"Wasteland of flint" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harlan Thomas)

BANG!

The last set of bolts blew out, flinging the metal floor of the pod away. Now Gretchen had her hands on the stick, both feet on the pedals and the Gagarin's onboard comp was awake. The aircraft plunged toward the vast desert below, but the parafoil was keening, catching a little air. Gagarin's sensors tested the air rushing past and saw the retaining harness had gone the way of the walls and floor. Accordingly, the wings stiffened and began to extend. By design, they unfolded from the core of the Midge outwards, each new section conforming to a rough lifting body. The Gagarin's plummeting descent slowed, air thickening under the parafoil with each passing kilometer.

Gretchen watched the control panel with wide eyes. The structural integrity indicators were going wild. Wind howled through the frame of the ultralight and she could see black, jagged mountains looming up below. Only moments before they had seemed so far away, now she could pick out peaks, ravines, tumbled fields of splintered boulders.

Caught in some unseen current of the upper air, the Midge swept across the mountains, wings deploying centimeter by centimeter. For a moment, with everything seemingly under control, Gretchen checked her navigation panel. The chipped, yellowed glassite showed her a swiftly moving terrain map. Two glowing green diamonds sped across stylized mountains and plains. The comp on Hummingbird's Midge was still responding to broadcast position requests. Good, she thought, I haven't lost him. Not yet.

Her own comp beeped imperiously, dragging Gretchen's attention back to the ultralight. Both wings were fully extended to catch the steadily thickening air and the comp-controlled lifting surfaces were desperately trying to account for the drag generated by the cables connecting the Gagarin to the parafoil.

"Time to fly," Gretchen said, flipping a switch beside her left hand. There was another, barely noticeable jerk as the support braces for the parafoil separated. Without the drag of the Midge's weight, the curving wing sailed off into the blue-black heavens. The ultralight plunged, yawing from side to side before the control surfaces had time to adjust. Both wing engines ignited and Gretchen felt the stick shiver alive in her hand.

Whooo…The Midge arced away across the mountaintops. Anderssen's eyes gravitated to the tracking display. Hummingbird was spiraling down toward the surface eighty, ninety k away to the northeast. A moment later Gagarin banked onto a new course, a tiny pale fleck poised between the dark immensity of the Ephesian sky and the splintered wasteland below.

The Cornuelle

A jerky, timelagged image flowed across Hadeishi's panel. He could make out the top of an ultralight – seen from orbit at long range, interpolated first by the sensor suite on the Palenque and then by the military-grade system aboard the Cornuelle – flying under its own power. The captain allowed himself to be impressed with the Anderssen woman's audacity. He was entirely familiar with Hummingbird's skill as a pilot, but he hadn't expected the archaeologist to hurl herself into such vigorous pursuit.

"Deftly done," the captain mused. His earbug was filled with outraged chatter from the Marines on the Komodo-class shuttle. Fitzsimmons, in particular, was expressing himself at great length and without professional restraint. Hadeishi dialed down the channel before he overheard something which would require overt action on his part. The momentary delight he'd felt at Gretchen's survival was fading, replaced by a nagging sensation of looming trouble.

Not trouble today – both ultralights were under power, on course and far beyond his power by any measure – but trouble in the future. He frowned, eyes narrowing in thought, quick mind leaping ahead to the presumed reactions of higher authorities. How to report this? And why is she following him?

The scientist had a perfect right to use Company equipment, so there was neither theft nor malfeasance in her use of the shuttle or the ultralight. There were no local traffic control restrictions, so her near-orbital insertion and flight were entirely allowable. Unfortunately, Hadeishi was sure the nauallis had logged a directive to place the planet off-limits as well as ordering the civilians to depart. The captain doubted the nauallis would fail to notice another ultralight following him – his panel made Anderssen's course perfectly clear – and the old Nбhuatl was bound to react explosively to her disrespect.

Does that matter? A quiet voice much like his father's intruded on his thoughts. Will the judge return to the land of living men? If he does not raise his voice to trouble the mighty, no harm will come to her. If you say nothing, then nothing will have happened. If the planet takes them both, who will know she disobeyed his orders?

Hadeishi felt rising discomfort at the prospect. Hummingbird's departure – with only a single aircraft and minimal supplies – was rash and Anderssen's pursuit rasher still. Uncomfortable at the thought of leaving them both to die, the chu-sa tapped up the archaeologist's service record. He skimmed through the educational certificates, notes from the Mirror about her political reliability, reports from her various supervisors. After a moment he grunted, lost in thought. She is not without experience in such a place, Hadeishi allowed. Anderssen, in fact, had logged more hours in z-suits, in hostile environments, than the judge had. Hummingbird will be surprised.

The thought filled Hadeishi with bleak amusement and his mood lifted. That would be a fine tale to hear, he chuckled to himself, should either of them live to relate the particulars.

"Sho-sa Kosho?" The exec looked up. The end of the duty watch was fast approaching and Thai-i Gemmu had joined her at the secondary command station, preparing for changeover. Susan's face had a familiar pinched expression. Gemmu – though he was a loyal and dutiful officer – did not quite match the exec's rigorous expectations.

"Sir?"

"Shut down the comm feed from the Palenque and dump all transmission logs – raw and processed – to my station."

Kosho stared at the captain for a long moment – even a fraction longer than was polite – then abruptly nodded her head, fingers moving on her panel. Hadeishi saw the transmission begin and tapped in his own series of commands, dispatching a horde of system dorei to scrub all records of the transmissions from the Palenque, the voice and video log of bridge chatter and any other accumulated telemetry from the Cornuelle's memory. This required more than one override and Hadeishi became acutely aware of Kosho's continuing and entirely impolite stare as he worked.

After a moment there was a soft chime in his earbug, indicating a private channel had been opened from the exec's station to his.

"Yes?" Hadeishi kept his tone light, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

"Kyo -" Kosho stopped, unable to bring herself to voice a question. Hadeishi smiled inwardly. Aboard an Imperial warship – even more so than among the rival navies of Anбhuac in the centuries before unification – the commander held absolute and unmitigated power. A captain's orders simply were not questioned by his subordinates. Hadeishi was keenly aware of this tradition – constantly reinforced from the highest levels of the Fleet – often led to tyranny and abuse, but in this tight instant of time he was glad for the shield.

"Nothing, sir." Kosho shut down the channel. Hadeishi did not look at her, knowing the usually proper officer would be struggling to contain embarrassment and chagrin. Showing any awareness of her near-insubordination would only make matters worse.

Hadeishi's panel made a polite chiming sound, indicating the dorei had finished scrubbing the logs. The chu-sa felt a little uneasy for a moment, but then put the entire matter from his mind. Long experience with such unpleasant events allowed him to shut his own memories away into a quiet, discreet box.

"Duty watch reporting," Gemmu announced to the bridge. Hadeishi nodded, looking up at last. Kosho was already gone and the second watch officers were taking their stations.

"Thank you, Gemmu-san." Hadeishi said, shockchair unfolding as he stood up. "You have the bridge. Hold current course, thrust and emissions control level."

"Hai, Chu-sa!" The junior officer's response was crisp. "Have a good evening, sir."

Near the Stonespike Massif, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III

Choppy wind gusted across a basin striped with long, low dunes. Veils of dust and sand streamed toward the west, casting watery shadows on the floor of the valley. Gretchen felt the Midge shake and rattle as she banked into a landing approach. The engines whined as the ultralight angled into the wind. Through cloudy, pitted glassite, Gretchen could just make out the long scar left by the shuttle crash. Most of the skid – which had seemed so sharp and dark in Magdalena's video – was gone, wiped away by blown sand. A few bits of scattered metal remained, glinting in fading sunlight. The main bulk of the wreck was visible off to her left.

The Midge labored through the turn, coming into the wind, and her airspeed sank like a stone. Gretchen blinked sweat out of her eyes, gritting her teeth as she lined up for a landing. Ahead on the windswept plain, she could see the shining gray shape of Hummingbird's ultralight and a dark speck beside the aircraft. Yeah, a single thought burned, I'm coming to visit, old crow.

Gagarin wobbled down, battered by the gusty wind, and Gretchen tried to keep her hand from clenching tight on the stick. Flight comp was burning cycles at a ferocious rate, trying to keep the nose up, the wings aligned, and the overheated engines from shutting down. The busy little processors didn't need her trying to wingover into the deck and smash them all to tiny bits. A rumpled red quilt of thumb-sized pea-sand rushed up. Gretchen felt nauseated, her eyes glued to the altimeter. Numbers spun down to single digits. She tweaked the stick forward, popping the nose up, and there was a screeching jolt as the tires hit the ground.

The Midge shuddered, bouncing twice, then three times. A gust caught the ultralight from the side, slewing the back wheel around. Gretchen corrected, nearly blinded by sudden sweat, her hand moving in molasses. Dust plumed behind the aircraft and she feathered the brakes. Terrible high-pitched squeals answered, but the ultralight jounced and quivered to a standstill. Anderssen exhaled, staring at the looming mass of torn and blackened metal filling her field of view.

A figure in a z-suit emerged from the shadow of the broken shuttle, wind snapping dun-colored robes tight against a stocky, compact body. Gretchen let both engines wind down and the Gagarin settled into loose sand. Her arm trembling, she reached down to unlatch the door. As she did, the Midge shook in a fresh gust of wind, lifted a meter, then slammed violently down again. Anderssen gasped, breath knocked from her lungs, and put differential power to the engines. Obediently, Gagarin spun in place, nosing back into the wind. Gretchen locked the brakes, then waited, fingers light on the stick.

Another gust rolled across the sand, rushed over the ultralight and the whole airframe shook, lifting off again. The Midge jounced back five, ten meters.

"Oh, Mother of God!" Gretchen cursed, feeling queasy. Bile bit at her throat. "We're too light!"

She shot a glance outside and saw the suited figure squatting in the minimal shade of the other aircraft, which was tied down in a pentagonal pattern with sand anchors.

"How the hell did he -" The Midge bounced again, caught in a fiercer blast. Sand rattled on the canopy and a string of warning lights flared on. Number two engine had just taken a shot of grit right into the intake. "Sister, help me!" How did he land and have time to put out anchors with positive buoyancy? Wait – ah, idiot, idiot, idiot!

Gretchen slapped the lifting surface controls. Two hydrogen pumps woke up with a gurgle and began to evacuate the wing tanks. As gas compressed into pressure tanks behind the seat, Anderssen turned on the motors to retract the wings. Despite her best efforts, the Gagarin continued to bounce backward, leaving her a hundred meters from the crash by the time the wings were locked back into storage position, and the Midge was no longer so excellently airworthy.

Grunting under the weight of two sand anchors, Gretchen clambered down out of the pilot's chair, her goggles on, suit zipped up, one end of a heavy tan and white djellaba across her face. The footing was poor on such heavy gravel, but she paid no mind. Her muscles remembered what to do, how to walk, how to lean just so into the gusting wind. She labored toward the wreck, twin monofil lines spooling out behind her.

The squatting figure under the other Midge did not stir, watching with interest as she drew even with him and fired both anchors into the sand. Five minutes later, the winch on the Gagarin was in operation and the ultralight approached at a walking pace, bouncing and hopping across the rough ground. Gretchen squatted herself, her back to the wind, the control for the winch cupped in one gloved hand.

Gretchen secured the last of the tie-downs and stood up, feeling her back creak. No substitute for planetside exercise, she thought with a groan. Both aircraft lay in the lee of the broken shuttle, cowering in a tiny space protected from the constant wind. Anderssen turned, hands busy rewrapping the heavy scarf around her face and shoulders to protect her breather mask and the relatively sensitive gaskets and equipment around her neck.

The suited figure stood as well, face hidden by goggles and mask. Gretchen could see the suit was a little worn, the shine of newness long gone, and there was a suitable array of tools strapped onto the man's body. She guessed he'd put in plenty of hours in hostile environments, but the drape of his djellaba and kaffiyeh was poor.

"Well," she said, clicking open the groundside channel, "thanks for helping me tie down."

"Were we on ship," the voice had a little buzz around the edges, as if his comm gear were already suffering from dust, "I would have you incarcerated, or shot, for disobeying a direct order."

"You might," Gretchen said, her voice brittle with fatigue and too much adrenaline, "but I'm not an Imperial officer. I'm a civilian. I even have a permit to be on this planet. I checked – you didn't have time to file the proper forms and paperwork to revoke our exploration rights."

"Amusing," Hummingbird replied and she could hear an edge of weariness in his voice. "But I will not argue the point. You were foolish to come down here. What did you hope to achieve by following me?"

"You," Gretchen said sharply, "have something of mine. I want it back."

Hummingbird turned fully toward her. "What do you mean?"

"The cylinder. You had Fitzsimmons and Deckard take the artifact from number three airlock and stow it in your quarters. That object," her voice rose, "is Company property and my personal salvage. I'll be expecting you to return it to the lawful owner – me! – upon our return to the Palenque."

There was a moment of silence, then the nauallis laughed softly, a breathy, echoing sound on the comm link. "You…you came down here to beard me about a chunk of shale?"

"Limestone," she replied. "Compressed limestone strata containing a verifiable First Sun artifact – a knowledge storage device, in fact – which – praise the Son – is duly and legally logged as the evidence and dig-claim of xenoarch Anderssen, Gretchen Elizabeth, company employee number 337G4. My property. Not yours. Not the Imperial government's."

"I see." Hummingbird rubbed one hand across the back of his head. "You have me – and this is rare, Anderssen-tzin – at a complete loss." His hand came back into view with a small, snub-nosed pistol which steadied in such a way as to provide Gretchen with a fine view of the muzzle. "But I believe you are suffering from a psychotic reaction due to the overuse of stimulants, excessive fatigue and the psychological effects of exposure to said First Sun artifact. Now – turn around and clasp your hands behind your head."

"I am not psychotic," Gretchen said, remaining entirely still. "I suggest you consider the fuel capacity of your aircraft, your stated mission, and put the clever little gun away."

Hummingbird's aim did not waver, which showed commendable strength to Gretchen's mind. She could barely stand, her arms and legs cramping from the physical stress of landing. "My mission," he said, after a moment, "is none of your concern. Indeed, your presence here makes an already precarious situation even less tenable."

"I don't agree," she said. "And I'm going to sit down."

The gun moved as she did and Gretchen sighed with relief to be squatting. Her arms were shaking inside the suit and the three-times-cursed medband was still locked out. Stupid, stupid machine.

"So," she said, cocking an eye at the eastern sky, which was noticeably darkening. "You haven't shot me yet, which I'd have expected from a flint-hard Imperial judge. I am a little surprised."

"If you expected to be shot, why did you follow?" Hummingbird squatted himself, the gun having already disappeared into some pocket or holster hidden on his suit. "I doubt the Palenque's bigeye is sharp enough to pick us out down here. I could make your body and the aircraft disappear very quickly. No one would ever know."

"You would," Gretchen replied, finally picking out the gleam of his eyes through the polarized goggles. She laughed softly. "I knew you wouldn't shoot. I would wager you're even glad to see me…you don't have to admit that. I understand how it is."

"Why would that be?" The nauallis's voice had a cold edge. "You don't even have any idea why I'm down here. You don't even know who I am."

"I know enough," Gretchen said, still watching the eastern horizon. In such a thin atmosphere, night advanced like a solid wall, the sky darkening swiftly to blue-black as the terminator approached. "You got spooked by my cylinder, by the Russovsky-copy. I think you got enough bits and pieces of the big puzzle to make a guess – yeah, maybe an educated guess – about what's going on down here. Suddenly the funny little archaeological expedition became a serious problem. So everyone has to clear out fast, leaving you behind to clean up the mess."

"The cylinder," the nauallis interjected, "will remain in Imperial custody and will be destroyed before the Cornuelle leaves this system."

"I don't think so," Gretchen replied tartly. "Not without fair compensation!"

"It is worthless," Hummingbird said, the edge returning to his voice. "Don't you see the device is a lure and a trap? I've seen such things before, left behind to ensnare the unwary. Such things cannot ever be allowed into Imperial space or even onto one of the Rim colonies."

Gretchen shook her head, the motion barely visible through the suit. "Your little blue pyramid tell you that? Does your book have a picture of my cylinder in it, with a warning label?"

"No," bit out the judge, "but such things have been encountered before."

"Have they?" Gretchen felt curiosity stir. Down! She reminded herself. Stay on task.

"Yes. The mining settlement on Aldemar Four was obliterated by an equivalent device -"

"You know," Gretchen said, rudely ignoring Hummingbird. "I really don't care about some miners who found something they shouldn't have. This find is mine. Logged, duly reported, even surveyed and examined. Now, you can destroy the object if you want, but given the high likelihood the cylinder is in fact a First Sun information storage device – your masters in the Ministry of Finance will be very, very unhappy with you for doing so."

Hummingbird's head drew back a fraction and Gretchen felt a sharp stab of delight.

"If you destroy my artifact," she said in a cutting voice, "then a court of adjudication will weigh in my favor when the Company sues the Imperial Navy for confiscating and destroying something worth billions of quills. Now, you're a judge – you know what the rules for theft and destruction of property are like."

There was a strangled hiss from the nauallis. "You'd quote the law to me?"

"I would," Gretchen said, stiffening and rising up slightly. "You stole from me. If you destroy the evidence of theft, then I'll be compensated as if the object had a 'fair market value'. Now, let's say I put a proven First Sun artifact up on the block in the zocalo of Tlateloco. How much do you think I'd get? Can you even count that high? How many centuries of servitude to me would it take to pay off such a debt?"

"It–it is a trap!" Hummingbird's control was fraying. "Useless and dangerous! Not a prize, not a find, not worth a single quill!"

"Not to me." Gretchen glared at the stupid man, though he couldn't see her expression through the mask. "That slab and that cylinder are worth everything to me."

"You'd risk your life, and the lives of others, for money?" There was a pitying tone in Hummingbird's voice. "You can't spend all those quills if you're dead."

For a moment, Gretchen said nothing. Then, in a cold voice, she said, "I risk my life every day, Hummingbird-tzin, for one hundred and nineteen quills. I live for months in a suit, eating my own waste, breathing my own toxins, grubbing in the dirt, for one hundred and nineteen quills. I break into tombs filled with explosive gasses; I watch my friends get killed by accidents with earthmoving equipment, or suit ruptures or sheer carelessness, or from drink or drugs or mindless brawls in some grimy hole-in-the-wall bar, all for one hundred and nineteen quills a day.

"How many quills are in my bank account?" She shook her head, feeling enormous, crushing weariness press down on her like a planet. "Maybe two, three hundred. Everything else goes home to my mother, who manages to keep shoes on my children's feet, food in their mouths, maybe some new soft for the home comp so they can learn. My son is going to be eight years old next year, oh mighty Judge, and unless I have nearly thirty thousand quills in my bank account, he won't be able to get into a calmecac school or a pochteca academy, which means he'll have to work lookout on a lumbering crew, watching for woodgaunts or frayvine – just so we can keep paying the rent on what little land we do have."

"That's nonsense," Hummingbird said, startled. "The calpulli schools are -"

"Free? Maybe on Anбhuac they are, maybe for the sons and daughters of landowners, surely for the nobility – and you are a noble, aren't you? But on New Aberdeen, there aren't those kinds of luxuries, not for landless tenants. Not for Swedish immigrants. Not for my children."

The judge said nothing, settling back on his heels. Gretchen felt the pressure in her chest ease a little and she put her head between her knees.

"How did you get an education?" The anger was gone from the nauallis's voice. Gretchen didn't look up.

"My grandmother's father was a Royal Navy commander in the Last War." Anderssen wanted to lie down and close her eyes, but managed to resist. "He was killed in action off Titan and his service pension passed to her. When my grandparents fled Anбhuac during the Conquest, she put the pension money – which wasn't much, but something – in a Nisei bank. When I was old enough to enter a school and I needed tutors and up-to-date software and living expenses, she broke it out. Sixty years of interest can make a little pile fairly big – but all that was gone by the time I finished university."

There was a hissing sound again and Gretchen realized the nauallis had a habit of biting on the tip of his oxygen tube when he was thinking.

"The Imperial academies are free -" Hummingbird started to say.

"- if you can gain admittance. How many students do you think apply every year? There are millions of applicants, millions. I'm sure your relatives back on Anбhuac think the system is fair, but they're landowners and inside the Seven Clans. They're not exiles on a backwoods hellhole like Aberdeen, saddled with a crushing tax burden to subsidize the landed colonists and treated like dirt by the so-victorious planetary government."

Silence again. Gretchen saw night had advanced to the peaks lining the eastern edge of the basin. The wind – thankfully – seemed to be dying down.

"So you've come for money." Hummingbird sounded suspicious. "No you haven't! If you were really only interested in the cylinder and your 'fair' compensation, you'd be sitting up on the ship, filing suits in district court at Ctesiphon by t-relay!"

Gretchen nodded, her bleak mood lifting fractionally. "So true."

"Then why?"

She sighed, forcing herself to her feet. Her left leg was starting to fall asleep. "Because I want you to give me the cylinder back without all that legal fuss. And you desperately need my help and I can't say I've ever let someone carry a load too heavy for them without offering a hand." The angle of the nauallis's head shifted questioningly. "You're not getting back upstairs without me and my Midge, Hummingbird-tzin, and unless you do you can't remand the cylinder into my possession without us all spending years mired in the Cihuacoatl's court of appeals."

"I see. I am sure Chu-sa Hadeishi would find your lack of confidence disheartening."

"Ah-huh." Gretchen walked, creaking a little, to the cargo stowage of the Gagarin. "You're aware of the altitude limits of these aircraft?"

"Yes," Hummingbird replied, following her. "But they don't matter. A shuttle from the Cornuelle will retrieve me from the observatory camp when they return from their hunt."

"How long will that take, do you suppose?" Gretchen popped the latches and began unloading a pressure tent and her cook kit. "A couple weeks? A month?"

"I'm a patient man," Hummingbird replied, taking the bundle from her. "I've waited longer for retrieval before."

Gretchen looked the nauallis up and down with a wry expression. "I'm sure you have a lot to think about. Do you know how long these z-suits will last down here? Down here with this dust eating away at them every minute of every hour? I don't suppose you talked to Sinclair before loading up your gear?"

"The xenobiologist? No…"

Gretchen fished around behind the seat of the ultralight and pulled out a bulky object which looked for all the world like an old-fashioned hair dryer. "Got one of these?"

Hummingbird shook his head. "What is it?"

"It's worth an extra six, seven days in this acid bath. This thing uses a magnetic field to strip the microfauna living in the dust from your suit – or other equipment – if they haven't managed to burrow in yet."

Hummingbird became entirely still and Gretchen's nose wrinkled up at an undefinable, but unmistakable impression of the nauallis listening. After a moment, he stirred, then knelt down and ran his fingers through the pea-sand underfoot.

"Try an ultraviolet band on your goggles," she suggested. "They'll shine momentarily when you disturb the surface."

Hummingbird straightened up, shaking dust from his gloves. "How many days do we have?"

"Safely? About two weeks. Pushing our luck and assuming the buildings at the observatory camp are still intact when we get there, maybe twenty days."

The judge stared up at the darkening sky. "And the Cornuelle?"

"You can call them if you'd like. I'm sure the honorable captain will give you an estimate of when he hopes to return."

Hummingbird said nothing.

"I thought so." Gretchen marked out a rectangle with her boot, then dumped the tent bundle at one end. "You're serious about removing the traces of our expedition, aren't you? Well, you're going to need me, my Midge and the extra supplies I brought if you want to succeed."

"Will I?" The judge sounded irritated. "You have no idea what I intend to do."

"Doesn't matter," she said, unsealing the bag. With long-experienced fingers she flipped the rolled mat out onto the sand. At the motion, the tent stiffened and snapped into a long, broad rectangle. "I'll do my best to keep you alive so you can do…whatever you're going to do. Then, when we're back at the observatory camp, I'll make sure we get picked up before our suits erode and we wind up like Doc Russovsky."

"I don't need your help," Hummingbird started to say.

"Hummingbird-tzin, you are being stone-headed." Gretchen tried to glower, but gave up. She was too tired. "You cannot remove all evidence of human presence here if you remain." She paused a beat. "You are human, aren't you?"

The Cornuelle

Deep in shipnight, Hadeishi surrendered to futility and opened his eyes. The cabin was dark, only furtively lit by the soft glow of a chrono panel beside his desk. In the dim green light, shelves of books and papers loomed enormous against the walls. Hadeishi threw back the coverlet and swung out of bed. Sleep had eluded him, weary mind filled with a constant stream of images – phantoms of the day's events, wild imaginings of what would come, a nightmare of being dragged before a court of inquiry – and he felt worse than when he'd gone to bed.

"A fine hell awaits Hummingbird and Anderssen for inflicting this upon me," Mitsuharu grumbled as he found a robe. Silk and velvet slid across wiry, muscled shoulders and he glared at the comp. Late in third watch, he saw. Four o'clock. "What a wretched hour to be awake."

His stomach grumbled, making the captain think of tea and hot soup. Breakfast was still hours away, but the act of waking had convinced his body it was time to eat. Shuffling his feet into a pair of shipshoes, Hadeishi tucked long, loose hair behind his ears and went out, kimono cinched tight. Shipsnight always felt cold, though environmental maintained a constant temperature at all times and the corridors were brightly illuminated.

He was not surprised, however, to find Sho-sa Kosho in the tiny rectangular space of the officer's informal mess. Hadeishi was amused to see the young woman was dressed informally – no jacket, the collar of her duty uniform unsealed, the sleeves of an oatmeal-colored shirt rolled back. The exec was removing a cup from the automat as he shuffled into the room.

"Hello, Susan," Mitsu nodded at her, feeling stubbled, unshaven and out of sorts. Kosho, for her part, looked entirely composed. "Are you up early or out late?"

"Late, Chu-sa," she replied, studiously avoiding looking directly at him. "Hayes has been running navigational scans of the asteroid belt. I was considering the data and time elapsed."

Mitsu grunted, punching up a cup of bancha-grade yamacha. He waited, hands in the pockets of his robe, while a cup descended from the machine and filled with hot, black liquid. Cradling the tea, he shuffled to the table where Susan was sitting. She raised an eyebrow as he approached, nostrils flaring at the sharp, distinct odor wafting from his cup.

"With respect, Chu-sa, how can you drink such a cheap, bitter grade of tea?" Kosho seemed to shrink away from the harsh smell. "It's barely cured at all!"

"This?" Mitsu swirled the liquid, watching grayish foam twist into a corkscrew pattern. "My father used to make this for us every morning when I was little, before we went to school. If I rise early, I can't drink anything else. There is one thing missing, though."

"Which is?" Susan put her own cup – filled with a delicate golden broth of steaming water, boiled rice and finely rolled leaves – aside with a grimace.

Hadeishi smiled fondly. "The smell of diesel and wet pavement. In Shinedo there's rain almost every night, or fog…that's what I remember best. Sharp black tea and the sound of my shoes in the mist as I walk to school, hearing the heavy trucks on the old highway, bringing goods into the market district."

Kosho's grimace eased a little, but her head tilted questioningly. "What is a truck?"

Mitsu hid a smile. His executive officer's family background was not included in her service record, but no one who had spent more than a day in her company would classify her as anything less than a daughter of the nobility. In comparison to his own relatively low birth, Hadeishi was sure a great social gulf existed between them. His own family at the feet of an invisible mountain, hers somewhere in the clouds. Outside of the Fleet, he doubted they would have met, or even been allowed in proximity to one another.

"A truck is like an aircar, but it runs on wheels, on the ground. They burn petroleum distillate for fuel, which is cheap and efficient, though there is a distinctive smell from the combustion process. Very noticeable on a damp, cold morning."

"Are they still used today?" Susan's tone implied such devices were remnants of some ancient, time-shrouded age of barbarism and chaos. "On Anбhuac?" Or relegated to the colonies, where men struggled to carve a life from howling wilderness, only a single step from hunting with knapped-flint spears and knives of sharpened bone.

Mitsu nodded, eyes crinkling with a smile over the lip of his cup. "I believe so. The markets of the lower city deal in bulk goods – agricultural products, raw materials, metal, ceramacrete, goods delivered in lots of thousands – in such circumstances the cost of freight is an important consideration. Shuttles, aircars, lifters – they are reserved for luxury items, not for bundles of steel pipe and casks of beer."

"I suppose." Susan's expression settled from a grimace to a tight mask. "Efficiency must be profit in such an enterprise."

"Yes," Mitsu said in an equitable voice. I am surprised to hear the filthy, dishonorable word profit from your lips, lady Kosho. Again he suppressed amusement at her reaction. Hadeishi knew he'd never had a better second officer. Kosho was tenacious and hardworking and faultlessly competent, but there was a constant nagging tension between them. A divide which could not be crossed, though they had served together for the better part of three years. For his part, Mitsu was convinced his subordinate was aware of the division between them, but he was equally sure she did not know exactly why. Susan will think this is the isolation of command; my role as captain drawing such a distinct line between us. Yet, Hadeishi was certain the true gulf lay in the abyss of their respective births and upbringing. Their futures would be different as well, and therein lay the seed of bitter separation.

In time – in two years, or four, as Fleet decided in its infinite wisdom – Susan Kosho would leave the Cornuelle and be posted to a larger ship – a sleek battle cruiser or a light carrier – as captain and commander. Mitsuharu Hadeishi, of such low birth, would remain aboard the little cruiser, perhaps for the rest of his career. In twenty years, should luck favor him, he might become a flotilla commander, responsible for screening some larger battle group. In twenty years, Kosho would be an admiral and her inflectionless voice would descend to him from on high, ordering his ship into the raging maw of battle.

Fate, he thought and found solace there. But for now, my duty is to guide her, to make her better, by such means protecting myself and my crew on some later day.

"What did you find in Hayes's data?" Mitsu took another sip from his cup.

"Well, sir," Susan settled back in her chair. The tension in her face and shoulders eased, her thoughts turning away from the disreputable mysteries of trade and back to the mission at hand. "Young Smith-tzin had been reviewing our navigational data and found something he did not understand. He brought the data to me, expecting he'd made a mistake or an error." The exec's lips quirked into the ghost of a smile. "He did not make a mistake."

Susan leaned over and tapped the nearest wall panel awake. The Imperial crest appeared briefly, accompanied by the tinny blare of flutes and drums. She accessed an astronomy module from among a dizzying array of choices. A black field appeared, anchored by a dim yellow disc surrounded by gleaming motes.

"This is the Ephesian solar system." Kosho's well-manicured forefinger indicated a reddish disk. "The third planet. And here is the asteroid belt which hides our 'wildcat' refinery ship. Hayes has been building a navigational map of the belt, searching for anomalies or radiation spikes – anything that might help us pinpoint the enemy. He became concerned today when – after the first pass of the map was complete – it seemed the belt was too small."

Hadeishi nodded slightly and motioned for her to continue. Susan tapped up a new screen filled with figures and graphs.

"Our dutiful sho-i ko-hosei then undertook a review of the projected initial system mass, local stellar formation density and the current distribution of planetesimals throughout the observed volume. He wondered if some quirk of orbital mechanics had distributed the non-aggregated mass into two or three belts, rather than just one." A glitter entered Kosho's eyes and her lips curled back from dazzlingly white teeth. "This was not the case. Indeed, the analysis of the system as a whole shows the total mass to be slightly higher than expected for this type of sun and this area of space."

"How much so?" Hadeishi had already formed a tentative conclusion. An obvious answer, he thought, feeling cold again. Even the cup in his hands had suddenly lost its comforting warmth. But…

"There should not be a noticeable asteroid belt here at all. Yet there is. The system mass is higher than astronav projects." Susan's fingertip drifted over the dull red disk of Ephesus III. All traces of humor had vanished. "This extra mass came from somewhere. I have spent the last eight hours considering the source of this unexpected belt. I believe the cloud of planetesimals we are racing toward consists of the inner core and mantle of the third planet."

Hadeishi did not respond. He took another sip of cold tea. Kosho continued to stare at the screen. Her fingertip moved over a control glyph and the disc of the planet rushed closer, swelling to fill the display like a sullen red eye.

"We will know for sure when we enter the belt. Our sensors are sensitive enough to determine the densities and types of stone, rock and minerals in the asteroids. But I believe we will find materials which can only be produced in the molten core of a planet, or compressed aggregates drawn from the friction zones between the planetary crust and mantle."

She turned to face Hadeishi with a cold, tight expression. "The First Sun people destroyed the third planet and dumped the remains in an opportune, gravitationally stable orbit. Then," and Kosho took a deep breath, "they reconstructed the surface."

"But they did not finish the job," Hadeishi said quietly, placing his cup in the disposal at the end of the table. "The scientists in the 'cloud house' say they fled, leaving behind a ruin; a rushed, incomplete work."

"Perhaps." Susan tapped a new command on the wall panel. "Doctor Russovsky filed a report with her superior soon after arriving on Ephesus Three, declaring the planetary geology so mangled by the efforts of the ancients that her planned georesonance survey of the crust was impossible. My understanding of the politics within the exploration crew indicates Doctor Clarkson was only too happy to reassign Russovsky to another task."

Hadeishi frowned. "He did not review her preliminary findings?"

