From somewhere, she recalled that to use some properties of the Table, one had to stand on it. Did she dare?

She laughed softly. How could anything more happen if she stood on the block of solid stone? Still . . .

After a time, she climbed onto the Table and looked down at the mirror surface beneath her. The surface reflected everything, and she was more than glad, absently, that she was wearing her usual nightsilk trousers. From where she stood, she tried once more to feel, to connect to the dark greenish black well beneath the Table itself. She pushed away the thought that there couldn't be anything but more rock beneath the stone of the Table, immersing herself in the feeling of that darkness, a darkness that somehow seemed warmer than the purple, though both were chill.

She began to feel pathways—greenish black—extending into the distance in all directions. Was that how Mykel had traveled? She reached for the pathways, feeling herself sinking through the Table, even below it, with chill purpleness and golden greenish black all around her.

Surrounded by solid stone! Cold solid stone . . .

She had to get out. She had to! Mykella forced calm upon herself and concentrated on feeling herself rise upward until she was certain her boots were clear of the Table. Only then did she look down—to discover that her boots were a good third of a yard above the surface of the Table.

That couldn't be!

The sudden drop onto the hard mirrored surface of the Table convinced her that it could be—and had been. She tottered there for a moment, then straightened. Had that been how Mykel had walked on air and water? By reaching out to the darkness beneath the ground?

She almost wanted to scream. She kept learning things, but what she learned—except for being able to conceal herself—didn't seem to provide the sort of skills she needed.

Mykella eased herself off the Table and studied it, just trying to sense everything around it. As she did, she gradually became aware that there were unseen webs or lines everywhere. Ugly pinkish purple lines ran from the Table to the south, to the southwest, and to the northeast, but those lines did not touch the far-more-prevalent blackish green lines that were deeper and broader—stronger, in a sense. When she looked down, she was surprised to sense a greenish black line running from herself into the depths and connecting to the stronger web.

She shook her head. Somehow she was connected to the world, but everyone was, and she couldn't see how that could help—except that she might be able to travel that web, if the old tales were right. But she wasn't ready to run away. Besides, what good would that do except land her someplace else, where she'd be penniless and totally friendless? As a woman of position in Tempre, she was powerless enough, if comfortable, and anywhere else would likely be far worse . . . and far, far less hospitable. And, if she were honest with herself, she wasn't certain she wanted to feel herself sinking through and surrounded by solid cold as chill as ice.

She straightened and looked directly at the Table. At least, she ought to be able to see what Joramyl was doing.

When the swirling mists cleared, she saw Joramyl with three other men in a paneled study. The four seated around a conference table were Joramyl, Berenyt, Arms-Commander Nephryt, and Commander Demyl. Whatever they were discussing was serious enough that there were frowns on most faces. Then Joramyl said something, and both Demyl and Nephryt laughed. After the briefest moment, so did Berenyt.

Try as she might, and as long as she watched, Mykella could not discover more, and after a time, as her head began to ache, she stepped back from the Table.

She still felt like screaming in frustration, but she was too tired . . . and too worried.

Duadi came and went before Mykella saw Jeraxylt again since he'd been off on "maneuvers." Just after breakfast on Tridi morning, she cornered her brother just outside the family breakfast room.

"Have some of the Guard left or been stipended off?"

"How would I know?" Jeraxylt looked past her down the corridor toward the staircase to the main level of the palace.

"You know everything about the Guard," Mykella said gently. "You've told me how many companies and battalions there are . . ."

"The numbers change every week, and every season. There might be a few less now. Some of the companies are understrength." Jeraxylt paused. "I wouldn't know about stipends to ranker guards. I do know that Majer Querlyt petitioned for an early stipend because of deaths in his family. The Arms-Commander granted it. Commander Demyl said that there were reasons to grant it, but they only gave him a half stipend, and if he'd served two more years, it would have been full."

"Was he a good commander?"

"One of the best. He and Undercommander Areyst were the ones who turned back the Ongelyan nomads three years ago, and he hardly lost any men at all. Neither did Areyst."

"Jeraxylt? How would you like to help me?"

"Mykella . . . I am rather . . . involved in my training."

"What I have in mind will certainly not interfere with your training." She offered her most winning smile.

"Whom do you want to meet?" He grinned broadly.

"It's not that kind of help." She didn't need Jeraxylt's assistance in meeting men, not that she'd seen any in the Southern Guard or around the palace who appealed to her. "I need to follow up on some of the tariff collections, and I need an escort."

"Mykella . . ."

"Of course, I could make it known that you've been bedding Majer Allahyr's younger daughter."

"So?"

"Father wouldn't be pleased that you're taking your pleasures with the younger sister of his mistress, nor would he like it known. Besides, you'll get to ride through Tempre in that uniform, and everyone will know who you are and admire you."

"Why don't you ask Arms-Commander Nephryt?"

"My asking him might make matters . . . difficult, because, well . . . I hope you understand. Anyway, the collections don't match up. You don't want to see Father cheated, do you?"

"I don't know . . ."

"Would you like to be cheated when you become Lord-Protector?" she asked. "Would you like to see the cheating continue until you do, then have to be the one to tell everyone that they can't keep doing what they've done for years?"

Jeraxylt thought about that for a moment. "How do you know . . ." He shook his head. "You and your ledgers and figures." Then he cocked his head and smiled.

Mykella could sense what he was feeling—the mix of wanting to show initiative, the appeal of being seen in uniform, and the idea of wanting to call in a future favor from Mykella.

"I can get some of my squad to do it tomorrow afternoon," he said after a moment. "I'll make it a squad exercise. They'll think it's all an excuse, but it's the sort of thing they'd think I'd want to do." Another smile followed. "You do realize . . ."

"That I'll owe you a favor? Yes. But it has to be the same kind—nothing that's improper."

Jeraxylt nodded. "I'll expect the same diligence from you when I'm Lord-Protector."

When he stepped away, she realized that she could sense that her brother also had one of the unseen threads that ran from him into the ground—but his thread was more of a golden brown. Did everyone have such a thread? What did it mean?

After she left the family quarters, Mykella headed toward the Finance chambers for another day of looking at figures and trying not to appear concerned.

Mykella was already mounted, her ledger in the saddlebag, waiting in the cold winter air of early afternoon. She was vaguely surprised at how warm the nightsilk riding jacket was, but she was most comfortable as she studied the rear courtyard of the palace.

That was when Jeraxylt rode in and reined up beside her. "The squad's in front."

"Thank you." She smiled and urged the gelding forward beside her brother's chestnut.

Neither said anything until they were at the head of the column.

"Where do you want to start?" he asked. "At the barge piers or the Grand Piers?"

"Actually, the first place is that of Seltyr Almardyn."

"You said we were visiting tariff-collectors," Jeraxylt murmured, his tone cool.

"No," replied Mykella softly, "I said we needed to check on the tariff collections, and that means visiting those bargemasters and trade factors who paid them."

"They'll just say that they paid . . ."

"They have to have receipts . . . and I'll know if they're accurate."

"You would." The words were under his breath. "Column! Forward!"

Seltyr and High Factor Almardyn's warehouse was less than a block to the south of the Grand Piers, an ancient stone structure of two stories with a series of loading docks on the west side.

Jeraxylt had the squad rein up in front of the front entrance, a simple doorway, though with an ornate marble arch above it. He accompanied Mykella to the door. "You would start with a seltyr."

"He's first on the list."

Clearly, the sound of a squad of guards had alerted someone, because Almardyn himself opened the doorway. His eyes widened as he looked from Jeraxylt to Mykella, and back to Jeraxylt, but he barely paused before saying, "Please come in."

Mykella noted that his lifethread was more of a deeper brown, and somehow . . . frayed.

The two followed him to the study, a small white-plastered chamber with a table desk and wooden file boxes stacked neatly to the right. There, Almardyn turned. "Both the Lord-Protector's heir and daughter at my door . . . I am indeed honored. Might I ask why?"

"It's a bit . . . unusual," Mykella said. "You might know that I oversee the accounts of the Finance Ministry for my father . . ."

"I did not know, but would that all daughters were so dutiful . . ."

Mykella could sense the doubts.

"And I discovered that some figures had been entered incorrectly. It might be that an entire column had been one set of numbers off, but since several of the payment receipts were spoiled, it seemed that the easiest thing to do was to check with those who paid the last tariffs." Mykella did her best to project absolute conviction and assurance, along with a hint of embarrassment about Lord Joramyl.

"What would you like of me?"

"Just a quick look at your receipt for your fall tariff," Mykella said. "I may not have to visit every factor, but since the lists are in alphabetical order . . ."

"I'm the fortunate one. Just a moment." Almardyn turned and lifted one box, then another, opening the third. "Should be on top here. Yes." He turned and extended a heavy oblong card, bordered in the blue of the Lord-Protector. "Here you have it. The seal is quite clear."

"I'm certain it is," Mykella replied. "The fault lies not with you or the tariff-collector." She copied the number into the new ledger she carried, one she had designed to show the discrepancies. Almardyn had paid a good ten golds more than had been entered in the collection ledger. She straightened. "Thank you very much, Seltyr and High Factor. Your diligence and cooperation are much appreciated."

"I'm certain your sire appreciates yours as well," replied Almardyn.

"We do thank you," Mykella said, inclining her head slightly before turning to depart.

Little more was said, until Mykella and Jeraxylt had left the factor's building.

"For all your fine words, he'll still think you're checking to see if he's a thief," murmured Jeraxylt as they walked out to their waiting mounts and Jeraxylt's squad.

"Not after word gets around that everyone's been visited," replied Mykella. "Besides, is anyone going to fault a Lord-Protector for checking on tariff collections once in a while during his reign?"

"It's going to cause problems," predicted her brother.

"I'm sure it will, but it will create more problems if we don't verify that it's happening and how much Father is losing."

"That's the only reason I can see for this."

Out of the twenty-three bargemasters and High Factors Mykella visited, she managed to meet eighteen. With the exception of Hasenyt—the sole factor whom the Lord-Protector and Mykella knew personally—every single one had a receipt for paying more golds than had been entered in the ledger as received, a fact Mykella revealed to no one.

She had to work hard to keep a pleasant expression as they rode back toward the palace. She had no more than reined up outside the gates to the courtyard, about to take her leave of Jeraxylt, when another officer rode toward them. He was blond, of medium height, and muscular. While his face was calm, she could sense the anger.

"Oh, frig . . " muttered Jeraxylt. "I knew this would be trouble. That's Undercommander Areyst."

The Undercommander reined up and looked directly at Jeraxylt. His green eyes conveyed a chill that was not reflected in the tone of the words that followed. "I don't recall authorizing any sort of patrol in Tempre."

Mykella eased her gelding forward, cutting between Jeraxylt and the senior officer. She smiled politely. "Undercommander? Does the Finance Ministry serve the Lord-Protector?"

Areyst turned to her, not that he had a choice. "I beg your pardon, Mistress Mykella?"

"I asked you if the Finance Ministry served the Lord-Protector."

Areyst's thin lips turned up slightly at the corners. "How could I contest that, Mistress?"

"On behalf of the Ministry, I requested an escort to check some tariff records. Perhaps I should have contacted you directly, but was there any harm done by Jeraxylt's arranging the escort for me?" Mykella extended the ledger she carried. "I was cross-checking the entries in this ledger. Would you care to see them?"

"I think not, Mistress. Your word, as is your sire's, is more than enough."

Mykella thought she sensed a grudging admiration from the Undercommander, the third man in the chain of command for the Southern Guard, although his anger had not totally abated. "Thank you, Undercommander. I apologize if I've caused any difficulty; but, as always, I have only the best interests of the Lord-Protector and the people of Tempre at heart, as I know you do." Mykella tried to project true concern, which she felt, because she could sense the basic honesty of Areyst, whom she had only seen previously from a distance, or in passing. She added, "If there is any fault, it must be mine, for I was the one who requested the service. If you find that a fault, please tell the Lord-Protector directly, and let him know that it was my doing. Jeraxylt was only trying to accommodate me."

Areyst smiled faintly, an expression now devoid of bitterness or anger and holding barely veiled amusement. "It might be best if it were logged as a commercial verification patrol. I would request, if further such patrols are needed, Mistress Mykella, that you contact me."

"I would doubt the need anytime in the immediate future, Undercommander, but I will indeed follow your advice." And she would, because she could sense that honesty and loyalty ran all the way through him… and through a lifethread that held a faint green amid a golden brown.

Areyst eased his mount forward slightly and nodded to Jeraxylt. "Your squad will be doing arms practice on foot tomorrow. Riding the stones is hard on mounts."

"Yes, ser."

Only after Areyst had ridden off, eastwardly, in the direction of the Guard compound, did Jeraxylt turn to Mykella. "You owe me double for this."

"I do," she acknowledged demurely. And you owe me far more than you realize.

After the evening meal, at which Feranyt made no mention of patrols, thankfully, Mykella retired to her chambers to study the ledgers. What she had suspected was in fact true. The total discrepancy for the fall tariffs was close to two hundred golds. If the same had been true for the other four seasons, and her estimates suggested that it had been, Joramyl–or someone–had diverted close to a thousand golds from just seventeen factors and bargemasters. Her calculations suggested that other diversions were also taking place, but she was not about to try further excursions without presenting what she had verified to her father.

Then, too, much as she still dreaded it, Mykella knew she needed to follow the soarer's advice about the darkness beneath the Table. Despite her fears, she did need to learn more. So, after it seemed quiet in the family quarters that night, she left her room once more.

This time, she merely waited until the stair guard moved before slipping behind him.

The Table remained as it had, nearly quiescent, but the darkness beneath seemed stronger and closer. Did she want to try to travel those dark webs? Given her father's lack of concern about Joramyl, she might indeed need to escape Tempre.

She stepped up and onto the Table, seeking the green blackness once more. Again, she found herself sinking through and beneath the Table and into the depths beneath. She could not move, and a chill filled her from her bones outward.

Chill? What was so cold?

She tired to reach for an even-more-distant blackness, then began to sense movement, but it was as though she remained suspended and frozen in place while the greenish darkness swept by her. The motion ended. She willed herself to rise and found herself in a different darkness—a mere absence of light—and the biting cold of a raging winter. Somewhere above her, the wind howled. She exhaled, and ice crystals fell from the steam of her instantly frozen breath.

Her entire body was so cold, so tired . . .

She shook her head. Wherever she was, if she didn't leave, she would likely freeze to death in the darkness where she stood. Trying to reach the darkness beneath her was far harder. Her eyes watered, and her tears began to freeze on her cheeks. Even sliding downward seemed to take forever. While she had thought the depths would be warmer, she remained cold, immobile, icy tears frozen in place on her cheeks in the silent depths.

Tempre! She had to reach Tempre. This time, she called up an image of the Table chamber, with her standing before the Table, its purple mist just faintly sensed.

At last, she felt movement.

Later, how much later, she could not tell, she found herself standing before the Tempre Table for a long moment before her legs collapsed, and another darkness enfolded her.

When she woke again, beside the Table, she knew it had to be close to dawn, and it took every bit of strength she had to hold the sight-shield long enough for her to return to her chambers. There, she slumped onto the bed, dragging the quilts around her in an attempt to get warm.

XII

Mykella had hoped to be in the Finance chambers before Kiedryn or Joramyl, but she'd been so tired that she'd nearly slept through breakfast. Her sleep had been anything but peaceful, with nightmares about struggling through a blinding blizzard of black snow, trying to reach . . . something.

Her stomach was roiling, and she knew she couldn't face the day and what she had to do without something to eat, and that meant Kiedryn was already at his table desk when she arrived. Fortunately, as she had expected, Joramyl was nowhere to be seen.

She gathered the ledgers she needed, then wrapped the sight-shield around them, not that Kiedryn more than glanced in her direction as she paused by the door. "I need to get something. I'll be back before long."

The chief clerk merely nodded.

She had to wait outside her father's study for nearly half a glass before Seltyr Porofyr departed, and she could make her way inside. She slid the door bolt behind her.

"We wouldn't be interrupted, anyway, daughter," offered Feranyt.

For a moment, Mykella studied her sire, with her senses, more than with her eyes. His lifethread was almost the same as Jeraxylt's—golden brown—and for the first time she noted that there was a knot of sorts in the thread, as if tiny threads from all over his body merged into that nexus that connected him to the lifethread.

"Perhaps not, ser," replied Mykella after a pause. She laid the ledgers on the corner of the Lord-Protector's desk. "Father . . . I've been worried about your accounts. Receipts have been going down, yet everyone has been saying that times are good. I couldn't track everything, but I did track the fall tariffs of the bargemasters and the High Factors . . ." She went on to explain how she had cross-checked by visiting most of those on the lists and how their sealed receipts uniformly showed greater payments than those shown as received. She used each ledger to point out the exact differences. ". . . and since we don't use tariff farmers the way they do in some places, the numbers should agree, but they don't. Someone has diverted or pocketed nearly a thousand golds this year—"

"You only know about two hundred for certain."

"I can only prove two hundred at the moment. The ledgers suggest a thousand."

"We can only go with proof, daughter."

Why couldn't her father see? Why wouldn't he?

"Mykella . . . you've been diligent and thoughtful, and I appreciate what you've let me know. Corruption is always a problem, because there aren't enough golds to sate all men's appetites." He looked at his daughter more closely. "You're exhausted. You have black circles under your eyes. You shouldn't have pushed yourself so hard."

"Father . . . I don't see how this could have happened without Lord Joramyl knowing something about it."

Feranyt laughed, ironically. "Just how often does he even come into the Finance chambers? I suspect that you and Kiedryn do most of the work, after the entry clerks take in the papers and order the entries."

Mykella was tired, if not for the reasons her father had suggested.

"Dear child . . . I am the Lord-Protector, and you'll have to trust me to handle it. It's not something that can be rushed."

"You are the Lord-Protector, Father, and I am your daughter. But please don't think I'm overstating matters."

"Mykella, I understand your concerns for me, but if I rush and handle matters wrongly, things will only be worse." He paused. "I will look into it and do what is necessary."

She could sense that, if she pressed her father, it would do no good, and he would only resist. "That's all I wanted, ser. Do you need the ledgers?"

"Not right now, but keep them safe."

"I can do that." Mykella straightened.

XIII

Mykella had struggled to stay awake the remainder of Quinti, and had slept poorly that night and awakened early on Sexdi. She was walking toward the breakfast room when she saw her father waiting outside. His face was stern, and she could sense concern . . . and sadness. He motioned to her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I said that I would look into what you found out," Feranyt began.

Mykella waited.

"There was a great deal of validity to your findings. So much so that . . . well . . . Kiedryn is dead. He took poison last night, and left a note, saying that he'd stolen far too many golds. He said he was sorry, but he didn't want to disgrace his family. The note pleaded not to make matters public . . ."

Mykella managed not to gape. Kiedryn? He had likely been the only honest one there, besides Mykella herself.

"His family will have to accept exile, of course, but there's no reason to make it public."

"Kiedryn couldn't have . . ." Mykella protested.

Feranyt shrugged sadly. "I know you thought he was honest, but at times appearances are deceiving. I saw the note. Joramyl showed it to me, and we even compared the writing to his. He wrote it, without a doubt."

Under what sort of duress? Mykella swallowed.

"I know this is hard for you, daughter, but that sort of hard truth comes with ruling. Those you trust most are often those who betray that trust."

"But . . . Joramyl?"

"He's been as solid as a rock. His assistant steward will take over until we find a permanent replacement for Kiedryn. I'm counting on you to help him."

"Yes, ser." Mykella felt that her voice was coming from someone else. Why couldn't her father see what was happening? Yet she could sense that trying to convince him that his own brother was behind it all was futile. Speaking against Joramyl would only result in her being unable to do anything . . . not that what she had done had gone as planned.

Feranyt patted her on the shoulder. "I'm counting on you. I need to get ready to meet with that envoy now."

After he continued toward his study, Mykella turned toward the breakfast room, only to find Jeraxylt standing there.

"Father was pleased, you know," offered Jeraxylt. "He said you handled things the way a smart woman should . . . finding out what was happening, you know, and letting him know."