"No." Kosho's dry tone expressed both her opinion of the late Clarkson and the equally late Russovsky in a single word. "He did not. Doctor Smalls, however, is very meticulous and he saved all Russovsky's work, including the geosensing readings she continued to make after declaring the effort was impossible."

"I see." Hadeishi felt a twinge of disgust. Academics! Hiding data from each other, falsifying results to obscure their conclusions, scrounging and grubbing for advantage…bah! "What do the data reveal?"

"This." Susan keyed a different glyph. "Shipside comp worked up these density readings in the past three hours."

The image of the surface of the third planet disappeared and was replaced by a mottled plot of tiny points, some brighter, some dimmer. There was the familiar ripple of the comp interpolating results and a new image began to build, shaded and colored by depth, describing an ovoid shape surrounded by a jumbled, chaotic shell. Hadeishi watched the display build – then interp again – then build – then interp. Section by section, kilometer by kilometer.

"The world is hollow," he said at last as the panel chimed to indicate a completed task.

"Like a bare ball," Susan said in a subdued voice. "With something massive nestled inside. The geodetic sensors cannot penetrate the inner shell, but the mass readings are conclusive. At least part of it is hollow, or at the least very diffuse. I think – no, I fear it is a ship. A massive, unimaginably large ship. An entire hidden world. Something which can only be out of the time of the First Sun."

Hadeishi found himself unable to speak. An image impressed itself upon his waking mind: two tiny figures in z-suits struggling across the curve of an impossibly huge egg. Minute, miniscule in comparison to the surface of the…the vessel they were slowly toiling across. Is something inside? Something alive? Something which might…notice us? Part of his mind began to gibber in fear and he struggled to keep such thoughts from overwhelming his consciousness.

"I understand," he said at last, not to Kosho – though she nodded in acknowledgement – but to the memory of Hummingbird speaking tersely over a high-security comm channel.

You must go quietly, echoed the memory of the tlamatinime's voice. Quietly.

Hadeishi smoothed down his beard and fixed the exec with a stare. "Have Smith or Hayes seen this? No? Good. Sequester this data – you and I will know, but no one else. In particular, mention nothing of your speculation that this is a ship to anyone. We do not know that. Not in truth."

Susan almost saluted in response, but nodded her head jerkily. Hadeshi's face was grim and his thoughts were already far away. What is inside? Does Hummingbird know? He must. Why else fling himself into such a reckless attempt to wipe away our tracks?

The Shuttle Wreck, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III

The sun broke free of the eastern mountains and a steady bright light illuminated the roof of Gretchen's pressure tent. Almost immediately, a hot radiance filled the tiny, cramped space. Stale air trapped inside began to heat, making the shelter entirely uncomfortable. The archaeologist groaned and rolled over, burying her head in an olive-drab blanket she'd stolen from Fitzsimmons's rucksack. The cloth was filled with the irritating, precious smell of his aftershave. She wished she were still on the ship, listening to him talk about nothing. Sister of God, she thought wearily, why didn't you remind me to put up the sunshade?

"Because last night was pitch black and thirty below outside, idiot." Gretchen mumbled aloud, then raised her head and groped for her goggles. With her eyes protected from the morning glare, she looked outside and began cursing. Immediately to her left, one buckled, scorched wing of the shuttle cast a long shadow across the sand. The nauallis's pressure tent was well placed to keep cool until the sun had risen above the wreck. "I was tired," she declared to herself, feeling thwarted. "He just got lucky."

Thirty minutes later, half-bathed in her own sweat, Gretchen rolled out of the shelter, her suit, goggles, djellaba and kaffiyeh squared away. She shook out her shoulders, letting the recycler, rebreather apparatus and tool bag settle comfortably on her back and hips. With deft, assured motions she struck and cleaned the tent, then packed the material into a small bag. Chewing a paline-flavored threesquare, she knelt beside Hummingbird's tent and peered inside.

No nauallis, she thought, shaking her head. He shouldn't leave his gear lying around like this. Or does he think I'll play porter for him and pick up the camp? Gretchen snorted at the thought, then gathered up her gear and walked to the Midge. Another fifteen minutes passed in careful scrutiny of the landing gear, the wheels and the lower parts of the aircraft. Russovsky had obviously taken meticulous care of the ultralight. There were many signs of microfauna infection, but they had been cleaned and patched. Gretchen, for her part, took the time to clean all of the exposed surfaces with the magnetic sweeper. Then she surveyed the interior of the cabin with her goggles dialed up into ultra. Seems clean, she thought.

After stowing her baggage and prepping the ultralight for takeoff, Gretchen ran a test on the shipboard systems, including the cameras and the geosensing array Russovsky had added to the underside of the wings. Everything checked out. She amused herself for a few minutes with the cameras, zooming the viewfinders and seeing what kind of magnification they were capable of. They were of moderate quality, so she left them focused on the horizon in case something happened.

Gretchen climbed up into the wreck. The shuttle had been reduced to a skeleton of twisted metal and soot-blackened surfaces. A jumble of unidentifiable wreckage filled the interior, leaving no way to crawl inside. Every nook and cranny was filled with spidery stone filaments and tubelike extrusions. Anderssen grimaced at the mess, then climbed down and began to circle the debris, paying close attention to the hull surface.

Atmospheric shuttles were fitted with heat-ablative polyceramic sheathing. This one had been twisted and warped by the impact of the crash, stripping away long sections of the hex-shaped tiles, leaving them scattered across the sandy floor of the valley. Anderssen bent down and gingerly turned over one of the black hexagons. To her surprise, the underside of the composite was dusty but not eaten away or encrusted with the mineralization she'd come to associate with the microfauna.

"They don't eat everything," she mused, picking up the tile. Under a rubbing fingertip, the ceramic came away clean and shiny. Gretchen frowned before realizing the composite would be designed for minimal air resistance as well as its heat-shedding properties. "Huh. We could collect the whole set and make ourselves a house."

Emboldened by this discovery, she took out an excavation tool and wedged the metal tip between a pair of tiles still attached to the wreck. Both tiles popped off, revealing a honeycombed, stonelike crust beneath. Gretchen drew back, but even the unaided eye could see the delicate filaments so-suddenly exposed to the bare sun wither and corrode. "Sister! They're already eating away the hull."

Her comm woke with a buzz and Hummingbird's harsh voice filled her ears.

"They are. The first storm of any magnitude will tear the sheathing away, scattering the tiles, and then there will be only dead stone."

Gretchen turned, following the winking light of her directional finder and saw a tan and black shape climbing down the face of a long, low dune to her west. A line of footprints smudged the perfectly smooth face. "Where have you been?"

"Two men survived the crash, one injured, one not," the nauallis said, his breathing a little short with the effort of moving in sand. Gretchen could hear a background hiss of his rebreather and the hum of suit systems over the comm link. "They went toward those hills."

The distant figure raised an arm, pointing west.

"Did you find their bodies?" Gretchen continued to move along the edge of the wreck, turning bits of metal and plastic over with her tool. "Or any sign they were picked up?"

"They found a cave at the edge of the hills. A deep cave. They did not come out."

Anderssen clicked her teeth in amusement. "You mean you didn't find any more tracks."

"No." Hummingbird's voice was still thready. "The cave could have another exit, but I did not explore beyond the mouth. The floor was covered with minute bluish crystals – they were not disturbed beyond a certain point."

"Hmm." Gretchen had rounded the western side of the wreck and stood near the tents again, staring at the long scarlike furrow torn across the valley. "These crystals only grow in shadow?"

"Yes." The nauallis began to make better time, having descended the dune to the gravel-strewn floor of the valley. "But there is enough space for two men to find shelter. How swiftly do these structures grow?"

"A good question, old crow." Gretchen bent down and began to unstake the nauallis's pressure tent. "If they have something to eat – and are protected from UV – you can watch them expand with the naked eye."

There was a sigh on the comm, followed by an intermittent hissing sound. "Then both men could have gone deeper into the cave and the crystals might have regrown, covering their tracks."

"I suppose." Gretchen made a face, examining the bottom of Hummingbird's tent. The reinforced floor was discolored and ragged. So much for impact-resistant microfiber. This looks worse than mine does, but it's been sitting here longer. At least a half-hour longer! Better figure out some way to sterilize the ground when we camp. Ah, I know! She stirred the sand with her boot, watching sparkling motes appear among the reddish grains, then disappear. "We should make camp early each day," she said in an offhand voice.

"Very well." Hummingbird approached, striding easily across the hard-packed gravel. Gretchen looked him over and saw he'd managed to get his head scarf and cloak properly secured and draped. "What are you doing with my tent?"

"Seeing how badly it's been damaged," she said, dropping the rotting plastic back on the ground. "Do you have a spare?"

Hummingbird shook his head as he came up. At close range, his eyes were only smudged shadows within the cowl of his kaffiyeh. "What happened?"

"The sand is hungry. I guess it likes the taste of double-flex, single-porosity polymer." Gretchen stifled a sigh and tried not to glare at the Nбhuatl. "We'll have to double-bunk in mine. We'll keep yours as a ground cover for as long as the fabric lasts."

The nauallis turned over the tent himself and Gretchen heard the hiss of an interrupted breathing tube again. "I see," Hummingbird said at last. "What about the aircraft?"

"What about any of our equipment?" she snapped in annoyance. "Everything we have is at risk. Are we leaving here today?"

The nauallis shook his head. "There are some things I have to do first."

"Get busy, then." Gretchen felt a stab of worry, staring at the Midge landing gear. All three wheels were resting in the sand. Great, an inch of dust is dangerous. Well – if we land on solid rock, we should be safe. What are those wheels made of? I'd better find something to protect them with.

The day passed and grew hotter. The nauallis wandered around the wreckage in an aimless fashion, apparently ignoring the fierce, white-hot glare of the sun. Gretchen kept to the thin sliver of shade under the corroded, decaying wing of the shuttle. Her suit was insulated and cooled, but the thin atmosphere of Ephesus offered only meager protection against the radiation flooding down from the system primary. She amused herself by peeling hexagonal tiles from the skin of the shuttle. Each hex was cut with alternating tongues and grooves, allowing a secure fit between the sections.

Gretchen looked up, her attention drawn by a faint muttering sound. She felt disoriented and realized the sun had changed position noticeably, twisting the shadows cast by the wreckage and the boulders to the west. The quality of the air seemed different – though there was no single factor she could bring to mind to account for the feeling.

The nauallis passed by, facing into the sun. Hummingbird seemed to be limping, dragging his feet. Further, he was hunched over and swinging his arms as if he were weighed down by a tremendous weight.

"Crow? Are you all right?" Anderssen rose from her pile of black hexagons. An adhesive from her tool belt seemed to adhere to the ceramic, allowing her to make a series of meter square pads from the material. The first assembly was buried in sand at the base of the shuttle wing. She planned on excavating the offering in a couple of hours to see if the microfauna liked the taste of the bonding agent. "Have you hurt your leg?"

There was no answer, only a faint hissing and chuckling sound on the comm link. Gretchen felt a queer, stomach-churning tension overtake her and jogged out into the sunlight. The nauallis had turned away, heading out along the line of the shuttle's impact. Despite his unsteady gait, Hummingbird made good time. Anderssen blinked in surprise – it seemed the Nбhuatl had suddenly leapt ahead, receding before her eyes. She began to run.

The nauallis shambled along the line of the skid, a long rough gouge in the sand and stony soil. He seemed to waver, weaving his body, kneeling, almost crawling on the ground, moving as if a wind pushed him, but the air was still and cold. Gretchen felt the heat of the pale white disk of the sun burning on her arms, even through the layers of insulation and her cloak. The air pressure in her suit seemed to rise, making it difficult to breath, though the gauges showed nothing abnormal.

Hummingbird grew smaller again, as if he had traveled a great distance over the desolate plain, but he still had not passed the nearest boulder. Gretchen felt her pace slow, following the line of his tracks in the disorderly sand. Now she felt a heaviness in her own limbs, as if the suit had grown thicker, more cumbersome.

Gasping, Gretchen forced her feet to move, to step forward. There was an instant of resistance and then she began to run. She became aware of a peculiar sensation – her legs had become long and heavy, tipped with something sharp, something which dragged in the sand. Her body moved strangely and she weaved, realizing a swing weight followed her motion, acting as a counterweight to her loping stride. Terror rushed up in her throat, green bile biting at her tongue. The sky had darkened to brass, the sun shrunken to a single point of steady white light. Under her feet, the footprints left by Hummingbird were obscured, blown away by the wind and only her heavy, three-toed tread replaced them.

"What was that?" Gretchen found herself standing beside Hummingbird on the crest of a low, scythe-shaped dune. The hills were a dim line along the horizon. Her entire body was aching, starved for breath and she crumpled with agonizing slowness to her knees. Sweat clouded the inside of her goggles and pooled in the hollows of her cheekbones. "What happened?"

The masked face of the nauallis stared down at her. A steadily rising breeze tugged at the man's kaffiyeh and cloak. He did not seem winded by the run across the desert. "You should not have followed me. Now you will have to walk back."

Gretchen tried to rise, but found her attention entirely occupied with the effort of breathing. "I saw…I thought I saw something. There were tracks in the sand… They weren't human footprints."

"Really?" Hummingbird turned away and began moving down the face of the dune with a sideways, half-walking, half-slipping motion. "Come. It will be dark soon."

Both arms trembling with fatigue, Gretchen managed to get to her feet. She blinked, trying to clear away the sweat stinging her eyes. After a moment, she lifted the goggles a fraction to wipe the moisture away with the corner of her kaffiyeh. Even the brief instant of exposure stung her face with freezing cold and the terribly dry Ephesian atmosphere wicked the sweat away. Settling the goggles into their long accustomed grooves beside her nose and along the crest of her cheekbones, Gretchen set off after the nauallis. She felt entirely unsettled and the obvious – unexpected – distance between this unremarkable ridge of sand and the distant, glinting wreck made her feel a little queasy.

"Wait for me," she growled into the comm. "There may be siftsand or hidden crevices!"

Hummingbird did not reply, continuing to walk steadily west.

Swallowing another curse, Anderssen stumbled to the bottom of the dune and then noticed – at last – the beginning of the crash skid in the swale between two lines of dunes. The little valley in front of her was scattered with a litter of hextiles and bits and pieces of decaying metal from the initial impact of the shuttle. "What the – How far did we run? Hummingbird!"

There was no answer and the nauallis's shape disappeared over the next dune. Gretchen stumped after him, uneasily aware of her own exhaustion and the relentless advance of night.

Thin night wind keened through the wreck, swirling among slender towers of calcite and quartz. Gretchen lay in the pressure tent, her head toward the entrance; her breathing mask, goggles and respirator blessedly laid aside. Her nose was covered with medical cream. The moment's exposure out at the end of the impact scar had given her a nasty burn. Part of the door was clear, allowing her to make out the dark shape of the wing surrounded by the blaze of stars. Ephesus had no moon and the constellations seemed terribly bright in such an ebon sky.

She felt a little strange, lying in the darkness, listening to the tent's compressor hum to itself, the shoulder of her z-suit touching Hummingbird's. The tent had an insulated floor, the walls trapped three layers of atmosphere in an airtight sandwich, and a heating element glowed along the roof ridge yet she still felt cold. The only warm part of her entire body was the right shoulder, where she could feel Hummingbird's suit resting against hers.

Is this how he feels all the time? A single warm point in a cold, friendless universe?

Gretchen could feel her legs complaining, even through the haze of painkiller and muscle relaxant dispensed by the medband – all the gods bless that infuriating scrap of metal, which had decided to unlock itself an hour after she'd stumbled, nearly crawling, back into the camp – and trying to cramp up.

"What happened this afternoon?" Anderssen grimaced, hearing her voice as a tight, tinny squeak. "I heard these sounds… I saw strange tracks in the sand… What were you doing out there?"

For a moment, Hummingbird did not respond, though she could feel him shift in his sleepbag. The ruined tent made a good cushion beneath them and Gretchen had managed to find the strength to lay out blocks of hextile as a floor to protect them from the hungry sand. There was a hiss, a clicking sound, then another hiss of air.

"There was nothing to see." In the darkness, his voice sounded contemplative.

Gretchen swallowed a very rude curse and then forced herself to breathe steadily until she thought she could speak without shouting. "I saw you walking very strangely. I heard a sound like someone singing over the comm link. I went out to see what you were doing and…and I felt something strange in the air. The sun seemed…different. I started to feel odd, as if my body were very heavy. Then – suddenly – I'm three k away on top of a dune! How do you explain that?"

There was another silence. Hummingbird turned towards Gretchen. She could see starlight glinting in his eyes. "You can't have heard anything," he said in a musing, suspicious voice. "I had my comm turned off."

"What? That's impossible. I heard you chanting!"

"You're very tired, Anderssen-tzin. You should probably sleep now."

Hummingbird's fingers closed around Gretchen's wrist and her head rolled back. Though she tried to keep her eyes open, sleep rose up and swallowed her whole. Distantly, she heard a raspy voice singing:

"Tla xi-huГўl-huiГўn, in Temic-xoch…tla xihuГўl…"

Gretchen became aware of a faint clear light filling the tent and she opened her eyes, wondering if the nauallis had turned on a flashlight. Instead, she beheld the full vault of heaven, flush with glittering stars. They were tightly packed, a carpet of gleaming, colorful jewels, and their light fell upon her face with a cold, delicate touch. Wind ruffled her hair and for a moment – just a moment – Gretchen smelled realspruce and pine and the bitter, pungent tang of wood smoke.

I'm home, she thought, then sat up, heart thudding with fear, the sleepbag clutched to her chest.

The tent was gone. Hummingbird lay beside her, a dark indistinct shape wrapped in a dirty woolen blanket. She looked to her right and saw both Midges sitting on the sand, undisturbed, the smooth metallic shape of the shuttle rising behind them, metal skin intact, the windows glowing with the light of flight instruments.

Impossible. Gretchen abruptly looked to her left. What was that? Something moved!

A man, crouching on his hands and knees, was staring at her. He was blond, square-jawed, with short-cropped hair. Dark ink circled his biceps with interlocking genome trails. A shipsuit clung to taut muscle and a broad chest. A name tag gleamed on his shoulders and breast beside a star-shaped logo.

You can't be here, she tried to say. Then she realized he was not wearing a helmet.

Neither am I!

She woke up in the tent, the air stifling and close, blood thundering in her ears. A dry, parched taste filled her mouth, as if she'd gone without water for days. In the darkness, Gretchen managed to find the tube of her water pouch by feel and slumped in relief to feel the brackish, metallic fluid sliding across her tongue.

Beside her, Hummingbird was snoring softly, deeply asleep.

The Asteroid Belt, Ephesus System

A warning tone sounded through the bridge of the Cornuelle. "Proximity alert," the navigational system announced. "Object at two thousand meters and closing."

Hadeishi sat quietly, watching Kosho leaning over the helmsman's shoulder. Despite missing a night's sleep, she did not seem at all fatigued. The chu-sa would have been envious, save he'd had to pull more than one all-nighter as an exec himself. The long cuffs of a Fleet uniform easily disguised the presence of a medband.

"Drop thrust to one-tenth," Kosho said in a quiet, level voice. "Turn ship one-and-one-quarter to starboard. Hayes-tzin, lighten the sensitivity on those meteor sensors. We've nearly a k clearance between us and the nearest rock."

Both the helmsman and the weapons officer responded immediately and Hadeishi watched the threat-well reorient as the Cornuelle nosed forward through the scattered debris at the edge of the asteroid belt. The main band of the planetesimals lay ahead and above of the cruiser's current vector – a dense cloud of massive fragments – but here in the dispersed fringe, they'd found it necessary to place the ship in harm's way.

"Just a tap, now, just a tap," Kosho said, one eye on the navigation plot and one on a vector map on the helmsman's comp. "Five hundred meters forward…reverse at one eighth…there you go. There you go."

Hadeishi watched the meteor shield sensors waver – flashing amber and crimson – then steady to a sullen yellow as the cylindrical bulk of the light cruiser drifted to a stop beneath the enormous shape of a mountain-sized asteroid fragment. In comparison to some of the monsters deep in the belt, this one – identified only by a long spatial coordinate – was a tiny baby. Against the jagged, crumpled surface the Cornuelle was the tip of a toe, or a little finger. Mitsu glanced over at Hayes and saw the weapons officer was crouched over his panel, neck shining with sweat.

Where an Imperial battlewagon or heavy carrier might mount the recently developed Kaskeala yaochimalli battle shield as a defense, the Cornuelle was blessed only with a porcupine-skin of point defense beam weapons and honeycombed ablative armor. Hadeishi had no illusions as to the fate of his ship if the cruiser collided with a multibillion-ton asteroid at any appreciable velocity.

"Hayes-tzin, deploy Remote One." Kosho turned a cold stare upon the weapons officer, who swallowed, then stabbed a control on his panel. Hadeishi felt the thump of the pod ejecting from a forward missile tube through the decking under his feet. A v-pane unfolded on his main panel, showing an exterior camera tracking the flare of the pod's thrusters. The brilliant green diamond swept away into darkness, fading quickly to a shining mote.

"Chu-sa," the exec said formally, turning to face Hadeishi, "Remote One is away. I expect we will have visual confirmation of the excavation area within twenty minutes."

Hadeishi nodded in acknowledgement, leaning his chin against the back of his fist. "Deft maneuvering on the approach, Sho-sa. I hope your effort will not be wasted."

Kosho stiffened, sensing a rebuke in the captain's quiet words. "Sir, we have invested a great deal of effort in mapping possible perturbations in the navigational maps of the belt. This planetesimal has markedly altered course, mass, and albedo between our two sets of data. I believe it has been mined by the suspected wildcatter."

Raising an eyebrow, Hadeishi cut her off. "There are dozens of reasons this particular rock could have changed vector, Sho-sa. Mining is only one of them. But I agree we need direct confirmation of such activity…and this is the only way to get such data."

Slightly mollified, the exec nodded her head and returned to the helmsman's station. Hadeishi eyeballed the progress of the probe, which had come within a dozen meters of the asteroid surface and was beginning a winding circumnavigation of the enormous shape, scanning for fresh scarification, hot-spots or other signs of mining activity. Sighing, the captain turned back to reviewing the engineering department's weekly report on the state of the engines, fuel systems and the primary and secondary reactors.

Movement on the bridge – no more than one of the sensor techs stiffening in his shockchair – drew Hadeishi's attention away from authorizing a request to draw higher-than-projected amounts of conduit sealant from stores. Kosho was already beside the helm panel, hands clasped at the small of her back as she scrutinized the data feed from the remote probe.

"We have a positive," she announced after a moment. "Mirror this to main screen."

A starfield image flickered onto the curving screen dominating the "forward" wall of the bridge. In truth, the command deck was situated at the heart of the crew spaces in the forward section of the Cornuelle's main body, hidden deep in the heart of the ship and surrounded by cargo holds and two belts of reinforced armor. If Hadeishi remembered the engineering schematics correctly, he was really facing a hold filled with crew rations and then the back end of the primary particle beam mount. However, as in the world of men, the illusion of a window served to distract the mind and direct thought into familiar, predictable paths.

The v-feed from Remote One showed a deep shadow cleft in the flank of the asteroid. The nearer edge, now drifting into view in a cone of brilliant white from the pod's lights, was razor sharp. The pool of illumination spread over the abrupt juncture, then vanished into a enormous cavity. Hadeishi could see the wall of the pit was glassy and smooth.

"Radiation readings are up, thermal signature is up. Exposed rock surfaces show the effects of extreme heat."

The chu-sa nodded to his exec. "The cutting beam mounted by a Tyr. Can you drag a time frame out of this data?"

"Processing now." Kosho's face had subtly changed and Hadeishi realized she was trying not to grin in triumph. "We'll know within ten minutes."

"Good." Hadeishi tapped a glyph to dispatch his reports and leaned forward in his seat. "During this time, have Remote One do a complete circuit of the pit and log the data for later analysis. Copy one set to legal and time-stamp and lock the archive." He fingered his beard idly, frowning in distaste at the thought. "I doubt the Tyr will allow itself to be brought in as a prize, but legal action may result. So – take care to make an authoritative record."

Kosho stared grimly at him for a long moment, puzzling Hadeishi. Then he remembered the events of the previous day and made an equivocal motion with one hand. Her expression did not change. "And plot us a course to the next 'disturbance'. Take us underway as soon as Remote One returns to the ship."

The sho-sa nodded and returned to her business, but Hadeishi could tell she was still displeased with him. She is young, he reminded himself, setting his memories of the incident aside again. She remembers too many things.

"Here is our present location," Kosho said, pointing out a blinking icon in the midst of the threat-well. A light green thread arced back from the winking mote to the orbit of the third planet. Hadeishi, Hayes and Smith stood around the railing. "The perturbation map we've built shows an irregular track through the main body of the belt in an anti-spinward direction."

A second thread appeared – this one a virulent red – entering the belt far behind their present location and spiraling forward through the diffuse mass. The red overran the green and continued for a good hand-span in the holodisplay. Kosho frowned at the indicator signaling the end of the track.

"We do not know how quickly the refinery ship is moving. In fact, as a Tyr can carry up to a dozen mining shuttles, this track may only be an aggregate path of the refinery and its satellite ships as they work through the field." Her hand brushed over the threat-well's control panel and the thread expanded into a heavy-bodied snake. "The possible locality of the refinery is somewhat larger."

Hadeishi looked to Hayes questioningly. "Can we cover a volume this large with our passive sensor envelope?"

The weapons officer shook his head dubiously. "Some of this volume will be scanned, but our usual range is degraded by all the debris. Hadeishi-san, we've picked up a lot of ambient radiation and particle decay in this area – definitely the exhaust of the big Royce-Energia XII sub-light engines mounted on a Tyr – so we can track them pretty closely if we follow right along their transit path, but -"

"We don't want to come at them so obviously," Hadeishi finished the sentence. "I do not intend to court danger, much less have my ship take a particle beam shot at close range, to catch these…these criminals. We will have to parallel their possible course from the edge of the volume, hoping to catch the refinery within our detection range." He paused, thinking.

"When I was growing up," Hadeishi continued in a musing tone, "the prefecture police often used smart-nosed dogs to hunt down thieves. What is the operational range of our ECM drones if we deploy them as sensor relays?"

Kosho and Hayes stared at him in surprise. "The outriders?"

"Yes," Hadeishi nodded, tapping up profiles of the devices in question. "These units are…yes, they are modular. We can program their sensor packs to search for this particle trail. Get with Isoroku and pull the chaff, jammer and spoofing racks from three of the drones and replace them with hydrogen cells to extend their time-on-station."

The weapons officer looked a little sick, but Kosho shook her head minutely and he subsided before openly questioning Hadeishi's command. "Sir -"

"I know." Hadeishi looked up from the panel. "We only have six drones and I'm asking you to cut the heart out of half our defensive network. However – with three drones reconfigured as sensor platforms we can rotate them on duty-station and extend our detection envelope across all, or nearly all, of your projected transit plot for the refinery. Our chances of being surprised by the Tyr will be greatly reduced." The captain tried a wintry smile, but neither the exec nor the weapons officer responded. "We have to be able to see them first or we've no chance of defeating this opponent."

Kosho looked like she'd bitten into a rotten quince, but nodded sharply. "Hai, Chu-sa. I will find engineer Yoyontzin and oversee the conversions myself."

Yoyontzin? Ah, I'd forgotten – Isoroku is still aboard the Palenque. Hadeishi considered changing the plan. But Kosho has an excellent eye for modifying equipment and we've some time, picking our way through this maze, before we come into range of the enemy.

"Very well, proceed. Keep me informed of your progress."

Both officers bowed and Hadeishi turned back to the plot, considering the difficulties of finding and subduing one ship – particularly one so well suited for this crowded, dangerous environment – in such an enormous volume. I have become a policeman, he thought, a little angry. So low has my house fallen… Then an amusing thought occurred. But this will be particularly bitter for our lady Kosho! A fine lot of keisatsu we are, chasing thieves in the night with our lanterns and rattan canes!

The Shuttle Wreck, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III

Despite lingering pain in her shins, Gretchen was suited up before sunrise. The nauallis was still a snoring lump in the tent, which let her range unmolested around the camp while he was safely asleep. With the sky still dark and her goggles dialed into ultraviolet, Anderssen felt a little queasy to see shoals of softly-glowing lights crowding around the edges of the tent. Close examination showed the tent to be free of infection, though the groundpad made from Hummingbird's shelter was rapidly disintegrating. Other scattered pools of radiance marked places where one of them had dropped a wrapper from a threesquare or bits of metal from the shuttle were still being digested. Despite walking in a long, wide circle around the camp, she did not find any tracks.

"Hmm," Gretchen muttered, pacing along the base of the nearest dune. She was surprised to see how quickly the wind wiped away the marks of human presence. Hummingbird's trail to the west had already been reduced to a shallow series of dimples, barely distinguishable from the ripples ascending the face of the ridge. "I must have been dreaming."

Anderssen was loath to put her gloves into the sand where she'd buried the sheet of hextiles, but the goggles didn't show her the usual glimmer under the sand. Gritting her teeth, Gretchen dug in and found the edge of the hexsheet. A moment later, the pad was uncovered and – remarkably, she thought – it was intact. So…Paxaxl Corporation Ceramobond doesn't taste good. That is excellent news.

Dragging the sheet of hextile to the Gagarin and under the forward landing gear was hungry work, and Gretchen was perched up in the wreckage eating a three-square when Hummingbird finally emerged from the pressure tent. The sun was still behind the eastern mountains, but a hot pink line silhouetted the peaks. With such a thin atmosphere, there was little warning of sunrise. She toggled local comm awake.

"You want breakfast?" Gretchen made a great effort to be civil, though the sight of the Nбhuatl brought to mind all of the odd business of the previous day. "There's hot chocolate in the pot."

The nauallis looked directly up at her, which surprised Gretchen. I'm not exactly drawing attention to myself up here, she thought, no lights, sitting in shadow. He nodded gravely and climbed up, hands and feet finding plenty of purchase on the crumbling metal.

A bronze mealheater sat between Gretchen's boots, steam condensing to frost around the lid. Hummingbird opened the cover and pinched out a tube of chocolate and a threesquare from slots surrounding the heating element. He squatted nearby, back to a tortured chunk of drive coil, and ate quickly. Gretchen watched him warily, sipping from her entirely cold chocolate. In temperatures like these, heat bled out of everything almost as quickly as it was generated.

"Yesterday," she said after a moment, "you said you'd found tracks left by the survivors of this crash, leading off into the western hills. I note – merely out of curiosity – your tracks have already been obliterated by the wind. It seems odd you could find a trail left by someone six weeks ago."

The nauallis did not answer, taking his time to chew down the rest of the bar. The chocolate followed and he tucked the foil wrappers away in a pocket of his overcloak. Gretchen finished hers as well. When he said nothing, she pursed her lips and tried a different approach.

"Are we departing this morning, or do you have more to do here?"

Hummingbird's head turned toward her, the faint gleam of sunrise reflecting murkily from his goggles. "I will need another day. Will the aircraft be safe?"

"Likely," Gretchen said, trying to catch any hint of an expression on his muffled, masked face. "If no big storm comes up. I can make more pads out of the hextiles – they'll protect the wheels and the tent floor. Do you need my assistance?"

"No." The nauallis shook his head vehemently. "You…you should ignore me. Pay no attention to anything you might hear or see." He paused and Gretchen gained the undeniable feeling he was debating with himself. "If you can, try not to think of me at all, think of something inconsequential, random, useless. Don't watch me or concentrate on my actions."

"I see." Gretchen licked her lips. They were always dry in this bitterly cold air. "Like yesterday. I started to follow you and…got caught up in whatever you were doing."

Hummingbird stood up, saying nothing, and climbed down from the wreck. Gretchen glared at his back, but he did not turn or look back.

"Pigheaded Aztec!" She sat sullenly for awhile, watching him closely out of spite. The nauallis wandered around the camp aimlessly, then took off into the desert. Though Gretchen kept the comm channel open, she heard nothing more of the odd noise. Eventually, Hummingbird disappeared around the far side of the shuttle. She thought about pestering him on the comm, but the sun was rising and there were things to do. Gretchen climbed down and began gathering up hextiles scattered around the crash site.

After a half hour, the sun was full in the eastern sky, painting everything in bleached-out colors. Anderssen used the sunshade from Hummingbird's tent to make an awning. Being out of the direct glare cut at least thirty degrees off the heat load borne by her suit. She squatted and began piecing new tilepads together. This is boring, Gretchen thought after an hour had passed. She looked up and scanned the horizon. There was no sign of the nauallis. Where is he now? Probably getting into trouble.

Restraining her curiosity, Gretchen finished assembling the last of the pads and dragged them over to the Gagarin. Getting the rear wheels onto the tilepads was sweaty work and when she was done, Anderssen parked herself in the shade of the awning. Her suit water tasted more brackish than usual, so she broke out a fresh bottle and topped off the reservoir before drinking the rest straight.

Hummingbird had not returned. Gretchen's comp showed noon had come and gone.

A little concerned, Anderssen climbed up onto the wreck again and found a perch near the twisted spine of the craft. From this new elevation, she searched the valley, hoping to catch sight of a tan-and-black figure doing…whatever. As it happened, Hummingbird was only a few hundred meters away, off at an angle from the crash scar and the wreck. He was hunched over, walking slowly across the gravelly soil, peering at the ground.

As she watched, he bent down and picked up something bright – a bit of metal, she thought – and weighed it in his hand. Gretchen expected the nauallis to throw the fragment away, but he did not. Instead, he continued to wander aimlessly. A little later, he turned suddenly, curving back on his previous path, and dropped the metal on the ground. Without pausing, Hummingbird continued his lazy, winding circuit.

Shaking her head, Anderssen climbed down from the wreck and resumed piecing hextiles together. Boring work, but at least there was some sense and purpose to the activity.

Hummingbird returned after dark, suddenly appearing at the edge of a circle of light cast by a lantern hung on the nose of the Gagarin. Both aircraft and the tent were now up on hextile pads. Anderssen ignored Hummingbird as he unwrapped his kaffiyeh and cloak. Another pad of tiles held the mealheater and a water bottle. She was working with her big comp, collating the data collected during the day by sensors on the Midge and her suit. Despite the nauallis's admonition, nothing had prevented the cameras on the ultralight from recording his activities.

"Did you finish?" Gretchen did not look up. An interesting pattern had revealed itself from the camera data. Biting her lip in concentration, she sketched in a transform with the stylus. The comp obediently began to interp the data, building a three-dimensional model.

"Yes." Hummingbird squatted across from her, his back against the front wheel of his ultralight. "We can leave in the morning."

"Are we going far?" Intrigued by the display building on the comp, she turned the device sideways to get a different perspective. "Which direction?"

Hummingbird pointed southwest with his chin. "The comm records on the Palenque show Russovsky used a relay transmitter on one of the Escarpment peaks to communicate with the ship when she was on farside. The peak is called Mons Prion on her maps. That is our next destination."

Gretchen nodded and put down the comp. "And once we're there, you'll make the transmitter disappear without a trace."

The nauallis unwrapped a threesquare and began to chew methodically.

"There you go with the stone face again," she sighed. "Do you really think I'll just follow your orders blindly? That I'll ignore what you're doing, or pretend it hasn't happened?"

Hummingbird stopped eating and Gretchen thought he was actually paying attention. She tried not to swallow nervously and plunged ahead.

"You didn't want me to pay attention to you today, so I kept out of your way. But the cameras on the ultralights recorded everything you did on this side of the wreck. You didn't seem to care about that…they made me a map of where you went. Would you like to see it?"

Gretchen tipped up the comp, showing him a three-dimensional representation of his path. The trail looked like a snake with a broken back, but one which entirely surrounded the wreck in a long oval. Moreover, the path seemed to cover the sandy ground without doubling back upon itself. "This search pattern, master Hummingbird, is a thing of beauty. I am truly impressed."

There was a grunt on the open comm channel and the nauallis looked away. Gretchen tucked the comp back into its bag with a pleased expression on her face.

"At the university, on my first dig, the pit foreman tried to teach all of us – all the first-term students – how to look for things on the ground. He gave us thirty minutes on a newly mown soccer field to find all the things he'd hidden. Seemed very silly to us – the grass was cut short, the field was almost perfectly flat – where could you hide anything? I managed to find a copy of Schulman's Techniques of Radiocarbon Analysis by tripping over the damned thing."

Gretchen smiled wryly and shrugged her shoulders. "The flatness of the field was an illusion – it wasn't entirely flat, there were little dimples or furrows in the grass – and we felt very, very stupid when he took us around and picked up all the things he'd laid out for us to find. More books, pencils, a belt, a hammer, a walking stick. A whole set of white plastic rulers he'd laid along the goal box lines. It's funny to think, now, how blind we were to things right in front of us."

Anderssen stretched. Her back was tight and sore from assembling sheets of tile all day.

"Most people don't think looking at the ground and searching for things is a skill. But it is." She pointed out into the darkness. "Today, you covered the debris field thrown out by the crash centimeter by centimeter. I really doubt you missed a single bit of metal or ceramic or wire. Did you?"

Hummingbird lifted a hand and made a "turning-over" motion. "I don't think so."

"Two questions come to mind, master Hummingbird." Gretchen felt as if she were approaching a flighty horse or a sleeping, irritable dog. "I can't make you answer them, but it would be helpful if I knew how to help you do this…thing."

The weight of the Nбhuatl's gaze grew heavy and Anderssen started to sweat, feeling as if an exam had suddenly been placed in front of her.

"First, you didn't pick up every piece of debris out there – only some of them. How could you tell there were materials the microfauna couldn't digest? You weren't using a comp – in fact, do you even have a comp with you?"

Hummingbird grunted and there was a hiss as he bit idly at his breathing tube. "There is a comp in the Midge. A powerful one."

"But you didn't use a comp today." Gretchen didn't wait for an answer. "You put the bits and pieces of indigestible debris back down on the ground. Sometimes you just adjusted them a little where they lay." Her heart was beating faster now and a curl of sweat was trickling down the side of her neck. "If I…if I went out there tomorrow morning, with this map, would I be able to find those fragments? I wouldn't be able to, would I? They'd be…invisible. Indistinguishable from the rock and gravel and sand out there."

Another hiss, followed by an almost-sigh. "With your map, you might be able to find some of them. All of this must be done in haste, which always leads to mistakes."

Gretchen stared at the nauallis. He turned his attention to the threesquare wrapper and empty chocolate tube in his hands. Slowly, he folded them up into a tiny ball which he placed in a pocket of his djellaba. Finally, she shifted to keep her legs from going to sleep.

"Will you answer my questions?"

"There are more than two!" Hummingbird replied in a tart voice. "Will you be content to let me be? I agree – I do need your help to escape from this world. I am entirely human and do not wish to be marooned here or consumed by the little creatures in the sand. If you stay out of my way, all of this will go much faster."

"How could you tell which fragments needed to be hidden?" Gretchen leaned forward, her voice rising. "Can you see a difference? Do you have special lens setting on your goggles?"

"No." Hummingbird shook his head in amusement. "This is part of my training."

Gretchen grew still. "Can you teach me how to tell the difference?"

"I will not," the nauallis replied with a dismissive snort. "Though I'm sure you think your career would benefit from such knowledge."

Anderssen settled back on her haunches. "If I could do what you did today, we would have been finished sanitizing this site yesterday and already on our way to Mons Prion. Two can cover more ground than one." She cocked her head to one side, squinting at him. "What if you are hurt? Or injured in an accident? Who will finish the job then? I won't be able to. The evidence of man – of the Empire – will be left scattered all over this world. Ready to be found by whatever you fear will come hunting us."

"I cannot teach you what I know." Hummingbird's voice sounded irritated. "You are a woman and my skills are a man's knowledge. I do not know how to train you properly." He stood up. Gretchen rose as well, a slow steady anger curdling in her gut.

"That is a remarkably stupid thing to say. Why should my gender make a difference?"

"It does," Hummingbird said. "Men and women are…different. They see differently. There is…there is some danger if you interfere with my work. Danger which springs from you. I think, when we get to Prion, we should make camp a distance away, so I can dispose of the relay by myself."

Gretchen shook her head in amazement at his naivetГ©. This must be religious…some artifact of cult practice from centuries ago. It has to be. I'm stuck on this planet with a mentally disturbed Imperial agent. How delightful. "What about this shuttle? How are you going to make it disappear? The smaller pieces I can understand, but most of the hull isn't going to be eaten away. Can you hide the shuttle in plain sight?"

"No." Hummingbird looked up at the dark mass of the shuttle wing. "In truth, I don't want to entirely hide the wreck, just obscure its origin."

"How? By filing off all the serial numbers?" Gretchen asked incredulously.

Hummingbird laughed – a short, sharp bark – and adjusted his breathing mask. "No – that would be a tedious effort. The comp cores were destroyed in the crash and the spaceframe mangled. The rest is only metal and ceramic. By the time we leave this world, most of the wreck will be in even worse shape than it is now. If someone examines the remains, they will draw a different conclusion than you would expect." Gretchen could hear a grim smile in his voice. "They will find a different trail."

"Leading them where?" Anderssen tried not to sound suspicious, but failed.

"Far from Imperial space," Hummingbird said. "To a dead world with no relation to Anбhuac or humanity at all."

"What world?" Gretchen felt almost itchy with curiosity. "Why would a dead world send a shuttle here?"

"The homeworld of the Mokuil is dead now," the nauallis said quietly. "But once they were a powerful, star-faring race. Their ships visited many worlds, even some near this backwater. Here is the truth, Doctor Anderssen: We have little time here and we are in great danger. I am rushing to confuse those who will follow. I hope – and this may be a frail hope, yet it is all we have – they will find the clues I've left behind and they will be led away from human-controlled space. They will go coursing into the dead realm of the Mokuil and find…nothing."

Gretchen stood up, feeling a chill at the undiluted seriousness in the man's voice. "Did the Mokuil find a world like this one? A place where the First Sun people had trod?"

Hummingbird nodded. "We believe so." He raised a hand to forestall another question. "We do not know what they found. All we know is they were powerful and curious and then their civilization was destroyed, leaving only ash and ruin. The best we can do is hide quietly among their corpses, hoping to avoid notice."

He's completely insane, popped into Gretchen's mind. I have a crazy religious zealot for a tentmate. She snorted, suppressing a laugh. This is almost as bad as my third-year roommate at the university.

"Okay," she said aloud, suddenly losing her desire to badger him with more questions. "We'll be really careful, then."

Hummingbird did not respond, stowing his litter in the ultralight. Gretchen looked around the camp and made sure everything was tied down and put away. Putting her head in the cockpit of the Gagarin, she checked the latest feed from the weather satellites. Everything seemed clear for a few thousand k in every direction. The nauallis had crawled into the tent by the time she had turned off the lantern.

Anderssen stood for awhile in the darkness, looking at the sky. She wondered which tiny spark of light was Anбhuac and which – if any of them – was the Mokuil homeworld. Somehow, without pressing the nauallis or checking her comp, Gretchen was sure the vanished alien race was bipedal, running on long reptilian legs, with a heavy, three-toed foot.

Shaking her head, she turned off her comm and bent down to enter the short airlock tube into the tent. I am tired, Gretchen realized. But there's no rest for the wicked. Just more work.

Someone talking close by woke Anderssen from a sound sleep. She opened her eyes to find the tent dark and chill. The heating element on the roof spine was glowing faintly, but even with it working, the waste heat of their bodies and the heavy insulation could not keep the dreadful cold of the Ephesian night entirely at bay. Hummingbird was asleep beside her, his usual snore reduced to a gargling hum. Foggy with sleep, she peeled back the flap covering the transparent panel in the door. Nothing was moving outside. There was no wind rattling the tent or whining through the guylines holding down the ultralights. She frowned. I heard something. Someone was speaking to me.

Shaking her head, she pulled the edge of the sleepbag over her face and closed her eyes.

A hiss of static brought her entirely awake. Struggling out of the sack, Gretchen heard a voice – a human voice – trying to say something amid a wash and warble of heavy interference. Turning on her side, she groped for the comm on her z-suit and found the indicators glowing softly. A channel had come alive, the signal strength indicator fluctuating wildly. Lips tight, she twisted around to get the pickup bug in her right ear.

"Hatho…sshhhsshh…" The voice faded away, leaving only a buzzing hiss.

"Damn." Gretchen fiddled with the controls, but the voice did not return.

Hummingbird paused in the shadow of the Gagarin's wing, their tent repacked and slung over his shoulder. The sun was more than halfway above the eastern peaks. Gretchen was sitting in the cockpit, one booted foot lodged against the wing strut, head and torso under the control panel. Her comp was sitting on the seat, chirping to itself as it ran through a series of system tests.

"Is something broken?" The nauallis leaned in, brow furrowed.

"I don't know." Anderssen fiddled with a component module hidden under the bulk of the panel. "My comm has been picking up all kinds of strange interference. Started last night just after midnight. Sounded like someone was trying to raise us on the comm. But I can't find anything wrong."

"Ignore it," Hummingbird said in a flat voice. "The Palenque and Cornuelle are under strict transmission security. If something happens in orbit, we will not know." He paused, staring off into the distance. "There isn't anyone down here we want to talk to. Come, let's get airborne."

Gretchen lifted her head to stare at him. "Don't be so hasty, old crow. The atmosphere is already heating – if we want to make any altitude at the end of the day we want to time our arrival at the Escarpment for evening when the air starts to chill."

Hummingbird shook his head sharply. "There is no time to waste. We may not reach Mons Prion today in any case. And if we do not, then we must be there tomorrow."

"Fine." Gretchen shut down the diagnostic and began worming her way out from under the control panel. "I'll be ready to lift off in five."

The nauallis strode off without a word. Frowning and unsettled, Gretchen watched him open the cargo door beneath the Midge and begin stowing the camping gear. Her own compartment was filled with sheets of bonded hextile from the shuttle. Luckily, they were very light for their size. Getting the ultralights airborne in this thin air was going to be troublesome enough.

After stowing the last bits of gear, Gretchen strapped in and began a preflight check. Her panel showed green in all areas and the 3v of her kids was still tacked in place beside the airspeed dial. Russovsky had left her a whole set of little santos, which were plastered along the structural bar lining the bottom of the canopy window. She touched the icon of St. Paraskeva for luck, though the little picture had long ago lost power and did not flicker or move or give the blessing of the martyrs. While she was waiting for the wings to extend and stiffen, Gretchen glanced at the other Midge. Hummingbird was nowhere in sight. "Ah-huh. Hurry up and then wait," she said under her breath.

Peering around, she found no evidence of the nauallis and her hand drifted to the control pad for the comm. Feeling a little guilty, she tapped open a sub-audible channel to the Palenque. A moment later the buzz of shipboard comm locking onto her signal and negotiating security filled her ear. Then a sleepy-sounding Magdalena came on the channel.

Gretchen? Has something happened? We're not supposed to -

"I know," Anderssen said, lips almost closed, throat relaxed. "I'm on a sub-audible. Listen, can you do a remote diagnostic on my Midge? I'm getting funny sounds and voice traffic on my comm."

Sure. Magdalena said. Just wait one…I have to download a diag package.

The control panel flickered and a small new v-pane opened, showing a progress bar.

Gretchen continued with her preflight check, spinning up the engines and going through a pressure test on the wings. Despite all the time-in-flight the aircraft had endured, the pressure seals remained intact, without even appreciable leakage. "Now that," Gretchen said to her checklist with a grin, "is some fine Russo-Swedish engineering."

A beep announced the diagnostic download was complete.

Okay, Magdalena's thready voice echoed in her ear. I'm starting a local systems check. It'll take about thirty-five -

Gretchen jerked back in surprise as a gloved hand reached across her and slapped the system cutoff glyph on her comm panel. Hummingbird's muscular shoulder pressed her back into the seat and his eyes – barely centimeters from hers – were furious. The comm made a peculiar wailing sound as the system went into cold shutdown.

"Do you understand anything about being quiet?" The nauallis punched an override into the panel. Magdalena's voice vanished from Gretchen's earbug as the channel snapped off.

"What do you th – umph!" Anderssen tried to shove him away, but Hummingbird was much stronger than she was. His fingers tapped a series of commands, then he stepped back. Gretchen shivered, shaking off a clammy feeling. "I'm running a diagnostic." She said in a cold voice.

"I told you to ignore any strange sounds or readings." Hummingbird was furious. "There will be more auditory…phenomena. There maybe visual events as well. You will ignore them. We will observe complete radio silence unless I initiate conversation."

Gretchen stared at him woodenly, trying to decide if she should speak her mind or not. Before she could say anything, he strode back to his ultralight and climbed aboard.

"Fine," Anderssen muttered, beginning to regret her impulsive decision to follow the Imperial judge. The other Midge's engines coughed to life and the sand anchors released with a bang. Gretchen flipped a series of switches controlling her own startup. The wings stiffened and the microcontrol comps woke up, subtly altering control surfaces and airflow guides in preparation for flight.

Hummingbird's ultralight bounced across the sand, turning away from the wreck and into an intermittent, gusty wind. Gretchen followed, her hand light on the stick. "Stupid ass," she said under her breath. Then one eye squinted in concentration as she thought about what he'd said: "Hmm. So, what could be listening for us?"

Mons Prion, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III

Sunlight blazed through the canopy of the Gagarin as the ultralight buzzed past a towering pinnacle of slate-gray stone. Gretchen squinted, waiting for her goggles to polarize against the brilliant light. They did, but slowly. The two aircraft had reached an altitude where there was very little atmosphere to diffuse the glare of the solar furnace. She was sweating – the heat load inside the cockpit was tremendous – despite the freezing wind roaring past outside. Both engines were honking fuel warnings and the wing edges had extended to try and generate as much lift as possible.

Hummingbird's insistence on reaching the peak as quickly as possible had resulted in a very dangerous approach. The late afternoon heat robbed them of colder, heavier air and the morning thermals had faltered and failed, so there were no updrafts to push them higher. With so little lift under their wings, both ultralights were burning fuel at a prodigious rate. The Gagarin wallowed between two more knife blade–thin towers of stone and the upper slopes of the mountain came into view at last. Prion loomed above a wilderness of ravines, plunging canyons, skyscraping cliffs and long tongues of shattered tumulus. Gretchen could make out the shining silver wing of Hummingbird's ultralight above and ahead of her, though the nauallis was having just as much trouble gaining altitude.

Broken dark rock slid past beneath her feet, glittering with streaks of frost. Anderssen had seen gloomy sections of canyon hidden from the burning white disc of the sun. Fantastic shapes hid in the shadows, glittering with quartz and garnet and amethyst. There were caves – yawning black cavities flipping past with dizzying speed – and sometimes she could swear strange lights gleamed in the inky depths.

The portside engine honked angrily and Gretchen's free hand danced across the control panel, manually adjusting the flow of hydrogen to the engines. Trying to climb through such thin air was burning too much fuel. The comp was overrunning safety parameters on a second-by-second basis and kept resetting, destroying the smooth microcontrol necessary to keep the Gagarin aloft. Ridges of jagged stone blurred past, talons reaching out for the ultralight's fragile skin.

"We won't be able to get down," she muttered, sweat trickling down her nose. "We'll be trapped on some Sister-forsaken mountainside – if we don't crash first."

Unexpectedly, the comm warbled in response to her cursing and Hummingbird's flat, tense voice filled her ears. "I see the ledge and the antenna. Forward and right three hundred meters. Follow me."

The nauallis's craft jerked up and away, out of her sight. Gretchen swore violently, then squeezed a last gasp of power from the laboring engines. The Gagarin lurched skyward and Gretchen swung the stick lightly to the right. The arc-shaped wing of the other Midge appeared again. Hummingbird's craft swung sideways and then went nose-up, bouncing down onto an impossibly narrow ledge beneath a massive black cliff.

Anderssen tried to stay calm and not jerk the stick wildly as bone-chilling fear flooded her body. The Gagarin swept across the ledge and she pulled up, skimming her landing gear only a meter from the roof of Hummingbird's canopy. There was a startled shout on the comm and Gretchen – teeth gritted tight – rolled left, the Gagarin's outstretched wing jarring away from a wall of basalt jutting from the mountainside.

"Oh most gracious Virgin," Gretchen chanted, her entire world focused down upon the control stick and the wildly gyrating view of mountains and sky and cliff flashing before the nose of the Midge. "In thy celestial apparitions on Mount Tepeyac, thou didst promise to show thy compassion and pity toward all who, loving and trusting thee…"

Gagarin made a wide circle out into the rarefied air and came around on a second approach to the outcropping. Gretchen caught sight of the nauallis darting out from under the wing of his Midge and running toward the far end of the slanted, rocky ledge. There was just barely enough room to land one ultralight. Anderssen caught a glimpse of a tall silver and black pole rising up from a crevice in the rock.

Russovsky only had this one Midge to land, Gretchen realized, feeling her stomach crumple into a contorted, burning knot. And she was a really, really skilled pilot. Oh, good little plane, remember how to do this!

"Get out of the way," she screamed into the comm mike. "I'm coming in!"

The ultralight wallowed down – much too fast, she realized as the forward wheel bounced violently across shale – and she threw the engines into reverse. Grimly hanging onto the stick, Gretchen was slammed repeatedly into her restraint harness as the Midge jounced and slid across the ledge. Loose rock skittered away under wildly spinning wheels. The entire aircraft crabbed to the side, away from the cliff wall, and Gretchen was suddenly staring out the port window and into the abyss of a canyon with no visible bottom.

"Sister, guide me!" Anderssen goosed the starboard engine and the Midge spun away from the edge. The aft-starboard wheel slammed into a protruding rock and the Gagarin bounced up with a jolt. Gretchen's teeth cracked together like a hammer. She tasted blood. The stick wrenched itself out of her hand and Gagarin clattered through a complete circle. Anderssen grabbed wildly for the stick – overcorrected – and the Midge lurched over the lip of the cliff.

The ultralight dropped like a stone. Gretchen was flung back into the pilot's chair. Mumbling prayers in a constant, unwavering stream, she slammed the stick forward, trying to raise the nose and let the wings catch some air. The entire control panel flashed bright red and a honking noise from her earbug drowned out the distant sound of Hummingbird shouting in alarm.

Stone and sky rushed past.

Floating in unexpected freefall, Gretchen blinked her eyes clear and immediately became dizzy. For an instant it seemed she was rushing forward across a flat, rocky plain, with queer looking mountains rising in the distance. Then her eye registered thin veils of cloud standing vertically from the plain and she remembered the Midge was plunging down the side of an enormous peak. Anderssen's eyes snapped to the control panel.

Both engines had shut down and – without power – both wing comps had locked out surface adjustment control. The wheels skittered across basalt and suddenly Gagarin was drifting away from the cliff face. Even without comp control, the Midge's curving wing could bite some air and get some lift. Gretchen closed her hand on the stick with infinite gentleness, feeling her stomach squirm with the unremitting sensation of falling. But we're miles up, she realized, and that means I have whole seconds, even as much as a minute, to react.

She pushed the stick forward, finding it terribly stiff without the comp providing powered support. The wings seemed to creak and the entire aircraft shuddered in reaction. Wind howled around the cockpit and Gretchen tried to bring the nose up slowly. "Inspired, we fly unto thee, Oh Mary, ever Virgin Mother of the True God!"

The wings shimmied into the right cross section and there was a heavy jolt. The Midge wallowed into a glide, slowing, and the altimeter stopped spinning so wildly. Gretchen dragged the stick to the right a point, then two. Her course angled away from the spires of a lesser peak and into clearer air. "Though grieving under the weight of our sins," she heard herself shout, as from a great distance.

Anderssen punched a shutdown glyph at the upper right of the main comp. The panel flickered, then died abruptly. All machine noise ceased. There was only a shriek of air roaring under the wing and whining through the landing gear. A heavy hand pressed on her shoulders. "…we come to prostrate ourselves in thy august presence; certain thou wilt deign to fulfill thy merciful promises…"

Gretchen started to count the beats of her heart, mouth filling with blood. The yawning chasm of the canyons below her grew larger. She could see rivers of crumbled rock and stone twisting between towers of stone. The wind had carved huge, shallow caves from the cliffs and pierced some ridges with winding tunnels. There was no sign of life – no green, no blue – only black and gray and ever-present rust-red.

"And…sixty!" Gretchen managed to gasp out, past bloody lips. Her thumb mashed down on the panel restart and she groped to switch her air supply to an oxygen pack. Chill air hissed across her face, drawing a cry of pain.

The comp flickered and woke up. The Midge's flight control systems ran through a startup checklist, registered a dozen warning signs and flashed an amber alert on the panel. Gretchen overrode the query, hoping the engine failure hadn't fouled the fuel lines with ice. The mountains below had swollen into vast fields of brightly-lit boulders and gravel. She felt the stick quiver to life and the main panel rippled with light.

"Show me your mercy, blessed Sister!" She leaned right, swinging the stick over and the Gagarin's engines kicked in with a thready hiss. Comp control reasserted on the wing surfaces and the entire aircraft suddenly came alive. Giddy with relief, Gretchen swung the little plane away from the onrushing mountainside and roared south along a steep-sided, V-shaped valley. Momentum bled away and she turned the ultralight into a wide, climbing turn.

Once more, the shape of Prion filled the sky, blotting out the horizon.

Hummingbird had winched his Midge to the far end of the ledge by the time Gretchen came around for her third landing attempt. This time she managed to drop her airspeed almost to a stall as the Gagarin drifted over the tilted slab. All three wheels set down with a gentle clatter and the ultralight rolled to a halt. Anderssen felt the aircraft leaning to one side and she adjusted herself in the pilot's seat to compensate. Moving carefully, she locked the wheel brakes and shut down the engines. Gagarin gave out a weary sigh of settling metal, plastic and composite. The comp panels dimmed down to standby.

Getting out of the cockpit proved a slow process. Gretchen was sore from head to toe – again – and had trouble standing. She wound up crawling away from the Midge with the winch line over one shoulder. Reaching the wall, she leaned back against dark, gray-streaked stone with relief. Grudgingly, the medband consented to dispense an antitoxin to break down the fatigue poisons in her weary limbs. Feeling the familiar, welcome chill flushing through her body, Anderssen was content to lie at the base of the cliff, the winch pad adhered to the nearest rock surface, and close her eyes.

The view from the mountaintop was stunning. The Escarpment slashed left and right to the rim of the world. She could make out the slowly advancing terminator of night to the east. Another vast desert lay there, though the feet of the mountain chain were deeply buried in blown sand. Tiny shining lights sparkled across the distant plains.

When Gretchen felt she could stand up without having both legs buckle under her, she stumbled back to the ultralight and released the wheel brakes by hand. Another trip back to the base of the cliff left her a little dizzy. Too much altitude, too little oxygen for the rebreather, she realized, checking the medband. The clever little device indicated a variety of oxygenating compounds were already flowing into her bloodstream. Be fine in awhile. Gretchen propped herself against the cliff again.

The nose winch on the Gagarin whined and complained, but managed to pull the ultralight up close to the cliff. Both wings had collapsed into their storage configuration. Squatting under the pitted canopy, Gretchen secured the wheel brakes again and managed to wedge the sand anchors into crevices in the crumbling stone.

"Hummingbird?" Where is he? There was no answer on the comm, though the indicator lights showed two responding units within range. Hmm, Gretchen worried, he's left the Midge comm open. Shouldn't be wasting power like that.

Gretchen surveyed the ledge – a hundred meters of tilted, corroded rock jutting from an equally decrepit-looking mountainside – with a frown. The nauallis's Midge was parked fifty meters away to her right, the whip antenna she'd seen while landing at the far end of the ledge to the left. For no particularly good reason, she set off to the right, clambering over rough-edged stone and slabs of tilted rock. She was halfway to the other ultralight when a cave mouth appeared in the cliff face. The opening was tall, slanted and narrow. Anderssen peered at the floor, making a face when she saw the outline of boot prints in the gravel and dust.

"Old crow?" She whispered into the throat mike. Again, there was no answer, though some odd warbling static began to filter in around the edges of the comm band. Wary of the shadows – who knew what kind of life they sheltered? – Gretchen crept into the cave, her goggles dialed to light-intensification mode.

To her surprise, the cave seemed totally empty – there were no effusions of the spindle-and-cone flora which had overtaken the shuttle or even the tiny spikelike clusters she'd seen in the discarded pulque can. Instead the floor was a jumble of fallen stone, pebbles and dust. A blotchy series of tracks led off down the passage. Gretchen paused, digging a light out of her tool belt and adjusting the wand's radiance to the lowest possible setting. Her goggles would take care of the rest.

With the wand held out of her line of sight, Anderssen padded down the slot for another twenty meters or so. The ancient crevice ended, opening out into a larger chamber with a tilted roof of jammed-together boulders. Gretchen halted quietly and pressed herself against the wall, her thumb switching off the wand.

A queer blue radiance filled the chamber, reflecting from a ceiling covered with pendant crystalline fronds. The branches and whisker-thin needles seemed dead and lightless themselves, but the faceted surfaces gleamed with puddles of cobalt and ultramarine. Below them, the floor of the cavity was a bowl of crushed rock, surrounded by a thin circlet of something like blue moss. Gretchen resisted the urge to dial her goggles into magnification, though she supposed the "moss" was truly a forest of tremendously thin filaments, swarming with Ephesian life.

The unexpected presence of Doctor Russovsky captured her attention instead.

Anderssen froze, suddenly, simultaneously aware of the geologist lying on the floor of the cave, wrapped up in an old red-and-black checked blanket, and a muscular, gloved hand pressing against her stomach. Hummingbird was crouched at her feet, one arm out stiff to hold her back. A few centimeters from her boots, the circle of bluish filaments was crushed and broken, leaving a black gap in the carpet.

Gretchen backed up very slowly, unable to keep her eyes from Russovsky's recumbent form. Behind the sleeping figure was a camp table holding a big service lantern. A gear bag and an insulated foodbox sat next to the table. Humingbird rose, blocking out the scene, and together they moved carefully back down the tunnel.

Outside, the eastern sky had darkened further. Winds were playing among the spires of Prion, flinging a constant rain of sand to rattle against the Midge s. Gretchen stopped just inside the mouth of the cave and dialed her comm to very short range. "That wasn't the real Russovsky?"

Hummingbird shook his head. Gretchen could see the corners of his eyes were tight with tension. "No," he said after adjusting his own wrist-mounted comm. "No respiration. No carbon dioxide residue in the air. It's some kind of copy – something like what you saw on the ship – but I don't think it moves or speaks."

"But she was here," Gretchen said, thinking of the whip antenna. "She must have slept in the cave at least one night, perhaps two, while she was installing the relay."

The nauallis nodded. "You saw the dead moss on the floor? I think she cleared most of the local microfauna out of the cave to make a safe place to sleep."

"Yes." Gretchen adjusted her breather mask. At this height, you needed to keep a tight seal to reduce oxygen loss. "Her lantern is a multispectrum one. If she left it tuned to UV all night, nothing would be able to get at her."

Hummingbird grunted noncommittaly. "But she didn't kill everything in the cave."

"Maybe she knew what was dangerous and what wasn't. Not everything in this ecosystem will want to consume us and our equipment." Gretchen smiled. "Just enough of them to kill us if we're not careful. So – what is this afterimage made of? Dust, like the other one? Something else?"

The nauallis shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure that is important, though an interesting question. She looks like the real thing. The table, the cloth – you can't tell a difference with the goggles dialed to hi-mag – but they aren't real."

"How can you tell?" Gretchen bit down on a follow-up question, seeing Hummingbird stiffen. "Ah, master crow, you don't have to keep secrets from me! We're all bundled up tight together, aren't we? Sharing the same piss-pot and cup." With a mighty effort, Anderssen kept a sarcastic tone from her voice, though she dearly wanted to twit him again. "Your secrets are safe with me. I swear I will never tell another soul – and if you doubt me, then when we're back on the ship, you can have me clapped in irons and sent off to the helium mines on Charon."

With the mask and breather and hood, Gretchen couldn't tell if Hummingbird smiled or not, though she was fairly certain at least the tiniest ghost of amusement might have creased his weathered old face. There was a distinctive hiss-hiss on the comm channel.

"The shape on the floor," he said at last, in a very careful tone. "Does not feel out of place."

"Oh." Gretchen licked her lips. "I see. But it should – if a human being were lying there, surrounded by human-made equipment – then you could tell there was a…dissonance…between the stone and dust and moss and Russovsky." She paused, a glimmer of thought brightening into realization. "This is one of your tlamatinime skills, isn't it? To tell when something fits properly or not? Like the debris from the shuttle – you moved those pieces of ceramic and hexsteel until they were properly aligned with the world around them – so they fit properly. And when they did – it's like they had been there forever – or at least, if they didn't fit right, you placed them on the ground as if a Mokuil had set them there."

Hummingbird shrugged. "Perhaps."

"Oh, Lamb of God bless and protect us!" Gretchen felt her temper fray. The man was obviously on edge, worried, even a little frightened. But could he admit such a thing? No. "Do you understand I don't care if you have some peculiar skill or hermetic training or secret universal decoder ring? I care about getting us both home, alive."

The nauallis pushed away from the wall and peered out at the Midge s and the jagged peaks. The light in the sky was changing and there was an indefinable sense of gathering darkness.

"Well? Give over!" Gretchen didn't bother to disguise her irritation. "Just shoot me with your little gun later, if I threaten the Empire with such precious knowledge as you might dispense!"

Hummingbird turned slightly, face in shadow, backlit by the brilliant sky. "I would."

"I don't think so," Anderssen said in a tart voice, her nose wrinkling up. "You'd bluster and be all mysterious and withholding and I'd break your bald head open with a wrench before you bothered to put a hole in me."

"Hah!" Hummingbird laughed aloud, a breathy, thin sound. "You would try, too."

He shook his head, but the line of his shoulders had already relaxed. "Though everything seems to be in order, I am uneasy. We need to destroy the antenna and this afterimage of Russovsky. The 'ghost' first, I think."

"Do you know how?"

The nauallis shook his head. "You've already touched upon the problem. This apparition isn't out of place – most ciuateteo are disturbances of the natural order and their nature is to disperse once matters are set in their proper balance – but this one is already at rest."

"Hmm. I don't suppose we can leave it be? No? I thought not. Do you have any sense of what this ghost is made of? Is it dust, like the Russovsky on the ship?"