A smart woman? How smart had she been? Poor honest Kiedryn had been poisoned and set up as the guilty party, when Joramyl was the one who'd been diverting the golds—and now matters were even worse because both her brother and her father believed Joramyl, and she had no proof at all who had diverted the golds . . . and no way to obtain it now that everyone was convinced of Kiedryn's guilt.

Mykella barely ate any breakfast, but she did manage a full mug of tea that helped settle her stomach.

Then, girding herself up, she made her way to the Finance chambers.

The man who rose when Mykella entered the outer chamber was barely a span taller than she was, and squat, like a human toad, she thought. He smiled, and from behind the sincere expression flooded insincerity. Even his lifethread seemed snakelike, holding a sickly yellow brown. "Maxymt, at the service of the Lord-Protector."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Maxymt. The Lord-Protector has asked me to make sure you're familiar with the ledgers and accounts."

"Once I've had a chance to become familiar with these, you really won't have to check the ledgers, Mistress. The Lord-Protector's daughter shouldn't be doing a clerk's work." Oiliness coated the insincerity of every word.

"How well do you know the accounts?" she asked. "Could you tell me which ledger holds the receipts from the smallholders?"

Maxymt smiled, showing brilliant white teeth. "I'm certain that won't be hard to determine . . . assuming that Kiedryn was not too . . . creative."

"I'm sure that you will be able to learn," Mykella replied, "but while you are, I'm certain my father would wish me to continue as I have."

"As you wish, Mistress Mykella."

She could sense a most palpable dislike behind the honeyed words. Now what could she do, except try to strengthen those talents awakened by the Ancient? "First, I'll show you the summary ledgers, then the individual account ledgers, and you can go through each one to gain some familiarity."

"Yes, Mistress Mykella."

Almost a glass later, Joramyl hurried into his Finance study, smiling at Maxymt, who was still studying the master ledger, and at Mykella for a moment. Berenyt followed his father, and he did not look at Mykella.

Mykella had to know what they were saying. The moment Maxymt turned his head, she gathered her sight-shield around her and tiptoed to the study door, where she stood, ear against the crack between door and jamb, trying to make out what the two said.

". . . talk about it here . . ."

". . . wanted you to know . . . Mykella's sharper than she looks . . . don't think she'll accept . . . knew Kiedryn too well . . ."

". . . what could she do, Berenyt? The Lord-Protector saw the confession . . . she's just a woman, barely more than a girl. If my brother weren't so sentimental, he'd have long since sent her to Dereka and gotten a pile of golds for her as well . . . what women are for . . . golds and heirs . . . At least, he doesn't listen to her the way he did to her mother. Good thing Aelya died when she did."

Mykella stiffened. There had been something more there, behind the words, and she missed the next phrases.

". . . besides, Feranyt's offsprings' meddling served us well . . . not have to worry about Kiedryn any longer . . . now . . . don't come see me here more than once a week . . . Off with you."

"Yes, ser."

Mykella slipped back to her table and released the sight-shield.

Maxymt started. Then he stared at Mykella. "Where did you come from?"

"Come from? I've been here all along."

"You weren't there a moment ago."

Mykella shook her head. "I haven't left the chamber. You would have heard my boots. Everyone's always said that I walk heavier than some of the guards. I did drop my figuring paper and had to bend down to get it."

"That must be it." Maxymt shook his head.

Mykella could tell that he wasn't totally convinced, but she hadn't been able to hang on to the sight-shield any longer.

Once more, Berenyt didn't look in her direction when he hurried out of his father's study.

XIV

Over the next week, Mykella waited for something to happen, some tragedy or catastrophe, but she could see or sense nothing. Various tariff receipts continued to appear in the ledgers, but now, none showed any discrepancies. To Mykella, that was only proof of Joramyl's cunning, but, again, what could she say? Negotiations proceeded with the envoy from Southgate, and her father mentioned, obliquely, something about an envoy from Deforya.

All she could do was to practice what she had been learning. She had become adept enough with the sight-shield that she could move anywhere unseen. She'd even visited the palace gardens in the dead of night. She'd also traveled from the Table chamber to three others, avoiding the one somewhere in the icy north, but where they were, she had no idea, because all three had been walled shut from the outside. One was chill, and the air seemed thin. Could it have been in Dereka?

She also continued to observe with her life-senses, if that was what they were, and from what she could tell, only her lifethread held that strange combination of black and green, and she had the feeling that the green was becoming more brilliant. But was she just imagining that? Was she imagining everything?.

She observed Joramyl, if intermittently, through the Table. He continued to meet with the Arms-Commander and Commander Demyl, sometimes with Berenyt present, but not always. Outside of the fact that they were plotting, she could tell nothing from what she saw. Berenyt kept flirting with Rachylana, and Rachylana had become ever more distant from Mykella.

Before she knew it, Mykella was in the reviewing stand with her sisters and her father, as the companies of the Southern Guard stationed in Tempre rode past in celebration and recognition of the end of winter and the turn of spring. The small reviewing stand was set at the base of the Grand Piers, equidistant from the green towers at each end. The mounted Guard companies rode northward toward the Piers along the great eternastone highway that split farther to the south, heading west to Hafin and southwest to Southgate, due south to Hyalt and east to Krost and the wine country of Syan. Once the guards reached the reviewing stand, they turned onto the Palace Road, heading due east back to their compound.

When she'd been little, Mykella had once asked her mother why the reviewing stand wasn't before the palace, but Aelya had just smiled, and said, "It's tradition. Tradition is very important. Someday you'll understand how important."

Tradition might well be important, but the day was raw and damp, under heavy gray clouds, and a chill wind blew out of the northeast with such vigor that Mykella wouldn't have been surprised to see snow by the next morning.

Mykella stood to her father's left. Had he not been riding with the Southern Guard, Jeraxylt would have stood to his right. Instead, Lord Joramyl did. To Mykella's left was Cheleyza, Joramyl's second wife, only five years older than Mykella.

"I don't ever get tired of watching the guards," offered Cheleyza. "They ride so well."

And they're all so handsome. That thought was as clear to Mykella as though Cheleyza had shouted it.

"They do ride well," replied Mykella. "Here comes Second Company, and you can see Berenyt there, at the front."

"He rides well, too." Cheleyza paused. "What are you wearing to the ball tonight?"

"Something blue . . . I think. And you?"

"Blue and silver, with a special shimmersilk scarf from Dramur. Joramyl wants me to look my best."

"I'm certain he does." Mykella kept the sarcasm she felt out of her voice. Even so, she could sense Salyna's amusement from behind her.

"He is very particular about the way I look."

"Many husbands are, I've heard."

"You'll find out, dear."

After Second Company came First Company, and Mykella was happy to change the subject by noting, "There's Jeraxylt, leading his squad." She could also see a well-endowed redheaded girl at the end of the reviewing stand, taking a special interest in her brother.

Following First Company were the senior officers of the Southern Guard, followed in turn by the headquarters group. First came Undercommander Areyst, and Mykella sensed both respect and sadness as he bowed his head to the Lord-Protector. Behind him was Commander Demyl, but while the commander looked toward the reviewing stand and bowed his head to the Lord-Protector, Mykella could sense the contempt. Arms-Commander Nephryt merely radiated arrogance.

What could she do? She knew what others were thinking and feeling, and yet she had no proof of anything beyond what she had shown her father, and now, even that proof had been reduced to uselessness by Kiedryn's supposed suicide.

The ballroom was on the southeast corner of the main level of the palace, and had been created centuries before by merging a series of chambers, so that it was long and comparatively narrow, with windows only on the eastern and southern walls. A parquet floor, now ancient, if polished and shining, had been laid over the stone floor tiles, and the wall hangings were of blue and cream. The orchestra was seated on a low platform set against the midpoint of the long inner wall of the ballroom.

Mykella stood at one side of the orchestra, beside Salyna, and only a few yards from where her father and Joramyl chatted amiably. Standing in the receiving line and smiling politely had been more than enough to boil her blood and curdle any thoughts she might have had about the milk of human kindness. Rachylana was already off dancing, and Mykella wished that she were, not that she cared that much for dancing, but the hypocrisy of Joramyl's apparent concern for his brother the Lord-Protector was making Mykella more than a little uncomfortable.

As the orchestra began to play another melody, Undercommander Areyst eased across the space before the platform toward Mykella. He bowed politely. "Might I have this dance, Mistress Mykella?"

"You might." Mykella inclined her head and smiled.

Areyst took her right hand in his left and positioned his left hand at waist level on her back, guiding her gently into the flow of dancers.

"After our last meeting, Mistress Mykella, I've discovered that you're quite good with numbers and ledgers. That is an unusual preoccupation for the daughter of the Lord-Protector."

"Not so unusual as one might think," replied Mykella. "A Lord-Protector's daughter should know her heritage, yet she cannot mingle so freely as a son. From where golds are collected, and in what amounts, and where they are spent and at what frequency can tell a great deal . . . if one knows where and how to look."

"Pray tell, what do they say to you?"

"The Southern Guard is currently understrength. It lacks as many experienced officers as it once had. Supplies such as tack for mounts are more costly than in the past, possibly because of the depredations of the Ongelyan nomads several years back—"

"That was several years ago, though." Areyst guided her past another couple.

"Tack requires leather. Calves take several years to become steers," Mykella pointed out.

"Tell me more."

"Ammunition supplies are down, most probably because gunpowder costs are up, and that is because brimstone has become more costly. I wouldn't be surprised if you or the Commander had considered ordering great care in rifle practice."

"Considered? That is an odd way of putting it."

"If you had actually done so, Jeraxylt would have let it slip. Since you have not, and since you are a prudent officer, I would wager that you have considered it but possibly did not because that might have made the seltyrs of Southgate and the plains nomads more bold. It might also have encouraged the Landarch to request a concession or two."

Areyst laughed. "Would that some of my officers understood so well."

Mykella forbore to comment on that.

"What else might you tell me from your ledgers? About something other than the Guard?"

She could tell he was interested, and not merely patronizing her. "The vineyards in Vyan had a bumper crop last year, and that reduced tariffs . . ."

"Reduced?"

"There were so many grapes that the prices went down, and tariffs are leveled on prices. Not so much as if the crop had failed, but the slight increase in tariffs on raisins showed that the cause was a surplus of grapes."

Areyst looked directly at her. "You could unsettle any man, Mistress Mykella."

"I don't usually speak so, especially to men, Undercommander, but you did ask, and you were interested, and since you were most kind to my brother, I thought you deserved an explanation of sorts."

"Your golds will tell what has occurred. Can they tell what will happen?"

"No more than good judgment and observation," she replied. "Some things are obvious. If tariff collections are lower than in the past, that will mean that expenses must be reduced, or tariffs must be raised. If times are hard, raising tariffs will create unrest and discontent. Yet, if one reduces expenditures, say, for the Southern Guard, that can create another kind of discontent." She smiled. "Would you not agree?"

"That is true if the Guard is required to do as much as before, or more," Areyst acknowledged.

"But when times are hard, there are always more challenges to the Lord-Protector and the Guard."

At the end of that dance, when Areyst escorted her back to her sisters, Mykella could tell that her comments had not so much upset Areyst as put him in a far-more-thoughtful mood than when he had asked her to dance. Strangely, she found that thoughtfulness far more attractive and appealing than a smile or pleasant and meaningless banter would have been.

"You left the Undercommander with a most-serious expression on his face," observed Salyna. "That's not what you wish to do with a man who has no wife. You want to put him at ease."

"He asked some most-serious questions," replied Mykella, "and I made the mistake of replying seriously." She doubted that it had been a mistake, but it was wisest to say so.

XVI

Three days later, at breakfast, Feranyt looked up from his tea and asked Mykella, "Have you been prowling around the lower levels of the palace again?"

"Ser?" Mykella counterfeited confusion. Besides, she hadn't been prowling. "No, Father. I haven't been prowling anywhere. I have more than enough to do teaching Maxymt about the accounts. Why?"

"There have been reports, strange things, doors opening with no one around, silvers lying on the stones, door locks clicking when no one was there . . ." He kept looking at her.

Mykella was surprised—and more than a little worried, not that there were reports, but that such reports had been brought to her father only weeks after the events had occurred. Was that just another indication of how out of touch he really was?

Feranyt chuckled. "I can see you're as surprised as I am. Good. I wouldn't want you to make a habit of nocturnal prowling."

Not like Jeraxylt, she thought, without voicing the thought.

After breakfast, she made her way to the Finance chambers, thinking about both her father's questions and Undercommander Areyst. She'd been concerned about the Undercommander ever since they had danced that single waltz at the ball because he came across as direct and honest. After what had happened to Kiedryn and what she had sensed from both Nephryt and Demyl, the thought that something might happen to Areyst was more than a little disturbing. Yet how could she even warn Areyst without putting him in danger? And what could she say—that he was the only honest senior officer left in the Southern Guard and that he was in danger because he was? Who could possibly believe that? Equally problematical was that she was unlikely to see him anytime soon, and to create any public opportunity would be noted, and jeopardize him, while any use of the sight-shield to reach him might well create questions better left unraised. Then, too, there was the problem that she found himattractive . . . and, if anyone discovered that, she'd soon be on her way to Dereka—or somewhere even worse.

Once in the Finance chambers she turned to the ledgers, reviewing the entry clerks' work and Maxymt's entries. She had to admit that Maxymt had learned quickly and that he was probably sharper with figures than Kiedryn had been—and that worried her as well.

She forced herself to concentrate on the columns of figures in the ledgers before her. Slowly, slowly, the figures began to absorb her, and she was beginning to see yet another pattern . . .

"Mykella!" Salyna burst through the door to the Finance study.

Mykella looked up from the ledger, biting off the words of annoyance she had almost voiced when she sensed the grief and fear radiating from her sister. "What's the trouble?"

"Jeraxylt . . ." Salyna opened her mouth, then closed it. Her body shook with silent sobs.

Mykella bolted to her feet. "What about Jeraxylt?"

"He . . . there was an accident . . . they were practicing with blunted sabres . . . and his broke. So did the other guard's, but . . ."

Mykella glanced to Maxymt, then back to Salyna. Somehow, Maxymt was surprised . . . yet not surprised.

"I'll be back when I can," Mykella said, moving toward Salyna.

XVII

The ceremony for Jeraxylt was private and held in the family's hillside mausoleum behind the palace. Beside the honor guard, only the family—including Joramyl, Berenyt, and Cheleyza—and the senior officers of the Southern Guard were present.

Under a clear silver-green sky, her head lowered, Mykella studied the mourners standing under the graystone arches of the open stone structure. Her father radiated sadness in a distant way, and Salyna had trouble holding in sobs. Silent tears ran from the corners of Rachylana's eyes, but Berenyt stood beside her.

To the right of Feranyt stood Joramyl, his head bowed. Within him, Mykella could detect, not so much a sense of triumph or gloating, but a feeling of acceptance and inevitability. Arms-Commander Nephryt actually seemed saddened, but Commander Demyl held within himself a sense of righteousness and duty.

The ceremony was brief, beginning with an acknowledgment by his father of Jeraxylt's death, followed by a short statement about the meaning of his life by Arms-Commander Nephryt.

After that, Undercommander Areyst stepped forward to deliver the final blessing. "In the name of the one and the wholeness that is, and always will be, in the great harmony of the world and its lifeforce, may the blessing of life, of which death is but a small portion, always remain with Jeraxylt, son of the Lord-Protector. And blessed be the lives of all those who have loved him and those he loved. Also, blessed be both the deserving and the undeserving, that all may strive to do good in the world and beyond, in celebration and recognition of what is and will be, world without end."

His words had been offered with dignity and a clear sense of sadness and mourning, for which Mykella was grateful. She didn't know if she could have concealed her rage if either Nephryt, Demyl, or Joramyl had offered the blessing.

In the moment of silence that followed, Mykella eased over to the Undercommander. "Thank you for the blessing. You offered it well, and in a spirit of honesty that reflects the past heritage of the Southern Guard."

She could sense him stiffen inside.

"I know you embody that spirit, and that made the blessing meaningful. Thank you." She inclined her head as if in respect, and murmured. "Take great care of yourself."

From his internal reaction, she could sense he had heard.

Areyst inclined his head in response, then straightened. "I could do no less in serving Tempre and the Lord-Protector."

"It was still appreciated, Undercommander." Mykella eased back toward her father.

"Mykella?" inquired Feranyt.

"I just thanked him for the blessing. He offered it well, and he meant it." She stepped back and waited for the honor guard to begin the long walk back to the palace.

XVIII

That night, unsurprisingly, Mykella knew she would not sleep, or not well. Had her actions led to Jeraxylt's death? Would the "accident" have occurred had he not accompanied her on her visits to the factors? She had the clear feeling that, although she had not intended it that way, at the very least, her inquiries had been indirectly responsible.

She had to do something, even if that something were futile, and after retiring to her chambers and waiting, she gathered the sight-shield around her and made her way down to the Table chamber, slipping past the guards with an ease born of practice.

Once inside the chamber, she wasted no time but walked to the Table itself, where she looked down and concentrated on trying to see Joramyl, but when the swirling mists cleared, she found herself looking at the image of the Ifrit. At least, she thought it was the same Ifrit.

You have returned once more. Most excellent. The violet eyes burned, and immediately, she could sense the misty purple arms rising out of the Table.

Mykella only took one step back, throwing up her shields against the arms, yet those arms did not move toward her as they swelled with purplish power and malevolence, but toward her lifethread where it passed through the solid stone toward the greenish blackness below. Instinctively she extended her shields to protect it, and the arms lunged toward her midsection and that node where the fine lines of her being joined to form her lifethread.

Mykella managed a second set of shields, but she found herself being pressed back by the expanding force of the arms. The Table itself was glowing an ever-brighter purple, so bright that she wanted to close her eyes, although she understood closing them would do nothing because the glare was in her senses, not in her eyes.

Did the arms have a node, something similar to what the Ifrit sought to attack in her? She made a probe, like a sabre, extending from her shields, angling it toward a thickness in the leftmost of the arms facing her.

Just as suddenly, one of the arms hurled something at her. Her shields held as the object shattered against them, but Mykella found herself being thrown back against the stone wall of the chamber. Her boot skidded on something, and she went to one knee. She put out a hand to steady herself, and found the stone floor wet, with fragments of ice chips.

Ice? The arms had thrown that icicle with enough force to disembowel her had it not been for her shields.

I will not be defeated by something attacking me from inside a stone Table. I will not! She forced herself erect and called on the darkness, and the greenish depths to which her lifethread was somehow attached.

A purplish firebolt sprayed against her shields, and she staggered, but moved forward, calling . . . drawing on the greenish blackness of the depths, the green that recalled the Ancient.

The entire chamber flared greenish gold, and under that flood of fully sensed but unseen light, the purplish arms evaporated into mist and haze, then vanished.

The Ancients . . . still there . . .

There was a sudden emptiness around the Table, as it subsided to the faintest of purplish sheens. Then, that, too, vanished.

Mykella felt a smile appear on her face. Exhausted as she was, she had learned two things. Her shields were proof against weapons, some of them, at least, and she could stand up to the distant Alector. And if she could stand against an Ifrit, surely she could hold her own against Joramyl and his scheming supporters, could she not? Could she not?

XIX

On Quattri, Mykella was nearing the Finance chambers in late afternoon, after returning from carrying a summary of recent expenditures to her father in his study.

He had seemed tired, almost gray, and had taken the sheets from her with a weary expression. "Thank you, Mykella."

While he had not actually dismissed her, he might as well have, for his eyes had dropped to the papers on the table desk before him. Mykella had slipped out, once more asking herself what she could do. Sooner or later, either Joramyl or Berenyt would become Lord-Protector, and with the weariness she saw in her sire, she feared it would be sooner, and that was her fault. With Jeraxylt's death, he had become quieter, more withdrawn, as well. Why was it that everything she tried to do had made matters worse? She tried to warn her father and only succeeded in warning Joramyl. She'd let Jeraxylt know, and that had made him a danger to Joramyl, and now her brother was dead.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of an officer in a Southern Guard uniform standing outside the Finance door, waiting. It was Berenyt.

She forced a smile as she neared him. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, Mykella. You're looking well."

"After all that's happened, you mean?"

"It's been a difficult time for everyone," he replied.