"No. The dead-seeming crystal fronds on the roof are a likely culprit, though."

Gretchen wrinkled her nose again. "So helpful. We need to experiment then."

The nauallis replied with a skeptical grunt. "With what?"

"With you, for a start." Gretchen tilted her head toward the hidden chamber. "You can tell the apparition is at rest and 'in order', right? Well, go see if you can divine anything more. I'm going to examine the radio antenna before the light fails completely."

Without waiting for a response – and heartily glad to be out of the cave – Gretchen squeezed out the narrow entrance and set off for the relay. She heard a momentary hiss-hiss on the comm circuit and then nothing. Smiling slightly to herself and feeling entirely pleased to have bossed the nauallis around, Anderssen raised her head and began searching for the base of the antenna.

The bulk of the mountain had already cast the ledge into steadily-deepening shadow, so the onset of full dark caught Gretchen by surprise. The relay tower had been wedged into a flutelike wind-carved channel. Expansion bolts were driven into the rock on either side to pin the antenna in place. With some tricky climbing – more difficult for the heavy tools and gear slung on her harness – Gretchen had managed to get halfway up the relay. Now, with one boot braced against a lower bolt and a lightwand tight between her teeth, Gretchen was picking away at a thick cementlike layer coating the bottom half of the antenna.

"How did this get here?" Anderssen was puzzled by the encrustation covering the lower section of the relay. The material was suspiciously even in coverage and included both bolts and the pole. A hand tool splintered the surface, revealing shell-like layers. "This looks like lime concrete slurry."

Gretchen stopped and tucked the pick away. Wedging her shoulder into the space between the antenna and the rock, she wiggled a materials analysis pack out of her belt and – holding the cup in one hand – picked broken bits of cement from the antenna with the other. The stinging wind was beginning to die down but the relay was particularly exposed on the cliff, so Gretchen pressed herself into the rock and shivered while the cup woke up, detected a sample to compare against an internal database and went to work.

An hour later, Anderssen was sitting just inside the cave mouth, a comp on her knees and both feet centimeters from a circular heating element. The wind outside had died down to intermittent gusts, which rattled against a filament screen she'd tacked over the entrance. A second screen closed off the inner cave, leaving a five meter–long space where she'd stacked the camping gear. Among the things she'd dragged out of the Gagarin was a battered steel bucket filled with a cementlike crust. A brush was stuck in the long-solidified mire.

A noise drew her attention and Gretchen looked up in time to see the Nбhuatl unseal the edge of the inner screen. His cloak and legs were streaked with pale white dust.

"There's food -" she started to say.

"What are you doing?" Hummingbird came over to her, face tense beneath his breather. "Put that away."

Gretchen frowned at him, still holding the comp in her hand. It was difficult to use in the thin pressurized gloves. On the surface of the pad, behind a protective covering, indicators were glowing softly as the machine talked to itself. "I'm checking to see if there's a gravity spike here or a strange field reading. Something to…hey!"

Hummingbird closed his hand over the device, shutting it off. Gretchen realized the nauallis was furious, his dark green eyes turned to smoke. "You rely too much on your cursed tools. Look around you, let yourself become quiet. This is a very dangerous place. I told you before, we must walk quietly here. Your sensor is noisy, it makes a racket like civets in a trash can! I could feel it down in the cave. They could feel it too."

Gretchen drew back, her throat tightening. She was tired, sore, and very close to complete exhaustion. His anger was a physical blow, making her start to shake. Oxygen hissed against her cheek as the suit reacted to her rising heartbeat. Grimly, she choked down a bleat of fear. "Step away, crow. We need our machines to survive down here. What happened in the cave?"

For a moment his gaze locked with hers and Gretchen could sense – dimly – the man's own weary exhaustion. She refused to blink and after a seemingly interminable period, he looked away. Score one for the hard-eyed Swede, Gretchen thought, though she remained impassive.

"You need to sit down and eat," she said, setting the now-quiet pad aside. Gretchen rose and pushed Hummingbird gently toward the opposite side of the heating element. His bags were already stacked there. "Just sit and be still – you're good at that, right?"

Anderssen was mildly surprised when the nauallis did as she said. She puttered about for a moment, then handed him a container of heated tea and a squeeze-tube filled with two kinds of threesquares mixed together. Hummingbird's eyebrows rose in surprise when he tasted the evil-looking brownish gel. "It's hot," he said around a mouthful of food.

Gretchen smiled and showed him a storage bottle with the word "tabasco" hand-written on the side with a black pen. "Very hot," she said, "from Chipotle district on Anбhuac. Smoked and dried, then rendered into liquid fire. Just like home cooking, huh?"

The Nбhuatl nodded in appreciation and ate the entire rest of the tube. Then he closed his eyes and slumped back against the wall of the cave, the djellaba hanging loose around his shoulders. Gretchen sat back down herself, drinking slowly from her own tea. After a bit, the nauallis started to snore and she shook her head in amazement.

Well, she thought, putting the sensor-pad away. I guess he thinks we're safe here. Or I'm supposed to stay up and watch all night. First I'm a porter, then I make him my special chile dinner and now I get to stand guard. Huh!

Getting up again was painful – even with the medband's help, she was going to have serious bruises from the day's excitement – but Gretchen was very careful to take a worklight and sweep the entire camping space with high UV before settling down to sleep herself. Tomorrow, if we're still here, I'll haul in all those damned tiles.…

Gretchen opened one eye, saw the wall opposite her was lit by a pearlescent gray light, checked her chrono and closed her eyes again. Too early, she groaned, feeling like her brain had been ground fine and scattered in a toad circle for the gaunts to dance upon. The sun should not be allowed to rise at this hour. Not at four in the morning!

A particular sensation of grainy ash covering her skin made Anderssen twitch and shake her shoulders. Her fingertips found the medband, but stopped short of summoning up a wakeme injection. Grimacing, she opened her eyes to bare slits and then groaned aloud. Hummingbird was gone, his things neatly stacked, djellaba folded and laid atop a tool bag. She rolled up, rubbing grit from the corners of her eyes. "No showers. What an idiot I am…nearest shower is in orbit. Or at the base camp, if the water's still good."

Anderssen considered using water from the recycler reservoir to wash her face, but the thought of so many more days in this desolation weighed against such extravagance. Sipping from her mask tube, she ate another threesquare liberally mixed with hot sauce. The grainy, over-tired feeling persisted, hanging around like an unwanted morning-after bedtoy.

The nauallis returned while Gretchen was packing her things away, ducking in through the outer filament screen.

"Morning," Anderssen grunted at him, but did not look up.

"Something is attacking the relay antenna," Hummingbird said. He sounded almost as tired as Gretchen felt. "There's this crust all over the lower -"

Anderssen held up a sample cup with flakes of gray eggshell-like material. "Like this? I took some samples yesterday. My comp was analyzing them when you busted in last night and spoiled the party. It's not something attacking the pole, though." She hooked the battered old steel bucket over with the toe of her boot and upended the cup. The flakes matched the color of the dried goop in the bottom.

"This," Gretchen said, tilting the bucket toward the nauallis, "is more of Russovsky's work. Local dust mixed with water to make cheap, inert cement. She painted it all over the lower reaches of the relay, making a barrier against the microfauna."

"Oh." Hummingbird squatted beside his gear. "So there's nothing for them to eat."

"Exactly. In fact, I think most of this gray dust is waste exudate from the different kinds of microfauna." She grinned at the old man. "There is a lot of it around, isn't there?"

Hummingbird stared at her, impassive for a moment, then his lips twitched and a gleam shone in his eyes. Gretchen took this to be very close to hysterical laughter. The nauallis's usually grim, composed demeanor returned within a heartbeat.

"Did you find anything in the cave last night?" Gretchen turned the bucket over and sat down. "Anything new about this copy of Russovsky?"

"Something." Hummingbird did not look particularly pleased. "I thought the shape moved a little bit, from time to time. In fact, I checked this morning to see if anything happened at dawn." He paused, scratching at a badly fitting edge of his mask. "She woke up."

Gretchen raised an eyebrow, but managed to keep from making a fool of herself by gaping.

"Or I should say, the shape woke up, threw back the blanket, checked its chrono…"

"And then?" Anderssen looked reflexively down the tunnel, as if Russovsky would appear momentarily and want breakfast.

"Then," Hummingbird's voice assumed a familiar toneless quality. "The shape folded up the blanket, gathered its equipment and walked out of the circle. Then…then it disappeared. Well, almost."

"How…almost?" Gretchen was trying to divide her attention between the nauallis and the recesses of the cave. The back of her neck was prickling in a very uneasy way.

"I saw something like a mist, or falling dust, as the shape left the chamber. I was in the tunnel, of course, and the 'disappearance' occurred only about a meter in front of me."

"And there's nothing there now? Just an empty cave?"

Hummingbird nodded. "Dust, stone and hanging crystal."

"Did you feel anything? See anything?"

Another grimace. "No. All is as it should be. Nothing out of place."

"So – what now?"

"We wait for night to fall," the nauallis said. "And see if the shape comes back. I distrust luck, but more observation may reveal something."

"I see." Gretchen started to sort through her tools. "How tired are you?"

Hummingbird blinked. "Why?"

"We still have a relay antenna to dispose of." She passed a wrench and a length of pipe across to him. For herself she hefted a multitool with a cutting attachment. "I'll climb up and cut it down in sections and then you can dispose of them in a suitable manner."

The sun was almost exactly at meridian when Hummingbird threw the last of the bolts over the edge of the cliff. Calcite-crusted metal spun in the air, then vanished into an abyss tenanted by shrieking winds. Presumably the bolt would make a ringing sound when it struck the ground, but Gretchen didn't think they would hear anything at all.

"You're sure this will get rid of them properly?" She asked in a sly tone, peering over the edge of the outcropping. "They won't leave traces behind?"

The sally gained her not so much as a grunt. Hummingbird climbed back toward the cave. Gretchen stared after him for a moment before shrugging and picking up the tools scattered at the foot of the crevice where the relay had been. As she did so, Anderssen made sure to tuck the comm core of the relay into a pocket of her harness. What is an antenna, she mused, stowing the wrenches and cutting blades, but a long bight of metal? You can find one of those anywhere these days.

Hands on her hips, Gretchen found her best glower rendered ineffective by the goggles, mask and rebreather hiding her face. "Two sets of eyes are better than one, crow. I am trained to observe, to find the hidden and sift patterns from chaos. Both of us can watch from the tunnel mouth."

"No." Hummingbird had removed his djellaba and kaffiyeh – they were of little use inside the cave – leaving him a short, stocky, thick-bodied tree stump of a man clad in scuffed black and gray. "You do not know how to be quiet and there is a presence – a hostile presence – in the cave which was only peripherally aware of me. We might as well throw a grenade in, as put you on watch."

He tried to step past into the tunnel, but Gretchen moved to block the opening. "I can be as quiet and as patient as you, master crow. Try me and see."

"Sitting quietly is not enough," he replied. "You were quick to see how I placed the debris from the crash – but can you do the same with yourself? Such things take training and time!"

Gretchen did not move and her mouth tightened fractionally. Hummingbird watched her with his flat green eyes, much as a snake might watch a plump bird.

"Show me," she retorted. "I learn quickly. Think of what a boon I'd prove, if I could keep my own presence from being felt on this world – then you wouldn't have to clean up after me."

His head jerked sharply and Hummingbird turned away from the filament screen. "Prove you can listen without interruption," he said, stepping into the outer doorway. The screen behind him glowed hot with the afternoon sun. "Stand there, in the middle of this space. Let yourself become at ease. Be silent. Put all noise and clamor from your mind."

Though taken aback by his changing mood, Gretchen did as he said. She stood silently, trying to dispel the tension in her back, shoulders and legs by will alone. After a hundred beats of her heart, she started to breathe heavily and her legs felt like iron bars, tight and unyielding. A tiny hiss of anger escaped her lips and she grimaced, fighting to relax. Her mind was astir with wild phantasms and urgent thoughts. Be silent! Berating herself did no good.

Hummingbird stepped away from the opening, brow furrowed. Without speaking, he moved to her side. Thick fingers touched the base of her spine, her elbow, the left knee. Grudgingly, she followed his lead and shifted her feet, settling her back, changing the line of her arm. The difference in her body was shockingly immediate. Exhaustion fell away and she coughed, feeling tension ebb from her chest. The tightness in her legs faded, leaving her with only a memory of soreness. Gretchen started to exclaim, but Hummingbird's fingertips were on her lips. The nauallis shook his head and she remained quiet.

"Now," he said softly, "you can feel the difference. This is a more natural stance for you, one in line with your body, with your mind. Now – for a moment – just be. If you cannot empty your mind – another skill to learn, as a child learns to walk – then begin to count in a simple mathematical sequence."

One, Gretchen thought to herself. Two. Three. Four…

"Now sit," Hummingbird's voice was very faint, almost indistinct from her own thoughts. "Squat, let your body feel the pressure of gravity, let it fall, your feet will keep you up. Keep counting. Keep counting."

Slumped, breast pressed against her knees, Gretchen began to feel very tired. Her head wanted to drag to the floor, but somehow the interplay of muscles and bone kept her upright. Three or four hundred count passed and she shifted to one side. Despite the solidity of the posture, there was an itching sensation, a discomfort. Hummingbird stepped away, his boots whisper-quiet on the rocky, uneven floor.

"Good. Now move slowly until you feel at ease again. Bit by bit. Keep counting."

A full hour must have passed by the time Gretchen felt truly comfortable, her arms and legs limp but not heavy, her body curled into a ball, one shoulder against the same slab of stone she'd slept beside the night before.

Hummingbird's face loomed over hers, his goggles pushed back. Eyes like smoky jade stared curiously into hers. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," she mumbled and fell asleep before he could say anything more.

Anderssen woke to an odd tickling feeling. The sky beyond the filament door was entirely dark, so she guessed night had swung round again. Cautiously, she looked around the narrow, tilted chamber. Then Gretchen jerked upright, realizing Hummingbird had tricked her and – strangely – she did not feel sore. The persistent grainy feeling was gone. In fact, she felt remarkably rested, even good. Suspicious, Gretchen examined her medband, but the silver strip was happily asleep, all lights green, indicating no pharmaceutical intervention in progress at all.

"Crow?" Mindful of the situation deeper in the cave, she tried to shout quietly.

As usual, there was no answer. Gretchen's peaceful mood dissipated immediately.

When Anderssen unsealed the filament screen leading to the deeper cave, however, she was careful to keep her mind suitably blank. A moment's effort turned off all of her electronics; the wrist chrono, goggles, her comps. Luckily, the rebreather and recycler were powered by the motion of her limbs. She couldn't make them any quieter without asphyxiating. Counting slowly seemed to do the trick and Gretchen let her feet find the way down into the cavern. In the darkness, she realized there was a distinct slope to the passage and her hands found steadily narrowing walls on either side. Though she didn't want to risk a light, after twenty meters a faint azure glow led her to the edge of the cavern where the Russovsky-shape had been sleeping.

This time she stopped and settled into the "heavy" squat Hummingbird had guided her into. Eyes closed, Gretchen waited, counting. Eventually, she felt itchy again and began to move from side to side, fingers outstretched to warn her of looming rocks. Strangely, after a few moments, she felt as if the room had grown larger and her questing fingers found nothing until the itching stopped. Gently, she settled to the ground, fingers finally coming to rest on stone as she opened her eyes.

The dusty floor was to her left and in the blue gleam she could see Hummingbird almost directly opposite her. Again, Russovsky was asleep under the red-and-black blanket. The table and lantern were – as far as Gretchen could tell – in the same position. Nothing seemed to have changed. The circle of faintly radiant ground cover was still interrupted by the dead, broken section. Crystalline fronds still hung from the jumbled ceiling.

What now? she wondered, turning her head slowly to look at Hummingbird. He did not move, but his attention was fixed on the sleeper, not on her. Thinking of nothing else to do, Gretchen started to count again. Bored, she began a more complicated sequence.

More time passed and Anderssen suddenly became aware something had changed in the cavern. She stopped counting but managed to keep from stirring or opening her eyes. Without seeing Gretchen became uncomfortably certain the Russovsky-shape had woken up. She strained to listen but heard only a faint, dry rustling – no more than stone settling in the vault of the mountain. Her heart began to beat faster, but she did not leap up. A queer, electric tension began to build in the air. The prickling feeling on her neck returned, stronger than before. A terrible desire to leap up and shout in alarm came over her.

Gretchen resisted, resuming her count. 2579, she thought, 2591, 2593, 2609…As she did a feeling of heat became apparent on her face, as if a torch or open flame were coming closer. The desire to open her eyes was very strong. Instead, she let her breathing slow and settled back, her limbs growing heavy again. The heat became very apparent, verging upon painful. Something brushed against her face, then withdrew… 3217, 3221, 3229…

The warmth moved, shifting to her right, and then suddenly ceased. With its absence, Gretchen realized the intermittent sound had stopped as well. The cavern felt empty, though now – as if a veil of static or noise had been drawn back – she became distinctly aware of Hummingbird sitting opposite her. She could hear him breathing. Gretchen opened her eyes.

The blue circle was empty. Russovsky, or her copy, was gone. Hummingbird was right where she'd felt him. Gretchen felt a jolt, a bright flash behind her eyes, and wondered if the sick, queasy feeling in her stomach was supposed to be there. The nauallis slowly unfolded himself from where he'd been sitting cross-legged. As he did, Anderssen realized her skin was soaked with sweat and she felt clammy from head to toe. Oh Sister, why do I feel so scared?

"Well done." Hummingbird's voice was almost inaudible, tinny in the thin air. Gretchen moved to turn on her comm, but the nauallis shook his head. "You did well to remain still. But I do not think it is safe to move yet. Stay where you are."

"Why?" The word came out as a choked whisper. Her throat felt raw. "What happened?"

"The shape rose up," he replied after a moment's silence, "and became aware of you. She cleaned up the camp, as I related before, and turned toward you. For a moment, she seemed to reach out, but then returned to the pattern I saw before."

"Oh." Gretchen remembered heat on her face. "And vanished again."

Hummingbird nodded. "I fear," he said, in a very cautious tone, "the inhabitants of this world may sometimes express their curiosity through imitation. Those here – and be assured, if you cannot feel them, I can – are not so adept as those who made the Russovsky which came aboard the ship. Perhaps…" He paused. "Perhaps these ones are immature."

Gretchen watched the nauallis puzzle over the matter, but soon found her attention drawn to the dusty circle where the shape had appeared. After a moment she frowned. "Crow? You're thinking the thing we see is the microfauna – grown enormous, assembled into something which can move, which wears the shape of a human? Why would it repeat these actions over and over again? Why vanish?"

The nauallis regarded her. Gretchen saw the corner of his jaw clench, then loosen.

"This cavern," Anderssen continued, "the fronds, the moss – it's like a recording mechanism. One that's broken, looping, showing the same 3v over and over again. We know Russovsky was here – she must have taken at least a full day to install the relay, maybe even two – and she killed off most of the blue stuff on the floor. Maybe this particular species is one of the imitators. But this one is injured."

Now she paused, still staring at the dusty floor. There's something here. "What does this stuff eat, anyway? It must take a lot of energy to make imitations of things."

"Does that matter?" Hummingbird sounded sour. "If you're correct, then destroying the rest of the microfauna here will remove the traces of Russovsky – What are you doing?"

Gretchen ignored the nauallis, stepping carefully into the dead circle. She went down on her hands and knees and began to examine the rumpled, dirty floor centimeter by centimeter.

"Anderssen!" Hummingbird's voice was noticeably strained. "Can't you feel it? We're being watched."

There was a queer tension in the air, an almost electric sensation. Gretchen paused, shutting out the sound of the old man's querulous voice. There was something – a presence – around her, but while there was a sense of sharpness, of intent focus, she did not feel threatened. Anderssen resumed her search, wishing she had brought some of the tools from her gear bag. The edge of her hand would have to suffice and she began to brush back the first layer of dust in short arcs.

Her fingertips moved across a lump of dirt and the feeling of tension in the cavern spiked. Gretchen stopped, hand frozen above the dust. Hummingbird made a gargling sound and she heard him moving – away, scuttling back up the passage. The faint blue glow brightened, throwing a steadily sharpening shadow beneath her.

Without looking up – a little afraid of what she might see – Gretchen plucked a smooth, round stone out of the dust. As she did, something flickered in the air – a shadow, a shifting light – and there was a glimpse of another hand – a gloved hand – reaching for the stone as well. Gretchen's fingers curled tight around the stone. The shadowy glove vanished. The light went out, leaving her wrapped in darkness.

"Hummingbird?" Her whisper fell on dead air. Bastard!

Anderssen eased back across the floor, wondering if the tik-tik-tik sound in her ears was the comm channel muttering to itself or something moving in the rubble. Now her heart was hammering, her throat tight. A heavy sense of oppression pressed down on her, inspiring a cold sweat. One of her boots touched stone and she scrambled back into the tunnel mouth. A moment later, Gretchen threw aside the filament screen, bounded across their hasty campsite and out into the midday Ephesian sunlight. Hummingbird's incoherent voice rang painfully loud in the enclosed space.

The horizon was a blue wall rising above the curving white dome of the eastern plains. Jagged mountains tumbled away to her left and right, leaving only empty air and the colossal plunge down the face of Prion before her. Gretchen set herself, swung back one arm and flung the stone out and away into the empty vastness.

Swaying a little, she started with surprise when Hummingbird caught her arm.

"What was that?" His fingers were tight on her bicep.

Gretchen wrenched her arm free of his grip. "Hands off, crow."

"Tell me what you found in there. Why did you throw it away?"

Smirking, Anderssen brushed dust from her hands and knees. "The cave really creeped you out, didn't it? You – the tlamatinime, the all-knowing one – you ran out of there pretty fast for such an old man."

Hummingbird drew back and the line of his head, the clenched fists and stiff shoulders, told Gretchen she'd scored a hit – a palpable hit, she thought smugly.

"You weren't kidding," she said after a moment of silent gloating, "about this male and female business, were you? I thought you were being difficult."

"No." The nauallis gave her an inscrutable look. "I was not."

"Hmm." Gretchen looked over the edge of the cliff. Such a long way down. But you'd fly, part of the way at least. "Russovsky forgot something in the cave, just a round stone she'd picked up somewhere. A native Ephesian stone. I doubt she even noticed she'd forgotten the little thing – there are plenty of wind-smoothed stones to pick up from the ground. But the cave didn't like it. Not at all."

Among the Broken Mountains

The Cornuelle glided through an inky deep, a matte-black ghost among invisibly tumbling leviathans. Her main engines were at minimal thrust in an attempt to reduce her sensor profile. The sleek hull was in absorptive mode, darkness against darkness, yielding no hint of comm traffic or EM radiation. On her command deck, Hadeishi was keeping one eye on the ship's heat sump and one on the latest personnel reports when Hayes's terse voice drew his attention.

"Outrider Two has lost particle track," the weapons officer declared, staring intently at his panel.

"Outrider Two, engine full stop," Hadeishi barked, eyes swinging to the glowing depths of the threat-well. Drone Two was their lead dog at the moment, deployed nearly a thousand kilometers "inward" of the cruiser. Outrider One was accelerating back toward the cruiser, on the downside of its duty cycle. Three was outbound, snaking its way through the three-dimensional maze of the asteroid field to catch up with Two. The entire area within sensor range was quiet; the bridge displays showed only thousands of dots colored "navigational hazard" amber. The Cornuelle was a blue spark at the center of the well, with the three drones appearing as miniscule turquoise arrows.

"How long until Three reaches duty station?" The chu-sa leaned back in the shockchair, considering the situation. He wondered if Kosho had gone to sleep yet – she'd gone off-duty an hour ago – and decided not to call her back to the bridge. She needs to sleep sometime.

"Two hundred and thirty minutes, sir." Hayes turned questioningly to Hadeishi. "Shall I back Two out of there?"

"No," Hadeishi said. "Badger the drone with a nearby rock. Reduce outgoing transmissions to locational data. No broadcast, no highband emission. Switch everything else to record." Hayes was already at work on his panel, squirting a new set of commands to the drone. "When Three comes in range, establish a narrow-beam link to Two and relay back to us."

"Pinhole mode, aye," Hayes acknowledged absently, his mind entirely on reconfiguring the drone and dumping a new set of engagement and maneuver parameters to Outrider Three. A moment later he punched two glyphs and took a breath. "Commands away."

Hadeishi nodded, but his attention was now on the main panel, where ship's comp was replaying the particle trail data. Curse my generosity, he thought with a trace of bitterness. I need Isoroku here to advise me, not stuck on a civilian pleasure barge – he knows engine patterns better than anyone. The replay showed a wash of decaying, once-excited particle byproducts of the refinery's main drive meandering through the debris field. "Hayes, come look at this."

The weapons officer was at his side as fast as humanly possible.

"A Tyr-class refinery is almost ten times our size," Hadeishi remarked, contemplating the plot. "Her helmsman is following a path of least density, trying to keep incidental meteoroid impacts to a minimum as she moves through the field. But look, here the refinery suddenly shifts course into close proximity with this cloud of debris."

Hayes nodded. "They must have picked something up." A stylus in his blunt fingers sketched a new trajectory on the panel. "They're cutting through a 'hedge' into another area with less debris. A clear lane between the larger planetesimals."

"And we lose the trail at the edge of the 'lane.'" Hadeishi grimaced. "Could they have picked up the outrider?"

The weapons officer shook his head. "No, Chu-sa. The decay rates indicate we're still days behind them. They must have reacted to something on long-range scan."

Hadeishi settled deeper into his chair, stroking his beard. "Break down those decay rates and all the data we have on their engine plume. If they've badgered and know someone is looking for them, we need to get a solid estimate on how far they might have gone on minimum power."

"Not very far," Hayes said, tapping his stylus on the panel. "Think about how much mass they're moving. Even empty, a Tyr is a behemoth. I think they scooted into this 'lane' so they could coast and gain some distance. Somewhere out here -" the stylus sketched a box in the 'clear' area "- there's a pocket of engine exhaust."

"Because they corrected course," Hadeishi said, "either for distance or vector."

"I could send Outrider Two into the lane," Hayes offered dubiously.

"No." Hadeishi shook his head slightly. "There's no reason to try and hide a course change if you don't drop a sensor relay – or a proximity mine – behind to welcome a pursuer. The refinery captain is not a fool. His cartel wouldn't entrust so much expensive equipment to a novice. He'll pick a random vector, pile on velocity and coast again until he has to maneuver to avoid a collision."

The chu-sa paused, considering the cloud of amber dots for a moment. Then he nodded again, this time to himself. Hayes waited patiently, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders square.

"Hold drone Two on station until Three arrives." Hadeishi's voice had lost its contemplative tone. His mind was made up. "Recycle drone One as quickly as it can be refueled. The Cornuelle will proceed at one-third power to catch up. I want all three drones ready on point when we reach Two's current location. We will advance in a box formation, scanning the surrounding debris clouds for evidence of a third course change."

"Hai, Chu-sa!" Hayes's jaw tightened and a gleam lit in the young officer's eyes.

Hadeishi waved him away and slumped back in the shockchair, staring into the threat-well.

Now we close with the enemy, he thought, troubled. Does he know we're here? Is he reckless? Is he wary?

That was the question. A prudent, patient captain would simply wait for an opportunity to make hyperspace gradient out of the system when no one could see him. But an angry man, or a reckless commander…A ship that large could carry a great deal of mischief in secondary storage. A single proximity mine could cripple the Cornuelle. Two or three might kill her, if the cruiser happened to blunder into a flower-box detonation.

The ceiling lights in Hadeishi's cabin were dark, the only illumination cast from a small table lamp on his desk. Mitsuharu knelt on a cotton mat, facing the wall opposite his bed. Two framed pictures – not modern holos, but yellowed paper, cracking with age – sat within a small alcove. An empty incense burner lay before the photographs; an old man and a middle-aged woman in formal dress. Both seemed grim, their faces composed, though in his memory they were always smiling.

"At dusk, I often climb to the peak of Kugami." Mitsu bent his head, palms pressed together, fingertips against his brow. Stringy black hair fell in a cloud around his shoulders. He rarely let his ponytail go unbound, but certain devotions required an expression of sacrifice. He thought the loss of personal control an adequate offering. "Deer bellow, their voices soaked up by piles of maple leaves…"

The sharp, pungent smell of incense should fill the air around him, but the air recyclers worked overtime already. Mitsu accepted the absence of pine and rose-wood as another sacrifice. His lips barely moved, offering the last of Ryukan's ancient poem to his mother and his father. "…lying undisturbed at the foot of the mountain."

What chant settled the racing hearts of my ancestors, Mitsu wondered, rising from his knees, when they rode into the high grass to fight the Dakota and the Iroquois? A deep bow followed and he closed the alcove with the tip of his finger. A metal plate sealed the little shrine, protecting the contents against a sudden loss of pressure or the g-shock of combat.

Hadeishi ran a hand across the spines of his books. His personal quarters should, by tradition, be spartan and bare. He was sure Sho-sa Kosho's cabin was a perfect example of approved Zen minimalism – all plain gray and white surfaces, perhaps small portraits of the Emperor and the Shogun, her tatami, the door to the closet always closed. Mitsu smoothed his beard, looking around at the terrible mess he'd made of this place. Every wall was covered with bookcases – well-built ones too, Isoroku was a dab hand for structural modifications – and every shelf was packed with storage crystals, audio-sticks, hand-drawn paintings in ink, paper-bound volumes, boxes of letters, Heshtic scrolls and paw-books, even things he'd found in the markets of Baldur, Marduk or New Malta. He was sure some of them held writing, but then again – who knew what they truly were? Laundry lists? Accounts of land disputes from some dead, forgotten world?

My whole life is here, he thought, aware of lingering sadness. If the Cornuelle dies, all this will be gone.

Hadeishi sat cross-legged on the tatami, picking up a hand-held comp. The pad came alive with his touch, displaying a set of ship schematics. Frowning, Mitsu considered the builder's diagrams for a standard-issue Tyr refinery. What a monster, he thought – and not for the first time – panning through screen after screen of floorplans. We could almost fit the Cornuelle into the main boat bay. The thought was amusing, but not helpful. He narrowed the view displayed on the pad to those sections housing the meteoroid defense system.

"Looks like an old Koningsborg-class battle cruiser point-defense array," he said wryly aloud after a half hour of examination. Finding the circuits had taken some effort – the sheer size of a Tyr made finding a single system difficult. "Hmm. But spread out over far more surface area."

He paused, brow furrowing in thought. How big is the crew for this leviathan?

Another hour passed before Mitsu found something like a crew-requirements list. Then he raised an eyebrow in cautious surprise.

Thai-i HuГ©mac slid down a gangway ladder into first platoon's sleeping deck and found the narrow room unexpectedly crowded. A small, wiry man with prominent cheekbones and the coppery-bronze coloring typical of the Tlaxcallan highlands, the senior Marine lieutenant went unnoticed for a moment. A crowd of Marines in off-duty fatigues, all hulking backs and shoulders, filled the walkway between rows of bunks on either side. Smoke curled against the ceiling and bit the eyes of the men lying on the top, staring avidly down at something in the middle of the barracks.

HuГ©mac stood quietly for a moment, cataloging the number of violations of shipside regulation visible to his experienced eye. He was impressed by the hushed, pregnant silence filling the room. The senior lieutenant had been wondering where all of second platoon had dissapeared too, but now he guessed the entire Marine contingent on the Cornuelle was packed into this one compartment.

A single voice, hoarse and pleading, rose above the quiet susurration of so many men and women breathing. "Oh great lord, oh gracious master, blessed Five Flowers. Look on these poor, pitiful subjects, see their smooth black bodies, their empty eyes, count the holes in their bellies. See them, see the four houses, see the black squares and the red. Please, master of flowers, giver of gifts, fickle one! Bless these five subjects, give them swift legs, strong hearts and every mercy!"

HuГ©mac rolled his eyes – but only because not a single Marine could see his reaction – and swung nimbly up onto the nearest rack of bunks. Carefully bending low under the pipes and conduits and cable guides crowding the ceiling, he stepped over a half-dozen men to look down into the common area at the center of the deck. None of the Marines on the top bunks paid him any attention, save Heicho Tonuac, who was reading an illustrated malinche titled The Tribulatory Life of Leda and her Swan while chewing gum. The corporal stiffened to attention as the lieutenant stepped over him.

At the middle of the room there was an open space where two facing sets of bunks had been folded back into the walls. HuГ©mac grasped hold of a return-air pipe and leaned out, looking down upon three men and one woman sitting on the floor below. Between them was a woven mat in the shape of a cross. Red and blue ceramic markers were scattered along a track of squares, filling each arm of the cross.

The woman was watching the man opposite her with a bored expression. In turn, he was rubbing both hands together, his voice now a mumble, a click-click-click sound rising up among the slowly curling trails of incense and tobacco smoke. Both men were staring sickly at the arrangement of the counters on the mat. HuГ©mac squinted a little and pursed his lips in appreciation. Five solid red tokens had reached safety in the house of the Rising Sun, five blue in the house of the Moon. One red disc remained, sitting a very likely three squares from exiting the board in victory. One blue token lagged behind, an almost impossible ten squares from journey's end.

HuГ©mac had played a little patolli in his time, but the pile of pay chits mounded up before the woman was of truly legendary size. The thai-i repressed a sigh. I have got to convince the captain to sign off on promoting Felix to sergeant… Then the little burgundy-haired woman would be forced to limit her shipboard gambling income to the other sergeants and the officers. Who might show a tiny shred of sense…and stay far away from her.

Gambling – particularly on patolli or tlachco competitions – was an entirely legal expression of religious piety throughout the Empire, which pleased the Marines and sailors in Fleet to no end. Even the foreigners were only too happy to offer up incense, maize and pulque to Macuilxohitl Five-Flower on payday, hoping to gain the god's blessing in matters of chance.

Down on the floor, the man praying suddenly seized the five polished beans in his right hand and cast them onto the mat with a flick of his wrist. HuГ©mac shook his head – throwing all five as 'spots' and doubling the roll to ten squares was entirely unlikely – no matter what promises the private made to Five-Flower. Throwing a one, two or three – any of which would help Felix, or even let her move the last token from the board and win – were far more likely.

The little black beans bounced, rattled and came to a stop. Private Martine was crouched on his hands and knees, muttering fervently. Three spots, two black.

"Face!" the private groaned. A hiss of indrawn breath filled the compartment as he advanced his blue token. Seven squares seemed an impossible distance. Felix reached out, nose twitching in amusement and scooped up the beans.

She did not pray or rub the beans. They left her hand with a simple flip and scattered across the mat. "Oh," she said in an aggrieved voice, "only eyes."

Her red token advanced two squares. One to go. Martine snatched up the beans and tried to match Felix's offhand toss. The beans scattered and rolled. Most turned up white. Four of them.

"Very good," Felix said, tucking wine-red hair back behind her ears. "Box is very good."

Martine gave her a sick look; blunt, chipped fingers sliding his blue token ahead. Three squares left. Felix gathered up the beans, smiled at the private and let them roll out in a lazy-seeming flip. They bounced on the mat, spinning, and four came up dark, one white. "Snake," Felix said, and removed her last piece from the board.

Martine stared hollow-eyed at the treacherous beans. His squadmates stared at him. Felix shoveled pay chits into an embroidered leather bag ornamented with a hand-stitched picture of a Scorpion ground-effect tank on the side. There was a tense silence. Perched above the tableau, HuГ©mac schooled his face to impassivity and then – when the men behind Martine fully grasped they'd lost their last month's pay in a single game of patolli – he dropped lightly to the floor beside corporal Felix.

"Officer on deck!" someone bawled in fear and surprise. "Attention!"

Twenty-five men scrambled to adopt something approaching proper posture. Even Felix was on her feet, the embroidered bag already hidden inside her field jacket. Martine was looking rather pale, his squadmates pressing around him on either side.

"At ease," Thai-i HuГ©mac announced, back straight as the vanadium core barrel on a squad shipgun. "Private Martine, whose mat and beans are these?"

"Mine, sir." The Marine swallowed and managed to stiffen to attention. More than one pair of surreptitious hands helped him. A squad had to stick together in the face of enemy fire.

HuГ©mac looked consideringly at Felix, who was not smiling but was very, very attentive. "Do you even own a patolli mat, corporal?"

"Sir," Felix said in a very earnest voice, "I do not."

HuГ©mac tried not to smile. Sometimes you have to play these things out, as a public lesson. "Do you like to play patolli, corporal? Are you a gambling woman?"

"No, sir," Felix said with an entirely straight face. "I never gamble."

The senior lieutenant looked around at the goggling faces of the Marines crowded into the barracks. Most of them were on the verge of apoplexy, though HuГ©mac could make out one or two – including the relaxed Heicho Tonuac and his pamphlet – who were trying not to grin. Squadmates, the lieutenant recognized, or men who'd bet on Felix rather than on poor Martine. HuГ©mac returned his attention to the sallow-looking private.

"Private Martine," he said very patiently. "Did you invite Heicho Felix to join your game of patolli? Is this your mat, token and beans?"

"Yes, sir." Martine's voice was very faint. He appeared to be having trouble focusing on the lieutenant's face.

"I see." HuГ©mac raised his voice, so everyone in the compartment could hear. "I am sure Heicho Felix only joined your game to be polite. I understand she does not like to gamble. I suggest in the future, you scrupulously respect her wishes in this matter. Private, you should pick up your patolli board before someone steps on it."

HuГ©mac stood there, stone-solid, until the crowd of Marines began to break up. They were glum, shamefaced and broke. Inwardly, he sighed in despair. What was Martine thinking? He knows Fourth Squad lost all of their money last month!

"Felix – you stay right here." The senior lieutenant did not turn, but he could feel the corporal freeze in her tracks and then resume a parade rest. HuГ©mac waited, thumbs hooked into the back of his uniform belt, until the Marines had returned to their usual pursuits. Only Heicho Tonuac was still watching the senior lieutenant out of the corner of his eye while he pretended to read. HuГ©mac turned, eyes narrowing to black slits, a hint of the steady anger he felt showing in his face. Felix stiffened, lips compressing into a bare rose-colored line. "The chu-sa," he said quietly, "in his infinite, godlike wisdom has tapped your squad, corporal, for some extracurricular activity. Normally, Gunso Fitzsimmons would be here to take on preparatory duties, but he is absent. So you will run every single man in your unit through a full workup on their combat z-armor, ship-to-ship assault gear and secure comm tech. Weapons is running up a simulator pack for you. I'd guess you'll have a couple days to run through the scenario."

HuГ©mac almost smiled. "You'll be assault leader, Felix, so I will be watching you very closely. Your squad will have a 'hot' target and I dislike losing men. The chu-sa will be paying close attention to how you do in the sim."

"Yes, sir!" Felix was starting to look almost as pale as Martine, though the thai-i knew the young Marine was aware of what was coming, where the foolish private had been led blindfolded to the butcher's block. "May the corporal ask a question, sir?"

"Go on." HuГ©mac tilted his head to one side, watching tiny beads of sweat begin to collect along the woman's hairline. He wondered how quickly a betting pool would start, wagering on the exercises in the sim. Within the hour, he supposed. Maybe by the time I leave the compartment.

"Who…who will be running opposition in the sim, sir?"

The senior lieutenant's smile widened, showing a full set of perfect white teeth. "Sho-sa Kosho has been assigned that role, corporal."

"Sir?!" Felix blurted, her face ashen. "The Wind-knife, sir? She'll -"

"She'll what?" HuГ©mac asked curiously.

Felix seemed unable to speak and HuГ©mac watched with interest while the Marine recovered her composure. Something like real dread had penetrated the corporal's usually unflappable demeanor.

"Nothing, sir." Felix stiffened to attention again. "Have mission guidelines been posted?"

"I have them," HuГ©mac replied, his bronzed face once more composed. "You'll find them…challenging, I think. But Chu-sa Hadeishi has expressed great faith in your abilities, Heicho Felix. I hope you do not disappoint him."

"Thank you, sir." Felix started to look pale again. Her voice had strangled itself into a squeak. "Hadeishi-tzin asked for me?"

HuГ©mac nodded gravely, a peculiar glitter in his dark eyes. "He did. He thinks you're lucky."

Outbound from Ephesus III

"Still nothing…" Magdalena was curled up in a nest of Navy-issue blankets over-flowing the captain's chair on the bridge of the Palenque. Slitted yellow eyes watched another set of scan data unspool on a secondary v-pane. There was plenty of noise, static and ghostly warbling filling the comm bands down on the planetary surface. But there was a singular lack of recognizable traffic on Imperial and Company channels. "Parker, can you switch on the main array? Just for an hour or two?"

There was a grunt from behind her and the Hesht tilted her head back far enough to see one of the human's legs hanging out of a ceiling tile. Though the Navy engineer had managed to get the ship underway, the bridge systems of the Palenque were still mostly down. Coils of conduit, cable and guide-sheathing were exposed everywhere. Very few systems were working. There was no heat, no light. Other than the cold, the Hesht was very comfortable in the cavernlike space.

"Parker…" Magdalena began a harsh, throbbing growl at the back of her throat.

There was a scraping sound and the human pilot's face appeared in an opening between two of the tiles. Light from a glowbean shone around his balding head. "Miss Cat," he said, sounding wrung out, "the main comm array is shut down, turned off and locked out by order of our dear judge. If you want it active, you will have to persuade Stoneface down in Engineering."

"He eats moss," Magdalena replied, ears twitching. Finely napped black fur curled back from her fore-incisors and she let an inch of claw expose on her left hand – just for a moment. "Rrrrrr…they could be in trouble dirtside. Another pack might have them cornered. Her leg could be broken, she could be caught in the open, exposed!"

Parker sighed and crawled backward out of the overhead. His forearms were crisscrossed with scars and dried blood. Working in such an old ship was wearing on mind and body alike. He swung for a moment, feeling the gentle tug of the ship's acceleration, then dropped to the deck. Palenque was underway, engines barely lit, in a long corkscrew orbit out from the planet. In another five days, the pilot figured, she would be far enough away to switch to full power. Then – if Isoroku and his Marine helpers were really working down in Engineering, not drinking themselves insensible – the ship might be able to achieve gradient and enter hyperspace.

"Maggie…" Parker stumbled into the navigator's chair and wedged one thin shoulder into a space between two of the supports. The shockchair's heavy, plush seatback had been eaten, leaving nothing but a cage of metal strips. He reached for the pack of tabac in his shirt pocket and found only empty waxed paper., Crap. No smoke. "I know Gretchen's your packleader now and all – I know that's important to you – but she's gone off on her own…thing."

The Hesht did not look at him, once more encased in a suspicious number of blankets. Parker blinked, then stared at a blue sleepbag tucked in behind her. "Is that my sleepbag? It is. You stole my sleepbag! Give over!"

"Rrr! I'm cold, monkey! You're not. You're working. When you go to your den to sleep, I'll let you have it back."

"So – is all your fur for show or something?" Parker crushed waxed paper in his fist. "You're…plushy. But you're cold all the time. I don't understand."

"Heshukan," Magdalena said, baring the tips of her incisors, "was a warm, dry world."

"Oh." Parker started to hunt through his pockets for something else to smoke.

"You're out of bitter, smelly leaves," Magdalena said, staring moodily at the v-pane. Still nothing but static and garbage. She turned off the feed and began flipping through the various comm systems available to her. Most were dead and dark. "Maybe the hunters have some."

"Ask the Marines?" Parker rubbed his face wearily. "They were cadging from me yesterday. Stupid – why give them away? Have I lost my mind? I should have sold them, or kept them for myself!" The pilot pushed himself out the chair and gestured at Magdalena. "I'm crashing. Give me my bag."

Brow and nose wrinkled up in a grimace, the Hesht scooted to one side and let Parker recover his sleepbag.

"Agh. It smells like piss!" The pilot held his bag at arm's length, mouth pursed.

"You don't want it?" One of Magdalena's paws licked out and snagged the bottom of the bag with a curving white claw. "I made it smell proper, like a denblanket should."

"I do want it!" Parker snatched the bag back. He shook his head, then made his way carefully off the bridge, bag trailing behind him like a fat blue tail.

Magdalena hissed at his retreating back and then rummaged around, adjusting her blankets. When she was done, the Hesht resumed paging through the comm channels. Her mood was even fouler than before.

Bandao arrived an hour later, two bulky packages under one arm, and found the bridge dark and cold, save for Magdalena in her nest, with four v-panes casting a chill gray light on her face. Maggie ignored him. She was busy keying commands into the system in one pane while the others were filled with closely spaced documentation or remote console feeds. Her moodiness had departed, replaced by a near-maniacal concentration on the work before her. Bandao took no notice of the slight and began hunting around under the command deck.

After a few moments, he found what he was looking for and plugged a field heater into a power socket under the navigator's station. Five seconds later, the olive-colored unit woke up and began to radiate a warm, dry heat into the area around the captain's chair.

"Two and four are stabilized," Magdalena muttered under her breath. Her claws made a constant, rattling click-click-click on the control panel. If she were a human, she would be sweating. If she were Parker, there would be a cloud of smoke like a forest fire around her.

Studiously ignoring the Hesht, Bandao paced around to the opposite side of her chair, installed a second unit and then disappeared back into the dark passageway leading into the main hab ring. Magdalena showed no sign of noticing his brief visit.

"Ah," she said in relief, rolling her shoulders. "That's better. Seven will do." Magdalena's nose twitched – there was a sort of hot metallic smell in the air – but the images on the panel drew her attention before she noticed the two heaters.

On her main v-pane, a video feed had appeared. The image was broken into seven sections arranged in an exploded hexagon, each showing a different view of the planet now receding behind the Palenque. The tip of her pink tongue showing, Magdalena watched the feeds very carefully. Seven matching remote console windows were live on another section of her panel.

"Synch one to seven," she muttered, tapping a series of glyphs with the little claw on her right paw. The upper left video shivered, then adjusted, conforming to the image mirrored in the center of the hexagon. "Good…synch two to seven."

Three-quarters of a million kilometers away, one of the peapod satellites still in orbit over the third planet made an adjustment, slewing to cover an equatorial region. The peapod's orbit had been degrading rapidly, but it was still in operation. The machine was aware – but uncaring – of a slight increase in the rate of collision with atmospheric particles. Almost imperceptibly, the satellite began to slow, dragged by an invisible fringe of the ocean of air surrounding the planet. Responding to the commands arriving over the telemetry link, the peapod made a series of minute adjustments to its orientation.

"Synch six to seven…" Maggie began to grin, foreteeth and sidemolars showing in a fierce display. "…and stabilize image." She tapped another patiently waiting glyph. The video displays from all seven peapods collapsed into one single image. Palenque-side comp picked up the dataflows and began to fuse them into one high-resolution feed. Magdalena waited anxiously, a fully extended striking claw clicking against the front of her cutting teeth.

The comp interped and interped again, trying to adjust for differences in the rate of flow caused by the angular distance between the ship and the peapods scattered around Ephesus. Hating the concession, Maggie stepped down the level of resulting detail an order of magnitude. Palenque comp chirped happily in response.

"Now," Magdalena growled happily, "let's look in on the crash site."

The multilensed eye in the sky shifted, concentrating on a barren valley near the northern ice cap. Magdalena was grudgingly satisfied with the resolution coming back out of the cribbed-together system, but the satellites were responding far too slowly to satisfy her impatient nature.

"Stupid tree-climbing machines…" When all seven peapods had focused on the crash area, Magdalena realized both Gretchen and the old crow had left the area. "Now where did they go?" She cleared the peapod documentation out of the secondary panes and brought up Russovsky's transmission logs and a plot of her flight path. "Hmm…"

The heaters continued to glow, surrounding the Hesht in a warm cocoon. Her face shimmered in the constantly changing light from the panels as she worked, long into shipsnight. By shipsdawn, the tired Hesht was staring at a grainy picture of a mountainside. The upper wings of two ultralights gleamed in late-afternoon sunlight and Maggie could make out the blurry shapes of Gretchen and the Mйxica talking as they loaded gear into their Midge s.

Mons Prion, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III

Hummingbird fiddled with his breather and goggles, trying to get them to lie comfortably over his nose and ears. Gretchen, passing by with the last of her personal gear, threw the comp and sensor pad into the front seat of the Gagarin.

"Hold still," she said over the comm, her own face mostly masked by the tail of her kaffiyeh. "There's a trick to it…there. How is that? Better?"

The nauallis nodded, finding the new arrangement suitable. For a moment, Gretchen thought he might actually thank her, but he did not. She was not surprised.

"So – you feel comfortable leaving this place now?"

"Yes." Hummingbird had spent the day sitting cross-legged in the cave, watching the passage down into the cavern. "We will follow the course of Russovsky's last flight."

"Sure." Gretchen peered at the nauallis curiously. "You haven't seen anything? Felt anything?"

Hummingbird shook his head. "We have a long way to go, Anderssen. We shouldn't waste any more time here."

"Really." Gretchen felt a cold, sharp anger boiling up in her stomach. With an almost physical effort, she forced her voice to remain level. "Aren't you going to ask me how I could find Russovsky's stone – when you couldn't? Or do you know already?" Her eyes narrowed. "You do know. You even know why these things are happening!"

Hummingbird laughed in relief, an abrupt, unexpected sound. "Know? I know many things, Anderssen, but I've not the slightest idea why the cave made a copy of Russovsky or kept repeating itself!"

Oddly, as the nauallis was speaking, Gretchen became aware of a queer flutter in his voice, as if two voices were speaking at once – different voices – and they were contradicting each other.

"You're lying." Hummingbird became very still. Gretchen looked around, entirely startled by her own statement and then she advanced on him. "You are lying and I…I can tell."

"Could you?" Hummingbird stirred, regarding her with a fierce, sudden intensity. "Very well – how did you find the stone in the dust?"

Faced with the question she'd wanted to hear all day, Gretchen felt entirely deflated. She was sure the nauallis already had some esoteric answer for her, and she realized she didn't care. "Never mind. Our real problem is what happened in the cave. There is no reason for an organism in this environment to waste energy making copies of things. At least – no reason I can think of." She drew back her hood, so the Nбhuatl could see the fierce expression on her face. "Why don't you fill me in? Before we stumble into the next situation, and one of us is hurt, or killed, by my ignorance."

Hummingbird's lips had compressed to a tight line and his eyes grew dark and guarded. "There are secrets which cannot be revealed…"

Gretchen's face contorted into a snarl. A hand groped at her belt for a wrench, a hammer, a gun…

"…so I will not tell you everything I know." Hummingbird said firmly. "But I will tell you enough. But first, think about what you did in the cavern. You've had a certain kind of training – from school, from university, from your parents, from the work of your hands – and you're skilled in a way of seeing." He paused, regarding her. "Did those skills show you the stone in the dust?"

Gretchen became aware her mouth was very dry. She licked her lips and took a drink from the recycler tube in her mask. Hummingbird's gaze did not waver or look away. Gretchen started to become nervous. "I…no, no I don't think they did. I didn't see the stone, not with my eyes. There was only an itch. Just…something was out of place."

The nauallis nodded minutely. He seemed to gather himself, jaw tightening, brow creasing. For a very long time, Hummingbird said nothing, staring at her with an unwavering expression. Just as Anderssen – tired of standing on a windy ledge while the day inexorably passed – was about to speak, he blinked and said:

"Think of a river, broad and running swift. The bottom is smooth sand, the banks thick with algae. There is nothing to disturb the current, the surface is placid. If you hover above the clear water, you can see into the depths, pick out details of patterns in the sand. Perhaps there is seagrass waving in the current. Put your hand in the water and you are surprised by the strength of the water – but now the surface is distorted, confused. A wake trails behind your hand and suddenly the water is no longer clear. Such an effect is obvious, even to the unwary.

"Consider a boulder, submerged and invisible to a man standing on the bank. The river may seem placid, but the current is distorted. A boat on the river may strike the rock before anyone notices anything amiss. The current may twist across the stone, eddying, rushing faster or slower. Now, in the constrained universe beneath the glassy surface, there may be places where the seagrass cannot hold, or places where an eddy falls, leaving a thick stand of growth."

Hummingbird made a motion with his hand, indicating the landscape around them.

"What you see here – the ruined surface, tortured mountains, desolate plains – is not the whole of this world. There are submerged currents. There is something here, something hidden. There is an influence, like my hidden boulder, which directs, confines, shapes all that happens on this poor, broken orb. We felt an echo in the cave -"

Gretchen felt her pulse trip a little faster. She blurted, "The First Sun people! Something interrupted their labors! They fled, didn't they? What…what did they leave behind?"

"Do not presume they fled," Hummingbird replied, raising his eyes to the sky. His goggles polarized into a shining mirror, reducing the sun to two blazing points. "Have you thought about the power of the First Sun people? They bestrode the stars as gods – we have seen the scraps and ruins they leave behind – and we are ants creeping across the floor of a deserted house. Our ships have visited six hundred worlds, only the tiniest fraction of the suns we can see with the unaided eye. Yet there are wonders which beggar our knowledge and skill even in such a tiny space. Have you thought what might lie beyond the rim of our domain?"

"Hasn't everyone? Every undergraduate class debates this in first-term xenoarcheology!" Gretchen began to feel the excitement of curiosity stir and tried to keep her voice level. "Where did they come from, the giants of the First Sun? Where did they go? Why aren't they here now?"

"They were destroyed." Hummingbird's statement was flat and cold. "There were – there are – powers which exceeded them in all ways. In age, though the First Sun races are impossibly ancient by our measure, in strength, though the least of the First Sun valkar could smash Earth to a cinder."

He tilted his head toward the vast sweep of mountains and canyons and plains. "One of the valkar was here, remaking this world into something pleasing – if such a term can be used. Then it fled to safety." Hummingbird fixed Gretchen with a piercing stare. "What made it run? What drove it away, what frightened a power capable of shattering an entire planet?"

"I…" Gretchen couldn't think of anything to say.

"Not man." The nauallis shook his head, laughing bitterly. "Not man! Not our tiny little empire! We are very small. Insignificant. But think about what happened in the cave – Russovsky left something behind, something equally small. What did you find?"

"A pebble." Gretchen squinted, trying to make out the man's expression. "Just a water stone, like the old-timers use on Mars. She'll have taken it out of her mouth at night and put it aside. Then she forgot in the morning and left. There are plenty of other smooth stones here."

"You saw what happened. The things which live in the cave reacted – their current was disturbed – I venture they were trying to eject the stone, like shrapnel from a wound. You saw what kind of distortion such a small, tiny object created."

Gretchen nodded. "But how -"

Hummingbird raised a hand, cutting her off. "This world is filled with echoes, Anderssen-tzin. Echoes of destruction and fear. Echoes of the dead. There are shades all around us, even now. You cannot see them – they are faint even to me – but enormous forces have been at play. The tread of the gods, if you wish to think of the First Sun people as deities. Your precious cylinder was in a fragment of stone – even I recognize the fossils in the ancient layers of sediment. The valkar consumed a living world and was then defeated in turn by something even more monstrous."

Pursing his lips, the nauallis stared off into the emptiness. "But I do not think it fled."

"What do you mean?" Gretchen moved into Hummingbird's line of sight.

"It is still here, somewhere. In hiding."

"Oh." Gretchen shook her head, trying not to laugh. His statement seemed preposterous. She wasn't quite sure if she was afraid or exasperated with the old Mйxica. "It's…hiding here? In a cave or something?"

"I don't know." Hummingbird looked entirely grim. "We see only echoes of its effects – ripples from a stone thrown a million years in the past. These crystalline entities, whatever consumed Russovsky and then vomited her up again, the corrosive dust, the fields of pipeflowers – they are reflections of a hidden power."

"Have you been taking some kind of psychotropic while I wasn't looking?" Gretchen failed to hide her complete disbelief. "How can you reach such a conclusion after only being planetside for, what – three days? You don't have any data!" She stopped, mouth open. A nagging thought had blossomed into certainty, watching his inscrutable old face.

"You knew what was here before you came." Gretchen felt a little sick. Russovsky. The crew on the ship. Doctor McCue…everyone who'd already died…"Did the Company know?"

"No. No one knew." Hummingbird adjusted the hood of his kaffiyeh to shade his goggles. "I have data – but not from this world. From another ruined planet. If the proper authorities had known what was here, no civilian ship would have been allowed in the system."

"Which authorities," Gretchen replied testily, "are the proper authorities for dealing with gods?"

"I am," Hummingbird said quietly. "This is my responsibility."

"You? Just you by your lonesome or the whole of the tlamatinime?"

Hummingbird almost smiled. "Not all of the judges are privy to everything, but as a whole we are entrusted – by both Emperors, by the Fleet – with keeping a guard upon humanity."

"Do we need to be guarded?" Gretchen felt cold, even in the direct unfiltered blaze of the Ephesian sun. "Are we sheep, who need a watchdog prowling? What would you do if one of these…these valkar attacked a colony world or even Anбhuac itself?"

"The world would die," Hummingbird said tonelessly. "But the valkar – the gods of the First Sun – are scattered or dead." He paused. "Or sometimes they lie hidden, trapped in a kind of sleep. This one must be dreaming, waiting for the stars to change in their courses so it may wake again."

"What good can you do, then, if you cannot stop these powers?"

Hummingbird's eyes glinted angrily and Gretchen swallowed another acerbic comment.

"We watch, Anderssen. We watch in the darkness at the edge of human space. As a famous general once said, 'We stand guard so you may enjoy the untroubled sleep of the innocent.' Your attitude, I realize, is a testament to a job well done by my brothers and their predecessors. We are rarely idle. Many times men have stumbled into danger. Colonies have been abandoned, stations lost. Ships disappear with dreadful frequency. In Tenochtitlбn, in the district of the Weavers, there is an unremarkable building which holds room after room filled with anthracite tablets. The names of my brothers who have fallen in our quiet, unseen struggle are inscribed therein. This is not a pleasant universe, Anderssen-tzin, where man can roam without care."

The old Nбhuatl scratched the back of his head. "We might be lucky here. The dust will help consume our tracks, our equipment, all traces of our visit. We just have to make sure there are no more 'memories' trapped along Russovsky's path."

"What about the cylinder on the Palenque?" Gretchen asked quietly. "You really think it is a trap? That it will have to be destroyed?"

Hummingbird nodded. "I know what the cylinder means to you. But such devices are far too dangerous to be deciphered or allowed into human space."

"I see." Gretchen felt ill. "Does your 'unseen struggle' include explaining these things to my Company? Maybe a receipt? Or am I expected to suffer quietly as well?"

"I will do what I can." The old Mйxica did not look away, but Gretchen didn't see the slightest hint he would help her, either. She sat down on the forward wheel of the Gagarin.

"What do you think will happen now?"

Hummingbird shrugged, squatting easily on the windy ledge. "All we can do is follow her trail and clean up what we can. There will be other…apparitions. We will have to break up their patterns, try and return things to their usual course. And quickly too, before we become part of the flow ourselves."

"Do your skills let you tell which boulders should be removed from the 'stream'?"

He nodded sharply. "The tlamatinime learns first to see. If the gods smile, what I cannot perceive, you will."

"Me?" Gretchen's nose twitched as she made a disbelieving face. "What do you mean see?"

"Perceive, then," Hummingbird said in a wry tone. "In the cavern, you felt something was out of place – this is the beginning of the seeing. I was surprised at your reaction. Most humans are nearly blind."

Gretchen felt insulted. "I'm a trained, experienced observer, Hummingbird-tzin. It's my job to see subtle differences in a substrate, in a dig layer, a field of loose stone and gravel."

"Trained by science," he said, almost dismissively. "Trained with one set of tools at the expense of others. You're a specialist, Anderssen. A tool designed for a single task. Your personnel records are filled with praise, but this is not an archaeological excavation. This world is not depth-tagged or laser-gridded."

"The science you dismiss has built an entire civilization, crow." She tapped the breather mask covering the lower half of her face. "We're alive because of specialized tools. I wouldn't dismiss them as if they were toys!"

Hummingbird looked at his gloved hands, then at her. "Do you believe everything can be measured? Everything can be described?"

"What?" Gretchen was nonplussed. "Well…yes, I think so. Eventually. Our tools and techniques are constantly improving."

"I thought so once." Hummingbird turned his hands over, apparently interested in the pattern of the material covering his palms. "But I have learned – at cost, Anderssen, at cost! – this is not true. There are limits to human perception and human science – but those limits do not correspond to the limits of the universe. Not at all."

The old Mйxica looked up, gauging the progress of the sun against the dome of heaven.

"Time is passing, Anderssen. Consider this, while we are in flight: We – by we, I mean humans like you and I – exist within a bubble of the known. What we can see or hear or taste or feel. From this we have derived a description. This description is your science. Within the known, we build tools, live our lives, raise our children. Those tools let us manipulate the known, the material.

"But what of the unknown, Anderssen? What about the things we do not perceive? There is a universe of ghosts and shadows just beyond our living sight. Do you doubt the presence of the unseen?"

Gretchen shook her head. "No – I get your point. A human being doesn't even live in the same perceptual universe as a cat. Not without tools to extend vision, sight, smell, hearing. Are you saying your training lets you perceive the infrared or ultraviolet? See as a baleshrike sees? Smell as a truedog smells?"

"No." Hummingbird stood up and shook out his cloak. "I am bound by my physiology, just as you are. My nose – for example – does not have the physical receptors to capture the wealth of molecules a beagle may." He grasped the offending organ between thumb and forefinger. "Anatomy limits me. But laziness…laziness blinds men."

"Then what are you talking about?" Gretchen stood and swung open the Gagarin's cabin door. "What do you mean?"

"Did your eyes physically change between the time you first walked out onto that soccer field and today?"

"No." Gretchen climbed into the cockpit of the Midge and squirmed into the lumpy seat. "They're probably worse. All right, so I know what to look for. I can recognize patterns -"

In the other aircraft, Hummingbird shook his head sharply. "Not so. The enemy of clear sight is accepting patterns in the world around us. To see clearly, you have to let your eyes take in what is truly before you, not allow a lazy mind to fit things into a familiar shape."

Anderssen closed the cabin door and began running through a preflight check. She started to speak and then looked closely at the control panel. Most of the Gagarin's instrumentation was held in a v-pane, but there were certain systems served by archaic-looking dials and switches. Everything you need to fly without the comp being live, she realized. Gretchen ran a hand over the console, feeling smooth metal and rubber under her gloved fingertips. Most of the dials had cream-colored backgrounds with red needles or indicators. Flecks of rust were visible where the enamel covering the metal had worn away.

For the first time, she actually saw the console and all the minute, tiny details of wear and use. Not the sketchy, abstracted impression she'd had of the control panel before. Almost immediately, Gretchen felt her mind try to draw back – an almost physical sensation – and the sense of limitless clarity faded. She blinked and concentrated, trying to see the numbers on one of the dials. Now they were blurry and she started to squint.

"Focus is an enemy," Hummingbird said softly over the comm. "You're trying to limit your field of view in hopes of gaining clarity. Forcing sight won't work."

"How do you train, then?" Gretchen blinked furiously. Her eyes hurt. Her brain hurt! "How do you reach an objective without pursuing a goal?"

"You've already started – in the cavern – when I guided you to a natural posture. When you found a comfortable place to sit." The nauallis was starting to sound a little irritated. "We will talk of this again, later. Are your engines warmed up? We should lift off."

"Wait. Why are you showing me these things? Telling me these secrets?"

Hummingbird smiled, white teeth barely visible through the scarred canopy of his ultralight. "My other option is to kill you. But you are alive and a human being and your presence aids me. The universe is connected in odd ways and you might tip a balance in my favor. Besides, if things come to violence, you can get in the way of the enemy for a few seconds."

"Oh my," growled Gretchen, "that is nice. Very nice. Very Imperial sounding."

Aboard the Cornuelle

Hadeishi entered a briefing room sandwiched in between the bridge and the officers' mess. His senior officers stood to attention beside their chairs. Kosho turned sideways and nodded as the chu-sa reached the head of the table and set down a v-pad and some printouts.

"Good evening," he said, unsealing his collar. "Sit, gentlemen, sit. We are off duty."

Everyone sat down, though he couldn't say any of them were "at ease." Sho-i Ko-hosei Smith, at the end of the table, was sitting at parade attention, hands clasped tight on an engineer's workpad. Hayes and Engineer-second Yoyontzin were equally stiff. Just to his right, Kosho was watching him evenly, her face expressionless.

"This is not traditional," Hadeishi said, shrugging out of his uniform jacket. "But I think it is necessary." A little old man in a leaf-green-and-brown kimono appeared and took the jacket away. Hadeishi spread out the v-pad and several papers. He looked around the table and pursed his lips. "We have to find this refinery ship swiftly. I fear our current approach will take too long to yield results. So – we need to try something different. Do any of you have any ideas?"

The officers looked nervously at each other, then back at the chu-sa. No one spoke. Hadeishi hid an expression of dismay, but he understood their wary surprise. He had served in the Fleet for nearly twenty years, on a dozen ships. In all that time, he'd never attended a staff meeting where the agenda, problems and solutions presented had not been decided in advance. A commander might consult with his exec or with senior department heads about specific technical issues but he did not discuss problems in an open forum. Meetings were a venue for the command authority – be he a ship's captain or an admiral – to issue orders, perhaps make a small speech and show honor to the Emperor.

Kosho, in particular, looked as if she'd sat on a porcupine. Hayes was surprised and Yoyontzin was petrified. Only young Smith-tzin – who had finally worked through Hadeishi's reference to being "off duty" – had relaxed at all, allowing himself to sit back in the chair.

"Does anyone want tea?" Hadeishi turned away from the table and lifted his chin at the attendant. The little old man blinked in surprise and then scurried off down the corridor to the officers' mess galley. When the chu-sa turned back, Kosho and Hayes were staring at him in amazement. "I am having tea," Hadeishi said, emulating Smith and leaning back in his chair.

"Here is our problem," he said, spreading his hands. "We are hunting for a relatively small object in a huge volume filled with a great deal of obscuring debris. Our objective is to find the refinery ship quickly and quietly and remove it, by one means or another, from this system."

The attendant sidled up to the table, attempting to be unobtrusive, and Hadeishi paused. The little old man froze, staring at him in something like horror, as the chu-sa gathered up the porcelain cups from the tray and handed them around. Kosho took her cup reflexively, then stared icily at her own hand, which seemed to have betrayed her.