What bothered her immediately was that he clearly believed that. Why had times been difficult for Berenyt? He hadn't been close to Jeraxylt, and he certainly hadn't cared anything about Kiedryn.

"It has, but we'll manage. Life does go on."

"It does"—he nodded—"often for the best, although we don't always see it that way. You know, Mykel the Great lost his entire family in the Cataclysm? You have to wonder if he'd been so good a Lord-Protector without suffering that loss."

"I'm sure he wouldn't have wished that." Mykella barely kept her voice pleasant.

"You know, Mykella, it's too bad that Jeraxylt had that accident."

Mykella had doubted that Berenyt's words were ever anything but carefully chosen, and this was no exception. "It was a surprise to all of us. He was always so careful in arms practice."

"He wasn't always as careful in other matters. He could have been a great Southern Guard and Lord-Protector, if he had concentrated on arms. That was his strength."

Mykella managed to keep her expression puzzled. "Jeraxylt was always careful, and he certainly did concentrate on arms."

"He should have. He should have concentrated on those more, rather than using you as a front for his calculations."

Mykella wasn't sure from the swirl of feelings within Berenyt whether he actually believed that Jeraxylt had been the one to discover the diversions of golds and brought them to the Lord-Protector's attention or whether Berenyt was not so indirectly offering her a way to disavow what she had discovered. Although she felt frozen inside, Mykella managed to offer a sad smile. "We all have different talents."

"With all of your abilities, Mykella, it's too bad we're cousins." said Berenyt, not quite jokingly.

"I like you, too," Mykella replied politely. Always implying, never saying, that was Berenyt's style. He never really used words that committed to anything, even as he was implying the unthinkable.

"It really is," insisted Berenyt.

Even though his eyes remained fixed on her face, Mykella could sense the physical appraisal . . . and the muted lust. She barely managed not to swallow or show her disgust. "We are cousins. Nothing will change that."

"You might wish otherwise." Berenyt smiled brightly.

"What I might wish, Berenyt, has seldom changed what is."

"That's true, Mykella, but often what I've wished has." With a pleasant smile, he nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.

Within herself, she shuddered.

Then, for a time, she stood outside the Finance door before reaching out and opening it.

Early on Quinti morning, Mykella donned black, from nightsilk all the way outward to boots, tunic, and trousers, as well as a black scarf that could double as a head covering, if necessary. The events of the past week, especially Berenyt's words and her encounter with the male Ifrit the night before, had convinced her that anything she could do as a woman—anything that would be seen as acceptable for a woman, she corrected herself—would not save her or her father, or her sisters, from Joramyl and his schemes.

She needed to discover if what the Ifrit had attempted against her was something she could master—and use, if she had to. She had a sickening feeling that would be necessary.

Under cover of her sight-shield, she made her way to the small building behind the palace that served as the slaughterhouse. She waited until no one was looking, then opened the door and closed it behind her, walking as quietly as she could toward the open-roofed slaughtering courtyard in the back.

Three lambs, close to being yearlings and mutton, were confined in a pen—an overlarge wooden crate. Several fowl were in the next crate.

Melmak, the head butcher, looked to a rangy youth. "We need to get on with it. The first one."

As the youth folded down the front of the crate and lifted a blunt stunning hammer, Mykella reached out with what she could only call her Talent and grasped the lamb's lifethread, a thread that felt both thinner and yet coarser, or stronger, than her own seemed to be. But no matter how she tried, she could not break the thread.

The hammer came down, and the lifethread remained. Then the youth dragged the stunned animal over to the iron hook and chain. Only after he slit the animal's throat did the lifethread break—spraying apart at the node, as if all the tiny threads unraveled all at once.

Mykella tried to work on the second lamb, but just as she thought she had understood how to undo those threads, the assistant completed the kill.

She struggled to work more quickly on the last animal—and she succeeded. It died before the assistant even raised his bloody knife.

"It's dead."

"Never seen the like of that before," said the butcher.

"Melmak, ser, you just scared it to death."

"Off with you. You hit too hard with the hammer."

As she turned away, Mykella felt chill inside. She'd never killed anything before—except spiders and flies and the like. Still, the lamb would have died one way or the other. And Jeraxylt and Kiedryn had both been killed by Joramyl's plots.

She stiffened, then walked back across the rear courtyard toward the palace, still holding the sight-shield.

XXI

True spring had finally arrived in Tempre—or at least several days and afternoons warm enough to enjoy the private gardens to the northwest of the palace, and on Decdi Mykella slipped away from the palace to the gardens and their budding foliage to be alone. She was edgy, and still had trouble sleeping, even though the ledgers showed no more diversions, and the actual receipts matched the ledger entries.

One of her favorite places was a small fountain in the northwest corner of the extensive walled garden. There, water trickled down what resembled a section of an ancient wall, and tiny ferns circled the shallow pool below. In summer and fall, miniature redbells bloomed.

She was halfway across the garden on the side path when she heard a feminine laugh from behind one of the boxwood hedges forming the central maze. The laugh was Rachylana's, and Mykella could sense that her sister was not alone. She moved closer, drawing her sight-shield around her.

"You're much more beautiful than Mykella." That voice was Berenyt's.

"Mykella has her points."

"But so many of them are sharp . . ."

Mykella snorted. Time to put a stop to this particular scene. "Rachylana! Where are you?" As if she didn't know.

There was absolute silence from the hidden bower, but Mykella dropped the sight-shield and moved toward it, making sure her boots echoed on the stones of the curving pathway. When she came around the last corner of the boxwood hedge before the bower, Berenyt stood.

"Mistress Mykella." His words were pleasant.

Mykella could sense the unvoiced condescension and the irritation. "Good day, Berenyt," Mykella said politely. "I didn't realize you were here."

"It was a most pleasant end day, and I happened to encounter your sister, and she suggested we enjoy the garden. It has been such a long and gray winter."

"It has indeed," Mykella agreed, "some days being even grayer than others."

Berenyt bowed. "I will not intrude further. Good afternoon, ladies." His smile was clearly for Rachylana. He stepped gracefully past the sisters and made his way down the hedge-lined path that would lead him out of the maze.

Mykella waited for the outburst that was certain to follow once Berenyt was out of earshot.

"You came out here looking for us, didn't you?" accused Rachylana.

"No. I came out here to be alone, but you were giggling and making over him. He's your cousin."

"He's going to be Lord-Protector someday. Father won't wed again."

Mykella had tried to avoid thinking about that. "If Lady Cheleyza doesn't have a son, and if nothing happens to Berenyt."

"He'll still be first in line."

"He's your cousin," Mykella repeated.

"So?"

"Berenyt's just using you," Mykella said, not concealing the exasperation in her voice. "You're behaving like every other silly woman, even like a tavern trollop. You think that he cares for you. All he wants is information and power. He really doesn't even want to bed you, except to make his position as heir-apparent to his father more secure."

"That's not Berenyt."

"That's very much Berenyt. While you're thinking he's appreciating you, he keeps asking you questions, doesn't he? He flirts, but never says anything." Mykella's words were edged with honey more bitter than vinegar.

Rachylana lunged toward Mykella.

Mykella stepped aside, but also called up the unseen webs of greenish energy.

Rachylana reeled away from the unseen barrier and staggered back, nearing toppling over the stone bench. "You hit me!"

"I never touched you, but I certainly should have. You tripped over your own feet, and you'll trip over more than that if you're not careful."

"You and your pride. You seem to think that you can do anything a man can, and you can't," snapped Rachylana. "You're the one who'll trip." She straightened herself and smiled. "You seem to forget, Mykella, that you're a woman, and women need to carry themselves with care if they're to acquire what they wish."

Mykella had never forgotten that she was a woman. How could she, reminded as she was at every turn about what women couldn't do, shouldn't do, or ought not to do? She said nothing more as Rachylana turned and stalked down the garden path.

Only after Rachylana had left did Mykella walk to the far corner of the garden. How could she make people pay attention to her—truly pay attention to her? She was half a head shorter than her sisters, and she was a woman. Her voice and perhaps her posture were the only commanding aspects she possessed.

Could she use her talents . . . She paused. The Ancient had not said talents. She had said Talent—the same sort of Talent that her ancestor had possessed. Could she summon the Ancient?

Standing in the shadows of late afternoon, she concentrated on the Ancient. Nothing happened.

How could she reach the soarer? Could she find the blackness below? She wasn't all that far from the Table, not really. This time, she reached downward toward the greenish black darkness. Surprisingly, touching that underground web was far easier away from the Table. Did the Table make it harder?

The Table interferes with many things. The soarer hovered to Mykella's right, in the deeper shadows. You have called me. A sense of amusement radiated from the soarer. What do you wish?

"Some assistance with a few small things," Mykella said.

Why should I offer such?

"You wanted me to deal with the Ifrit, didn't you? I did. Now, I may need to deal with others."

Mykella gained the sense of a laugh.

You need little from me. You can already tap the lifeweb of Corus.

"Outside of the shields and the sight-shield, I don't know much," Mykella confessed.

You can kill, reminded the soarer.

Mykella winced. Did the Ancient know everything?

Only what you have done, because you have accessed most of your Talent.

"It doesn't seem that way."

That is because you do much when you are not linked to the lifeweb. If you link to the web itself, all that you do will be strengthened. The soarer vanished.

"Who were you talking to, Mykella?"

At the sound of Salyna's voice, Mykella whirled. "Salyna?"

"I thought you were talking to someone, but there wasn't . . . there isn't anyone here." Salyna frowned.

Hadn't Salyna seen the soarer? Did one have to have some vestige of Talent to see the Ancients? Was that another reason why the soarer had contacted Mykella?

"Mykella?"

"Sometimes . . . sometimes I just have to talk things out to myself," Mykella temporized.

"What's a lifeweb?"

"Oh . . . that's something I learned in the archives. Everything in the world that is living is tied together. That's what the Alectors thought." Mykella hoped that her hasty explanation would be enough. "I was trying to work out . . . about why some things happen. Sometimes, it helps to put it in words."

"I thought I was the only one who did that," offered her youngest sister, pausing, then adding, "You know . . . you really made Rachylana mad."

"I'm certain I did, but she shouldn't be sneaking off and flirting with Berenyt. They're cousins."

"He can be nice."

"He can. Of that, I'm most certain." Mykella smiled. "We might as well head back so that we won't be late for supper."

Salyna nodded, clearly glad not to say more about Rachylana and Berenyt.

Mykella knew she had much to practice in the days ahead.

XXII

By Londi night, Mykella had managed two more small skills. In addition to getting light to flow around her to render her invisible to others, in trying to use her Talent to focus a lamp into a dark corner of her chamber to help locate a broach she had dropped, she had stumbled across another skill. In the end, she managed to concentrate or focus light around her without making her less visible. The effect was to heighten her presence, as if she were outlined in light.

If she were the Lord-Protector, such a skill might be valuable, but for now, it was merely a curiosity.

She also managed to project a whisper the length of the long corridor at night. She'd almost laughed when the duty guard had jumped and whirled.

She'd had no success in trying to walk on air. She could lift herself almost a yard above the floor, but she could not figure out how to move laterally. Nor could she even imagine how one could walk on water, when the blackness she drew upon had to be so far beneath the surface.

Going to work on the ledgers had become more and more of a chore, because Maxymt and the clerks had clearly gotten the word to make sure all the entries agreed. Yet Mykella felt that if she did not keep overseeing the accounts, matters would revert to what they had been.

On Duadi, as she was checking the latest entries in the master ledger, the door to the Finance chambers slammed open, and Salyna rushed in. "It's Father! He's had a seizure. He's dying, and he wants you!"

Mykella bolted from her table desk, dashing after her sister toward the Lord-Protector's apartments.

At the door to the bedchamber stood Joramyl. His face wore a concerned look, and there was worry beneath the expression, although Mykella had the feeling that the internal worry was somehow . . . different.

"What happened?" Mykella asked.

"We were having an afternoon chat in his study, and he began to shake." Joramyl shook his head. "He tried to stand, and his legs gave out. I helped him here to his bed and summoned the healer . . ."

"Mykella . . . he needs you." Salyna pulled on Mykella's sleeve.

Mykella turned.

Treghyt, the white-haired healer Mykella had known for years, stood at the far side of the wide bed on which Feranyt lay, still in the brilliant blue working tunic of the Lord-Protector although the neck of the tunic had been opened and loosened.

Mykella moved to the nearer side of the bed and bent over the shuddering figure of her father. "I'm here. I'm here, Father." She forced the tears back from her eyes.

". . . Lord-Protector . . ." gasped Feranyt.

"You're the Lord-Protector," Mykella insisted quietly, taking her father's hand in hers, aware that his fingers were like ice. She could feel his lifethread fraying as she sensed it.

"Joramyl, and . . . after him . . . Berenyt . . . they . . . must . . ."

"Berenyt?" blurred Mykella.

". . . still of our blood, daughter." Feranyt took short shallow breaths, each one more labored than the one previous. "Promise me . . . promise me. The Lord-Protector must . . . must be of our blood."

"The ruler of Tempre must be of our blood," repeated Mykella. She could promise that.

The faintest smile crossed Feranyt's lips before a last spasm convulsed him

"He's gone," said the angular healer, looking toward Joramyl, who remained standing beside the doorway. "Lord-Protector."

Mykella wanted to protest. She did not, but straightened, looking down at the silent figure of her father. There was an ugly bluish green that suffused his form, fading slowly as his body cooled. Poison? It had to be, and she had no doubts about who had been behind it. Yet how could she prove it when the only evidence was what she could sense and that no one else could?

And if she insisted it had been poison, too many questions would arise as to how and why she knew. Besides, her father was dead. So was Jeraxylt, and Joramyl was Lord-Protector. And . . . all of it had happened because—or at least sooner—she had noted discrepancies in the ledgers and tried, as best she could, to do something about it.

XXIII

After her father's death, Mykella knew she had little time in which to act, especially after both the healer and Joramyl concluded that her father had died of a brain seizure. Over the next two days, she made several more trips to the slaughterhouse, working so that the animals died from her efforts only instants after their blood gushed out, and so that Melmak never knew what was truly happening.

She also made other arrangements . . . and forced herself to wait. Waiting was the hardest part, and that was the part of the role of a woman of Tempre that had always challenged her.

On Quattri, Joramyl requested Mykella, Rachylana, and Salyna to join him in the Lord-Protector's study immediately after breakfast.

Mykella led the way and could not have said that she was surprised to find Joramyl behind her father's table desk, at least the desk she had thought of as her father's. Nor was she particularly amazed to see Berenyt there, although he was standing.

"If all of you would be seated." Joramyl gestured to the four chairs set in a semicircle before the desk.

Mykella recalled that there were usually only three there.

After waiting until the four were seated, Joramyl went on. "Everything has been arranged for your father's funeral tomorrow. There will be a week of mourning following the ceremonies. The procession will be public, the interment and final blessing private, in keeping with tradition. Do you have any questions?"

"Who will do the blessing?" asked Salyna.

"Would you like to, since you asked?" inquired Joramyl. "I had thought that Mykella might offer the statement of his life, since she is the eldest."

Salyna nodded.

"Is that acceptable to you, Rachyla?" asked Joramyl.

"Yes."

A silence descended on the study. Mykella waited, unwilling to be the one to speak.

Joramyl cleared his throat. "Now . . . uncomfortable as it may be, we need to talk about your future." The Lord-Protector-select's words were mild.

Mykella could sense the calculation and the disdain behind the politeness. "Now? We have not even had Father's funeral."

"By the end of the week after the funeral, of course, you will all retire to your father's hill villa for a half season of mourning. By then, the envoy from Southgate should have arrived, and we can begin the negotiations for Salyna's marriage. I have renewed the negotiations with Deforya as well, Mykella."

Mykella wasn't aware that those negotiations had ever been broken off. "Salyna isn't old enough to be married to anyone," she said quietly

"She needs the protection of a strong consort, especially now," suggested Berenyt. "So do you and Rachylana."

"And whom would you suggest?"

"Cousins have married," Berenyt said.

Joramyl merely offered the slightest of smiles.

"You and Rachylana?" asked Mykella.

"If such were to occur, I would leave that decision to the two of you." Berenyt smiled.

"Perhaps you and Rachylana should discuss such matters," added Joramyl, gazing pointedly at Mykella. "Your father did wish his successors to be of his blood."

Mykella looked blankly out the window. If Berenyt married Rachylana, no one would ever complain, not loudly, that Joramyl had succeeded her father, because both bloodlines would be united in their children. But . . . it was wrong.

Yet, if she challenged Joramyl and Berenyt, she would be acting against her own sister. And what could she really do? Could what she had learned sustain her against Joramyl and the leaders of the Southern Guard?

After a moment, she inclined her head politely. "That is true. He did wish his successor to be of his blood, and his successor will be."

Berenyt relaxed ever so slightly. Joramyl did not, although he smiled broadly. "I'm sure he would have been glad to know that you intend to support his wishes."

"I am a dutiful daughter," Mykella replied, inclining her head, "and his wishes are and will be my command."

XXIV

That evening, after a cold dinner, Salyna followed Mykella back to her chamber.

"What do you want, little sister?" asked Mykella gently.

"Rachylana's worried, Mykella," Salyna said quietly.

"Why should she be worried?" replied Mykella. "Berenyt will ask for her hand, whether he loves her or not, and she'll become the wife of the future Lord-Protector of Tempre."

"She thinks you'll do something stupid, like try to poison Joramyl or something like that, and that you'll be killed, and we'll be exiled."

Mykella laughed, a low and ironic sound. "You can tell her that I never once thought of poisoning anyone, not after I saw what it did to Father."

"Father? You think he was poisoned?"

"I can't prove it to anyone. But he was healthy. He had a glass of wine, and he had a seizure. He was dead in less than half a glass. That all happened less than half a season after Jeraxylt died in a sparring accident. Most convenient, don't you think?"

"I had wondered." Salyna's face crumpled, and her eyes brightened. "But what can we do? You can't . . . Either it was all the way Uncle Joramyl said it was . . . or . . ." She said nothing for a moment, before asking, "If you're right, who would believe it?"

Mykella nodded. "And if anyone poisoned anyone now . . . I'm most certain everyone would look at me. You're too sweet, and Rachylana has everything to lose."

"But . . . they'll send me to Southgate."

"That's possible." Mykella didn't want to let her sister know anything, for Salyna's own protection. "You'd be safer there."

"What . . . about you?"

"They're still talking about marrying me off to the Landarch-heir of Deforya. I understand it's not too bad a place, except that it's cold and dry."

"Do you know what he's like?"

"That doesn't seem to matter, does it?" replied Mykella.

"But . . . Mother loved Father . . ."

"They were fortunate, and they had met some years before," Mykella pointed out.

"What will happen, Mykella?" Salyna's voice was small.

"We'll have to see, won't we? But there's no use in worrying right this moment." Mykella wrapped her arms around Salyna, all too conscious that her younger sister was the taller.

XXV

Mykella rose early on Quinti. She prepared herself for the ordeal ahead, in all the ways that she could, including her dress, a severe dark green and high-necked gown, trimmed in black. Her head-scarf was black, but of shimmersilk—and had been her mother's—and her cloak was black. Under the long skirt of the gown, she did wear black boots, well-polished ones.

She forced herself to eat at breakfast, but kept to herself until the time for the ceremony. She said little as she joined the others before they were escorted to the small reviewing stand set up on the north side of the boulevard, directly in front of the wall enclosing the palace. More than a thousand people lined the space on the south side of the boulevard, crowding the area between the low wall that comprised the northern edge of the public gardens and the edge of the boulevard.

As the late Lord-Protector's eldest surviving child, Mykella stood on the uppermost level of the stand, under a clear green sky, with a cool breeze blowing out of the northwest. To her right was Joramyl, and beyond him, Berenyt. To her left were her sisters, and beyond them, Lady Cheleyza. Below the family were the seltyrs and High Factors of Tempre—in effect the councilors of the city and more—and their wives.

"I can see the Guard is leaving the Grand Piers now," Joramyl said conversationally.

"It won't be that long now." Berenyt concealed his impatience badly, so much so that Mykella could have read it clearly even without her Talent.

As her cousin had predicted, it was not that long before the funeral procession appeared, led by two guards riding on each side of a riderless horse whose saddle was draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector. Behind them rode Second Company, and all the officers and men wore black-edged blue mourning sashes. Behind them came the caisson carrying her father's coffin, drawn by four black horses.

Just before the caisson carrying her father's coffin, draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector, drew abreast of the reviewing stand, Mykella stepped forward. She drew upon the lifeweb darkness beneath her and Tempre and focused light around her . . . then around the coffin, not enough to be blinding, but just enough, she hoped, so that all who watched saw the faint link of light between her and the coffin of the late Lord-Protector. Then she projected respect and honor for her father the Lord-Protector, easing it out across the area, but she let that projection center on her as the caisson passed. The riders of Second Company looked back, and those of First Company, following the caisson also fixed their eyes upon the Lord-Protector's daughter. Mykella remained motionless, but she did not bother to try to control the tears that rolled down her face.

Then, once the last of the riders had passed, she stepped back

"How . . . did that happen . . ." murmured someone.

"Don't say a word," murmured Joramyl.

Mykella let tears roll down her face as she watched the caisson heading into the palace grounds and toward the mausoleum on the hillside behind the palace.

After the last horseman in the procession had entered the palace gates, as Mykella walked down the steps toward the honor guard that would escort them to the mausoleum, Salyna slipped beside her.

"What did you do?" whispered Salyna. "They all looked at you. Joramyl got that stern stone look he gets when he's displeased."

"I didn't do anything," Mykella lied, "except step forward a bit to pay my respects to Father—publicly."

"But everyone looked at you . . ."

Mykella certainly hoped so.

Joramyl certainly had felt both anger and worry, but he had said nothing to Mykella. Even so, she maintained a Talent-shield around herself as she let the honor guard escort them through the plaza in front of the palace, then through the rear courtyard and the rear gate to the memorial garden around the private mausoleum—well to the east and uphill from the regular palace gardens.

Once the coffin had been carried into the mausoleum, and everyone had assembled in the small outer rotunda, Joramyl began the ceremony.

"We acknowledge that the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona has died, and that he has left a legacy of love and goodness bestowed on his family and people throughout a long and prosperous life. We are here to mourn his loss and offer our last formal farewell in celebration of his life." With that, he stepped back and nodded to Mykella.

Mykella stepped forward. She waited several moments before she began to speak, letting silence fall across the mausoleum and the area beyond. Her eyes traversed the three Southern Guard officers present, but she did not look sideways at Joramyl, nor at her sisters.

"Our father was the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, but he was more than that. He was a good man, a caring man, and a trusting man, who loved his wife, his children, his larger family, and his people. He believed most deeply that the principal goal of a Lord-Protector was to protect his people, both from those outside the borders of Lanachrona and from those within our borders, for there are enemies in both places. He spent his efforts as Lord-Protector to assure peace and prosperity for all his people, and not just a favored few. And . . . to the end of his days, he believed in the goodness of those around him. We will miss him, and so will Lanachrona."

While her words were brief, Mykella did not know that she could have said more, or that more needed to be said.

After another silence, Salyna delivered the blessing. "In the name of the one and the wholeness that is, and always will be . . ."

Mykella listened intently, but while Salyna almost choked on the words near the end, her voice remained firm, steady, and loving.

During the entire brief ceremony, Mykella had barely glanced in the direction of Undercommander Areyst, except the one time in passing, not because she had not wished to do so, but because she felt that any favor she might show him might jeopardize his very life.

The honor guard re-formed below the steps of the mausoleum.

Joramyl turned to Mykella, a pleasant, but thoughtful look upon his face, an expression belying the mixture of anger and worry within him. "You were very . . . impressive today. I trust you will be equally supportive of your father's successor."

"I intend to be, Lord Joramyl. Like you, I am beholden to my father's legacy." She paused. "I apologize if my words are brief, but it has been a trying time." She did her best to offer an apologetic smile.

XXVI

Mykella wasn't certain exactly how she made it through the rest of the day, replying to all sorts of meaningless platitudes politely. She was just thankful when she could plead exhaustion after a light supper and retire to her chamber.

As she closed the door, she realized she was thirsty, and she walked toward the side table by the bed. The tumbler there was empty, but the pitcher beside it has been refilled by the staff., and she reached for it. Her hand stopped short. A purplish aura surrounded the pitcher—the exact shade of purple she'd perceived shrouding her father just before he died.

She bent over the pitcher and sniffed, but she could smell nothing.

For the briefest of moments, she thought about using the sight-shield to place the pitcher where Joramyl would use it, but that was not a good idea for two reasons. First, he had not moved into the palace and would not until after he was formally installed as Lord-Protector at noon the next day—far too soon, Mykella thought, but no one had asked her. Nor would anyone. That, she also knew. Second, as Salyna had pointed out, Berenyt would make certain that she was blamed, and he would just become Lord-Protector sooner—and he probably wouldn't even have to marry Rachylana.

Mykella snorted. If she'd drunk the poison, doubtless Joramyl would have claimed a brain weakness ran in the family.

She did make sure that the door bolt was fastened before she put out the lamps and climbed into bed.

The faintest click awakened her from a restless sleep. She could sense someone outside her door, and she immediately reached for the greenish darkness deep beneath the palace, even as she slipped from beneath the covers and to her feet, waiting.

The door bolt slowly slid open, and the door opened. Despite the near pitch-darkness of the room, Mykella could make out that the slender but muscular figure who entered her chamber was garbed entirely in black, with even a tight-fitting black hood. She waited until he closed the door and edged toward the bed, a loop of something in his hand.

Using her Talent, she reached out and slashed at his lifethread node. Tiny threads sprayed away from him, and he pitched forward onto the stone floor. The thud was muffled by the old rug at the foot of the bed.

After cloaking herself and the dead man with her sight-shield, Mykella eased open her door. As she half suspected, none of the guards were anywhere in sight. Although she was no weakling, it did take her quite some time to drag his figure to the staircase, where she pushed the body off the top landing.

How far the dead assassin rolled down the steps she didn't know. Nor did she care.

She made her way back to her chamber where she rebolted the door, then took the desk chair from before her writing table and propped it under the door handle lever. While it might not hold against a determined assailant, anyone who could break it to get inside would definitely make enough noise to wake her.

She smiled grimly.

Her dear uncle was obviously worried. The fact that he was suggested that his support among the seltyrs and High Factors was not all that he might have liked. She hoped so.

XXVII

Mykella was the first in the breakfast room—for what was to be her last meal there, at least according to her uncle. Salyna and Rachylana entered just behind her.

"Did you hear?" asked Salyna. "They found an assassin on the stairway."

"How did they know he was an assassin?" asked Rachylana. "No one would claim that."

"He was dead," Salyna said. "That's what Pattyn said—he was the head of the guards on duty. The man was wearing assassin's black, and he had a dagger and a garrote."

"The guards killed him?" asked Mykella, sitting down at her place, all too conscious of the empty seat where her father had always seated himself. Her eyes burned, and she looked down for a moment, then swallowed before she raised her head.

"No one knows," Salyna replied. "Pattyn said he was dead, and there wasn't a mark on him." She poured herself cider.

The serving girl brought Mykella tea, but Mykella studied it for a moment, deciding it was safe, before taking a sip.

Rachylana glanced at Mykella. "There have been too many strange things happening, like the light that fell on you yesterday."

"It fell on Father's coffin," Mykella pointed out.

"And on you."

"She is the eldest, Rachylana," Salyna said. "What other heir does Father have?"

Mykella hoped her youngest sister hadn't guessed too much.

"Daughters can't inherit."

"Can't . . . or haven't?" asked Mykella. "There's nothing in the charter or the archives that forbids it."

"You've looked? I would have thought as much," sniffed Rachylana. "Even if Joramyl and Berenyt didn't exist, just how much of the Southern Guard would accept a woman?"

"Rachylana . . . that's . . ." Salyna shook her head.

"Who would know?" asked Mykella. "There's always been a male heir."

"I still say that too many strange things are happening," Rachylana finally said, after swallowing some cider.

"Like the doors that opened in the palace with no one around," added Salyna quickly, clearly thankful not to have to discuss the possibility of a woman as Lord- or Lady-Protector. "One of the guards even found a silver in the middle of the lower corridor."

"Some factor probably dropped it. He wouldn't have missed it," pointed out Mykella. "Some people can't see what's before their faces."

Salyna gave the slightest of headshakes, and Mykella wished she could have taken the words back.

"What are you wearing today, Rachylana?" Mykella asked quickly.

"A new gown of light blue, I think . . ."

XXVIII

Salyna and Mykella walked down to the rotunda inside the main entrance to the palace at a half glass before noon. Rachylana was already there, talking with Berenyt, who wore the full dress uniform of a Southern Guard.

Rachylana looked at Mykella. "That long black cloak makes it look like you're still at the funeral."

"I can wear mourning garb if I wish," Mykella replied. "Joramyl said we were in mourning." Actually, under the cloak, Mykella had chosen what she wore with care—everything was black, except for the vest of brilliant blue—the Lord-Protector's color. While she appeared to be wearing a full skirt, it was actually a formal split skirt for riding, the difference not noticeable under the cloak.

"After the investiture," replied Rachylana.

Salyna glanced to Berenyt, as if to ask for an intercession.

"I heard about the assassin," said Berenyt. "You'll all be safer in the hill villa. I've asked Father to send two squads with you as guards."

More like gaolers, Mykella thought.

"You will visit, won't you?" asked Rachylana.

"I wouldn't think otherwise." Berenyt bowed. "I have to leave you now and join Father. He wouldn't wish his heir-apparent to be late."

"No . . . you should be with him," Mykella said politely, "especially today."

Salyna frowned for a moment but said nothing.

Berenyt smiled and turned, then walked briskly along the corridor, the sound of his boots echoing in the near-empty hallway, a space that normally would have held at least a score of people doing business with the Lanachronan functionaries housed on the main level of the palace.

"He's most elegant," observed Rachylana.

"He does look very handsome," Salyna replied.

"There's an old saying about handsome is as handsome does," Mykella said blandly. She still couldn't forget that Berenyt had been with the plotters at every meeting. That made him as guilty as his father.

Rachylana sniffed, and Mykella could sense her thoughts—You're just jealous.

Mykella wouldn't have wanted Berenyt on a silver platter, even if he hadn't been her cousin. He wasn't anywhere close to the man her father had been, nor a fraction of the man Undercommander Areyst was. She pushed that thought away for the moment.

"Ladies?" An undercaptain of the Southern Guard appeared, with Lady Cheleyza behind him. "It's time for you to take your places."

Mykella followed the undercaptain and Cheleyza, with her sisters behind her. They took their positions on the fourth step of the five low and wide stone steps that led to the main palace entry—the topmost one was empty, by tradition, because the Lord-Protector-select had to ascend that last step alone. Cheleyza stood on the left side of the open space that formed an aisle down the center of the steps, alone, and Mykella and her sisters stood on the right. The lower three steps held the various ministers and senior functionaries, and their families. The public crowds around the plaza were modest, with possibly fewer spectators than had attended Feranyt's funeral, but since the plaza was not that large, and since both Southern Guard companies assigned to the palace were drawn up in mounted formation, the plaza appeared full enough.

The investiture was a simple ceremony. Joramyl would ride in from the side, accompanied by Berenyt, dismount, and present himself to the three senior officers of the Southern Guard, waiting on the east side, then to the seltyrs and High Factors on the west. After making his statement and bowing to each group, he would slowly ascend the steps. Once he reached the top step, he would turn and offer the ritual statement. Then he would walk down, alone, mount, and ride off—if only to the rear courtyard.

A single trumpet heralded Joramyl's approach. Wearing the brilliant blue dress tunic of the Lord-Protector, he rode slowly down the open space before the arrayed Southern Guard companies and the palace. Behind him rode Berenyt in his formal dress uniform.

They reined up short of the senior Southern Guard officers and the seltyrs and High Factors, then dismounted and handed the reins to two waiting guards. Joramyl stepped forward and nodded to Arms-Commander Nephryt before turning and walking several paces toward the seltyrs and High Factors, to whom he offered the ritual question, "Will you accept me as Lord-Protector?"

Mykella sensed that the approval was somewhere between perfunctory and grudging.

After inclining his head to the seltyrs and High Factors, Joramyl slowly started up the stone steps toward the outer columns of the rotunda, columns clearly added later, because they had already become rounded and pitted in places, while the stone of the original structure looked as though it had been built within the past few years. The Lord-Protector-select was followed by Berenyt, as Joramyl's heir-apparent.

Although Mykella had begun to draw upon the darkness deep beneath Tempre as soon as Joramyl had ridden toward the steps, she waited until Joramyl reached the third step before dropping her cloak and stepping sideways and onto to the topmost step, where she looked down upon Joramyl.

"What . . . don't be a fool, Mykella," said Joramyl.

Blazing light flared around the Lord-Protector's daughter as Mykella focused those energies with which she had practiced and practiced.

"You killed my brother, and you poisoned my father."

Joramyl's mouth opened as Mykella's voice carried across the steps toward the crowd, amplified with her Talent—amplified and carrying the utter conviction of truth. "All this was done in shadows and silence. You cannot bear to have the truth come out, and that truth will kill you here where you stand!"

Without touching Joramyl—except with her Talent—she severed his lifethread node, and he pitched backward down the stone steps.

Behind him, Berenyt's eyes widened.

"You, Berenyt, plotted with your father so that you might become Lord-Protector in turn. The truth will kill you as well."

Berenyt's mouth opened, his face ashen, before Mykella cut his lifethread node. Like his father, he toppled silently.

"No . . ." murmured Rachyla.

In the stunned silence that followed, Mykella took the four steps down the stone stairs, decreasing the intensity of the light that surrounded her. Then she stopped and surveyed the three officers of the Southern Guard.

"Will you have a Lady-Protector of Tempre?" she asked more quietly. "Or will you try to hide treachery as well?"

"You? No woman will rule Tempre while I'm Arms-Protector." Nephryt's sabre slashed toward Mykella's seemingly unprotected shoulder.

His face turned ashen as the blade shattered against her unseen Talent-shield.

Mykella reached out with her senses and ripped his lifethreads from his body.

Nephryt's mouth remained open as he fell face-first onto stone pavement of the plaza, further scattering the fragments of the shattered sabre.

Mykella turned to the two remaining Guard officers. She smiled. "I believe that takes care of Arms-Commander Nephryt's objections."

Demyl looked from the fallen form to Mykella, then back to the body. He swallowed.

"You may leave Tempre this moment," Mykella said to Demyl. "If you do not, you will never leave."

Demyl glanced at the body on the plaza before him. "Much good it will do you."

"Go, traitor!" This time Mykella's voice rang across the plaza. "Be not seen in Tempre again, nor in Lanachrona!"

Demyl turned and walked woodenly toward the guard who held his mount. The crowd beyond the low stone wall watched as he mounted and spurred his mount out through the gates.

Mykella turned to the Undercommander.

Areyst looked to Mykella. "There has never been a Lady-Protector of Tempre."

"There's a first time for everything. Before Mykel, there had never been a Lord-Protector," she replied. "If I name you as Arms-Commander, will you serve me and the people of Lanachrona honestly and with all your abilities?"

Areyst inclined his head. "I can do no less, Lady-Protector."

Mykella sensed his feelings—both dismay and respect . . . and a grudging admiration.

Those would have to do. She doubted that Mykel the Great had gained any more at the beginning, either.

Then she turned and walked to the seltyrs and High Factors, inclining her head to the group of twenty-odd. She could sense the absolute fear radiating from them. "Honored Seltyrs, High Factors, will you have an honest and true Lady-Protector of Tempre? One who will not divert your tariffs or plot in secret and silence? One who will hold your liberties as dearly as her own?"

There was a moment of silence. Then Almardyn and Hasenyt exchanged glances. Hasenyt nodded to Almardyn. Almardyn cleared his throat. "Your father stood for us, and we would be unwise indeed to refuse a Lady-Protector of your power and his honesty."

Scarcely a ringing endorsement, but an endorsement. "You will have the benefit of all my Talent and all the honesty my father prized so dearly, even at the cost of his own life."

"We accept you as Lady Protector," replied the two.

After a long moment, a chorus followed. "We accept . . ."

Mykella inclined her head once more, then turned. Grudging as it was, they would honor it, and she would honor her pledge.

As she walked back toward the steps, she stopped before Areyst. "If you would follow me, Arms-Commander."

"I am no heir, Lady-Protector."

"For now, I have no other heir, and Tempre and Lanachrona deserve the best."

Areyst lowered his head. "I did not . . ."

Mykella smiled. "I know. Follow me."

Mykella turned and walked up the steps, sensing the approval sweeping the crowd—and the Southern Guard—of her designation of Areyst as heir-apparent.

When she stood on the topmost step and turned, she surveyed the plaza and those below for a long moment. She spoke firmly and quietly, though her voice carried to all, as she offered the ancient and original pledge that had not been used in centuries—and now, she knew why.

"I swear and affirm that I will protect and preserve the lives and liberties of all citizens of Tempre and Lanachrona, and that I will employ all Talent and skills necessary to do so, at all times, and in all places, so that peace and prosperity may govern this land and her people."

Her eyes flicked to the Arms-Commander–heir-apparent . . . who would be more, much more.

****

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Creation: The Launch!

Written by Laura Resnick

Illustrated by Karl Nordman

Don't call me Ishmael.

Yes, technically, it's my name. Believe me, sweetie, I know. And I assure you, I have not suffered in silence. It is so not ME.

Then again, is "Ishmael" a name that's right for anyone? I mean, okay, maybe for a metro-sexual pop star with fabulous lashes and no last name. Or possibly someone in the whaling industry (and don't look at me like that, I didn't even want whales in Creation). But, honey, for a creative consultant, it is a tough name to adapt to.

(Oh, can I say "adapt" here? I hear there's been some controversy about adaptation since we launched Creation.)

But, all right, sure, I know— it could have been worse. At least I didn't get stuck with a name like Laban, Esau, Hagar, Methuselah, Nehemiah, or Walter. Those poor schmucks. (And people wonder why we added therapists to Creation after we saw what God had wrought.)

In fact, this whole naming thing was high on my list of hot targets for a major revamp. Such an obvious flaw in the grand plan. But then we got so close to the launch, and what with one thing and another, I barely had time to put the finishing touches on the Big Bang before the Lord God was all, like, "Hey, I'm separating the darkness from the light, and I'm doing it NOW." I'm telling you, He has the patience of a two-year-old child— and, yep, they were indeed made in His image, right down to the temperament.

Well, maybe you know how insane a launch is! I mean, gaga-smack-a-rooney-cuckoo with lunacy on top, honey. So a lot gets overlooked in the heat of the moment— not to mention the heat of cosmic matter spinning madly through space in all different directions at a gazillion miles per second. Plus, to be totally up-fro, bro, the Big Guy is not that easy to work with. I don't think I'm letting the feline out of the bag when I say he can be unbelievably touchy. (You've read Genesis, right?) In fact, when our first effort at Creation totally flopped while we were still out of town and on the road with our early material . . . Well, for a while, I honestly feared the Master of the Universe would commit suicide by swallowing hot primordial ooze.

Which was a total overreaction, of course. (Deities. Always so high-strung.) As I kept telling Yahweh, it was only natural that He would need a few dry runs before we had a success on our hands. No one had done Creation before, we were trying for something completely new and original! You can't expect to pull off the most ambitious launch in Eternity without first learning from a few failures.

For one thing, the Lord God hates loud noises, so we tried a Big Sigh, a Big Hum, a Soft Bang, and even a Small Bang before I finally convinced Him that we had to go full throttle, no holding back. "God, sweetie, pumpkin," I said, "Creation needs to commence with a big bang! With the Big Bang! With the biggest cosmic explosion of light and matter that ever was, or ever will be!" This is the kind of input where I really earn my salary. Clients are so held back by their own limitations.

Well, once God agreed to go with the Big Bang, He got a little more confidence in my guidance. So, fortunately, it didn't take me long to nix the whole "polka-dotted universe" plan, along with some of His other less-inspired ideas. (Frankly, it's thanks to me that you're not reading this with your belly button and eating your own hair for sustenance.) And by the time we got down to the fine details of planetary-planning, I could tell we were onto something really special. I loved the idea of a place that had land, sea, rivers, people, plants, animals, plumbing, and ethnic food! And the whole idea of a planet tilting on its axis to create seasons— I mean, isn't that just darling?