"I'll pour," Hadeishi said to the attendant and waved him away. Clutching the tray to his chest, the little old man backed out of the room, eyes wide in fear. "Patrick, you take a great deal of sugar, I believe?"

"Hai," Hayes said weakly, goggling at the chu-sa. Hadeishi filled his cup, then pushed a fat green bowl toward him.

"Help yourself." Hadeishi turned politely to Kosho, who had frozen into complete immobility. "This is a particularly good bancha," he said, guiding her cup – still clutched in a tight grip – to the tabletop. Hadeishi caught her eye. "Not the nasty stuff I drink in the morning."

Both of the sho-sa's cheeks were suddenly suffused with two pale rose-colored spots. Hadeishi – though he felt tremendously cheerful – ignored her blush. He filled her cup halfway.

Neither Smith nor Yoyontzin wanted tea. The engineer was hunched down in his seat, trying to hide behind Kosho. The communications officer had finally realized there was a queer tone to the meeting, so he was trying to make himself as small as possible. Hayes had nearly emptied the sugar bowl into his cup before taking a long sip.

"How do we find the refinery quickly?" Hadeishi posed the question again and looked around at them expectantly.

"Not by poking around in the dark with a sharp stick," Hayes muttered, then froze. Kosho had turned her head to glare icily at him. The weapons officer became rather pale.

"I agree," Hadeishi said quietly. Kosho turned her head fractionally, her eyes narrowing.

"We are following Fleet doctrine," she said in a clipped, toneless voice. "Which is sound."

"It's too slow," Hadeishi said, leaning forward. "We don't have time to run down every particle trail and false reading our drones find. We do not have time to quarter this entire belt and peer in the radar shadow of every asteroid. We need to find the refinery now."

"Without going to active combat scanning," Kosho stated. Hadeishi nodded.

"What," the sho-sa said tentatively, "if we broadcast a message on the commercial comm channels, indicating a systemwide emergency. We could promise not to pursue or attack any ship immediately making gradient to hyperspace."

Hadeishi considered the proposal for a moment. Then he looked at the weapons officer. "Hayes-tzin, do you think the commander of the refinery ship would respond to such a message?"

Hayes blinked, stole a look at Kosho and then faced the chu-sa again. "Ah…probably not, sir. He'd think it was a trick."

"If the Palenque made transit immediately upon receiving the message," Kosho said, rather stiffly, "the wildcatters might become worried. The clumsiness of our message could be interpreted as honesty in a moment of crisis, rather than a ruse to draw them out."

"And then?" Hadeishi was almost smiling at his exec. "What happens if they appear on our sensors, engines hot?"

"If they are in weapons range," Kosho said, eyes glittering, "we disable their ship. HuГ©mac's Marines storm the refinery and we bring these criminals before an Imperial court."

Hayes looked questioningly at Hadeishi.

"Unfortunately," the chu-sa said, "we must operate under a constraint of silence. A broadcast message is out of the question. We cannot draw attention to ourselves with any kind of broad-spectrum event." Hadeishi nodded to Kosho. "So we cannot saturate the belt with mines, hoping to drive the refinery out of hiding."

"Very well." Kosho, to her credit, did not seem to have taken the rejection of her plan personally. "Then we will have to scan the entire belt very quickly, hoping to pick the refinery out of all this debris and rubble." The exec looked expectantly at young Smith-tzin at the end of the table. The sho-i ko-hosei swallowed nervously and nodded to both Hadeishi and Kosho.

"Leave to speak, sir?" Smith's voice was a little thin, but steady.

"Granted!" Hadeishi was impressed with the boy. Most midshipmen in the presence of command authority could barely stand up, much less speak. "You're sure you don't want some tea?"

"I'm fine, Hadeishi-tzin." Smith nodded in thanks. "I've been thinking about the same problem the last couple of watches. I mean – we can all see how slowly we're moving now – and I was wondering if there was a way to speed things up, search more of the volume at a time, you know, and I mentioned something to Kosho-tzin and she suggested I look at the specifications for the absorptive mesh on the skin of the ship and…" Smith had to stop and take a breath.

"Sho-i Ko-hosei Smith," Kosho said, smoothly interrupting the midshipman's rush of explanation, "has devised a means of improving the sensitivity of our gravitational field sensors."

"Go on." Hadeishi fought to keep from smiling broadly at his officers. In particular, at Kosho and Smith, who had obviously been trying to anticipate his wishes. What a blessing is a good exec, he thought, considering Susan Kosho fondly. For all her cold demeanor, she is a fine officer.

"Well, um, sir – you know we have a series of gravitational field sensors which let us track hyperspace transits, since they 'dimple' the g-field in the area where a ship made gradient. We also use them for navigational purposes, to avoid black holes and hyperspace eddies and so on. Well, a ship has mass so there is a faint distortion of the g-field around even the Cornuelle. I think…" Smith held up a v-pad showing a page of system circuit diagrams and equations. "I think we can tune the g-sensors on the Cornuelle to detect the mass displacement of a Tyr."

"Even if the refinery drive is shut down?" Hayes raised an eyebrow at the younger officer.

"Yes, Hayes-tzin, because we're going to be searching for the g-dimple caused by their antimatter pellet storage, not for an active A/M reactor." Smith started to grin, then composed himself.

"Storage? A/M doesn't mass more than any other particle -"

"True, true," Smith interrupted, "but antimatter is difficult to produce, so its packed super-densely in storage – I mean, positive particles are easy to find – and that makes a difference we can see. Well, I think we can see."

Hadeishi looked questioningly at Kosho. "Effective range?"

"Five or six light-minutes," she answered. "A very substantial volume."

The chu-sa nodded, fixing Smith with a considering stare. "Smith-tzin, why don't we use our gravity sensors this way as a matter of course? Why isn't this Fleet doctrine?"

"Speed, sir." Smith's face fell. "There's a lot of data to process. Normally, the system just watches for big differentials – a ship entering normal space throws a huge, easy to detect spike – but we need to reconfigure for a mass/density differential." He paged through his v-pad to another screen of equations and diagrams. "In this case, we're looking for an object making a sharper than expected g-dimple in local spacetime. So we've got to program the sensor comps to look for a specific, rather subtle scenario. And processing all this is going to take hours."

"How many?" Hadeishi was watching Kosho.

"Twenty to thirty hours to complete the first scan," the exec answered. Obviously, she'd already quizzed Smith to within an inch of his life about this proposal. "We need to extract all the gravitation and density readings from the navigation survey, then build a model of the area within range, then resample with the reconfigured g-sensor array. Then we can see if something falls out into our hands."

The chu-sa started to frown. "How extensively will sensor systems be degraded by this change?"

Smith swallowed nervously and looked hopefully at Kosho. The corner of the exec's wine-colored lips twitched. Hadeishi recognized the motion as the equivalent of a wry smile.

"While the array is in this mode, Chu-sa, we will be blind to gravitational events outside the immediate area of our detection sweep."

"So a ship could make gradient into, or out of, the system and we would be unaware."

Kosho inclined her head gracefully. "Yes. But inside the five to six light-minute range, we will have an excellent picture of the g-field and any related events."

"How long to switch the array between normal operation and this special mode?"

Smith shrank down in his chair, but Kosho merely gazed steadily at the chu-sa. "Five to six hours for the initial changeover, Hadeishi-tzin. Each skin array node will have to be reprogrammed and tuned by hand. We will, however, retain a comp image of the previous configuration for each node. Then, if we have to reset the nodes, we can do so very quickly."

Hadeishi gave her a look. He'd gone through more than one shipboard comp upgrade in his time. "Very quickly" meant one thing during normal operations and quite another in the heat of combat. He had a momentary vision of plunging into battle with the shipskin sensor array out of action. That would be unfortunate.

"Hayes-tzin, what do you think of this approach?"

The weapons officer's broad face was conflicted. "I'm worried, sir. If we take the g-array offline we'll be partially blind. I don't like that. On the other hand, we'll be able to search the belt far faster than we can now with the drones. And this way will be really, really quiet."

"What if we segment the shipskin nodes and only reconfigure half of them for this detailed search?" Hadeishi mused. "Leaving the other set for normal sensor work?"

The suggestion drew a slight frown from Kosho and hopeful looks from Hayes and Smith.

"Initial setup will be more complicated," the exec said. "We will have to divide the sensor feeds to the bridge into two discrete sets, which will require some work. The regular array will be reduced in capability, but we will not lose long-range g-spike detection."

"Combat effectiveness, Hayes-tzin?" Hadeishi raised an eyebrow at the weapons officer.

"Reduced, sir. Though truthfully there's a great deal of redundancy in the sensor array. We could probably lose half of the nodes and only be reduced ten to fifteen percent."

"Very well. Sho-sa Kosho, I entrust this project to you – with the able assistance of Smith-tzin, of course – and expect regular status reports. This has priority over other duties. Thai-i Hayes, pull in the Outriders for refueling and a maintenance check. Yoyontzin -" the engineer-second started with surprise and tentatively peered around the slim, stiff shape of the exec. "Master's Mate Helsdon and his section are reassigned to provide Kosho-tzin with the hands she needs to change out the sensor array. You will take charge of the Outrider refit when the drones are back in bay."

The engineer-second looked a little queasy. Hadeishi's eyes narrowed fractionally. I'll have to discuss this one with Isoroku when he's back aboard. But not now.

Hadeishi gave them all a stern look, saying "The Emperor expects you to do your duty!"

Then he stood up, forcing them to do the same. "Dismissed."

Kosho did not join the general stampede for the door, taking a moment to straighten her already perfectly arranged v-pad and notes on the table in front of her.

Hadeishi waited for the passageway door to close before he spoke. "Yes, Susan? Is something bothering you?"

"Will you be holding more of these meetings in the future?" The woman's face showed even less expression than usual. "Will you be soliciting comment and advice from junior officers?"

"If circumstances warrant," Hadeishi replied, wondering at her choice of words. They had a familiar ring to them… Ah yes, he remembered, recalling an Academy first-year course, circumstances of sedition and mutiny aboard ship. "We will not," he continued, "be discussing opinions of command authority competence or operational concerns."

"I am very glad to hear that, Chu-sa." Kosho seemed to relax a fraction, though it was very difficult to tell. "Did you know Smith-tzin and I had been working on this g-array reconfig?"

Hadeishi nodded. "I did. Main comp informed me when the sho-i ko-hosei requsted data about systems outside of his security area. I saw you had approved the request."

"You said nothing."

"There was no reason to say anything, Sho-sa. Both of you are fine officers and understood the problem at hand. I saw no benefit to be gained from interfering in your work."

Now Kosho did relax and Hadeishi felt a sudden warm affection for her. She worries about the boy, he thought. "You did well to encourage him, Susan. He's very bright."

"Hai," she said, making a properly polite bow. "But he does not understand Fleet tradition."

"I know. He's still young and he's only served aboard the Cornuelle." Hadeishi sighed, stroking his beard. "I fear he will not do so well if transferred to another ship. We will have to help him if something like that happens."

As a general rule, Fleet did not like to shift crews around from ship to ship. The Great Clans, in particular, resisted attempts to reform the recruitment and staffing policies of Fleet. However, as men and women advanced in rank, they were often required to change posting to secure the proper duty slot. Within a clan-squadron, a junior officer would be taken care of by higher-ranking relatives. In such a case, Smith would be posted to a heavier-gauge ship – a battle cruiser or a dreadnought – where he could find clan-relatives to guide and protect him in the new environment.

The Cornuelle, unfortunately, was on detached duty – another result of Hadeishi's low status in Fleet – and if Smith were promoted as he should be, then a posting to an entirely different squadron would be inevitable. Circumstances weighed against the bright young Englishman finding as understanding and lenient a commander as Hadeishi.

"We could keep him here, Chu-sa," Kosho offered.

Hadeishi shrugged. "We've a full allotment of junior lieutenants, unless someone dies or requests a transfer off-ship."

"What about Yoyontzin?"

Hadeishi's lips quirked into a half-smile. He looked sideways at Kosho. "You think he will suffer an accident in the coming action? A regrettable incident with a shorting panel or falling structural beam?"

Kosho drew herself up stiffly. "Of course not! I suspect he may request a transfer when this duty patrol is complete."

"Well," Hadeishi said, giving her a considering look. "I would certainly give such a request my full attention."

The exec nodded, gathered up her v-pad and notes and bowed.

"Dismissed." Hadeishi watched her stride out. Poor Yoyontzin, he thought in amusement. Caught between Kosho and Isoroku…like a bug between granite and steel.

Southeast of Mons Prion

Two Midge s flew south, southeast – tiny silver specks against the dark immensity of the Escarpment. Sharp peaks towered thousands of meters above them, a sheer wall of basalt with sandstone feet. Deep canyons split the face of the range, spewing out kilometers of rubble to be swallowed by enormous dunes below. Gretchen fought to keep her eyes from straying to the horizon. When they did, her stomach twisted with a start of fear. The horizon tilted at a strange angle, one entirely at odds with her inner ear and the sensors on the Gagarin.

The mass of the mountain range to her right was so great that "down" had shifted, swinging off to an angle pointing at the base of the Escarpment. Hummingbird was suffering from the same problem – every so often his Midge would twitch over as he tried to correct an unexpected, unfelt bank.

Progress had been slow all day, but the navigation v-pane on Gretchen's console now showed they were very close to slot canyon number twelve. Russovsky's logbook had a note indicating the geologist had set down inside the canyon, where there was a sheltering cave. A second entry reported discovering a "cylinder."

Anderssen scowled at the tiny shape of the nauallis's ultralight. The Mйxica had remained silent all day despite her attempts to engage him in conversation. Hundreds of kilometers had rolled away under them as they flew past jagged peaks, steeply plunging canyons and endless bony ridges. Gretchen felt oppressed by the lack of human contact, but she'd held her tongue for the last six hours. In that time she'd thought a great deal about what the old crow had claimed in the cave. While Gretchen didn't doubt something had happened and had no doubt the nauallis held closely guarded secrets, she thought his out-of-hand dismissal of human-built technology was dangerously self-centered.

How could we survive down here? She grumbled to herself, without spacecraft and ultralights and pressure masks and z-suits? Millions of tools – an entire civilization – specialists by the planetfull…all of which were sustained, informed and generated by human science and technology.

Is he jealous? she wondered. The talamatinime must be descendants of the priestly caste of ancient Azteca. Curiosity stirred an eager head and she wondered just what kind of secret history – what hidden, almost-forgotten tales – had been handed down from priest to priest over the fifteen hundred years since the first Nisei merchant landed on the coast of Matlalzinca with a shipload of iron ingots, steel sword blanks and huge, long-legged riding "hornless deer." A tale worth knowing, Gretchen thought, biting her lip. So much of the public record was lost in the Second Blow…

Despite an angry desire to shout at the thick-headed old man over the comm, Anderssen restrained herself. We'll have to land eventually, she thought grimly. Countless questions had come to mind since their last conversation on the slopes of Prion. And then I'll sit on him if I have -

"Hummingbird, look out!" Gretchen's voice rang thin and shrill in the cabin of the Gagarin.

The nauallis's Midge had suddenly jerked sideways, toward the looming wall of the Escarpment. What at first seemed to be a black crevice in the mountainside was now visible as a huge canyon. Hummingbird's ultralight was sweeping toward the opening at tremendous speed. Gretchen immediately hauled right on the control stick and Gagarin swung round with gratifying speed. She stared out of the port side of the aircraft, searching for a telltale – There!

Far below, the sand was in constant motion, gusting thin streamers of reddish dust toward the face of the Escarpment. The dunes made sort of a nozzle where speeding clouds of grit rolled across the valley floor. Anderssen cursed, realizing they had come unawares upon the mouth of the canyon.

Static jammed the comm band and Hummingbird's Midge had disappeared from view. Gretchen stabbed a gloved finger at the control panel and the nav pane appeared. Keeping one eye on the controls and the other on the looming wall of basalt ahead, Gretchen saw the other ultralight had gone down near the mouth of the canyon. Winking amber lights indicated some kind of damage. Gritting her teeth, Andersen let the Gagarin spin into a precipitous spiral.

The little aircraft swept down out of the sky, skimming across the tops of the dunes. Sand and grit rattled against the windows and Gretchen angled away from the funnel-path centered on the entrance to the canyon. Her sensors now showed nearly a two hundred-k wind rushing into the slot. The nauallis had flown right into an invisible wall of air.

"Hummingbird, can you hear me?" Gretchen powered up the comm and began broadcasting on multiple channels. Maybe microwave will work. "It's Anderssen, I'm coming in to get you."

The Gagarin sideslipped low across the valley floor, droning up and down over dune after dune. The wall of the Escarpment rose to blot out the sky. Gretchen flew into shadow and the wind grew massively worse. The Gagarin shuddered in the twisting crosscurrents, wings rippling and flexing. The invisible river kept trying to suck her into the canyon mouth.

Waves of red and tan sand ended abruptly in a glassy, polished wall of black and gray stone. Gretchen pulled up, her stomach doing loop-de-loops, and circled. Peering out of the side door, she caught sight of a glittering rainbow flash very near the canyon entrance. Swallowing, mouth dry with fear, Anderssen rolled the stick right and Gagarin heeled over as gently as a turning shrike.

"Careful," she muttered, keeping an eye on the radar display. The entrance to the canyon flickered on the panel and the kilometers between her and the deadly opening spiraled down quickly. A kilometer short, she turned again, away from the cliffs of the Escarpment and touched down on the side of a sloping dune. Gagarin slid to a halt on a thirty-degree slope, though Gretchen's stomach told her the rippled sand was as level as a kitchen floor.

Engines growling, Gretchen retracted the wings and disengaged the brakes. Bouncing over the slope, sand spurting away from the wheels, she drove the aircraft up over the crest of the ridge. Three more dune ridges separated her from Hummingbird, but Anderssen took her time, letting the ultralight jounce along, all three fat wheels shimmying in the heavy sand.

The other Midge came into view, canted sideways, one wing crumpled into hard-packed gravel. Hummingbird rose as Gagarin approached, djellaba snapping around his legs. He waved. Gretchen waved back and let the ultralight putt-putt to a stop.

"Are you all right?" Local comm was awash with warbling static and queer shrieking echoes.

The nauallis nodded, tapping his earpiece, and began trudging across the sand toward her. Wind hissed past the door and whined across Gagarin's wings. A constant rattle of grit pattered against the canopy. Gretchen pulled a heavy lever set into the floor and felt a sharp thump-thump as the sand anchors fired into the dune.

"…hear me?" Hummingbird's voice cut across the interference. "Anderssen?"

"I hear you." Gretchen swung the door open, feeling a buffet from the gusting wind. Her right hand was already dragging a tool belt out from under the seat. "How bad is the damage?"

"Manageable. Perhaps." Hummingbird ducked under the wing, his head tightly wrapped in the folds of his kaffiyeh. Even at such short range his voice was distorted by the comm cutting in and out. "Both pumps switched over, so not much H₂ was lost, but the wing and landing gear are badly damaged."

Gretchen gave him a grim look, shook her head and began making her way in the heavy wind toward the damaged ultralight. Hummingbird stared after her, then followed, head bent against the blowing sand. Though she couldn't see his face, the old Mйxica looked worried.

"Push!" Anderssen growled, putting her shoulder against the bent wing. Hummingbird was right by her side and together, straining and grunting with effort, they managed to free the honeycombed length of composite and hexsteel from the clinging sand. The entire Midge tipped over, rocking back on the port and forward wheels. Wind gusted, threatening to tear the aircraft from their grasp. Gretchen peered under the wing and her face screwed up into a grimace. The starboard landing gear was twisted into something very much like a pretzel. She looked sideways at Hummingbird. "Can you hold this weight?"

He nodded, legs braced in the sand, broad shoulders against the underside of the wing.

Anderssen scrambled around under the tail and threw open the cargo door. Two heavy canvas duffels were squeezed inside. She grabbed both by their straps and hauled them out. Slinging one over her shoulder, Gretchen staggered along the length of the unbroken wing, the second duffel in her arms. Wheezing with effort, she dumped the heavy bag on the ground beneath the wingtip and shrugged the other into her hands. A recessed hook for a ground anchor flipped down from the underside of the airfoil, giving her enough purchase to hang the duffel. The entire Midge shivered and Gretchen heard Hummingbird cough in surprise as weight lifted from his shoulders.

A moment later, the second duffel was adding its weight to the counterbalance and Gretchen could nip around to starboard again. The Midge creaked into precarious balance on the two good wheels. Hummingbird was holding the wingtip steady with both hands, a questioning look on his face.

"Keep hold," Gretchen said as she dug into her tools. She found a powered wrench, tested the tool – which responded with a high-pitched burring sound – and smiled. "Just for another thirty minutes or so."

Night came on suddenly in the shadow of the Escarpment. One moment Gretchen was working in a diffuse blue dimness, the next everything had plunged into complete darkness. She stopped, a welder sparking blue-white in her hand, and looked up. Hummingbird had found a cave, a deep overhang a kilometer and a half from the mouth of the slot, where they'd dragged the Midge s and their gear. Some shelter from the gusting wind was better than nothing.

"I need some light," Gretchen said into the gloom. There was a click on the comm circuit and the bright white glare of a camp lantern set on high flared around her. "Too bright…thanks."

The circle of illumination dimmed to a reasonable level. Hummingbird's feet appeared out of shadow, boots crunching on scattered, shalelike debris covering the floor of the overhang. The nauallis squatted, watching her work.

Gretchen had laid out an old blanket covered with the bits and pieces of the broken landing gear on top of one of the hextile pads. The main strut had snapped clean off when Hummingbird's Midge corkscrewed into the dunes, and the rest had been badly twisted by the impact. Gretchen was straightening each section of hexsteel with a set of wrenches and a jimmied-up guide. The little welder was on its last legs, but had lasted long enough to get most of the sections patched back together.

"You've done this before," Hummingbird said, fingers intertwined between his knees.

"All the time." Gretchen adjusted her goggles and flicked the welder to life. The burning white point hissed and spat, but there was very little smoke in such an anemic atmosphere. "Mechanical things are born to break in the field – no matter how new they are. Mostly the Company sends me places where there's no support – no handy machine shops, no supply dumps, no warranty service."

She grinned, thinking of the dig water filtration tower on Ugarit. Eighty-six light-years was a long way for a Poseidon SureClean Filtration Systems tech to travel to replace gunked filters or a bacteria separation unit which had failed to separate the more vigorous organisms living in the brown flood of the Hagit River. "You have to be handy with fixing things if you want to survive."

Gretchen set down the main strut, now repaired, and picked among the parts of the wheel housing. "Growing up in high timber on Aberdeen helped, though. Most students out of university don't know how to strip an engine or weld or…well, do any of the things we had to do at home."

"It's good you followed me." Hummingbird's voice had a funny tone and Gretchen looked up, wondering if he were getting sick or something. Then she realized he was trying to be friendly.

"You're welcome," Anderssen said, after thinking about it for a moment. "You needed help, even if you didn't admit it. Like I said before, I can't stand by and let someone else carry all the load. Now – I don't mean to be nosy – but you're used to having an Imperial warship on call, aren't you? Filled with Marines in combat armor and assault shuttles, waiting for your signal."

The nauallis nodded, dipping his head. "Sometimes," he said, "an entire Fleet carrier battle group."

"We don't have one here," Gretchen said, looking up. Her voice was flat and tight. "We don't have spares and mechanics and a medbay an hour away. It's just the two of us. So be careful, old crow. You were stupidly lucky today."

"I know… I was watching for the canyon mouth and didn't…I didn't notice the warning lights on the radar panel until about a second before I hit the edge of the wind."

Gretchen's mouth twitched and she held back a hoarse, mocking laugh. Had trouble seeing, did we? Interesting…

Hummingbird shifted, rolling back on his haunches. In the encompassing light, she could see his dark green eyes clearly, surrounded by a sea of fine wrinkles. "Tomorrow, if the weather permits, we'll need to go into the canyon. I went down to the edge of the funnel a little while ago – the wind has died down – so if we wait until full dark, we should be able to go in."

"Without being blown away." Gretchen nodded, lining up the repaired wheel housing bracket with the main strut. "Do you know what time the wind starts up?"

"Before dawn," he replied, rubbing the back of his head. "Doctor Smalls made a study of the wind patterns in the canyons -"

"He told me," Gretchen interjected. She slid the bracket firmly onto the strut and began repairing the broken weld line connecting the two. Sparks flared and hissed. "We'll only have a couple of hours to look around." Anderssen paused. "I'm coming with you into the canyon?"

"Yes." There was a hiss-hiss sound. "I think two would be better than one."

"Really?" Gretchen gave him a sharp glance. Not a glare, exactly, but enough to make him look away. "Will I need to be quiet again?"

"I don't know." Hummingbird looked out into the darkness. "There is a queer feeling here – something is close by, but I cannot feel more than a pressure. But everything here – rock, sand, cliffs, even the air – feels very, very old."

Gretchen suppressed an involuntary shiver. "The…dreaming power?"

Hummingbird did not answer, his attention fixed on the night. Beyond the mouth of the overhang, the curved ridges of endless dunes marched off toward a starry horizon. After a moment he twitched his shoulders and turned his attention back to her. "Sometimes, Anderssen-tzin, these…powers…have a subtle influence. A matter and degree of atoms. There are…I was once in a place where every action fell just a little foul. If you stepped, you came up just a millimeter short. If you reached, your target was always a fraction away." He shook his head from side to side. "A single misstep is nothing…but a million errors compounded?"

"You escaped." Gretchen held herself to have no powers, but she could feel an almost visible pain radiating from the man – from his tightly clenched fingers, his hunched shoulders – like a chill flame.

"Others – many others – did not." Hummingbird clicked his teeth together. "I was one of few. Anderssen…" The nauallis stopped, apparently unable to force his thought into words, then they came with a rush. "I…I need your help. I can teach you, show you, something of the world I see – quickly, too. Would you…do you want to see?"

Gretchen was nonplussed and carefully turned off the welder before setting her tools down on the blanket. Hummingbird had grown still, his green eyes shadowed.

"What do you mean by see?"

"As I do. You will be able to…apprehend the pattern of things, see that which is obscured by the overwhelming detail of the world, become aware of what is invisible to the lazy eye. I hope you will be able to become properly still as well."

Gretchen felt cold and hot at the same time. Her heart was racing. "How? Don't such things take years of training, meditation, effort?" What will I see? What secrets will be revealed?

Hummingbird reached into the folds of his cloak and drew out a small plain paper packet held between his fore- and middle fingers. The nauallis looked at the packet grimly. "Sometimes there are shorter paths than those trod by tradition."

The packet seemed to swell in Gretchen's sight, becoming enormous. She could hear the stiff paper scratching and rustling against something inside. Grains of sand. A powder.

"And in return? What do you expect of me for this gift?"

Hummingbird set the packet down at the edge of the blanket. "Go with me into the canyon. I want every advantage at my side, Anderssen, including you."

Gretchen shook her head. She felt clammy – and afraid – from head to toe. She licked her lips. "I have to finish fixing this landing gear. I'll think about it."

"Very well." Hummingbird rose and disappeared into the gloom outside the cone of light. The packet remained, glowing a soft cream, at the edge of the blanket. Gretchen turned the welder back on and resumed fitting the landing gear back together.

The stars had moved far in their slow, stately dance before Anderssen finished repairing the Midge. She carefully brushed herself down and limped stiffly back to the cave. Her right leg was cramping. The old Mйxica was at the mouth of the overhang, face to the night, legs crossed. Their camp lantern had been dialed down to a bare gleam against the rear wall. Gretchen sat down next to him and took a long drink from her water tube.

"Hummingbird," she said, "What does a judge – a tlamatinime – really do?"

"Those are two questions, Anderssen. You are making idle conversation."

"No, I want to know. Are all judges like you?"

Hummingbird laughed. "That is impossible. There is only one of me. Each judge is different as stones from stones or clouds from clouds."

"Do all judges know these secrets you've told me?"

"No." Hummingbird settled back against the wall of the overhang, staring out across the vast empty plain. "A judge has a duty, to see the people live a proper life, one pleasing the gods and benefiting all. The evil, the duplicitous, the amoral – the judge must take these influences away from the people, for they divert men and women from the right path. A judge must abide by the laws of the gods and of men; he must live a strong life. His example is worth a thousand punishments."

Anderssen began scratching lines in the sand between her boots. "You do not seem to be the usual sort of judge."

"No." Gretchen caught a faint impression of grief on Hummingbird's face. "My burden is heavier. I and others like me watch at the edge of human knowledge – in empty places like this – where our ignorance may lead to disaster. Individual human lives, in raw truth, mean nothing, but the race – our people – must live, and this requires vigilance and protection at all times."

Gretchen shook her head, dismayed. "Your universe seems filled with threat and horror. Is it worth it to live in such a place? Do I want to see such things? Do you really think humanity must be coddled in this way? Wouldn't -"

Hummingbird turned, eyes flashing. Gretchen felt his disapproval like a physical blow.

"You are very young, if you think men and women do not need protection. If you really believe this, you should take off your z-suit."

"Peace! Peace, old crow." Gretchen raised her hands. Her face grew still and Hummingbird – who had been about to speak sharply – waited instead.

"I have been thinking about my children," she said. "My mother and I – all the adults on our steading – watch after and protect them. Why am I angry if you watch over the Empire and all the sons and daughters of man?" Gretchen's mouth quirked into a wry smile, opening her palm toward him. "On the mountain, you expressed a low opinion of my science, of tools. But you are a societal tool yourself – a very, very specialized one – a soldier of the mind rather than guns or steel."

Even in the darkness, Gretchen could tell the nauallis's expression became sour.

"I am not making fun of you," she said, unsealing a pocket on her vest. The packet of paper unfolded under clumsy, gloved fingertips. Inside was a glittering powder. In the starlight, Gretchen thought the crystals burned a golden color. "You are aware of your purpose, which is far more than I could say. Do I take this dry or mix with water?"

The nauallis shifted, head turning towards her. Both goggle lenses caught the lantern light and shone brilliant silver. "Put it under your tongue. Let it dissolve."

Gretchen leaned her head back, fist cupped over her mouth. There was a sharp bitter taste.

"Now, you should lie down." Hummingbird was at her side, guiding her into the cave. His voice grew distant, then louder again, before fading away entirely. Darkness closed around her, a comfortable, heavy old blanket.

Indefinable time passed.

Gretchen became aware of a single voice echoing in a void. She tried to open her eyes, thinking dawn had come and Hummingbird was calling her to wake, but she found only limitless darkness, unbroken by any source of light. There was nothing to touch or smell, taste or feel. Only echoing sound, only the one voice – almost familiar – tense and irritable. Gretchen realized the sound was a man – a very old man speaking in a sonorous, trained way – arguing bitterly.

Immediately, the voice split into two. A young woman made a sharp, angry reply.

"Even the least organism must adapt to changing circumstance! Everyone in service to the Mirror knows you plead the poor mouth to the ruling council and the colonial office, saying the naualli are stretched too thin."

"We are!" The elderly man let his full voice boom in response. "The Empire is too large for us to protect – changes will have to be made -"

"Abandonment, you mean." Acid bitterness etched the woman's voice. "Reserving the naualli to watch over the 'important' worlds, the Mйxica colonies, the Fleet! What of the other settlements? You will leave millions of humans without even the slightest protection."

"We do not have enough men to watch every squatter's camp and unlicensed mining station." Gretchen could tell the elderly man was entirely sure of himself and his policy. Certainty throbbed in every perfectly enunciated syllable. "We hold a hundred worlds which are not full! Even on older colonies like Tlaxcallan and Shinjuku there is room for millions. Those worlds are already watched, already guarded by the tlamatinime. Without more judges, we dare do nothing else."

"Then," the woman said, drawing a breath, "let us help."

"No." The man's voice was sharp and firm.

"Change the policy," the woman pleaded. "Let the tititil go out among the people. Let us watch in darkness, as the naualli do." Her tone changed, once more veering into anger. "Abandoning the frontier colonies will suffocate the Empire. You know as well as I what will happen to fresh populations sent to Tlaxcallan – or Shinjuku or Budokan – they will find only the lowest professions open to them. Doctors and scientists will toil in laundries or dig in the fields. They will be servants!"

"These are not matters for us to decide," the man said patronizingly. "Each man – and each woman – finds their own way in the world. Only the survival of the race is our concern."

The woman made an almost familiar hissing sound. "You don't care about the race. You only care about your calmecac friends and the hunger of the pochteca companies for cheap labor! What organism can thrive in an ever-shrinking niche? Nothing! If you cared about the race, you'd let us train alongside the men and stand watch as they do."

"Foolishness." A faint thread of irritation wove into the man's voice. "Women and men do not train together. The ancient traditions are wise to forbid such things. Like to like is the proper path. So it has been, so it will be." There was a creaking sound and Gretchen wondered in confusion where a wooden chair had come from. There are no chairs in our cave.

"You will return to your classes and duties, Papalotl. We will not speak of this again."

The elderly man's voice held a tone of complete finality. Gretchen strained to hear more, but the two voices dissolved into only one and Anderssen recognized the sound, at last, as Hummingbird muttering under his breath.