"God," I said, "this time, we're really going to launch. And this is going to be your best work ever! Your chef d'oeuvre. Your pièce de résistance."

And the Lord God said, "I like those nasal-sounding phrases you're using, Ishmael. We should come up with a language that sounds just like that."

"God, please don't call me Ishmael."

"But it's your name. The name that I gave you."

"We've talked about this before, Lord. I'd rather You call me Rafe. Or perhaps Thad. Something that won't sound so out of place on the Upper West Side."

"You mean the Upper North Side," God corrected.

"I don't think we should call it that," I said. "Trust me on this."

Well, now that we obviously had a solid Creation strategy and some exciting concepts to work with, God got very competitive. He started worrying that some other omnipotent being might beat us to the punch, so He was very eager to launch right away. I really should have put the brakes on, we weren't at all ready yet. But you try saying "no" to the Lord God Almighty and see what happens. (I'll tell you what happens. Supernovas happen.)

So, naturally, once we launched, it was just one problem after another. We spent eons running around putting out the fires.

For example, there was that whole problem with the firmament, which we discovered too late can look exactly like New Jersey when viewed in the wrong light. In fact, certain parts of the firmament are New Jersey. No one saw this coming; if we had, naturally, we'd have postponed the launch.

And since seven is such an asymmetrical number of continents, I begged Yahweh to wait until we could design a better look for them. I mean, that whole Asia thing is so over the top. It's simply massive. We needed to transfer some of it to Europe to create a sense of balance. And Japan just hangs out there, as if we'd left a fifth leg on a mammal! Plus, sweetie, how many deserts does the world really need, for goodness sake? And Mexico across the Gulf from Florida? Totally lopsided! No sense of proportion at all.

"Let's organize this," I said to the Lord God, "let's make a statement with our continents. Let's not just have random landmasses flopping all over the planet."

But no. What do I know? I am only the creative consultant on the biggest project in the history of the Universe. So we launched Creation right away. With the Middle East still plopped haphazardly between three continents like an uninvited guest, and Antarctica stuck down at the South Pole like planetary genitalia. (I know, I know. Believe me, I tried to make Him see reason. But I am just a servant of God Almighty— and you know what clients are like.)

So we wound up having to relocate a ton of creatures after they saw the landscape that God intended to give to them, i.e. New Jersey. It made the exodus from Egypt look like a cakewalk by comparison, let me tell you. For a few millennia there, I was afraid the launch would collapse completely and we'd have to start all over. Since then, of course, the shifting of tectonic plates and subsequent earthquakes have continued proving my point (we so needed a better layout for the landmasses), but you don't say "I told you so" to Jehovah. You just don't.

So, anyhow, we barely got past the firmament crisis, and God started naming things. He was off and running! "This is an armadillo, that's a slug, this is an avocado, over there is a ficus." He really had no gift at all for it. I'd realized ever since He named me Ishmael, shortly after creating me to help launch His grand plan, that we needed a better system. But then, suddenly, it was too late, we'd launched, and there was the Creator, naming everything in sight: "We'll call this part a penis, and that a vagina, and I think we should call this characteristic 'perspicacity.'" It was a disaster.

I was meanwhile up to my supernovas in PR problems after someone on my staff leaked the bit about Eve being taken from Adam's rib. I blame myself. It was Yahweh's idea —I mean, honestly, most of Creation was His idea, I just guided the packaging, He really deserves a lot of credit for the Universe— but I should have seen the inevitable problems before we were blindsided by them: If Man was created in the image of Yahweh, but Woman was created from Man's rib, well, you're obviously going to have considerable problems perpetuating the species. Or even holding a decent conversation.

The critics simply shredded us for this. The Lord God was devastated by some of those early reviews. And while I didn't disagree in principle with the comments, I thought their tone was way harsh.

Look, it was an honest mistake. Also an isolated one. We didn't have this problem with any other species. But with His favorite creation (i.e. the one based on himself, thankyouverymuch), Yahweh got a little carried away. (He called it lyrical. I call it showing off.) Ergo the whole "I made your mate from your rib" stunt. Which was, even He has admitted since then, rather childish. And certainly shortsighted. Picture this: "Hello, I'm Adam. And this is my wife, Eve, who happens to be approximately seven inches long and has no orifices."

This is why prelaunch planning is so important. Mistakes like this could have been avoided, thus sparing a certain deity the need to work so much overtime, under considerable pressure from the media, to completely redo one of Creation's most high-profile species.

So, okay, God saw His mistake, and He went back and re-created Adam and Eve equally— thus leading to some confusing rewrites in Genesis that have still not been straightened out. (But don't even get me started on that.)

Then the next thing you know, the Lord of Hosts said to me, "I don't like their design, Ishmael."

"Don't call me Ishmael."

"It's clumsy and inelegant. And have you noticed that they're not very bright? Especially Adam."

"Nor is Adam's character all that one might desire," added Lucifer, joining us without warning.

God's thoughtful frown became suddenly thunderous. "I told you to go away!"

Lucifer smirked as he mimicked Adam: "'The apple? What apple?'"

I advised, "Leave it alone, Lu," while God smoldered.

But Lucifer never knew when to quit. Still mimicking Adam, he whined, "'The woman tempted me.'"

"I thought snakes were a bad idea from the start," I muttered, remembering who had tempted Eve. "I hate snakes."

"They're not so bad," Lucifer said, "But I really don't care for the name. Who thought up that one, I wonder?"

And God cast Lucifer out of heaven. Just like that. "Hah! Maybe now," the Lord God said, "he'll stop getting into so much trouble."

(Oh, yes, that certainly made the next few millennia trouble-free. Gooooood thinking.)

"So, you were saying, Lord?" I prodded. "Something about Adam and Eve?"

"I can hardly tell them apart from the apes," God complained.

"But that was the plan," I reminded him. "And I think we wound up with a nice continuity to the whole primate look, right across the board."

"I'm not satisfied," God said.

Clients, I thought.

"Why not, Lord?"

"Adam and Eve seem somehow like eight-track tapes or the first Star Trek movie," God mused, "like we just haven't quite found our feet yet."

"Feet were an excellent idea, Lord," I said encouragingly. "I'm so glad You added them right before the launch. I mean, imagine if everything in Creation had been like snakes. No feet." I shuddered. "Ugh!"

And, to be clear, feet were totally the Big Guy's idea. What can I say? I work only with the best.

"Mankind just seems like . . ." God shrugged restlessly. "I don't know. I just feel that they'll always be dismissed as My early work, you know? I should have done better."

"But we— "

"In fact," God said, still pondering His Creation, "many of these creatures don't look quite right to me. Perhaps . . ."

"Yes, Lord?"

"Perhaps you were right, Ishmael."

"I'd prefer 'Rafe,' Lord. Or 'Thad.'"

"Perhaps we launched Creation before it was really ready."

"Oh. Gee. Y'think?" I said.

"What is that tone in your voice?" God demanded.

"It's something I just invented."

"Hmm. Interesting. Shall we call it 'granola'?" God suggested.

"I was thinking 'sarcasm,'" I said.

"'Sarcasm'? Really?" God looked dubious. "Well, since you invented it, I grant you the privilege of naming it. But are you sure that's what you want to call it?"

"If I may return to the point, Lord, I cannot deny that we launched Creation a trifle too soon, but— "

"So I wonder if we should go back to the drawing board?" Yahweh mused. "Try for something better."

"You mean . . . scrap Creation and start all over again?" I felt rather faint. We'd used up everything in the Big Bang. "I'm not sure we have enough cosmic matter left over to do that."

"Couldn't we just reuse all the same matter and energy over again?"

"Revert the entire cosmos back to its original inchoate form?" I said in horror.

"Would that be a problem?" the Lord God asked.

I thought of the eons of hard work and detailed planning that I had put into the Big Bang, and I knew I couldn't possibly do it all over again. At least, not without first taking a very long vacation in the sort of luxury resort that we'd neglected to Create yet. God just had no idea what that project had taken out of me. I'd rather give up my feet than destroy Creation and redo the whole job from scratch. Even if, as I was forced to agree, the cosmos would probably benefit from better planning on the next go-round.

So I did the only thing that a being in my position could do: I soothed my client. "Yahweh, sweetie," I said. "These are natural second thoughts that any omnipotent Creator is bound to have after launching such a demanding and ambitious project. Okay, so there are a few design flaws we need to work out. But, come on, Big Guy, that was to be expected! How many absolutely perfect Universes can You name, after all?"

"Well . . ."

"God, I promise You, we can make the little fixes without reorganizing the whole cosmos— again."

God bit His mighty lower lip. "So you . . . you think Creation is pretty good? I mean, you really like My work?"

"Yahweh! Babydoll! I think Creation is brilliant!"

"You're not just saying that?"

The creative ego is so fragile.

"God, I think Creation is going to run forever."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I said warmly. "So, buck up, Lord! No more nonsense about smooshing everything back into a handful of protoreactive microcosmic antimatter. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater!"

The Lord Almighty frowned. "What's bathwater?"

"It's something we should definitely Create before the planet gets any more crowded."

"Ah!" God said. "One of those little fixes you mentioned."

"Exactly," I said, relieved I'd got Him past the whole let's-scrap-Creation-and-start-all-over crisis.

"But how are we going to fix Mankind?" God asked. "And some of these other creatures? And I'm not so crazy about some of the plants, either."

"What in particular— ?"

"Hey, I know!" God said. "Maybe we could make Mankind look more like ferns, and ferns look more like pachyderms, and pachyderms look more like rocks."

I could see that the Maker of All Things was just running on fumes now and about to make some bad decisions on impulse. That kind of snap-judgment Creating had given us cockroaches and quicksand. When would He learn the value of planning?

So, heading off trouble before it could get really cosmic again, I said, "Let's not do anything hasty, Lord. We've got all Eternity, after all."

"Yes, but I . . . I . . ." God got distracted and peered off into the distance.

"Is something wrong, Lord?"

"Hmmm. What are Adam and Eve doing? How odd!"

"Are they gathering food? Food was, by the way, a truly inspired notion, God. A first-rate improvisation!" Okay, so He's no planner, but I never said He didn't have talent by the boatload.

"No, they're not gathering food . . ."

"Building a shelter?" I stood on tiptoe, trying to see.

"No . . ."

I saw some movement in the distance, squinted, and recognized Adam and Eve. "Why, Lord, I think they're . . ."

"They're . . . Yes, Ishmael, you're right. They're procreating."

"Interesting," I said. "Although, perhaps . . . Do you think it looks a little . . ."

"Ungainly?" God said. "Uncomfortable?"

"Is that how they're supposed to look?" I asked.

"Well, it's in accordance with the design."

"Hmmm."

"But it's a bit . . . It doesn't really . . . There's no . . ."

"Yes, God, I see Your point."

"And Eve looks positively bored," the Lord God noted.

"Which can't bode well for procreation as a going concern."

"We need to work on this," God said decisively.

"Agreed, Lord," I said. "But, please, I beg You, let's do it intelligently. No going off half-cocked without a good design plan in place."

"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket, Ishmael. Er, Rafe. Thad."

I blinked away a sudden tear, touched by God's backing down on the name thing. "Oh, I guess You're right, Lord God Almighty. It's Your Creation, after all. If You want to play around with it, have a little fun, where's the harm?"

"Just a few experiments," God assured me with a benevolent smile. "Some trial runs on a few modifications I have in mind."

"As You wish, Lord," I said, giving in.

I can't deny anything to my biggest client.

That was many eons ago, and the Big Guy is still tinkering, always expanding and improving on His original material. And it's still the one, the only, the original Creation! The Lord God's work is always maturing and evolving, He doesn't rest on His laurels.

(Oh, can I say "evolving" here? I hear there's been some controversy about evolution since we launched Creation.)

****

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Dark Corners

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Illustrated by Ural Akyuz

The fighting had been going on for days. Outbursts of gunfire—six German soldiers dead in front of the Gare d'Orsay—a full-scale battle, complete with barricades that the French love so much, near the Eiffel Tower.

Solae had come to the surface because he heard the Resistance and the Germans had brokered a truce. The Resistance needed the time to organize, to wait for the Allies to arrive. The Germans, who were beginning to understand that they could not hold Paris, needed time to make a plan.

Solae needed food, so he had come to the only safe place he knew—a boulangerie on the Boulevard St. Germain. Most of the French were in hiding, not waiting in bread lines, and the Germans were at their posts.

He'd thought he would be able to slip in and out, unnoticed.

He had been wrong.

Solae ran across the boulevard, a loaf of bread beneath his arm, panic in his throat. He was thinner than most, so thin that if he turned sideways, the less observant could not see him. But he could not turn now.

The baker—a burly man who baked every morning for the Boche as if they were no different from the French he once served—was chasing Solae, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Foul boy! Thief!"

Two storm troopers appeared from a kiosk, holding ripped posters telling Parisians to rise up against the Boche. The troopers looked ready for battle. They had shiny boots and shinier guns—and their eyes, that pale blue that the Boche seemed to worship—seemed even paler in the August sunlight.

Solae grabbed his bicycle, also stolen, and pedaled as fast as he could, praying that the troopers would not follow in a car. Was a bread thief worth the gas? Surely there were other battles to fight, other people to attack.

But he knew that the Germans—the filthy Boche—were like rabid dogs, unable to let go of anything once they sank their teeth into it.

He pedaled hard, weaving in and out of the bicycle traffic. Despite the fighting, Parisians were still on the streets, going about their business, ignoring the war as best they could, just like they had these last four years.

Behind him, he heard the roar of an engine. He glanced over his shoulder.

The troopers had followed him. Theirs was the only car on the boulevard. Their helmets made their heads look round and comical, but Solae did not laugh at them.

He had not laughed at the Boche for a long time, not since they put out the lights in his fair city. Not since his father's death.

Solae pedaled faster, but he could not stay ahead of the car. It roared behind him, and it would only be a moment before it caught him.

The bread was warm beneath his arm. Sweat ran down his face, and he wished, not for the first time, that he had the magic of his ancestors.

He would make the Boche vanish. He would explode them, destroy their vehicle, wipe their race from the earth.

But he could do none of these things. His people could do none of these things. The powers that had once belonged to faerie had faded centuries ago. When he was his most cynical, he believed that his people had had no great powers at all—that Faeryland and the magic that went with it were the myths the Real Ones believed them to be.

The Boche sitting on the right aimed his rifle at Solae, and Solae's breath caught. He imagined light streaming from his fingers, destroying the rifle, destroying the Boche.

But imagination did not make it so.

Instead, Solae veered onto a side street, then another, his bike bouncing on the cobblestones. He was near the entrance his people kept hidden with their tiny powers.

In one movement, he slipped off the bike and laid it against the closed and locked door of an empty shop. He gave the bike a longing glance—it had been by far the best bicycle he had stolen—then he slipped sideways.

The Boche squeezed their vehicle onto the tiny street, the tires on the left side of the car riding on the curb. The Boche were laughing, calling out in German and bad French, promising le jeune a present if he but stopped for them.

Solae knew what kind of present they would give him: a bullet in the heart. And no amount of magic could undo that kind of damage.

The Boche did not seem to see him, even though one looked directly at him. Solae slipped around the corner and hid against a white wall covered with dead bougainvillea, until the Boche, their merriment gone, backed out of the street and left him alone.

****

Solae had not always stolen bread.

Once the Real Ones of Paris thought him the favored son of a nightclub owner, a man who specialized in acts that had a touch of glamour to them—be it the way a chanteuse's songs seemed to come alive onstage or the way that a young dancer almost seemed to fly as she leapt into the arms of her partner.

There had been magic during those nights. Not the magic of Solae's ancestors, but slighter magic, a bit of beauty that seemed to brighten the darkness.

Not that there had been much darkness then.

Less than a decade ago, when Solae was a little boy, he used to escape the smoke of his father's nightclub and climb onto the roof. There he looked at the lights of Paris—the arc lights illuminating the Eiffel Tower, the gargoyles of Notre Dame grinning in the lights on the dome, the lights of Sacré-Coeur on top of Montmartre, glowing like candles in the distance.

The Real Ones called Paris La Ville Lumière, the City of Light. Perhaps they thought of the clear, crisp sunlight which, they said, they could not find anywhere else; but Solae always thought of the nighttime when the lights of the city made Paris as bright as day.

But when the bombings started, five years before—he had still been a boy then—the lights went out. Paris had not been La Ville Lumière for one-third of his life. It had become a place where darkness grew, like a hole in his soul.

For Solae, the absence of light was like the absence of air. His magic was not like his father's. The family already knew that Solae would not run the nightclub. Solae couldn't enhance acts, nor could he make a plain woman beautiful.

For a long time, his family thought he had no gifts at all.

And then they realized that his gifts were even subtler than usual—the ability to fade away in a crowd, or to brighten a room when he entered it.

Solae was not a creature of the night as so many of his kind were. He preferred the day, and if he had to choose a type of day, he preferred the bright sunlight of a Paris afternoon, the way the light fell upon the Seine, illuminating the classic lines of the Palace du Louvre and the magnificent windows of the Gare d'Orsay.

Sometimes Solae sat on the stone edge of the Pont Saint-Michel and watched the city pass him by, enjoying the light, the warmth, the way Parisians seemed to enjoy each moment.

He had not sat on the Pont Saint-Michel in four years, not since the Boche came in tanks, hanging their filthy flag with its ancient symbol, the swastika, across the Arc de Triomphe.

Usually, his people did not become involved in the ways of the Real Ones, except as his father did, to make money to survive. So many of faerie had moved to the city decades before. No one questioned strangeness in Paris. Even though it was a Catholic city in a Catholic country, certain behaviors were ignored.

Faerie who would have been hanged or shot or burned in the countryside were tolerated here. Many, like Solae's father, were more than tolerated.

They were loved.

And now they were gone. His father to a bullet in the middle of a piano medley. Storm troopers, drunk with power, insisted on hearing "Ein Prosit" and Solae's father, who hated the Boche with a passion that made Solae's seem tepid, refused.

His father had railed against the Boche from the moment they began their campaigns in the Real Years of the 1930s. Remember, he said to his wife and sons, the Germans are the ones who exposed us, told our histories as if they were fables for children, made us less than we are.

And that night, the night the Germans wanted to hear" Ein Prosit," his father spoke of his hatred. The Boche reminded Solae's father that France was theirs now.

France belongs to no man, Solae's father said, his meaning clearer to faerie than it was to the Real Ones in the room. On some level, France had magic in her soul, magic that had been purged from so many European countries long ago.

Soon, the Boche told him, we shall remake France in our own image.

"And you shall fail," Solae's father said, "just as you failed to hear ' Ein Prosit.'"

The words grew heated, and even Solae, who had been near the door, watching the lights of the city with a craving he still did not understand, turned toward the smoky interior of his father's club. Voices rose, shouting in German and French, about country, patriotism, and the emptiness of the German soul.

Then finally the shot, silencing everyone, including the piano player, who had been playing American boogie-woogie as if it could cover the ugliness in the room.

The smoke seemed to clear. Solae's father stood for the longest time, before collapsing in on himself. The Germans kicked him to see if he was still alive, and, when he did not move, they stood. In a loud voice, the German who shot Solae's father ordered the piano player to play " Ein Prosit ," and this time, the piano player did.

Solae had hurried through the crowd to retrieve his father's body. His mother did the same, running from her position behind the wings.

But they both arrived too late. His father vanished into the floorboards, his soul stolen by the stone he landed on, his essence gone as if it had never been

Solae's mother had not been the same since. Solae had taken her and his brother away from that place, which the piano player took over and allowed to become a Vichy stronghold. Solae only hoped that the French who collaborated with the Boche were being haunted by the vengeful ghost of his father and were suffering hideous torment because of it.

That was early in the Occupation, before the Germans began to understand Paris. The so-called decadence of Paris—the homosexuals, the mixed-race couples, the transvestites who performed at the very best clubs, not to mention the Jews, who corrupted (in the opinion of the Boche) every city they touched—disgusted and fascinated the German soldiers and bureaucrats who had invaded the city.

When the Boche discovered that Paris was a haven for yet another group—a group the Germans had slaughtered centuries ago—they were merciless. Faerie were murdered on the street, and no one came to their defense. For faerie were not French; nor were they even human. They were something Other, and as food became scarce, they became little more than mongrel dogs to those who competed with them for every scrap.

Still, faerie were reluctant to leave Paris. They could not go to England, where they had been slaughtered centuries before the Germans came after them, and they could not afford the long trips to America—back in the days before the Americans became part of the war.

The countryside held the same dangers as the city, more so because there were fewer faerie and more Boche, and parts of France had become more German than others.

Faerie finally found themselves relegated to the land no one else wanted, the place no one else would think of as a refuge: the vast tombs beneath the city—the catacombs.

****

That was where Solae slipped now. He went onto the side street through a small, private doorway that faerie kept locked. The Boche thought the doorway led to the courtyard for the apartments above and never investigated.

Although the doorway did lead to a courtyard, beyond the courtyard was a street, a tiny street that the Boche car would never fit on. Part of the ancient city, the street meandered for less than a mile before reaching another boulevard through another doorway.

But underneath the street ran a main section of the catacombs. Solae had discovered the entrance one afternoon when he had explored. Then he had shown it to the elders, and they had used their combined powers to mask the entrance as a whitewashed wall.

Solae touched that wall now. His fingers found the latch that released the stone door, and it swung open, echoing in the emptiness.

He hated the catacombs. They were dark and dank, and they reeked of death. The Real Ones could not smell it, although they did not care for the catacombs either. But the Real Ones had lost their sense of the Beyond, and they did not realize that when their ancestors emptied Paris's graveyards and stacked the bones in the sewers beneath the city, they had stacked the power of death there as well.

Each time Solae descended into the darkness, he felt like he lost a part of himself. He had become convinced that his thinness was not due to his lack of meals but to the pieces of himself taken by the darkness that lived below.

Still, he disappeared behind the stone door. As it closed behind him, he raised his right hand, pressed his thumb and forefinger together, and created a light.

The ability to create light was his only awe-inspiring power. A worthless power, his father used to say. But Solae did not think it worthless any longer, and he often wished that his father still lived so that Solae could prove how valuable the light had become.

Solae held his hand out before him. The light he formed was small—he didn't want to burn himself out this early in the day—and shaped like a flame. Only it did not flicker. The light burned steadily like an electric current, providing constant illumination for his journey ahead.

That was the only way he could tolerate heading into the catacombs. Flickering light would have terrified him, caused him to see ghosts in the shadows where there were none.

The Boche had come below many times, but had found no one. Only rats. For the Boche, for all of their posturing, were the most superstitious race in Europe—and the most terrified of death. They avoided the catacombs as much as possible.

The steps leading down had been carved centuries before by unknown hands, and hollowed by thousands of feet. In the time that Solae had spent below, he wondered at who had moved the bones of the ancient dead. What kind of man would carry skeletons from their natural resting places to the depths below?

The bones were not just placed in a pile. They were stacked neatly in patterns, and the patterns varied. In some places, the skulls formed a congregation of a thousand empty eyes, staring into the passageway. In others, the skulls were the center of a skull-and-crossbones motif.

Solae had found other places where the long bones of the legs and arms formed crosses or stars or other patterns that had existed since the beginning of time. In the middle of one particularly dark night, he had even found a group of bones that formed swastikas—and he had to remind himself that the symbol had been around long before the Boche took it for their own.

The catacombs were deep underground, and he always knew he drew close when water from the ceiling began to fall like rain. He worried that one day, the roof would collapse under the weight of the water above, but others, older and wiser than he, swore that would not happen.

Still, in many places below, the stone floor was wet, and the ceiling even wetter. He had to go through such a place to find his family, huddled in their little sepulchre deep within the labyrinth.

At first, Solae's mother had balked at staying in such a place. Clearly the priests who had designed this place had set up many areas for worship. There were long communion tables with all of the Christian symbols carved into the sides. There were quotes carved from the Real One's Holy Book upon the ceiling. There was an altar in the center, and even a baptismal font that collected ceiling rain.

Solae had to sleep on the communion table one night alone before his mother believed that one of these abandoned churches would be safe for faerie. And even now, she still had her doubts, occasionally waking in the middle of the night screaming that the crossbones on the wall were coming for her, to put her down like the dog the Christians believed she was.

She was nothing like the woman who bore him, nothing like the glamorous creature who performed every midnight on his father's stage. Then her alto voice had mesmerized the crowd, and her dark eyes had shone with magic unused. She had become the toast of their arrondissement, the center of faerie life in Paris—and beloved among the Real Ones themselves.

Or so it had seemed.

When she had gone to the Real Ones after Solae's father's death, they had slammed their doors as if they did not know her. Solae's brother Noene suggested this was because they had not recognized her; to them she was a musical beauty in a smoke-filled room, not a woman with haunted eyes who needed refuge.

Solae brought the bread, only to find his mother sitting on the priest's chair, carved in marble and pushed against the stone wall—the only wall without bones protruding from it.

Noene was there with a sausage he had stolen, and together they made a feast. The three of them hadn't eaten that well in days.

After they finished, his mother looked at Solae. For a moment, he thought she would ask him how he had gotten the bread—how he had survived in the city above.

But she hadn't ever asked him about that. In fact, she did not speak of the city, as if it had ceased to exist. She hadn't been above ground for four years. It had affected not just her manner, but her sight. Solae had to douse his personal light and find candles for the lamps below. She preferred the gloom, claiming that anything brighter made her eyes hurt.

"They've returned," his mother said.

Solae started. The Boche had come into this sanctuary more than once. The last time, Solae had been asleep on the communion table when he heard the clatter of boots against stone. He had doused the candles and climbed into the space between the skulls and the ceiling—a space barely a foot in width.

He had lain there, his nose pressed against the damp, the bones of the dead digging into his back, as the Boche peered into the chamber.

"I cannot believe someone would hide here," one of them said in their hideous tongue. "I would die first."

And then they had moved on, boots clanking with military precision, the click-clicks marking the time it took the Boche to leave Solae behind.

"Where did you hide?" Solae asked, hoping that his frail mother did not have to lie on bones as he had.

"Not the Germans," Noene said. "The Communists."

Solae suppressed his sigh of relief. The Communists were French, and they were not as frightening as his family made them sound. The Communists were part of the Resistance, the French who opposed the collaborationists who had taken the center of French government from Paris and moved it to Vichy to hide the fact that the Germans really controlled all that they did.

Vichy had become a dirtier word than Communist, and collaborationist the dirtiest word of all.

"You heard them?" Solae asked, pretending a concern he did not feel.

"They are plotting violence," his mother said, as if the violence she spoke of was directed at her.

"They say the Americans have landed in Normandy." Noene could not hide his enthusiasm. "They worry that De Gaulle will come here and destroy them."

That was not the real worry of the Communists. Solae knew more about them than he told his family. He had found the Communist enclave long ago, and during the dark nights, had snuck through the bones to find the enclave, listening to the speeches and the pep talks and the news.

It was from them that Solae had picked up the word Boche , which suited the Germans much more than any other word had. He did not want to speak of them with respect. He needed a word that was profane for what they had done to his city, his family, his home.

The Communists had taken to hiding in the sewers more than the catacombs, and planning small attacks against Germans. They disarmed the Vichy police, they occasionally killed a storm trooper who found himself alone, and they sabotaged shipments of French goods back to Germany.

The Communists were only a small part of the Resistance, but they were hated by their own people, and feared, for when the Germans were defeated and Vichy gone, the Free French believed the Communists would rise up and take over the government—obligating the French to Stalin and the Soviet Union the way Vichy obligated France to Hitler.

But Solae did not share that fear. The Communists called themselves freedom fighters, and they were fierce advocates for France.

He admired all they did. Sometimes he sat in the shadows and listened as they made their plans. He wished he could help them, but he could not. If someone died—even accidentally—because of his involvement, he would lose what little magic he had.

For that was why faerie were so easily defeated throughout Europe. Their powers were the powers of life, lost when touched with death. Faerie resisted coming into the catacombs for that very reason—even ancient death disturbed them.

It took a courageous few to live below, test their powers, and report to the others before the entire community found the shelter and safety they needed.

Solae wished he could help the Communists. He did what he could. He was what some called a passive member of the Resistance—he taunted the Boche, stole from them or their Vichy compatriots, and destroyed their writings wherever he found them. Sometimes he siphoned precious gas from their cars, but carefully, never allowing his powers of light to touch the liquid for fear of a fire.

He did what he could, but it was very little.

"Aren't you worried by this?" Noene asked. "They will start a war above us."

"There is a war above us," Solae said.

"But not like the countryside," Noene said. "Paris still stands."

For the moment. But Solae did not say that. Instead, he said, "They say De Gaulle will be here by the first of September, and I believe it. Many of the Germans who are not soldiers have stolen what they can from the city and fled."

"What will happen to us?" his mother asked. "If Communists find us, they are even more ruthless than the Germans."

She was thinking of the Russian communists. She had lost family in St. Petersburg, which the communists had then renamed. Sometimes, she said lately, her entire life had been about loss.

"We'll be fine," Solae said. But he did not believe that, for the Germans were ruthless. He had seen too much to believe they would let Paris go so easily.

His thoughts made him restless. He stood, unable to stay in the darkness much longer.

"It's still daylight above," he said. "I'll see if I can find us anything else before night falls."

He did not wait for his mother's answer. Instead, he fled through the tunnels and went up to the light.

****

He heard the sound before he even left the stairway—gunfire. The heat had grown worse, a physical presence that made the gunfire seem even more ominous. As he stepped through the doorway, this one leading to a different part of the city, he saw German tanks in the street.

Four of them, large as houses. The tanks made Solae shudder. He pressed himself against the wall, uncertain what to do. He did not know if he had been seen, if his presence would lead others to the catacombs.

The gunfire came from the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. Men—boys, really—leaned out of windows and shot at the tanks with revolvers.

The tanks swiveled, aiming their guns at the Hôtel de Ville. The building itself seemed to shudder from their might. Solae winced, feeling helpless.

He had heard that the Germans would destroy the city before they allowed the French to retake it, but he had not believed it. Paris was, according the BBC, the only intact city left in Europe. It had artifacts and treasures that everyone—not just the French—could enjoy.

It was his home.

A young woman, standing near his hiding place, screamed at the Boche. Solae couldn't make out the words—something about leaving her city in peace—then she grabbed a bottle from the ground beside her and ran for the street.

His heart pounded. He stepped forward to stop her—there was nothing she could do against tanks—but she kept screaming, "Filthy Boche! You do not belong here! Filthy Boche!"

Solae could not reach her.

She got to the side of the tank, smashed her bottle against its open turret, and somehow flames exploded along the metal. Solae had heard about such weapons—simple combinations of chemicals that he did not understand.

He heard a scream from inside, saw a German soldier rise, slapping himself, trying to put out the fire his clothing had become.

The girl grinned and ran back toward Solae, her steps almost a dance. For a moment, he remembered the beauty his father conferred upon the nonbeautiful—a touch of glamour, given by a little bit of magic.

The girl had that magic, without Solae's father's help. She was not faerie, and yet she glowed with her victory.

Her gaze met Solae's, and he thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his entire life.

And then a shot rang out.

A single shot, even though he knew it could not have been the only one, even though he knew others were firing.

But it was as if he were with the girl, as if he were linked to her by her moment of victory. He saw the surprise fill her eyes, the blood spatter out of her mouth, her look of triumph turn to horror—

And then to nothing.

She stumbled, collapsed, and fell forward, like his father had done. Like so many others had done.

Solae did not stop to think. He ran into the street, to the girl, as people around him shouted, demanding that he take cover. The tanks kept shelling the Hôtel de Ville and, in one heart-stopping moment, he feared the building would tumble around him.

He reached her and crouched, knowing from her open and glazed eyes that she was gone. But he could not leave her there. Even if the stone would not absorb her soul the way it had absorbed his father's, Solae could not abandon her on the street, to be run over by the Boche, to be treated as one more rag in a city littered with them.

He slipped his hands under her arms and lifted her. Bullets pinged off the cobblestones as someone shot at him—maybe even the freedom fighters above, missing their German targets.

His heart was pounding, the girl's blood warm on his skin. She had had her moment against the Boche, her victory, and the Boche had stolen it from her, as they had stolen everything else—her home, her life, her world.

Solae's world.

He carried her to the sidewalk, where one of the old women wailed in grief. Then he set the girl's body, and knew what he had to do.

The Boche were the most superstitious creatures in Europe.

Solae turned to face them.

The boys still fired from the windows above. Three of the tanks still fired at the Hôtel de Ville. The fourth, its crew disabled or dead thanks to the girl, huddled like a wounded animal in the middle of the street.

Solae formed a fist and held it high, in mockery of the German salute.

" Achtung !" he shouted, his German flawless from years of listening to the vile tongue.

No one looked at him. No one seemed to see him.

He used his own glamour, his ability to brighten a room.

" Achtung !" he shouted again, and this time, every German within hearing range looked.

Solae squinted slightly, concentrating. He imagined his entire fist engulfed in flame—and suddenly it was. Cool flame which did not consume, but which burned beautifully in the bright August sunlight.

The shooting from the windows stopped.

He let the fire slide down his arm and engulf his entire body. The street looked wavy through the flame, as if he were viewing everything from a heat mirage.

" Vive la France !" he shouted.

Then he made the fire wink out.

The Germans stared at him for the longest time. The moment seemed to stretch forever.

Solae smiled at them.

" Vive la France !" he repeated, and put his hands on his hips, obviously unharmed by the fire that had surrounded him a moment before.

He took a step forward, and the German closest to him screamed. So did another, and another. They scrambled into their tanks, down the turrets, closing the hatches.

Solae remained on the street, watching them. The Germans drove their tanks away from him, their terror palpable in the thick August heat.

Dust rose around him. He did not feel the girl's sense of victory. All he had done was a trick, nothing monumental, nothing worth a life.

But the boys in the windows above started to cheer. And so did the people on the street. They were looking at him, and cheering, and he could not take it.

He had done nothing. He was nothing. Just a small man with a small talent, and a little bit of luck.

He could not save the girl from death. He could not prevent death. And he had used his one talent the only way he knew how.

The cheering continued, and he looked away. The girl's corpse remained on the sidewalk, the old woman bent over her, rocking, as if the movement would make the girl return.

Nothing would make her return. Nor would Solae's father return, or their life, or his mother's sanity. Nothing would be the same again, no matter when the Allies came.

All these years, he had deluded himself, hiding among the dead, believing that all he had to do was wait, and life would return to normal. The humans would stop their craziness, the war would fade, and everything would return.

But it was not just a human craziness. His father had been right: there were humans to ally with, and humans to fight. His father would have fought—he had fought, in his own turf, over his own command: music.

But Solae had not. He had not used his powers at all.

Until now.

All these years, he could have fought in a slightly larger way, and he had not.

He had not.

While others died.

He had chosen to fade away instead of bringing light. He had chosen to live among the dead instead of fight beside the living.

But he would not make that choice again.

He could bring light to darkness, and vanish seemingly without a trace.

The Resistance was chasing the Boche from Paris, and Solae would help as best he could. And when he was done here, he would help liberate all of France, which was the world he cared about.

He finally knew how to do it, without losing his powers, without betraying his people.

He would haunt the Boche. He would bring light to the darkest corners of their souls, exposing them to all they had done.

He would destroy the Boche, taking all they feared and turning it against them, one by one.

One superstitious mind at a time.

****

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The Mark of the Beast

Written by Rudyard Kipling

Illustrated by Paul Skinner

Your Gods and my Gods—do you or I know which are the stronger? Native Proverb.

EAST of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the Gods and Devils of Asia, and the Church of England Providence only exercising an occasional and modified supervision in the case of Englishmen.

This theory accounts for some of the more unnecessary horrors of life in India: it may be stretched to explain my story.

My friend Strickland of the Police, who knows as much of natives of India as is good for any man, can bear witness to the facts of the case. Dumoise, our doctor, also saw what Strickland and I saw. The inference which he drew from the evidence was entirely incorrect. He is dead now; he died, in a rather curious manner, which has been elsewhere described.

When Fleete came to India he owned a little money and some land in the Himalayas, near a place called Dharmsala. Both properties had been left him by an uncle, and he came out to finance them. He was a big, heavy, genial, and inoffensive man. His knowledge of natives was, of course, limited, and he complained of the difficulties of the language.

He rode in from his place in the hills to spend New Year in the station, and he stayed with Strickland. On New Year's Eve there was a big dinner at the club, and the night was excusably wet. When men foregather from the uttermost ends of the Empire, they have a right to be riotous. The Frontier had sent down a contingent o' Catch-'em-Alive-O's who had not seen twenty white faces for a year, and were used to ride fifteen miles to dinner at the next Fort at the risk of a Khyberee bullet where their drinks should lie. They profited by their new security, for they tried to play pool with a curled-up hedgehog found in the garden, and one of them carried the marker round the room in his teeth. Half a dozen planters had come in from the south and were talking "horse" to the Biggest Liar in Asia, who was trying to cap all their stories at once. Everybody was there, and there was a general closing up of ranks and taking stock of our losses in dead or disabled that had fallen during the past year. It was a very wet night, and I remember that we sang "Auld Lang Syne" with our feet in the Polo Championship Cup, and our heads among the stars, and swore that we were all dear friends. Then some of us went away and annexed Burma, and some tried to open up the Soudan and were opened up by Fuzzies in that cruel scrub outside Suakim, and some found stars and medals, and some were married, which was bad, and some did other things which were worse, and the others of us stayed in our chains and strove to make money on insufficient experiences.

Fleete began the night with sherry and bitters, drank champagne steadily up to dessert, then raw, rasping Capri with all the strength of whisky, took Benedictine with his coffee, four or five whiskies and sodas to improve his pool strokes, beer and bones at half-past two, winding up with old brandy. Consequently, when he came out, at half-past three in the morning, into fourteen degrees of frost, he was very angry with his horse for coughing, and tried to leapfrog into the saddle. The horse broke away and went to his stables; so Strickland and I formed a Guard of Dishonour to take Fleete home.

Our road lay through the bazaar, close to a little temple of Hanuman, the Monkey-god, who is a leading divinity worthy of respect. All gods have good points, just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much importance to Hanuman, and am kind to his people—the great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one may want a friend.

There was a light in the temple, and as we passed, we could hear voices of men chanting hymns. In a native temple, the priests rise at all hours of the night to do honour to their god. Before we could stop him, Fleete dashed up the steps, patted two priests on the back, and was gravely grinding the ashes of his cigar-butt into the forehead of the red stone image of Hanuman. Strickland tried to drag him out, but he sat down and said solemnly:

"Shee that? "Mark of the B-beasht! I made it. Ishn't it fine?"

In half a minute the temple was alive and noisy, and Strickland, who knew what came of polluting gods, said that things might occur. He, by virtue of his official position, long residence in the country, and weakness for going among the natives, was known to the priests and he felt unhappy. Fleete sat on the ground and refused to move. He said that "good old Hanuman" made a very soft pillow.

Then, without any warning, a Silver Man came out of a recess behind the image of the god. He was perfectly naked in that bitter, bitter cold, and his body shone like frosted silver, for he was what the Bible calls "a leper as white as snow." Also he had no face, because he was a leper of some years' standing and his disease was heavy upon him. We two stooped to haul Fleete up, and the temple was filling and filling with folk who seemed to spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head on Fleete's breast before we could wrench him away. Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the crowd blocked all the doors.

The priests were very angry until the Silver Man touched Fleete. That nuzzling seemed to sober them.

At the end of a few minutes' silence one of the priests came to Strickland and said, in perfect English, "Take your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but Hanurnan has not done with him." The crowd gave room and we carried Fleete into the road.

Strickland was very angry. He said that we might all three have been knifed, and that Fleete should thank his stars that he had escaped without injury.

Fleete thanked no one. He said that he wanted to go to bed. He was gorgeously drunk.