Without any kind of transition – no slow lightening, no sudden brilliance – Gretchen was staring at the roof of the overhang, her gaze fixed upon gray and black stone. The dark, striated rock was split with dozens of crevices and fissures. She could see the way each layer of clay had been compressed by the eons of terrible pressure into flat sheets with unexpected clarity. The violence of the mountain range's creation had tilted the ancient sediment, exposing the edges of the layers to the wind from the east. Now they eroded, millimeter by millimeter, and shaled away from the rooftop a finger's width at a time. Gretchen became uneasy, then almost frantic, realizing she could pick out the smallest detail of the eroding stone.

She could even see the faint, shining presence of minute Ephesian stoneflowers growing in cracks between the slabs. She could see them moving as the light of the sun began to gild the roof of the overhang. Though Gretchen was unaware of making a noise, there was suddenly a sharp gasp of pain echoing in her ears.

A shadow moved on the ceiling, almost lost among the crevices. She heard boots crunching on sand. Gretchen rolled her head to the side, feeling strangely empty, as though everything inside her body had been drawn out through a very small straw.

Hummingbird approached, silhouetted against the rising sun. Behind him, the wings of both Midge s were shining with fabulous rainbow brilliance.

For an instant, as the shadow moved toward her, Gretchen saw something strange. A shifting cloud of Hummingbirds filled the mouth of the cave. Some wore their djellaba over one shoulder, some had none, the z-suits of some were dark, some light. Some of the figures had long hair, some short. One indistinct shape had pale skin. The sound of boots on gravel grew deafening, then subsided.

The old Mйxica leaned over her, smoky green eyes concerned. His mouth opened, one hand reaching down to touch her shoulder. Smoke billowed from between his teeth, curling around his goggles and lean, weathered face.

Gretchen closed her eyes, head thudding back on the blanket. She welcomed onrushing darkness with vast relief.

The Palenque

Magdalena leaned forward on one paw, yellow eyes intent on the main v-pane.

"What is he doing? Where's Doctor Anderssen?" Parker slouched against the control panel, his thin body enveloped in a big, bulky field jacket. He looked cold and a little ill, though the bridge was really very warm from the ring of heaters around the command station.

"She must be inside the cave," Maggie replied, adjusting the light levels of the feed. The dawn line had just passed over the eastern side of the Escarpment and everything was terribly washed-out. The figure of Hummingbird could be seen moving around the tied-down ultralights. The Mйxica knelt momentarily beside both of the Midge s. "He's checking the sand anchors."

Even in the jerky, disrupted image on the panel, Magdalena could tell there was a fierce wind lashing against the cliffs. Less than two kilometers away, a boiling cloud of yellow-red dust raged against the Escarpment. Sheets of sand roared across the valley floor and funneled down into a terrifying-looking standing cone at the mouth of the canyon.

Hummingbird turned and scuttled back beneath the overhang, the tail of his cloak snapping in the violent air.

"Looks rough," Parker said, chewing on his fingernails. "Those anchors had better hold…"

"He's checked them twice already since the sun rose." Magdalena adjusted the camera view again, trying to get a low enough angle to look beneath the overhang. The image changed, but not enough. "Ssssh! Curse warband leader Hadeishi for trying to crash our satellites!"

Parker tapped on one of the secondary panels and grimaced at the resulting screen. "Almost no propellant left."

"No." Maggie let out a steam-kettle hiss of disgust. "I managed to stop them from degrading too much, but all I can do now is reorient their point of view. Some of the others are already deep in the atmosphere – they'll burn up soon. We'll go blind, eyes gouged out one at a time."

"Still no comm?" Parker started to chew on his other hand. Magdalena stared at him in disgust – his weak claws were already worn down to repulsive pink nubs.

"No – I was talking to Gretchen several days ago and we were cut off. I think the old crow is trying to impose comm silence… Will you stop doing that?"

"What?" The pilot stared at her in surprise. Maggie's paw blurred in the air and seized his hand, turning over the ruined fingernails. "Oh…I just need a tabac, you know. Makes me nervous to…not have any." He grimaced.

Magdalena let go of his hand, then wiped her paw on one of the blankets surrounding her. "Bitter smoke means so much to you?"

"Yeah." Parker looked a little queasy and rubbed his wrist. "I'll stop." He put both hands in the pockets of his jacket. "So – hey – don't Midge-class ultralights act as a local comm relay? We could tap in and listen to what they're saying."

"Yes," Maggie growled, curling up in her nest again. "Which is all shut down. I suppose they have suit-to-suit comm working, but I've tried opening a long-range link through the peapods and there's no response. Feather-brain has everything locked up tight."

"What about accessing a backup system?" Parker looked painfully earnest. Both of his hands, flat-looking fingers and all, were out of the jacket pockets and being rubbed together as if he were cold. "You used the standard long-range highband, right? Isn't there a secondary system on these aircraft?"

"Sometimes." Maggie gave the pilot an inscrutable look. "But the peapods do not mount microwave emitters. There's no way to punch an area transmission through the atmosphere."

"Really?" Parker started to smirk. He pointed at the main display. "How are you getting a transmission back from your satellites?"

Maggie showed him a full set of teeth, which did not properly impress the pilot. After a moment she relented, saying "To reduce emissions I am using a point-to-point laser link."

"You mean," Parker said, grinning, "to get around the main array lockout. And keep engineer stoneface from noticing your violation of the judge's orders."

"Maybe." Maggie stirred in her blankets and bone-white claws make a sharp, skittering tik-tik-tik on the panel as she queried the peapods. "A highband query failed to draw a response from the Midge onboard comm. So if we try a laser we'll have to drop a whisker right on the comm port, which seems very unlikely if we're firing from orbit and trying to hit a port which is probably underneath the wing."

"Not at all!" Parker seemed to have forgotten his tabac sticks and slid over the panel to stand beside Magdalena. "Look, let's bring up the mechanical schematic from the repair bay – not the standard manual, mind – but PГўtecatl's record of modifications she'd made herself."

The Hesht and the human both began looking through the dead engineer's records, searching for maintenance records concerning the expedition ultralights.

An hour later Magdalena coughed in delight and brought up a hand-annotated schematic on the command panel. Parker squinted at the diagram and smiled himself.

"That's it." The pilot ran a thin, tabac-stained finger over a layout of the Midge tail assembly, squinting to read a block of annotated text. "This is a military-surplus comm aperture bolted to the rear engine housing. Which is great." He frowned. "But why?"

"To communicate with the ship," Magdalena said, eyes bare sodium-yellow slits. "With the Palenque. Look at the other Midge." A claw stabbed at the image on the main display. Both ultralights were leaning hard against the cables holding them to the sand. Hummingbird's aircraft, despite the patched wing, was obviously newer and lacked the worn, battered appearance of Russovsky's aircraft. Seen from above, there were other differences – the extra comm aperture, larger air intakes, reinforced tail pylons…

"PГўtecatl and Russovsky must have been busy." Parker fumbled in his pocket, but found nothing, not even a gum wrapper. "Crap. Stupid Marines… Okay, see if you can get a lock with a peapod laser! If you can, we'll be set."

"Perhaps." Magdalena began sending a new set of codes to the satellites. She hummed as she worked, a deep rumbling sound in her chest. Parker became nervous after listening for a bit and sidled off the bridge.

By the time he returned, looking even more morose than before, the Hesht was watching as a targeting overlay wandered jerkily across the video feed from the surface. Hummingbird was nowhere to be seen and the wind had died down to intermittent gusts. Parker stared at the screen, then turned to Maggie with a perplexed expression. "What's going on?"

"Comp on a peapod is about as smart as a leaf-eater," she said, flashing both incisors. "It's having a hard time finding the comm aperture."

"Guide it to lock-on yourself," Parker said irritably. His right hand moved toward the control panel.

Magdalena raised a silver-frosted eyebrow at him. Long whiskers curving back around her face twitched in amusement. "How far away are we from the planet?"

"Oh. Yeah." Parker slumped against the console again. The Palenque was steadily accelerating away from the third planet. "How much lag is there?"

"Three light-minutes," she replied, turning her attention back to the screen. The targeting indicator was jumping from spot to spot, wildly painting the top of the Midge, the rocks, blowing sand, the left wheel as it groped to find the aperture receiver. "We'll just have to wait. Shouldn't take long."

Five minutes passed with Parker squirming like a kit who had to find some fresh dirt. Then the scatter-search pattern implemented by the peapod comp hopped into lock with the aperture. There was a cheerful chiming sound and a new v-pane opened on Maggie's panel as the peapod negotiated a channel with the Midge.

A sharp beep followed and Maggie frowned at the v-pane.

"I think we've got a lock," she announced in a dissapointed tone, "but the responder laser is not working properly." The Hesht scrolled through a log, whiskers flat against her head. "This model has a two-part system," she explained after a moment, indicating a sub-schematic. "The receptor itself can modulate a reflected signal along the path of the incoming beam, but only for basic comm etiquette. Real data return is handled by a second, separate laser. But we're not getting any response at all. I think this other laser is blocked out by Hummingbird's comm lockdown."

"So," Parker said, his brief excitement dampened. "We can only talk one way? How do we get any data back?"

"I don't know." Magdalena frowned at her displays. Luckily, Hummingbird had not emerged from the cave while the laser-whisker was gyrating across the landscape. The only motion visible below was the slow rocking of both ultralights in the wind. "I could send sets of command codes blindly, but…" She hissed, picking at her left upper incisor with the tip of a claw. "All we see are the ultralights and their immediate area. We need something to change visually in response to our signal. Ah!"

Her claw stabbed at the v-panel, running along the grainy, pixilated front edge of an ultralight wing. A curving strip of bright material gleamed in the Ephesian sun. "Here we are, blessed furry little kit." Her yellow eyes flickered back to the schematics on the other panel. "These lights are made of a phosphor material which can be controlled by onboard comp."

Parker laughed aloud. His thin fingers fluttered across the control console, bringing up the specifics of the LuxTerra illumination fabric. He ran a forefinger down a list of wavelengths. "We can pulse each phosphor in ultraviolet – that would cut through the clouds and atmospheric distortion – and the satellite cameras could pick up a datagram as large as the panel array will allow."

"Good." Maggie ran her claw down the middle of the command panel. Immediately, the workspace split in two. "Get to work on a receiver program to interp a multibyte array."

"Me?" Parker gave her a horrified look. "I'm not a comp-head! I fly shuttles, aircraft, pogo-sticks…"

Magdalena smiled at him, showing a great number of teeth. "I'm busy, coding blind commands to reconfigure the Midge. So make yourself useful." She paused, nose twitching. "I want to know what the packleader is doing. Right now."

Parker swallowed nervously and dragged over an equipment box for a seat. "Sure. Sure. I'm working on it." He forced his fingers to the panel and cleared away everything but some editors. "Code – I wrote some code once. In school."

Maggie's lip curled. The smell of the human's fear-sweat made her nose twitch.

Slot Canyon Twelve

With the old Mйxica helping her stand, Gretchen stepped gingerly out of the overhang. The sun had set and the wind had died down, leaving everything quiet and still. Anderssen was vastly relieved to have the world wrapped in darkness. Her head still felt altered, somehow, and she was sure the full light of day would be too much to take. Even the light of the stars – very clear, very bright, with a pellucid crystalline quality – hurt her eyes.

"Careful…there's a cable," Hummingbird pointed. Gretchen stopped, staring at the line of shadow stretching from the ground to the Midge. Something like a white flame winked at the edge of her vision, then brightened. After a moment's attention, she saw the cable itself outlined in pale fire. Gretchen swallowed and looked up.

The ultralight was glowing very softly. Every edge was lit by the same kind of faded, heatless brilliance. Each strut, window, airfoil – all were limned with light. Gretchen's heart skipped a beat, but a sense of delight filled her. There was no fear, only amazement at the glorious sight. She leaned on Hummingbird's shoulder and looked around. Both aircraft were spectral, incandescent ghosts standing out sharp against a limitless black background. The cables made sharp, tight lines to the ground – but the sand, the rock, the cliffs seemed to have disappeared. Only very faint lights winked in deep crevices in the stone.

"The…the Gagarin is glowing," she said softly.

Hummingbird's eyes crinkled up in response. "Yes. I imagine it is."

"What am I seeing?" Gretchen turned to look at the old Mйxica and found him equally illuminated, his kaffiyeh wicking with jewel-colored flames, face blazing with a pearlescent, gold-tinged light. She raised her own hand and saw her palm and fingers glowing in the same way.

"When first you begin to see," Hummingbird said, voice soft against the respirator's background hiss, "you will see too much. In this darkness, you are sensitive to even the least perturbation. By day, you would be almost blinded by the immense detail of the world. Right now, you are aware of the electromagnetic field around living things. The Midge is illuminated because our aircraft carry vibrations from their engines, from the motion of flight, from the powered systems onboard."

"I'm seeing an electromagnetic field?" Gretchen started to laugh. "That's impossible!"

"You see the light from a glowbean or a wand, don't you? This is the same, only much much fainter." Hummingbird took hold of her shoulders and turned her toward the open plain. "The 'helper' I gave you has broken down a barrier in your mind, a perceptual filter to which you've become accustomed since you were born. Look out there, into the emptiness. What do you see?"

"Nothing…wait, there's a faint radiance along the dune faces."

"Heat is radiating from the earth. Soon it will be gone and the sand and air will be the same temperature. Then there will be no difference for you to perceive."

Gretchen gave the old Mйxica a sick look. "Is this what you see? All the time?"

Hummingbird shook his head. "No. A student on the path must overcome many obstacles – this is the obstacle of clarity. I fear…" His voice changed timbre and Gretchen was aware of a change in the glow outlining his face. "The drug you took is one given to students who have been training and preparing themselves for months. But we have no time to guide your feet along the traditional path -"

"You're not supposed to be training me at all!" Gretchen interjected suddenly. Memories flooded back and she remembered the strange conversation in darkness. "I heard voices arguing as I slept – 'only men may become tlamatinime.' Women must become…" She paused, trying to remember. The memories were fading, scattering like pine needles in a fall wind. "Skirt-of-knives said…she said…ah, it'sgone."

Hummingbird had become quite still, his gaze fixed on Gretchen's face. "You heard a woman's voice? An old woman?"

"No – she was young – but there was an old man, he sounded like a stage actor."

The nauallis made a queer barking sound, which Gretchen remembered was what passed for laughter for the old man. "She was young long ago. But I was thinking of that day while you slept." He sighed, an honest sound of regret. Then he began to sing, but only for a moment. "We leave the flowers, the songs, the earth. Truly, we go, truly we part."

"You were there." Gretchen knew the truth of the matter even as she spoke. "You were in the room, a young man. The old actor was sitting in a wooden chair. He stood up to leave."

"Yes. And he was right – he is right – and I've broken an ancient law, speaking to you as I've done, giving you the 'helper', setting your feet on this path."

"I am in danger?"

"You've always been in danger," Hummingbird said in a sharp tone. "But now, today, you must learn to see again."

"I think," Gretchen said, "I see too much!"

Hummingbird nodded. "Yes – listen closely, there is not much night left. Your mind has been forced awake by the 'helper.' A veil of perception has been cast aside, letting you see as a human organism naturally perceives the world. Your mind is now exposed to a flood of data – a flood which in normal course is filtered, flattened, reduced to aggregates and symbols – but your consciousness is not ready to operate in such an environment.

"Now you must learn to concentrate on the important. You must learn to see selectively."

Gretchen felt itchy all over and shook her arms and hands. The z-suit felt strangely tight. "Didn't I see before? I mean – you're saying this sharpness, with everything seeming in focus all at once, even things far away – is what happens anyway?"

"Even so." Hummingbird raised his hand in front of her face. "But your mind was hiding the true world from your consciousness. Look at my hand tonight and you see every single bump and groove in my glove, you see the fire of my bodily electrical field, you see each pore in my skin. But yesterday? Yesterday you saw an idea of a gloved hand. An abstraction. A great part of human mental activity is devoted to reducing this raw flood of images and smells and sensations to remembered symbols. A hand. A man. A dog. An ultralight."

He swung his hand, indicating everything within sight. "Those symbols are not real, but they are very convenient. They let the lazy mind operate in such a confusing world." Gretchen could hear a grin in the man's voice. "Have you seen a baby watching the world? Their eyes are so wide! Their entire mentation is focused upon trying to understand everything all at once. A baby becomes a child and then an adult by replacing raw truth with layers of abstraction. By learning speech. By learning to read and to write. All those tools – the tools which build Imperial society and our science and our technology – hide the true world behind symbols."

"I…I understand." Gretchen felt faint and swayed. Clumsily, she sat down on the sand. The sensation of touching the earth, the sound of sand shifting under her hands, was nearly overwhelming. "What do I do…to be able to, say, move around?"

"Your body can handle everything," Hummingbird said wryly. "If you let it remember. Come, stand up. Let's go for a walk."

Nearly an hour later, Gretchen climbed gingerly across a slab of wind-polished stone and came to a halt, staring down into a wide bowl-shaped depression. To her right, a black lightless cliff rose up into the night. The bowl below her was strangely smooth.

"Where are we?" Anderssen slid down a splintered section of rock and came to a halt a handspan from the surface of the bowl. "This is hard-packed dust," she said, looking up at Hummingbird, who crouched atop the slab. "Not even sand."

The old Mйxica pointed to the cliff. Gretchen turned and saw – suddenly, as if the opening had materialized from the rock in her single moment of inattention – a door. She stiffened, feeling the freezing cold keenly through the insulated layers of her z-suit.

"This is where Russovsky found the cylinder." Hummingbird spoke very softly, though the trapezoidal opening in the cliff-face was entirely dark and still. "Do you see anything?"

Gretchen felt the cold settle into her bones and the pit of her stomach. Learning how to walk again had been easy – just a matter of keeping her mind occupied elsewhere. The body remembered how to breathe, how to walk, how to keep its balance – as long as the mind didn't try to interfere. Talking to Hummingbird about nothing of any importance had let her mind settle and regain its footing in simple physicality. The encompassing darkness restricted her vision to faint thready ghosts of heat and electricity. In time even they seemed to dim and fade as she got used to them. The nauallis claimed she could focus now, once her mind adapted, to bring clarity to bear on a single object.

"Go on," he said, remaining atop the slab. "Let yourself see."

Gretchen sucked on her water tube, eyes closed, feeling her heartbeat speed up. Then she opened her eyes again and looked at the doorway.

"Nothing unusual," she said after a moment. "Worked stone. I don't see any lights inside. Should I?"

"I don't know." Hummingbird made his way down into the bowl. "I came here last night and watched for a time. There were no lights, no blue glow. But I feel uneasy. Everything here is so old…worn down by time. Such places are dangerous, being all of a single cloth. Differences," he said, "are easier to perceive."

"Are we going to go in?" Gretchen still felt cold and a nagging thought was beginning to curdle in the back of her thoughts.

"Yes." Hummingbird looked to her and then back to the doorway. "We have to see if Russovsky left anything behind in there."

Gretchen put a hand on his shoulder as the Mйxica moved to cross the bowl. "This is probably where she was replaced," she whispered, holding him back. "Her flight log shows she headed straight back to the observatory camp from here."

"I know." Hummingbird's hand clasped hers for a moment, fire mingling with fire. "This would mean her remains are within. And those we must destroy."

"Do you still have your little pistol?" Gretchen was digging in her tool belt.

Hummingbird nodded, patting his side. "It's not much use for eliminating evidence."

"Or for dealing with Ephesian lifeforms." Gretchen produced a compact lightwand. She adjusted a thumb control. "This is set to high UV," she said, handing over the lamp. "Everything else seems susceptible; maybe whatever is in there will be too."

The nauallis took the lamp with a shake of his head. "If there's something in there which can duplicate a human being almost to the cellular level, I fear it won't be affected by this."

"Then we need something bigger," Gretchen said, kneeling on the sand. Busy hands detached a variety of tools from her belt and began assembling them. Without looking up, she said: "Bandao-tzin felt he couldn't let me leave his company without proper equipment, so he sent this with me."

She held up a short-barreled, stockless gun with a hand grip and a fat magazine. Hummingbird grunted in appreciation and held out his hand.

"I don't think so," Gretchen said tartly, tucking the assault rifle under her arm. "You're going in first and I'll cover you."

"What does it shoot?" Hummingbird's appreciative smile vanished. He was eyeing the rifle warily now. "It looks like something the Marines would use."

Gretchen shook her head with a smirk. "No – it's Swedish. A Bofors Sif-52 shockgun. Throws explosive flechettes in a room-sized cloud." She locked the magazine back into place. A green light gleamed at the back of the weapon. "So I'll probably wait until you're out of the way."

"Of course." The nauallis did not seem convinced, but he turned away and glided across the hard-packed dust towards the door. Gretchen scuttled along behind him, keeping to his right, the gun leveled on the opening. When he'd reached the edge of the door, she stopped, steadying herself. The barrel of the weapon was a distraction – flickering with curlicues of orange flame – and she concentrated, remembering only smooth, dark solid metal.

Hey, she thought as Hummingbird stepped around the corner into the opening, it works!

The rifle was solid again, barrel heavy and entirely lacking in radiant light.

Gretchen scampered up to the door and peered inside. Hummingbird had tuned the lightwand down low, but the flare of ultraviolet made the chamber entirely visible once Anderssen's goggles kicked in. She saw a large, rocky space with a rumpled, irregular floor. The far wall was not that of a cave, however, but worked stone – much like the frame of the opening she was crouched against – holding a second trapezoidal door.

There was nothing in the chamber save Hummingbird, who was crouched only a meter or two away, the lightwand held out at a stiff angle. Gretchen scanned the rest of the room over the sights of her shockgun, then fixed her attention on the dark space within the second door. There's something odd about all this…she started to think and then her mind sort of froze up like a water pipe caught in the first chill snap of winter in the high timber. Oh, blessed mother! O divine sister of Tepeyac!

Unaware of the fear choking the words in Gretchen's throat, Hummingbird advanced into the chamber, keeping to the left-hand wall. He led with the wand, now burning purplish-blue in high UV setting, and crouched against the flat, smooth wall on the opposite side. Something had caught his eye and the nauallis leaned close to examine some kind of a spot on the wall.

"Hu–Hu–" Gretchen couldn't make her voice work, the word coming out a choked squeak. Though gripped by a terrible desire to flee, Anderssen crept inside, shoulder to the right-hand wall as she scuttled towards him. "Hummingbird!"

"Look at this," the nauallis said calmly, pointing with the wand at a smudge on the smooth stone. "Remains of a glowbean, I think. Russovsky must have…What is it?"

Gretchen was clutching his arm, the rasp of her breathing loud in her ears. "Look at the floor, at the doorways," she hissed, pointing with the barrel of the Sif. "They're level."

Hummingbird nodded, though he tensed as well. "And so?"

"This is a First Sun building," Gretchen said in a tight, controlled voice. "This postdates the release of the eaters, the destruction of the surface, the rise of the Escarpment, everything. Your valkar made this place."

There was a hiss-hiss on the comm circuit. "I don't think so," Hummingbird said after a pause. "Look at this wall. This is not worked stone, not planed or cut or burned with a tunneller. The doorways are the same."

Gretchen peered at the wall, finding concentration and focus elusive amid the rampage of adrenaline coursing through her. "I…I suppose…" Then something odd about the surface caught her attention and she dialed up the magnification on her goggles. "Hmm. That's very strange – this surface is solid."

"Yes." Hummingbird moved along the wall to the inner doorway. Cautiously, he looked around the corner, then drew back. "Almost perfect, I would hazard."

Keeping the muzzle of the Sif pointed away from the Mйxica, Gretchen sidled up to join him. "Real stone isn't so smooth," she muttered under her breath, suspiciously checking the exit to the canyon. "It's usually porous, even a fine marble or granite. Filled with minute hollows, concavities…"

"True." Hummingbird looked around the corner again, leading with his lightwand. "But this is not stone as you think of stone. This is a wall assembled an atom at a time over a million years. Almost perfectly solid and more than a meter deep." He slipped into a corridor with walls slanting inward to a flat ceiling over a dusty floor.

Gretchen darted across the opening and swung the Sif to cover the passage. The tunnel reached back to end in an angled wall. Hummingbird moved carefully, one gloved hand pressed against the slanting wall.

"Watch out for this floor," he said, voice a low buzz in her earbug. "Like the walls, it is dangerously slick. There is very little traction."

Gretchen looked down at the dusty surface. A mirror image of her cloak, mask and rebreather stared back through a gray film. "Okay," she said, testing the surface with her boot. Sliding her foot from side to side elicited a queasy feeling like slipping on new ice. Pressing directly down seemed to gain some purchase. Ahead of her, Hummingbird was moving very slowly, taking his time and placing each foot with careful precision. Gretchen followed with equal care, keeping to the opposite wall.

The sloped passage turned to enter a second chamber at an angle. Hummingbird paused just outside the junction, risking a quick look inside before beckoning for Anderssen to join him. Gretchen moved gingerly to his side – her boots kept wanting to slip out from under her – hands grimly tight on the handle and stock of the Sif.

This room seemed to have no ceiling – or none she could see – and three smooth walls. The fourth, opposite them, was rough and unfinished. Gretchen's mouth tightened, making out irregular markings on the wall – inset spirals, whorls of raised, grooved rock – and she hissed in warning. At the base of the wall were scattered a number of cylinders.

"There." She pointed, indicating a section of bare stone which had been broken open. Hand-sized rocks lay in an untidy pile at the foot of the wall. Boot prints scuffed an ancient layer of dust. "Russovsky took the embedded cylinder away."

Without waiting for Hummingbird to respond, overcome by her own curiosity, Gretchen walked stiffly across the floor to the nearest cylinder. The artifact seemed much the same as the one Clarkson had cut open on the ship – a third of a meter long, four or five centimeters across – and the exterior was encrusted with the same kind of lime-scaling. Very gently, Anderssen nudged the device with the muzzle of the Sif, making the thing skitter across the impeccably smooth floor. The cylinder did not burst open.

She could feel Hummingbird's tension from the doorway, but Gretchen ignored him for the moment, moving to the cavity broken in the stone. Up close, she saw the wall was raw irregular rock, rising up through the floor at an angle and vanishing into impenetrable darkness overhead. The entire surface was crowded with fossils – more of the anemonelike structures, the fluted curl of something like a snail, serrated ridges indicating a swimmer with multiple spines. A flattened, bifurcated cone. Scorch-marks surrounded the ragged opening where small blasting charges had been used to split open the limestone.

"What made this place?" Gretchen whispered into her throat mike as she leaned close to examine the surface of the ancient sediment. She could see hundreds of specimens within arm's reach – a glorious view into a lost, dead world. "Did something survive after the valkar fled into hiding?"

"Ghosts." Hummingbird hesitated, remaining crouched in the entranceway. "You've seen what lived – the microflora – but they did not make this shrine. This is memory made solid."

"How?" Anderssen backed away from the wall, swinging the gun to cover the rest of the room. "You mean like Russovsky?"

Hummingbird waved for her to get behind him once she reached the archway. "I have not seen this before myself," he said in a low voice, "but the pyramid contains references to such things. The valkar is dreaming, but it is not powerless. A subtle influence extends throughout this world, power seeping from the hidden heart. Even when the crust was shattered and remade, not all memories of what lived here before died." He began to back up into the hallway. Nervous, Gretchen followed.

A white frost began to form on her breather mask, which was worrying. The night air of Ephesus was far below freezing, but the respirator should be trapping the water vapor in her breath. Only CO₂ should be escaping. "Crow, something's happening…it's getting very, very cold."

Hummingbird turned up the intensity of his wand and raised the light high. Shadows fled away down the passage.

"There's something here," the nauallis hissed in alarm, staring intently around at the glassy walls. Gretchen tried to hurry, but the glassy floor immediately betrayed her. One foot flew out and she crashed down hard on her right hip. A gasp of pain burst from her throat. The barrel of the Sif banged on the floor and the weapon flew from her fingers. The nauallis flinched, but kept up his steady, careful pace toward the outer room.

"Anderssen, quit playing about and get up," he hissed.

Gretchen tried to rise, but her hands slipped on the mirrored floor and she spun helplessly. One boot hit the wall and skittered away. Even as she groped for some kind of purchase, she saw a spreading reflection of grayish light spill across the slanted wall. The butt of the Sif hit her head. Gretchen twisted into a roll and flopped over onto her stomach. Grasping fingers closed around the weapon and her boot struck the wall square enough to stop abruptly. She looked up.

Hummingbird had backed past her in his flat-footed crouch. The little gun was pointing into the strange gray light, absurdly dwarfed by the bulk of his gloved hands. Gretchen twisted her head around and her eyes went wide. Reflex twitched the Sif into aiming position.

The passage was filling with a steady gray radiance. An indeterminate crepuscular color shone from the air. The doorway to the room of the sea had vanished in the endlessly repeating reflections of the mirrored walls, floor and ceiling. Where the gray existed, there was nothing else – no shadow, no stone, no edges or divisions. Gretchen realized, with a chill start, the light was moving rapidly toward her, spilling along the passage in a colorless tide.

"That's not light," she shouted into the comm, trying to scrabble backwards along the mirror-bright floor. The lead edge of the radiance was almost touching her flailing boots. Her finger twitched on the firing bead of the Sif. "It's something else!"

Hummingbird's answer was drowned out by a sharp blast. The shockgun rocked against her shoulder as a canister burst from the muzzle. Gretchen oofed and the recoil flung her down the hallway, legs and arms windmilling. She slammed into Hummingbird and they both flew back through the slanted doorway into the outer chamber. Behind them, a high-pitched z-z-zing ended in a blast of flame and light. Out of the corner of her eye Gretchen caught sight of the gray radiance rippling and twisting like a torn blanket in the strobe-light eruption of a hundred and sixteen individually packaged munitions.

In a cloud of dust, Anderssen untangled herself from the nauallis, hands working the reloading mechanism. Gretchen felt the heavy, solid thunk of a new canister levering into the firing chamber. Hummingbird scrambled up from the spreading dust as well, half-blinded by his disordered kaffiyeh.

"Clever," he barked sarcastically over a comm channel hissing with static and the same kind of high warbling wail Gretchen had heard in the cave on Mount Prion. "You must have done well in physics… Ai! Run!"

Gretchen was still raising the shockgun to cover the tunnel entrance when the nauallis bolted for the archway leading into the canyon. A shout of dismay strangled in her throat as the radiance boiled out of the passage. She caught a brief, fragmentary glimpse of a cloud of rock chips, bits of metal and what seemed to be frozen flame suspended within the advancing gray.

"Crap!" Gretchen sprinted for the doorway and leaped through the opening, hands protecting her head. The roar of static in her earbug was deafening and she slapped the comm off. Both feet hit the dust, sending up twin plumes of heavy yellow. Staggering, Gretchen ran across the bowl and scrambled up the tilted slab on the far side.

In the darkness, she lost sight of Hummingbird among a jerking, disorienting blur of canyon walls and sandy cavities among glassy-smooth boulders. Damning his cowardly name, she slid across another slab and dropped down onto a wide, gravel-strewn moraine. Wheezing for breath, Gretchen jogged up the slope and at the top she turned, nervous hands checking her belt, the sling of the shockgun, her rebreather – all the tools she needed to survive. A cough died in her throat.

The radiance had spilled out into the canyon bottom. Now, from a distance, the thing looked nothing like any light or illumination she'd ever seen. Strikingly, there were no shadows or reflections cast by the color. Instead, the already dark canyon dimmed as the shape grew among the boulders and flooded from the doorway. Gretchen adjusted her goggles, but there was no change save in infrared, where she hissed in surprise to see the edges of the formless gray merging with the subzero night while bright points of heat blazed in the center of the mass. But even those sparks were dying as she watched.

"Oh, no," she whispered, backing up. The Sif was in her hands again, but Anderssen realized with a grim certainty the gun was useless. The fading heat sources were the still-exploding flechettes she'd fired into the color, being avidly consumed by this…this…"What is this thing? Hummingbird!"

There was no answer on the dead comm. Gretchen turned and ran as fast as she dared, scrambling past rounded anthracite boulders and slogging through deep drifts of sand and dust. A hundred heartbeats passed and suddenly, as she dodged between two menhirlike stones, a pair of powerful hands seized Gretchen and swung her aside, into a pocket of shadow in the greater darkness. She yelped, swinging the stock of the Sif around in a sharp blow to the unseen figure's head. The honeycombed plastic thudded into something solid. A glowbean flared to life and Gretchen found herself facing a wincing Hummingbird.

"Where…" Anderssen tried turning her comm back on. "…have you been? What is that thing in the canyon?"

"A hungry dream," Hummingbird said, though the staccato warble and keening in the background of the channel nearly drowned him out. "Or rather, what a current at the edge of the valkar's dream made in this waking world."

"A dream?" Gretchen fought against a fierce desire to smash the butt of the shockgun repeatedly into the man's face until he made sense. "Dreams don't have form, idiot bird! They don't eat up explosive munitions like toasted maize and come looking for more!"

Hummingbird pushed the muzzle of the Sif away from his face with a fingertip. "Even dreaming, the valkar distorts the world with the weight of its presence. Even these dead stones retain some memory of a once-living world." He slapped a gloved hand against the glossy obsidian rising up above them. "Nothing survived the devastation intact. But you saw the effect Russovsky's stone had on the organism in the cave – even the pattern memory of an often-used artifact could stir the formless to take shape. This world is rife with parched, formless memories."