We moved on, Strickland silent and wrathful, until Fleete was taken with violent shivering fits and sweating. He said that the smells of the bazaar were overpowering, and he wondered why slaughter-houses were permitted so near English residences. "Can't you smell the blood?" said Fleete.

We put him to bed at last, just as the dawn was breaking, and Strickland invited me to have another whisky and soda. While we were drinking he talked of the trouble in the temple, and admitted that it baffled him completely. Strickland hates being mystified by natives, because his business in life is to overmatch them with their own weapons. He has not yet succeeded in doing this, but in fifteen or twenty years he will have made some small progress.

"They should have mauled us," he said, "instead of mewing at us. I wonder what they meant. I don't like it one little bit."

I said that the Managing Committee of the temple would in all probability bring a criminal action against us for insulting their religion. There was a section of the Indian Penal Code which exactly met Fleete's offence. Strickland said he only hoped and prayed that they would do this. Before I left I looked into Fleete's room, and saw him lying on his right side, scratching his left breast. Then. I went to bed cold, depressed, and unhappy, at seven o'clock in the morning.

At one o'clock I rode over to Strickland's house to inquire after Fleete's head. I imagined that it would be a sore one. Fleete was breakfasting and seemed unwell. His temper was gone, for he was abusing the cook for not supplying him with an underdone chop. A man who can eat raw meat after a wet night is a curiosity. I told Fleete this and he laughed.

"You breed queer mosquitoes in these parts," he said. "I've been bitten to pieces, but only in one place."

"Let's have a look at the bite," said Strickland. "It may have gone down since this morning."

While the chops were being cooked, Fleete opened his shirt and showed us, just over his left breast, a mark, the perfect double of the black rosettes—the five or six irregular blotches arranged in a circle—on a leopard's hide. Strickland looked and said, "It was only pink this morning. It's grown black now."

Fleete ran to a glass.

"By Jove!" he said, "this is nasty. What is it?"

We could not answer. Here the chops came in, all red and juicy, and Fleete bolted three in a most offensive manner. He ate on his right grinders only, and threw his head over his right shoulder as he snapped the meat. When he had finished, it struck him that he had been behaving strangely, for he said apologetically, "I don't think I ever felt so hungry in my life. I've bolted like an ostrich."

After breakfast Strickland said to me, "Don't go. Stay here, and stay for the night."

Seeing that my house was not three miles from Strickland's, this request was absurd. But Strickland insisted, and was going to say something when Fleete interrupted by declaring in a shamefaced way that he felt hungry again. Strickland sent a man to my house to fetch over my bedding and a horse, and we three went down to Strickland's stables to pass the hours until it was time to go out for a ride. The man who has a weakness for horses never wearies of inspecting them; and when two men are killing time in this way they gather knowledge and lies the one from the other.

There were five horses in the stables, and I shall never forget the scene as we tried to look them over. They seemed to have gone mad. They reared and screamed and nearly tore up their pickets; they sweated and shivered and lathered and were distraught with fear. Strickland's horses used to know him as well as his dogs; which made the matter more curious. We left the stable for fear of the brutes throwing themselves in their panic. Then Strickland turned back and called me. The horses were still frightened, but they let us "gentle" and make much of them, and put their heads in our bosoms.

"They aren't afraid of US," said Strickland. "D'you know, I'd give three months' pay if OUTRAGE here could talk."

But Outrage was dumb, and could only cuddle up to his master and blow out his nostrils, as is the custom of horses when they wish to explain things but can't. Fleete came up when we were in the stalls, and as soon as the horses saw him, their fright broke out afresh. It was all that we could do to escape from the place unkicked. Strickland said, "They don't seem to love you, Fleete."

"Nonsense," said Fleete; "my mare will follow me like a dog." He went to her; she was in a loose-box; but as he slipped the bars she plunged, knocked him down, and broke away into the garden. I laughed, but Strickland was not amused. He took his moustache in both fists and pulled at it till it nearly came out. Fleete, instead of going off to chase his property, yawned, saying that he felt sleepy. He went to the house to lie down, which was a foolish way of spending New Year's Day.

Strickland sat with me in the stables and asked if I had noticed anything peculiar in Fleete's manner. I said that he ate his food like a beast; but that this might have been the result of living alone in the hills out of the reach of society as refined and elevating as ours for instance. Strickland was not amused. I do not think that he listened to me, for his next sentence referred to the mark on Fleete's breast, and I said that it might have been caused by blister-flies, or that it was possibly a birth-mark newly born and now visible for the first time. We both agreed that it was unpleasant to look at, and Strickland found occasion to say that I was a fool.

"I can't tell you what I think now," said he, "because you would call me a madman; but you must stay with me for the next few days, if you can. I want you to watch Fleete, but don't tell me what you think till I have made up my mind."

"But I am dining out to-night," I said. "So am I," said Strickland, "and so is Fleete. At least if he doesn't change his mind."

We walked about the garden smoking, but saying nothing—because we were friends, and talking spoils good tobacco—till our pipes were out. Then we went to wake up Fleete. He was wide awake and fidgeting about his room.

"I say, I want some more chops," he said. "Can I get them?"

We laughed and said, "Go and change. The ponies will be round in a minute."

"All right," said Fleete. "I'll go when I get the chops—underdone ones, mind."

He seemed to be quite in earnest. It was four o'clock, and we had had breakfast at one; still, for a long time, he demanded those underdone chops. Then he changed into riding clothes and went out into the verandah. His pony—the mare had not been caught—would not let him come near. All three horses were unmanageable—mad with fear—and finally Fleete said that he would stay at home and get something to eat. Strickland and I rode out wondering. As we passed the temple of Hanuman, the Silver Man came out and mewed at us.

"He is not one of the regular priests of the temple," said Strickland. "I think I should peculiarly like to lay my hands on him."

There was no spring in our gallop on the racecourse that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as though they had been ridden out.

"The fright after breakfast has been too much for them," said Strickland.

That was the only remark he made through the remainder of the ride. Once or twice I think he swore to himself; but that did not count.

We came back in the dark at seven o'clock, and saw that there were no lights in the bungalow. "Careless ruffians my servants are!" said Strickland.

My horse reared at something on the carriage drive, and Fleete stood up under its nose.

"What are you doing, grovelling about the garden?" said Strickland.

But both horses bolted and nearly threw us. We dismounted by the stables and returned to Fleete, who was on his hands and knees under the orange-bushes.

"What the devil's wrong with you?" said Strickland.

"Nothing, nothing in the world," said Fleete, speaking very quickly and thickly. "I've been gardening—botanising you know. The smell of the earth is delightful. I think I'm going for a walk—a long walk—all night."

Then I saw that there was something excessively out of order somewhere, and I said to Strickland, "I am not dining out."

"Bless you!" said Strickland. "Here, Fleete, get up. You'll catch fever there. Come in to dinner and let's have the lamps lit. We'll all dine at home."

Fleete stood up unwillingly, and said, "No lamps—no lamps. It's much nicer here. Let's dine outside and have some more chops—lots of 'em and underdone—bloody ones with gristle."

Now a December evening in Northern India is bitterly cold, and Fleete's suggestion was that of a maniac.

"Come in," said Strickland sternly. "Come in at once."

Fleete came, and when the lamps were brought, we saw that he was literally plastered with dirt from head to foot. He must have been rolling in the garden. He shrank from the light and went to his room. His eyes were horrible to look at. There was a green light behind them, not in them, if you understand, and the man's lower lip hung down.

Strickland said, "There is going to be trouble—big trouble—to-night. Don't you change your riding-things."

We waited and waited for Fleete's reappearance, and ordered dinner in the meantime. We could hear him moving about his own room, but there was no light there. Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a wolf.

People write and talk lightly of blood running cold and hair standing up and things of that kind. Both sensations are too horrible to be trifled with. My heart stopped as though a knife had been driven through it, and Strickland turned as white as the tablecloth.

The howl was repeated, and was answered by another howl far across the fields.

That set the gilded roof on the horror. Strickland dashed into Fleete's room. I followed, and we saw Fleete getting out of the window. He made beast-noises in the back of his throat. He could not answer us when we shouted at him. He spat.

I don't quite remember what followed, but I think that Strickland must have stunned him with the long boot-jack or else I should never have been able to sit on his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl, and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. The human spirit must have been giving way all day and have died out with the twilight. We were dealing with a beast that had once been Fleete.

The affair was beyond any human and rational experience. I tried to say "Hydrophobia," but the word wouldn't come, because I knew that I was lying.

We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah-rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and gagged it with a shoe-horn, which makes a very efficient gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had despatched the messenger and were drawing breath, Strickland said, "It's no good. This isn't any doctor's work." I, also, knew that he spoke the truth.

The beast's head was free, and it threw it about from side to side. Any one entering the room would have believed that we were curing a wolf's pelt. That was the most loathsome accessory of all.

Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fist, watching the beast as it wriggled on the ground, but saying nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It stood out like a blister.

In the silence of the watching we heard something without mewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sick—actually and physically sick. We told each other, as did the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat.

Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little man so unprofessionally shocked. He said that it was a heart-rending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could be done. At least any palliative measures would only prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Dumoise could offer no help. He could only certify that Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then howling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to poison Dumoise's New Year. He would only ask him not to give the real cause of Fleete's death to the public.

So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the noise of the cart-wheels had died away, Strickland told me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and I, who entertained all Strickland's beliefs, was so ashamed of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve.

"Even if the Silver Man had bewitched Fleete for polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could not have fallen so quickly."

As I was whispering this the cry outside the house rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that held it would give way.

"Watch!" said Strickland. "If this happens six times I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to help me."

He went into his room and came out in a few minutes with the barrels of an old shot-gun, a piece of fishing-line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead. I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed perceptibly weaker.

Strickland muttered, "But he can't take away the life! He can't take away the life!"

I said, though I knew that I was arguing against myself, "It may be a cat. It must be a cat. If the Silver Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here?"

Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on the table and broke a walking stick in two. There was one yard of fishing line, gut, lapped with wire, such as is used for mahseer-fishing, and he tied the two ends together in a loop.

Then he said, "How can we catch him? He must be taken alive and unhurt."

I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out softly with polo- sticks into the shrubbery at the front of the house. The man or animal that made the cry was evidently moving round the house as regularly as a night-watchman. We could wait in the bushes till he came by and knock him over.

Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we slipped out from a bath-room window into the front verandah and then across the carriage drive into the bushes.

In the moonlight we could see the leper coming round the corner of the house. He was perfectly naked, and from time to time he mewed and stopped to dance with his shadow. It was an unattractive sight, and thinking of poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by so foul a creature, I put away all my doubts and resolved to help Strickland from the heated gun-barrels to the loop of twine—from the loins to the head and back again—with all tortures that might be needful.

The leper halted in the front porch for a moment and we jumped out on him with the sticks. He was wonderfully strong, and we were afraid that he might escape or be fatally injured before we caught him. We had an idea that lepers were frail creatures, but this proved to be incorrect. Strickland knocked his legs from under him and I put my foot on his neck. He mewed hideously, and even through my riding-boots I could feel that his flesh was not the flesh of a clean man.

He struck at us with his hand and feet-stumps. We looped the lash of a dog-whip round him, under the armpits, and dragged him backwards into the hall and so into the dining-room where the beast lay. There we tied him with trunk-straps. He made no attempt to escape, but mewed.

When we confronted him with the beast the scene was beyond description. The beast doubled backwards into a bow as though he had been poisoned with strychnine, and moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several other things happened also, but they cannot be put down here.

"I think I was right," said Strickland. "Now we will ask him to cure this case."

But the leper only mewed. Strickland wrapped a towel round his hand and took the gun-barrels out of the fire. I put the half of the broken walking stick through the loop of fishing-line and buckled the leper comfortably to Strickland's bedstead. I understood then how men and women and little children can endure to see a witch burnt alive; for the beast was moaning on the floor, and though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible feelings passing through the slab that took its place, exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot iron—gun-barrels for instance.

Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a moment and we got to work. This part is not to be printed.

The dawn was beginning to break when the leper spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his breath as he did so.

We watched the face of the beast, and saw the soul of Fleete coming back into the eyes. Then a sweat broke out on the forehead and the eyes—they were human eyes—closed. We waited for an hour but Fleete still slept. We carried him to his room and bade the leper go, giving him the bedstead, and the sheet on the bedstead to cover his nakedness, the gloves and the towels with which we had touched him, and the whip that had been hooked round his body. He put the sheet about him and went out into the early morning without speaking or mewing.

Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A night-gong, far away in the city, made seven o'clock.

"Exactly four-and-twenty hours!" said Strickland. "And I've done enough to ensure my dismissal from the service, besides permanent quarters in a lunatic asylum. Do you believe that we are awake?"

The red-hot gun-barrel had fallen on the floor and was singeing the carpet. The smell was entirely real.

That morning at eleven we two together went to wake up Fleete. We looked and saw that the black leopard-rosette on his chest had disappeared. He was very drowsy and tired, but as soon as he saw us, he said, "Oh! Confound you fellows. Happy New Year to you. Never mix your liquors. I'm nearly dead."

"Thanks for your kindness, but you're over time," said Strickland. "Today is the morning of the second. You've slept the clock round with a vengeance."

The door opened, and little Dumoise put his head in. He had come on foot, and fancied that we were laving out Fleete.

"I've brought a nurse," said Dumoise. "I suppose that she can come in for . . . what is necessary."

"By all means," said Fleete cheerily, sitting up in bed. "Bring on your nurses."

Dumoise was dumb. Strickland led him out and explained that there must have been a mistake in the diagnosis. Dumoise remained dumb and left the house hastily. He considered that his professional reputation had been injured, and was inclined to make a personal matter of the recovery. Strickland went out too. When he came back, he said that he had been to call on the Temple of Hanuman to offer redress for the pollution of the god, and had been solemnly assured that no white man had ever touched the idol and that he was an incarnation of all the virtues labouring under a delusion.

"What do you think?" said Strickland.

I said, "'There are more things . . .'"

But Strickland hates that quotation. He says that I have worn it threadbare.

One other curious thing happened which frightened me as much as anything in all the night's work. When Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and sniffed. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when he sniffed. "Horrid doggy smell, here," said he. "You should really keep those terriers of yours in better order. Try sulphur, Strick."

But Strickland did not answer. He caught hold of the back of a chair, and, without warning, went into an amazing fit of hysterics. It is terrible to see a strong man overtaken with hysteria. Then it struck me that we had fought for Fleete's soul with the Silver Man in that room, and had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen for ever, and I laughed and gasped and gurgled just as shamefully as Strickland, while Fleete thought that we had both gone mad. We never told him what we had done.

Some years later, when Strickland had married and was a church-going member of society for his wife's sake, we reviewed the incident dispassionately, and Strickland suggested that I should put it before the public.

I cannot myself see that this step is likely to clear up the mystery; because, in the first place, no one will believe a rather unpleasant story, and, in the second, it is well known to every right-minded man that the gods of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to deal with them otherwise is justly condemned.

****

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Fish Story, Episode 8: The Yellow Sub . . .

Written by Dave Freer, Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis

Illustrated by Barb Jernigan

A moment ago escape from the gut-wrenching passage of the churnel had seemed a vast relief. Like the back gas pressure from a mixture of sauerkraut and peas escaping, to be blamed on the dog . . . the moment was wondrous . . . and temporary. Like discovering it wasn’t gas escaping. And that the yellow submersible was not just an illusion of passage. It was haunting us.

From his very dignified position on hands and knees Steven Speairs looked at me. “This is all your fucking fault, Guptill.”

“Usually is. Somehow.” I didn’t feel I was in any position to argue. That had been the submersible we’d seen, I’d swear. And this was either a very infamous hotel in Mozambique or something as like it as Oliver Thambo International Airport is like Johannesburg International Airport or is like Jan Smuts International Airport (The three are so alike that I have often thought I was in one when I was really in the other. It’s almost as if some thirteen-year-old had perpetrated one of those . . . you know, really hilarious little practical jokes of sign switching, so satisfying to tiny minds. I’ve long suspected, on seeing the wrong signs in the right places that the three places are merely the gates to mutually exclusive universes. I’ve also long suspected pigeons of being inter-dimensional travelers, ever since I realized the pigeon poop piles on the signs were the one thing that never changed about them, no matter what name appeared on them.) In short: I had a horrible feeling that we were the unwitting victims just such a practical joke.

Stephen rolled over and lay on his back, groaning. And the large white-shirted and neatly bow-tied gentleman looking down on us, looked suitably unimpressed. He was big enough for the task he looked like he was about to undertake—tossing these rejects from iron cage of his elevator (yes, it was that vintage elevator) out into the street and balmy night air without as much as a Dos M to protect them from malarial mosquitoes. One of the many oddities about Mozambique is that besides having survived Bob Dylan singing about it and having had twenty years of civil war which left 90% of the country in ruins and 99% of its industry toast, is that the local beer—Dos M—pronounced ‘doish’—is both good and relatively cheap. It’s a light lager, which you may rightly say is an abomination—in England. In the tropics its a fairly good idea. Cold, crisp and bitter, good for replacing fluids, or providing fluids to need replacing later. One day someone will explain to my satisfaction how it evolved in bollock-freezing Northern Europe. It’s going to cost you a lot mind-numbing stuff to do that, because there is not one ounce of common sense in it.

The large gentleman confirmed my worst suspicions by greeting us in a very frosty tone.

“What does he mean ‘bomb dear’? Is this an evacuation? Bloody hell,” asked Speairs, trying to sit up and failing. “I’ve turned into a military parade. Bits of me keep passing out.”

It was funny when Douglas Adams said it. But now it felt too close to reality. “It’s Portuguese. Means ‘good day.’”

“We’re in the wrong pub, said Stephen with one of those flights of genius that could just make a man famous. Get him a Nobel prize. “Must be somewhere down towards Croydon.“

”Just a little further south, gentlemen. Just a little further south,” said the newcomer on the scene, a sleek-looking bloke who might have been related to Drako Malfoy. Well, maybe it was the sinister air. Or the fact that he had a beer and we didn’t. That’s always a sign of lurking evil, or at least of someone who likes to see others suffer. “It’s all right, Luis. They’re with me. Or will be.”

It occurred to me then that the elevator was not, in fact, a broom closet. I’m very quick witted about that sort of thing. Observant too. And it didn’t smell of ammonia. Why this should be important I was not entirely sure. There was a faint whiff of seafood, but that is the norm, along with the smell of the frying of it, in any establishment in Moz. It’s not a good scent when you’re feeling more than a little queasy.

“Let me introduce myself,” said Draco’s relation. “Dann Douglas.” And then the magic words that transformed him from sinister messenger to angel of redemption. “You all look in need of beer.”

Stephen Speairs got to his feet. “That, and knowing what the hell I am doing here?”

“Ah,” said Dann. “I believe the word ‘shanghaied’ applies best. Dos M?”

It added a certain attractiveness to the term "shanghaied."

Speairs looked suspicious and asked warily. “What in hell is ‘doish ‘em’? Do I have to hit someone . . . or tip them?

“Neither. It’s the name of the local beer,” I explained.

“Real Ale?” Stephen brightened perceptibly.

“Fat chance. You’re not in bloody England now.” (A statement that I was to later regret, as Stephen somehow concluded that as the locals had neither Scots nor Irish accents, he had to be in Wales, and that the Portuguese being spoken was in fact, Welsh. It was perfectly good logic accompanied by the singing from the nightclub on the premises. The soprano singer was doing a Portuguese version of "Don’t cry for me, Argentina," which I daresay sounded like "Land of Our Fathers" from a Welsh men's choir to Stephen. I suspect that he put the fact that most of them were black down to coal mining.)

I let myself follow the beer-piper to the lounge-bar. “I still want to know how and why we’re here,” I said, showing that not all sense had left my brain via my kidneys.

“And you’re going to have to tell me what that submarine was doing in the churnel, Dexter,” said Stephen.

“About fifteen miles per hour,” I said. Very sharp for the amount of drinking we’d done, but it could be that the trips through the churnel had leached some of the alcohol from my brain.

“It has to be something to do with you,” Speairs said, showing true mental acumen.

“We weren’t even in the country when it happened,” I informed him firmly. True. We’d been in international waters.

“Fascinating,” said our self-volunteered host, collecting a bundle of frosty beer bottles from the bar. Very civilized this being shanghaied was . . . so far. I had a feeling it might degenerate rapidly, and that I’d best drink while I was able. I knew, even if Stephen hadn’t figured it out, that I was in foreign land without the benefits of a passport, a return ticket, a grasp of the language beyond "Dos M" and "good day." It seemed like a good idea to be sweetness and light to our host right now. Anyway. A beer is a good reason for that.

“So what were you doing in international waters with a submarine?” he asked

“I wasn’t,” I said sticking to the party line.

“Was it a yellow submarine?” asked Dann.

“Mostly,” I admitted.

“Aha. I wondered why you’d been snagged from the churnel and off into the Viagron of the upper hall. You’ve been involved in the octopussy’s garden.” He did not sound as if this was a good thing have been involved in.

“Not even in the sun, mate.” I’m of a vintage to recognize Beatles references. “ There must be some kind of mistake.”

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafn Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn,” Dann intoned.

I wondered what he was on about. Was he choking. “What? Sorry, I didn’t quite get that?”

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafn Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.” he repeated, almost reverently.

“Sorry. I don’t speak Portuguese,” I admitted.

“I think it is Welsh, actually," Stephen Speairs said knowledgably. “They speak it a lot in these parts.”

Dann looked faintly amused. “Have you heard it before?”

“No,” I admitted. Thought about it. “Well, maybe. It sounded a bit like that. From a Traffic Officer in Umtata. But he was drunk and I think he had problems with his dentures.”

His eyes narrowed. “Was he a tall man with small white beard? You had a narrow escape.”

“Yeah. We barely had enough money for the fine,” I said, thinking back. It was pay or jail there—and Umtata jail was not an experience you wanted, by all reports.

“Thabo. We know him well. He is from the Ostracoderm Equalization league. Their agents are everywhere. He must have detected the aura about you.” Dann sat down at a table in almost deserted lounge-bar. “You’d better tell me all about the yellow submarine.”

I drank some beer. I wasn’t being asked. I was being told, in no uncertain terms. And Kevin wasn’t here to stop me. “I’ll need more beer,” I said.

Dann snapped his fingers. A waiter in crisp whites came across to us. This was Mozambique, not South London. “Six more,” he said.

That sounded reasonable, for a start, anyway. “It wasn’t a submarine. It was a submersible. A little job.”

“A little yellow job, not a little brown job,” said Stephen helpfully. “And why was that chasing us through the churnel tunnels?”

“I honestly have no idea.” I gestured at Dann. “But I think he might know.”

“I do. But I also do not think I am yet ready to explain it to you. Not until I have heard the story. All I will say is it is a known side-effect of the Viagron. Our method of moving through space and time.”

Stephen took a long pull on his beer. “Story time,” he said, looking at me. He was big guy, even if he’d let himself go a bit.

“What do you know about fish?” I asked, by way of giving myself time to think.

Dann smiled the smile of a fox dreaming of unguarded and wide open chicken processing units. “Let us assume, nothing.”

“Well,” I said, getting into lecturing mode, “Then the story has to start a fair way back. Four hundred million years, in the Devonian era . . .”

“Vigintillions of years ago,” said Stephen with the deep satisfaction of someone who has been saving a word for years and has finally had the chance to use it.

“What?” I asked with a suitable air of puzzlement. I had give him that opening. I’d been there myself. Do you know how few opportunities you get to use "sesquipedalian" in day-to-day conversation? I noticed our host looked as if the tasty-smelling wide-open chicken-processing unit’s doors had just started to move of their own accord, after he was inside. That was odd. What was wrong with Vigintillions?

Stephen beamed. “Vigintillions of years, Dexter. 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 . . . and so on. Sixty-three noughts. I read it in a short story, and had to look it up.”

“Seems a few noughts too many,” I said.

“Lovecraft was a little prone to exaggerate a trifle,” said our host. “He was mathematically challenged.”

“Ah yes! Lovecraft,” Stephen nodded. “That’s where I came across the . . . Fingluey stuff you said earlier. I knew I’d encountered it before.”

“Ph’nglui . . . well, anyway, back to your story, sir,” said Dann.

I’m always uncomfortable when someone calls me "sir." My knighthood seems to have been delayed for some reason. The invitation to visit the Queen seems to have been lost in the post or something. Actually I never had much time for that antiquated stuff. The only people who call you "sir" would like to spit in your eye. But Dann Douglas was providing the beer . . . and I had a feeling that getting out of here was going to be difficult without him. “Well, the story centers about a fish called the coelacanth that’s been around virtually unchanged since the Devonian. Damn near a vigintillion years back.

“Think of the size of the beast by now,” said Stephen, with a suitable "confirming urban myth" smile. “They keep growing, eh?”

I shook my head. “I meant the lobe-finned fishes as a group. Not some four hundred million year old fish. All we have from then is fossils.”

“What sort of bait do you use for those?” Speairs asked, determined to keep me off my stride.

I had years of practice of dealing with this sort of heckling. Science is rotten with it. “Minced paleontologist in a cornmeal porridge base. But they don’t fight much, and they’re terrible eating.”

“I’ll give them a miss then,” said Speairs, generously.

“Anyway, the lobe-finned fishes appeared to have disappeared from the fossil record about seventy million years ago, and were assumed to be extinct,” I said, assuming my best oratorical pose, waving an empty bottle for emphasis. A full one was thrust at me, proving you can never be too emphatic.

Our host smiled. “They became more civilized about burying . . . or should I say ‘disposal,’ of their dead. Therefore no fossils.”

I raised my eyebrows. Next he’d be explaining how Coelacanths were really the secret masters of the universe, and how they left signs for us on Nazca plains. You get all sorts of theories about fish. “Or the only ones that survived were in deep water, not an easy place to search for fossils,” I said dryly.

He smiled. “It is possible. But two hundred and thirty million years is a long time for no form of evolution to have happened. And there were big changes in sea levels.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged. There was no point in getting into arguments about fossils. The simple truth is fossilization mostly doesn’t happen. Most remains are destroyed by the natural ravages of time, bacteria, and small scavengers. “Anyway, they were assumed extinct until back in 1938 they caught one . . .”

“But they lacked sufficient evidence to hold onto it,” explained Stephen.

I ignored this interruption. “A trawler off East London . . .”

“Not Sarth Lunnun? Sheila Rowen will be offended. And that’s a mistake,” said Stephen. “She has serious tattoos.”

“East London is a town on east coast of South Africa. Nowhere near Sheila’s haunts.”

“Trust me. Sheila’s influence is everywhere. Even Cardiff.”

“This is a bit farther afield than Cardiff,” I said. I been to Cardiff once. By accident. I think. It was all a bit vague, which, from the bits I do remember, was a good thing.

“Cardiff is on another planet,” said Stephen firmly

“Moving along," I said firmly before being distracted into the possibility of aliens in South Wales. Given our experiences there, it's a real possibility, and they may even have something to do with fish. “They now had a living fossil, which paleontologists found very awkward.”

“There is always quickset cement,” said Steven. “It wouldn’t have been living for long.”

I didn’t admit that I had first-hand experience of the process of trying to preserve large fish. People get twitchy when you describe the process. One the things they never tell you about the biological sciences in all those career guidance pamphlets is that practical experience in funeral trade may be valuable. For some things a good stock of ancient Egyptian embalmers tools is more precious than rubies—as you discover when dealing with the imperfect penetration of formalin into parts of the gut cavity. I hear they don’t allow formalin these days, because of the carcinogenic effects. We always believed that was why museum staff always looked well-preserved. “They’re very oily. And extremely slimy. Not good candidates for the process—anyway, they set out to try and catch some more of them. To prove they weren’t extinct.”

Dann pulled a wry face. “In the perfectly good logic that if they weren’t extinct they could make them become extinct. Rather like turn of last century zoos frantically bidding for thylacines.”

“The point that conservationists are the greatest threat to rare species has been made,” I admitted. “But to be fair if you’re going to conserve something you need to know something about it. In the case of deepwater fish that’s tricky. Besides swim-bladder problems, most fish have this distressing habit of dying when you take an inch of vertebrae out to thin section for age and growth research. It’s a sort of an ‘in order to save that fish we have to destroy it’ situation.”

Stephen shook his head. “You blokes have the strangest ideas. Imagine if people in business or politics did that. You’d ruin their day.”

“Make mine, though,” I said. “Well, see they did find more of these fish. In the Comoros Islands, and occasionally in the Mozambique channel. The Comorans catch them for food.”

Dann steepled his fingers. “Oddly, the country has a very nasty history. Coup de etats more frequent than underwear changes. It’s a nice place for a working beach holiday, and small enough to not require much effort to gather data, so several eminent sociologists have studied it. Various commentators claim to make informed comments . . . yet the situation there has never been ascribed to its diet.”

“You are what you eat. That’s why I avoid fruit and nuts,” said Stephen, drinking some more liquid bread.

I guess he must be, by his own definition, a cereal killer. Or at least a serial liquid passer. I felt a pressing need for that myself, actually. So I got up in search of the gents while Stephen held forth on diet, and pernicious effects of raw vegetables. I hadn’t known they caused scurvy. With Stephen it was hard to tell just whether he really believed something, or whether he was trying to see how much he could get you to swallow that he believed in.

Seeing as the trough (none of these "individual" urinals here in the wilds of Africa. According to one of my plumber buddies in the dark continent, they’re for men who sit down when they wee. It’s amazing how many people in Europe and America I’ve seen not using them properly) was awash with a noxious shoe-eating tide, threatening to overflow the raised step and take over the hotel if not the world, I took up residence in one of the throne closets. For some reason they used to make the doors to these end about seven inches above ground. Maybe so the lavatory attendant (back in the days when there was one), could see if there were feet in the "occupied" ones. Or how many pairs of feet. This place was still like that.

“Psst!” hissed someone from the next closet.

“I’m not yet, but I plan to be. It’s the only way to get through this,” I said.

“Psst! Beware the tentacles . . . NYARLHOTEP!! Agh . . . glll . . .” gargled the voice from the next cubicle.

That was Mozambique for you. Some of the vin ordinaire come from Portugal by sea—a month or two of hot rolling and bouncing about, of something that was not out of the first press anyway. Mix that with a plate of elderly fried squid and you too can be yelling "Nyarlhotep" at the great white tuba. I flushed and left the convenience. The poor bloke’s feet were sticking out under the door. I would avoid the food in this place.

Dann was holding forth, perhaps in defense against Speairs inventive streak. “. . . cabbages have collective intelligence. Like bees, but different. And Acacia trees practice chemical warfare on grazers based on pheromonal communications between trees.”

“I’d have said ‘. . . and the pudding,’” I informed them, sitting down a helping myself to the rapidly diminishing supply of full bottles, “if I hadn’t read about the acacias myself. Biochemical signaling between plants does exist. So vegetarians really are cruel to innocent veggies, boiling them alive or eating them raw. There has to be a humane way of killing them.”

“Killing vegetarians?” asked Dann quizzically.

“Purely to defend plants. And all the micro-organisms they brutalize. I actually meant the vegetables,” I explained, to Speairs’ obvious regret.

Stephen finished his beer and dropped a butt into the bottle. It hissed. “It does put a whole new meaning on ‘I talk to the trees but they don’t listen to me,’” he said.

A while, and several more rounds of beers, later the subject dragged itself back to the yellow submersible and the search for coelacanths. “We have actually found a closer hangout than going all the way to the Comoros.”

“Or Sulawesi,” said Dann who supposedly knew nothing about fish, and the recent discovery of Coelacanths there in a fish-market.

“Might be a different species,” I said dismissing inferior foreign Coelacanths. “Anyway, Kevin and I might possibly have part of the scientific support team for the first attempt to see them in life. Along with a pompous ass of a self-important . . . distinguished foreign scientist from . . . uh, North America.”

“You don’t have to be so coy,” said Dann, laughing a little.

“Trust me. If my buddy Kev knew I had said this much, I’d be a dead man walking. Anyway, that’s scientist-speak. You need to keep it vague or you might have to prove it.”

“Add a few lawyers into the mixture and you could be saying anything,” grinned Stephen.

I had had my brushes with them. My ex was one. “Yeah, but that’s because of the texture of lawyers. Mix them with anything and they make it go lumpy.”

“It’s their livers,” said Stephen, “Speaking purely hypothetically you might possibly have been in the vague vicinity of this attempt to look at sealy-whatsits. How big are these things by the way? Worth catching?”

“If your interest is in weight, yes,” I admitted. “They’ll go about a hundred fifty pounds, maybe bigger, which you have to haul up from really, really deep . . . if that’s your idea of fun. If it’s game fish you’re after I recommend you try something else. You could always just drop a lead weight or two and haul those instead, for the same feel. And we had to be a little closer than just the vague vicinity, because the water off the sides of the ship was quite deep and the shore was far off. We had to be on the scene. Well, within fifty yards of it, seeing as our distinguished foreign scientist’s pride and joy little yellow two-man submersible was parked next to the mid-ship deck winch. I think part of the problem was we all wanted to play with it. It had a lot of neat external tools, lights etc. The inside really called for someone of a slight build.”

“Like you,” said Dann.

I choked on my beer. That was a bit too close to the truth for comfort. “Well, yes. Now that you mention it. I did . . . hypothetically speaking that is, think I was ideal. I’m good with machinery. . . . However the sub was controlled by the visiting scientist and our director had the second slot. Not that he was the most mechanical soul or best ichthyologist you’ve ever come across, but he was the director. Played the politics of science well.”

“And so you swiped their submersible?” asked Stephen, knowingly.

“Well, no . . . I mean it was tempting, but seriously none of us knew how to drive the beast. Kev and I both have commercial diver’s tickets, but this was a different matter, and the underwater gorge we were going to explore is deeper than we could handle.”

“So did you drop it over the side?” Stephen stood up. “Don’t tell me yet. Save it for when I get back. This Welsh beer goes straight through a man.” He staggered off in search of the gents.

“An interesting fellow,” said Dann. “What does he do for a living? He knows a great deal about collective intelligence, and H. P. Lovecraft.”

“Dunno. Why don’t you ask him? I met him in the pub,” I said.

“I did,” said Dann. “Somehow we got onto the aliens controlling Number 10 Downing Street. Which may be true, but didn’t answer my question.”

Stephen came back. “There’s a bloke passed out in one of the booths. His feet are sticking out from under the door.”

“He was in there when I went in, puking his lungs out. He told me to be careful about the squid,” I explained for the benefit of their future meal choices.

“Oh,” said Dann. “What else did he say?”

“A sort of violent gargly noise, as I recall,” I said brightly. “I think he was talking to the great white tuba, not me, though.”

Stephen nodded. “I have tried that myself on occasions. Never really got a good answer from one of them, though. Or why carrots and peas seem to be involved, no matter when you last ate them. I think it is the vengeance of the vegetables.”

“Nothing to do with beer?” I asked.

Stephen waved a disparaging paw. “What a silly idea. Now, about when you pushed the submersible overboard . . .”

“We didn’t. We just went back to the cabin and drank duty-free brandy, which in retrospect was a mistake.”

“It can give you a mother-in-law of a hangover,” agreed Stephen. “Brandy, that is.”

I nodded. “And not leave you able to think very fast in the morning. When it is time for the explanations of things that you don’t entirely remember doing in the first place, but that probably seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Dann rubbed his jaw, his face showing genuine sympathy. “Which is when having a quick glib mouth pays off.”

“Yeah, not a mouth that tastes like an ostrich used it for an outhouse, and a brain with all the snap and sparkle of blotting paper. Which is what I will have tomorrow,” said Stephen, hastily washing the thought away with more beer. “We seem to be running dry here, I notice. It’s probably about my round,” he said reluctantly, starting to sway upward.

Dann waved him down. “Your money is no good here.”

Stephen looked owlishly at him. “Devolution’s going a bit far. The Welsh have always been happy enough to take my money before. Too often, if you ask me.”

“That maybe, but I have an arrangement with the management here.” He waved to the waiter, before I got around to trying to disabuse Stephen of the idea that were still in the UK. Besides, letting him believe that seemed like a good amusing idea at the time. I should have remembered that ideas at that stage of the evening seldom were. Funnily enough that information always disappears from your memory at the time too.

We drank. And with a sort of juggernaut inevitability we returned to the submersible. “So what did you do?” asked Speairs.

“Well, I was chief technical officer, see. And I had a range of files—metal files, not the kind that MI5 keep.”

“They keep that kind too. Trust me,” said Stephen. “So what did you lads do?”

“Staggered out and down the deck and filed off some of the shiny yellow paint. We made some really neat tooth-marks, about an inch across each, around the propulsion housing unit.”

Stephen looked startled. “Is that all? I mean I thought you guys had at very least killed someone by the way you went on about it.”

“Well . . . that was all we actually did . . . we thought we’d point them out and give the tight-assed bastard a few revs about the monster of the deep having been behind him and he didn’t even see it happen. It seemed pretty funny at the time. They launched the submersible early the next morning just around dawn. You couldn’t see much when they launched, but light conditions on the bottom approached zero anyway, and we were paying for ship-time. I had a deadly hangover, and Kev was maybe worse. We had to be up and in the operations room—where they got the live feed from the sub—via a long aerial on a float. I honestly didn’t even remember the stunt with tooth marks. We sat there and nursed coffee and peered at screens full of nothing but black seawater, while our Distinguished Foreign Scientist and our fine . . . director kept up the inane chatter on their way down into the depths. We also had them on sonar, of course. When they got down to the canyon lip we started to see some fish in the lights and some interesting inverts. No coelacanths naturally, but it was a real long shot that we would. Of course, we had a film crew from national television, just in case we did. That was the sort of thing the director organized well. He was better at that than dealing with fish, really.”

“It’s evidence that Darwin was wrong. He shouldn’t have wasted his time in the Galapagos. If you ever need proof the creationists are right, just cite the boardroom. Survival of the shittest. Nothing like that could ever have evolved to fill the upper niches,” said Dann. “That’s what got me into the line I am in now.”

“Yeah, well, what occasioned our transfer of fields was one of those really big swells you get for no reason—well, no reason that has been discovered yet, out in Mozambique channel. Our intrepid explorers in the underwater canyon had just caught sight of something blue and fishlike—it didn’t show up on camera of course, but it sounded dramatic, when the ship rolled on the swell like a donut down a fifty degree slope. There was one hell of yell from outside and we all went to see what was going on. One of the junior scientists had been standing on the rails to take a picture and had fallen overboard. Bit of a circus fishing him out. Fortunately someone saw the fool fall.”

“You could have at least have included some details about the sharks,” said Stephen, grinning.

“I didn’t want to upset you. They were huge. Ravening. In a mad, biting, feeding frenzy. Also somewhere else, just then. So we hauled the idiot out, and while we’re doing that, Kev yells from the ops room. So we all run back there, thinking it’s going to be a Coelacanth on screen.”

“Bloody convenient this bloke falling overboard,” said Stephen, suspiciously.

I nodded. “Especially as the little prat was Kev’s intern. And yes, someone did point this out later. At the time we were too busy staring at the snow on the screens. And Kev is gibbering on saying he saw something just before they went blank. A coelacanth and a monstrous eye. And then it all blacked out, according to him. Yeah, well you can imagine how well all this went down. Everyone in panic mode. It’s not like these systems don’t malfunction anyway. I got busy, and yes, it had to be me—it was my job—and found a lead had been half kicked out. Hey, that’s what I did. Kept the electronic equipment up and running, as well as fixing most of the hardware in the institute.”

“It looks very suspicious indeed,” said Stephen.

“Yeah. Well, I suppose it did. Up on screen pop our gallant underwater explorers. We could see squat on the external monitors. Just black foggy murk and two guys in the sub having a hairy canary about a hundred fifty meters down. Meantime the film crew are having the time of their lives. This has to be the most exciting nature program since the private life of the bonobos. And that got banned in seventeen countries.”

“I’ve got a copy,” admitted Stephen. “It’s . . . strange. So what happened? Were they having it off in the submarine?”

“I wish. No they were just having a panic. Lost contact with the surface. Got jarred about and lost all external vision. Hysterical. Great showing of leadership. Of course someone had to ask them about the eye.”

“Sauron is e