Hummingbird stopped, tensing. Gretchen turned, hefting the Sif onto her shoulder, muzzle down. Gun useless, she thought with very faint amusement. Make a note for Bandao. Good for feeding colorless light.

"I was very foolish to come here – Hsst! Something is coming."

Outside their tiny shelter, the gloom in the canyon – barely disturbed by the thin ribbon of brilliant, unwinking stars high above – deepened. Gretchen fought down a desire to bolt from their meager shelter. Hummingbird's fist closed on her shoulder in painful counterpoint to the static roaring in her earbug.

The color was there suddenly, gliding out from behind a house-sized boulder. Again the gray radiance did not extend beyond an indistinct, wavering shape. Gretchen's eyes widened, taking in a burning-hot point drifting within something like a bifurcated cone with a forest of tentacular legs moving restlessly beneath. She focused her goggles on the hot centerpoint and saw a flechette tumbling in place, hissing and spitting slow fire. The metallic sheathing was rapidly disintegrating. Apparently unaware of them, the color drifted past, a gray cutout against a flat velvet background.

Hummingbird's fingers clasped her wrist and the comm channel fell silent. He leaned close, pressing his mask against hers. "We have to get away from here or we'll be fuel too."

Nodding, Gretchen peered out around the corner, saw nothing – no wavering, indeterminate blotches of lightless color – and slipped out, weaving her way through the debris scattered at the mouth of the canyon. Hummingbird was right behind her.

Heedless of what might see them – if the color had eyes or something passing for an organ of sight – they ran up the broad, open slope flanking the entrance to the slot. Anderssen immediately started wheezing again. Her leg muscles sparked with pain and she nearly collapsed at the top of the ridge. Hummingbird caught her arm, dragging Gretchen to her feet.

"Run," he barked, voice a barely audible squeak in the thin air. "Don't -"

Gretchen looked back, trying to catch her breath.

Amorphous gray shapes were emerging from the mouth of the canyon. Not all were cone-shaped – some shifted and distorted in the brief moment of her glance – and others strode swiftly on long, stalklike legs. A sensation of hostile desire struck Gretchen like a physical blow, though at such a distance there should have been no way for her to ascertain expression or intent.

She turned and ran, head down, forcing cramping legs and thighs to bound across rocky, uneven ground. Hummingbird loped at her side, keeping pace, though Gretchen guessed the old man could easily leave her behind.

They were within sight of the cave – she could see both ultralights outlined by a soft glow against the night – when a gray shape raced past on dozens of insectile legs and spun to face them. Hummingbird drew up as Gretchen stumbled to a halt, surrounded by a drifting cloud of dust and gasping for air. She looked around only seconds later and the radiance was all around them in shimmering, pearlescent sheets. A trickle of cold pure fear in the back of her throat made Gretchen's teeth clench.

Hummingbird settled back on his heels, shifting his weight on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen was suddenly struck by a sense of his calm solidity. Does anything disturb him? she wondered wildly, fighting to keep from swinging the useless gun toward the enemy. The sight of the terrible gray hanging in the air made her feel weak and small and powerless. Is he ever afraid?

"Tla xihualhuian," his voice echoed over the comm, woven into a rising and falling storm of static and queer shrieking wails. The nauallis's hand extended, clenched tight into a fist. Grains of newly-crushed powder dribbled into the dark air. "Tlazohpilli, Centeotl! Ticcehuiz cozauhqui yollohtli. Quizaz xoxouhqui tlahuelli, cozauhqui tlahuelli!"

The Mйxica's voice grew stronger with each syllable. Gretchen's distracted comprehension slid away from the barely-understandable words. They were in a strange, archaic-sounding dialect – she recognized a few of the words – yellow and green and wrath.

"Do not move," Hummingbird said, the sound of the chant still ringing in his voice. "Become still."

Gretchen stared at him in horror. The nauallis was settling to his knees, back straight and shoulders square. Around them, the belt of the gray was advancing through the air like ink spilled into clear water. The bright points of heat were gone. In infrared the malicious cloud had faded almost to invisibility. Her heart hammering, Gretchen forced incredulous words between clenched teeth.

"Are you insane? They're going to drink us up like a sponge! Get up!"

"No." Hummingbird placed his hands on both knees, eyes invisible in shadow, his face a faintly gleaming mask of dim fire. "Let them come…"

"Never," Gretchen snarled, swinging away from the old man. Before he could react, she sprinted away, aiming for a space where the drifting radiance seemed thinnest. At the same time, her finger squeezed the firing bead on the Sif and there was a tinny crack as another flechette cylinder accelerated down the fat barrel and soared away into the night sky.

Anderssen tried to leap the curdling indistinct color but failed, plowing through a thin drifting sheet. Immediately, she felt a chill, numbing shock. Gretchen staggered, nearly twisting her ankle on a hidden rock, then caught herself and fled. Gray clung to her legs and torso like the shredded remains of a gauze quilt or a thin paper banner. Against her black cloak and z-suit, the color shimmered pale and lifeless – fish scale without rainbows, a dead iridescence – but did not fall away as she ran. Cold blossomed in her side, cutting through the layers of insulation and radiation shielding built into the suit.

Off in the distance, the canister blew apart, filling the night with a bright, sharp blossom of red and orange. Hundreds of tiny explosions followed, the paltry air robbing their roar and clamor of its full-bodied rage. A twisting cloud of sand and grit billowed up into the black sky, lit from below by the fading reflection of the explosions.

Gretchen managed another twenty strides and then collapsed with a thin, despairing cry. A cloud of the omnipresent dust puffed up around her. Color dripped from her legs and stomach like fresh steam rising from a still-unfrozen lake in a high country winter. Muscles spasmed, clenching tight within her skin. Blinded by needlelike pain, Gretchen tried to force her legs and arms to move, but wave after wave of nervefire crushed her down into the sand and gravel again.

Hummingbird remained sitting amid the writhing circle of gray, eyes closed, his heartbeat steady as a temple bell calling the faithful to prayer. The color drew closer, puddling and seeping across the ground, still shadowless, emitting no light save the heatless glare of its own substance. Gray washed across his knees, his hands, up his arms. The nauallis's body shivered slightly, then grew still as the colorless tide mounted to cover his broad chest and then his face.

Choking, her mouth coppery with blood, Gretchen felt sweat freezing on her clammy skin beneath the tight grip of the z-suit. The dreadful color was pooling around her, covering her arms and torso, blotting out her sight of the sky. A single jewel-bright star gleamed for a moment amid the gray before being swallowed up.

Oh blessed sister, what do I do? Gretchen felt her body slow, leached of warmth, robbed by creeping, icy fingers. Her heart was still racing wildly and panic threatened to drown her mind as her body was being smothered by the color clouding around her. Stupid old man! We shouldn't have gone down there…

Then, across a sputtering flood of near-comprehensible static and the tinny warbling of countless invisible birds, she heard the nauallis singing in his deep, slow voice.

"Nic-quix-tiz," the words came, somehow clear and distinct amid all the noise and fury rolling around her, "nic-toh-tocaz nit-lama-caz-qui nina-hual-tecuti. Niquit-tiz tlama-caz-qui, pat-tecatl, tollo-cuepac-tzin."

This time they did not sound so strange, so foreign to the Nбhuatl Gretchen had spoken since she was a young girl, laboring over her alphabets and word lists in a low-slung white-painted school perched amid spruce and realfir on the ridge above Kinlochewe. The pacing and tone of the words were not the quick modern dialect, but something older and more resonant. A language which was complete unto itself, not crowded with Norman and Japanese loan words, where the sound of the old names was proper and correct. Temachticauh instead of sensei for teacher. Totoltetl instead of tamago for egg.

"I banish wrath," Hummigbird sang. "I pursue fear. I am the priest, the nauallis-lord. Let wrath, let fear consume me, the priest."

The suddenly understandable words tumbled through her consciousness and just as swiftly fled, but the clarity and conviction in the old Mйxica's voice settled into her bones like the warmth of a mulled draught. He is not afraid, he is not afraid. The thought spun around Gretchen and she fell still and quiet on the ground. He is still alive.

Though her heart was hammering hard enough to bring a spark of pain in her chest and cold sweat purled behind her ears, Gretchen surrendered, trusting to the steady voice ringing through the encompassing gray. Her fists relaxed and she let the gray enter her. I am not afraid, she thought as a rasping tumult of static swelled loud, roaring in her ears. I am not afraid.

There was a moment of wailing sound and a rush of prickling chill. Gretchen felt her body convulse, though she felt the sensation at an odd distance, and the gray radiance faded away. The sky was revealed once more, though the stars were now twinkling and shining, no longer hard, bright points. Hot wind brushed across her face, carrying a humid, decaying smell and the chattering angry cry of something crashing among the trees. Palmate fronds – serrated with slender triangular leaves – obscured most of the sky. Gretchen could hear the sea – surf booming against a shallow shore – not far away.

I am not afraid, she repeated to herself, sure that death was closing about her in a cold, implacable grip.

The sensation of lying in a muddy stream under a hot, tropical sky faded away by degrees. In some indefinable time, the vision became a memory – sharp and distinct, as if such a thing had happened to her only the day before – lodged among thoughts of Magdalena and remembrances of school and travel and her children throwing snowballs in the meadow behind the big barn. Gretchen realized her eyes were still open and the vault of stars above was cold and still again.

Tentatively, she tried to raise her head. Nothing happened. Slowly, the sky brightened and obscured. Gretchen tried to focus, to bring forth the clarity Hummingbird had promised her, but as she did the colorless gray returned, damping out the stars and the night sky. In the formless void, shapes and phantasms flickered – emerging from nothing, nearly reaching definable shapes or scenes – then vanishing again. Everything was so indistinct, so faint, her mind failed to grasp reason or purpose among the shifting gleams and tremors.

These are hungry memories, Gretchen heard Hummingbird say, his voice a weak thread amid the roiling nothingness. They seek shape and purpose.

I can be formless, Anderssen realized, and I will not die.

She let go, letting herself – sore muscles, bruised ribs and weary mind – fall into stillness.

Once more the gray faded away, leaving only crystalline night. Gretchen had a sensation of floating upon a limpid, dark lake without a visible shore. The water was heavy, holding her up, her body freed from the tyranny of gravity, in some balance where the rubbery tension of the lake surface could hold her weight. She could not see the lake – only the constant, unwinking stars – but was certain of its presence. All sense of frigid cold and weariness were absent. Even her thoughts – which had begun to feel attenuated, drained, parched by the relentless events of the day – were at peace. They did not hurry, but moved languidly, finding their own proper pace and rhythm.

I am finally still, she realized. This is what Hummingbird meant.

The nightmares and frantic memories of the gray seemed far away, reduced to insignificance. Gretchen perceived – as though she stood on a great height and stared down, finding a tiny dark speck in a field of gravel beneath a looming cliff of basalt – her body was alone in the darkness. There were no furious, malefic clouds of not-color swirling around her, no half-seen shapes drawn from the ruins of an ancient world, only stone and crumbled shale and dust.

Am I really alone? she wondered, though the thought had no urgency. Was the gray merely hallucination? A phantom drawn up into a bewildered, confused mind?

Something moved – a human shape – and entered her field of view. Gretchen felt the lake tremble and shift, unseen waves rolling her up and down. Gently, with no more than the sensation of sand and grit pressing into her back, she found herself on the shore of a vast, dry ocean. The figure – cloaked and hooded, z- suit half-visible in the pale starlight – leaned over her, one hand resting on a padded knee. The thin aerial of a comm pack arced up against the stars.

Was the gray only something I saw in a moment of clarity? The thought struck her hard, rousing a placid mind to hurried thought. Certainty gathered beneath her breastbone, solid and unmistakable. Like the glow around the ultralights? Around the cable? The witch-fire of the dunes shedding their day-heat into the implacable night?

"Hello." Gretchen's voice felt rusty, deep and scratchy, as though she'd woken from a long, deep sleep. "Give me a hand, huh?"

A glove clasped hers, drawing Gretchen to her feet. The motion roused to life all of her aches and hurts, drawing a hiss of pain and a wry grimace. The figure's kaffiyeh fell aside, revealing battered, scored goggles and a rust-etched rebreather. Anderssen squinted, surprised. Hummingbird's equipment isn't so badly used… She stopped, frankly goggling, eyes widening in surprise.

A woman stared back at her from the depths of the hood, brushstroke-pale eyebrows narrowed over half-seen pale blue eyes. Gretchen felt calm flee, brushed aside by a shock of realization and confusion.

"Doctor Russovsky?" she managed to choke out.

Deck Six Starboard, the Cornuelle

Susan Kosho slid down a gangway ladder at speed, the instep of her boots straddling the rails on either side of the steps. She hopped off nimbly just before the end, letting her hands guide her to thump down on a nonskid deckplate. Straightening her uniform jacket and pants, the sho-sa turned in the tiny intersection and strode off down the right-hand hallway. A line of cargo staples ran down the center of the passage, offering a secure anchor for heavy straps holding cargo billets against the wall. Stenciled labels identified the pods as holding flash-frozen food supplies – potatoes, chiles, rice, onions, wasabi paste, buffalo meat, mutton, carrots, peas, mangoes – everything the kitchens would need to keep three hundred men and women from rioting over an unvarying diet of vanilla-flavored three-squares, recycled bodywater and vitamin supplements.

She reached a pressure door with a small sign reading JUNIOR OFFICERS' QUARTERS taped to the bulkhead. The crates stacked to the low overhead on either side of the hatch were labeled MEDICAL SUPPLIES. Stonefaced – though there was no one to see her – Kosho examined the seals on the cargo pods and found them intact. Pursing her lips slightly, she plugged her duty-officer's comp into the bottom crate's dataport and watched for a moment as the two systems conversed. The inventory request registered thirty-six full bottles of Usunomiya-city-brewed sake, in ceramic bottles.

Kosho considered opening the case, which had been placed in such perilous proximity to the JOQ by the ship's supply officer – a man widely regarded as being without pity or remorse or any human sense of mercy or decency by the crew – to see if the bottles were truly inside, or if they even retained any rice wine, but did not. The hour was deep into second watch and she had her own business to finish.

The pressure door yielded to her command insignia and levered up into the overhead with a hiss. Kosho schooled her face to perfect stillness and stepped through the hatchway into a thick miasma composed of human sweat, the acrid taste of metal oil, drying laundry and half-cooked food. A clamor of sound enveloped her as the hatch closed; music blaring from personal players, the clatter of two midshipmen fencing with rattan swords at the far end of the deck, people shouting encouragement to the duelists, an ensign arguing passionately with a bored-looking second lieutenant, the beep and whir of electronics, someone singing a Noh ballad off-key… The sho-sa's nostrils flared slightly, then settled. Dark brown eyes surveyed the rows of bunks sitting over tiny desks and lockers with interest. Every square inch of the long, slightly curving room was covered with people, equipment, posters, 3v postcards or zenball schedules.

Forty-seven violations of shipboard regulations, she thought as her eyes returned to look down the long, crowded hallway. A very faint, calculating smile touched her lips. Though none needful of real punishment. Not today, at least.

A middle-grade lieutenant standing in front of the nearest desk, shirt off – revealing a jawless skull tattooed on a powerfully muscled cocoa-colored back – happened to turn at just that moment. He was dressing for third-watch duty, his tunic, uniform jacket and soft, kepi-style cap laid out on a neatly made bed. The Mixtec froze, seeing her, then his brain restarted with admirable speed and he stiffened to attention.

"Senior officer Kosho," he bawled in a voice worthy of a Jaguar Knight gunso, "on DECK!"

His voice echoed back from the far end of the JOQ in abrupt silence. The Noh singer's caterwauling aria flew in counterpoint, but was immediately silenced. There was a commotion as men and women swarmed down off the bunks and leapt up from their chairs or the deck and formed two rows facing into the central walkway. Kosho nodded politely to the thai-i.

"You will be late for your duty station, Eight-Deer. Please continue."

The African bowed gracefully in response and resumed dressing.

Kosho took two steps into the room, politely removing herself from the lieutenant's way. "I require the assistance of Sho-i Ko-hosei Smith," she announced in an inflectionless voice. "The rest of you, as you were."

Everyone stared at her and not a few heads turned to look at the far end of the room. A murmur of noise carrying the midshipman's name flew down the walkway. The fencers were frozen en-pointe, the tips of their boken touching. Kosho saw Smith appear, hastily shoving a handful of pay chits into the hands of another midshipman, and hurry through the crowd toward her. As the baby-faced communications officer passed, the other junior officers relaxed and returned to very subdued, decorous activities. Kosho noticed, to her private amusement, two ensigns osculating on an upper bunk did not resume their extracurricular activities.

"Ma'am?" Smith made a futile effort to straighten his hair. "Is something wrong?"

"Come with me, Sho-i." Kosho turned smartly on her heel and left the JOQ. Eight-Deer was gone, having fled quietly while her back was turned. The hatchway closed behind them with a thud and the hiss of pressurized air. "There's something you should see."

The ride in the core-transit car to the bridge ring was very quiet, which did not discomfit Kosho at all. She believed in the benefit of learning to wait silently and was not averse to helping others – particularly junior officers – improve their skills. Watching Smith-tzin fidget out of the corner of her eye, the sho-sa reminded herself she had learned these skills at a younger age, when sitting motionless, clad in the elaborate drapery of one of Hannobu's juni-hitoe for five hours while listening politely to scratchy, ill-executed music was a matter of course. He does not have to wear four kilos of hair, golden pins and jeweled ornaments either. A good switching would improve his posture, though.

A chime signaled the arrival of their transit car at the command ring and Kosho pushed away from her seat and kicked off to fly through the widening iris of the door leading to the bridge. Smith followed, entirely at ease in z-g.

The bridge was quiet and dim, the lights having switched into nightcycle. Kosho nodded to the officer of the watch and swung herself over to the communications station. Smith's usual configuration had been entirely changed, with the broad work panel split into three sets of v-panes. The sho-i dropped into his shockchair while Kosho took a newly added second seat. Out of habit, Smith strapped himself in and tested chair integrity. The sight brought a brief, warm glow to Kosho's breast. Ah, but he does occasionally learn.

"Reconfiguration of the shipskin is complete," the sho-sa said quietly, tapping her half of the divided panel alive. A new set of blank v-panes and controls appeared. Her console shone a light green, indicating a standby status. Curious, Smith leaned over, checking the intermediate display, which was the fruit of Thai-i Helsdon's foregoing sleep for two days. While Smith's reduced primary panel showed the feed from the remaining, normally-configured sensor array, the intermediate display served as an amalgam of the two sets of data. At the moment, it showed the main battle plot from Smith's panel.

"Helsdon-tzin assures me," Kosho continued, "all of the new data feeds are online and the shipskin is properly reconfigured for g-wave detection."

Smith nodded, impressed, but he still looked a little puzzled.

"Your idea was a good one," Kosho continued in a low voice. Only a skeleton watch was on deck at the moment, so she felt safe enough to talk openly with this boy. The raven-wing of her left eyebrow curved up gracefully. "Did you feel slighted when Chu-sa Hadeishi tasked me to implement the concept, rather than you?"

"No!" Smith looked horrified – properly horrified – but Kosho could see a twinge of memory in the boy's pale eyes. "I'm only a junior officer," he said, almost stammering.

"You are correct," the sho-sa said quietly. "You are a junior officer. You've much to learn before Hadeishi-tzin is entirely comfortable with placing you in a lead role. But the day will come when he does, never fear." Avoiding the surprised look on his face, she activated the newly configured panel and handed him a v-pad already keyed to a set of security codes.

"Smith-tzin," Kosho said formally, "would you care to bring the new system online?"

The midshipman blinked once and then took the pad. Visibly gathering himself, Smith looked over the codes, then examined the g-scan panel. Kosho sat beside him quietly, keeping a very close eye on what he was doing. Taking a deep breath, Smith tapped open a comm channel.

"Bridge to Engineering."

There was an immediate, tired-sounding answer. "Helsdon here, Bridge."

"Are your crews clear of the outer hull?" Smith was searching frantically on the reconfigured display. Kosho continued to watch, an expression of mild interest on her face. "We are preparing to bring the g-scan array online."

"Wait one, Bridge." Helsdon's voice cut off with the squeak of a muted channel. A moment later, he came back on comm. "Bridge, we are clear. All crews are accounted inside the secondary hull. You are clear to activate the g-array."

Smith found the controls for the external point-defense system and toggled on a set of pattern cameras mounted on hard-points along the Cornuelle's hull. Kosho's eyes narrowed in interest as he woke them up and fed in parameters for a close-hull scan. A moment later the comp chimed to announce the area immediately outside the ship was clear of people in z-suits.

"Hull clear," Smith announced. "Stand by for live power to g-array."

"Standing by," echoed back from both Engineering and the watch duty officer on the bridge.

"Power." Smith tapped a glyph of a running man bearing a twisting flame atop a brick on his stylized head. The third section of the communications station lit and data began to feed into the system. A preliminary plot began to appear seconds later. At the same moment, a string of amber lights flared on the panel. Smith jerked as if struck in the face and immediately punched a shutdown. "We have a partial systems failure," he barked into the comm. "Engineering, systems check!"

"Got it," Helsdon grumbled and Kosho could hear him scratching a stubbly beard. "Power conduits show green…hull skin feedback shows nominal…no pressure drops, no hull rupture."

Kosho watched Smith with interest. The boy was sweating, the back of his uniform shirt sticking to narrow shoulders, but he did not freeze or balk in the face of an unexpected situation.

"Are we radiating?" he snapped at both Engineering and the ensign riding the weapons panel. "Is there hull leakage?"

"No," came the answer a bare second later from Weapons.

Helsdon in Engineering was humming a little tune, but he chimed in a heartbeat later. "I'm seeing some queer readings from the reconfigured sensors in grid two-even. There must be some kind of data-formatting problem in the sensor feed." The engineer sighed audibly. "I'll take a crew and sort this. Engineering, out."

Smith let himself breathe out in relief, then stiffened, glancing sideways at the sho-sa. He seemed both exhilarated and near dead with fright.

"You will get your turn," Kosho said, taking back the v-pad. She was not smiling, being a proper officer, but her eyes glittered a little in amusement at his excitement. "There are always problems like this when we bring a new system online."

"Yes, Kosho-tzin." Smith made a sharp little bow, just as he had been taught in the Fleet officers'calmecac. Her eyes narrowed a little, considering him. The boy stiffened again, expecting a rebuke of some kind.

"A question – you did not believe Helsdon-tzin's assertion that the outer hull was clear?"

"No – well, I believed him, ma'am – but…on my cadet cruise, ma'am, they had a punishment detail outside, repainting the hull numbers on the Tizoc. I was standing a duty watch on the bridge and Weapons decided to run a system test on the main sensor array. They checklisted with everyone they were supposed to – Engineering, the Marine detatchment, Flight Operations – but they didn't ask the quartermaster. Number sixteen array went to full active scan and killed three cadets. Boiled them alive right inside their suits." Smith was looking a little white around the gills.

"Never pays to be hasty," he said in conclusion, avoiding her gaze. "Ma'am."

"Very wise," Kosho said, pushing herself up out of the chair. "Return to quarters. You must be alert and well-rested for the morning duty watch."

"Hai!" Smith bowed formally and then left the bridge, trying not to burst from unfettered pride.

Kosho watched him go, thinking about the past. Dead men teach memorable lessons, she thought with a certain grim humor. Their sacrifice repaid a thousand times.

The heavy carrier Tizoc was notorious in Fleet for the number of training accidents suffered by her ever-changing crews. Kosho had served on the ancient, outdated and frankly dangerous capital ship herself. Every officer did – Tizoc had born the brunt of cadet cruises for three generations – but most did not realize until they'd knocked around the Fleet for a tour or two that the 'curse' struck each and every cadet class with brutal, endlessly repeated efficiency.

Every officer in Fleet had been on watch, or on duty station, or even on the same work detail or in the same compartment, or at least in the same graduating class, as some poor unfortunate who died gruesomely as the result of careless procedure or sloppy handling or one of the millions of tiny errors which could doom a man, a ship, or a fleet. Cadets boarding the Tizoc for the first time were told the ship was named after an Emperor called 'He-who-bleeds-the-people.' Later, when they heard enough of stories from their shipmates and were sober enough to put two and two together to make four, the veteran officers called the venerable old carrier 'He-who-winnows-the-chaff' in tones of wary respect.

Kosho looked once around the bridge, saw everything was in order, and then kicked into the accessway. She felt tired and it was late. There would be a fullness of work in the morning, she was sure. Hadeishi did not allow an idle crew.

Near Slot Canyon Twelve, the Escarpment

Pale rose and gold streaked the eastern rim of the world, heralding an ear-searing dawn.

A faint white illumination filled the sky, lighting scattered rocks, the tie-downs of the ultralights and then Hummingbird, still kneeling in the sand, palms on his knees. The stout figure of the Mйxica moved minutely and the man's eyes opened. His breather mask was caked with frost, the z-suit diagnostics on his wrist gleaming red. Stiffly, the man rose to his feet, ice flaking from the joints of his matte-black suit. Moving very slowly, Hummingbird made his way to the cargo door of his Midge.

Hummingbird rummaged through the cargo compartment and found a bag containing power cells. Fumbling with chilled, nearly nerveless fingers he managed to swap out the cells in his belt and let out a long, tired hiss as the suit heaters woke to life again.

"And in an hour," he husked, drawing on his djellaba and slinging the scarf-like kaffiyeh over his shoulder. "I'll be broiling."

The Mйxica looked around the campsite and was cautiously pleased to see everything still in place – the pressure tent inside the cave, the filament screen, the other Midge. He dug in the confusion of the cargo compartment again and dragged out some tubes of water and a package of threesquares. Holding them up to his suit light did not reveal any discolorations or other signs of infestation, so the nauallis stuffed them into the pockets of his cloak.

Prepared for a long walk, Hummingbird retraced his steps and then pressed on, following the scuffed, irregular tracks left by Anderssen's blind flight.

Gretchen was sitting on a low outcropping, her face washed in cool golden light, arms clasped around her knees, when Hummingbird finally caught up with her. The Mйxica came to a halt at the edge of a tilted slab of sandstone, looking up at her. Hot pink reflections of high-altitude ice clouds blazed from his goggles.

"Are you all right?" He sounded very tired on the comm, though the channel was perfectly clear at such close range.

"I am alive," Gretchen said. She did not look down at him, but raised her head to indicate the eastern sky. "Look."

The edge of a ruddy, golden sun would soon rise above the horizon. For a moment, Hummingbird saw nothing and then – a bright point stabbed down from the heavens, cutting across the spreading roseate glow before vanishing in a bright streak.

"A meteor," he said.

Gretchen turned her head, resting one cheek on her arm. "There have been three while I've watched. Doctor Smalls will be watching them too, from the Palenque, and he will be sad. They served him faithfully while they lived."

"His meteorology satellites," Hummingbird replied, climbing up onto the outcropping. "Hadeishi will have diverted them into decaying orbits – letting them burn up in the atmosphere."

"You shouldn't sit down," Gretchen said, unfolding herself as the nauallis approached. "Don't you see the color of the sky?"

The Mйxica frowned, forehead creasing, but then a faint dim line along the horizon caught his attention. "Aiii…it is dawn. The storm."

Together, they walked quickly back toward the cliff. Gretchen's feet were sore – she hoped she didn't have to run anywhere today – but she was more concerned with the odd way her sight was behaving. Suspicious, Gretchen changed the setting on her goggles to normal intensification. The shale and broken sandstone she was crossing remained sharp and distinct, despite the predawn darkness cloaking the land. I can see in the dark?

She stopped and bent down, running a hand across scattered chunks of eggshell-thin stone. A dissonant, queasy feeling roused, stirred by the motion of her fingers against something standing still. Gretchen slashed her hand back and forth, as fast as she could. Odd and odder, she thought, grappling with a perception of her hand moving very slowly, with sort of a staccato afterimage trailing along behind.

"Check the tie-downs." Hummingbird turned toward the overhang without looking back. "The filament screen needs to be repaired."

Gretchen looked up, catching a furtive glimpse of the nauallis stepping past the glistening sheet of monofilament. At the same time, she saw him both outside and inside the barrier. Anderssen blinked in surprise, lifted her goggles and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the tripartite vision was gone.

"Hurry," his voice echoed. "The wind will be rising soon."

The storm shrieked and wailed against the filament screen blocking the entrance to the cave. A rain of sand rattled endlessly against the magnetically-stiffened monofilament before slithering down into a steadily growing drift. A sustained high-pitched ringing – Gretchen thought it came from the cables holding down the ultralights – shivered in the air. She turned her face from the glowing, saffron-yellow light filtering down through the storm and the filament screen. Hummingbird was sitting with his back to a chunk of basalt, staring at nothing.

Gretchen scraped the last of a threesquare from the bottom of a battered steel cup. Today she was so hungry the sludge didn't need chile sauce to make it palatable. She waved the spoon in the air experimentally, but the blurred – or tripled – vision effect had faded. There was only a metal spoon in the dim light of the cave.

"Last night…" she started to describe what she'd seen, but then changed her mind. "I would feel stupid about running," Gretchen said, glaring at the old Mйxica, "but you were running too. So what did come out of the cave? Were we ever in any danger?"

"We were," Hummingbird replied. He seemed tired, too. "Even at the end, when they had no more substance than a shadow, we were still in danger. I thought…" He stopped, considering his words. "When you ran, I feared things would go badly for you. I am glad they did not. We were lucky."

"We were idiots – I was an idiot," Gretchen said in a very sharp tone. "They ate the energy released by the Sif bullets, didn't they? If I hadn't done that, we'd have been able to walk right out."

"You did not know what would happen. I did not know either." Hummingbird made a dismissive gesture. "And I wonder if they did eat the bullets from your gun. I'm not sure they had the strength to do so. We might have seen only an echo of what the substance experienced. A living, moving memory."

"I saw a flechette in one, hanging in the air, as if the explosion itself had slowed down and was being consumed!"

"I wonder…" Hummingbird raised an eyebrow wryly. "If we go into the tunnel and examine the rear wall, it may be we find the impact marks of each and every flechette – if the entire passage has not collapsed as a result of the explosions."

Gretchen's face screwed up in a disbelieving grimace. "Does this happen a lot with your sight?"

"Sometimes." Hummingbird's expression turned grim. "Achieving clarity does not mean you have learned to discern truth from falsehood. The world around us is filled with too much data. Why else would our infant minds learn to hide so much from our consciousness? Some students are blinded by the clarity they achieve." He raised two fingers. "This is the second obstacle a student must overcome: control of sight."

"How long," Gretchen said, rather suspiciously, "does that take?"

"Years." Hummingbird's voice was flat. His right hand twitched. "The drug I gave you…is a shortcut. But one usually given only to students who have passed the first obstacle."

"Which is?" Gretchen's lips drew tight and a dangerous glitter entered her eyes. What was in that packet? What did he do to me?

"The first obstacle is fear, Anderssen-tzin. It is to achieve clarity of mind before you attain clarity of sight." The nauallis shrugged. "I admit giving you the teonanacatl was a throw of the beans. I was hasty."

Gretchen swallowed, her throat dry with a bitter aftertaste, and she drank deep from one of the water bottles. Even the stale, metallic taste was preferable to the flat, oily fluid from her recycler. "You seem to be a very reckless man, Hummingbird-tzin. Are you well regarded by your fellows?"

The nauallis did not reply, his eyes becoming guarded again. Gretchen stood up and put her cup and spoon away, stowing them in the little cook kit from her rucksack. Nervously, she paced the perimeter of their shelter, listening to the storm wailing outside and peering through the filament at the Gagarin. Both Midge s seemed to be intact, though they were straining against the sand anchors like hounds against the leash. Finally, when the unsettled, churning feeling in her stomach had leveled off to a dull burn, she examined her hands in the dim, sulfurous light from outside.

Gloves. Fingers. They seemed entirely ordinary. Can I focus? How do I…

She concentrated, trying to discern the superlatively sharp level of detail she'd perceived before, where every grain and pore and wrinkle in the gloves came into view. Nothing happened. Her head started to hurt. Scowling, she pushed up her goggles and rubbed both eyes wearily. Stupid clarity…nevermind.

"What are we going to do about the tunnel and chambers?" Gretchen hugged herself, feeling cold despite the suit heaters. "Don't you have to 'clean it up' somehow?"

Hummingbird nodded slowly. He pointed at the entrance to the overhang. "In my Midge there are explosives, somewhat more powerful than your shockgun. When the daystorm clears, I will go into the tunnel and place them."

Gretchen laughed, unaccountably relieved to hear something so mundane and practical from the old man. "You're going to blow the place up? Now that does sound like the Empire at work!"

"Each tool," he said stiffly, "to a purpose. Those structures serve as a focus for this 'color' we saw. They allow something to take a shape where it should have none. So, I will destroy the entire location and hope – hope, mind you – the memories clinging to the stones and rocks themselves are scattered into oblivion."

"And the cylinders we saw in the inner room?" Gretchen clenched her fists tight against her sides. "You'll bury them under a million tons of rock?"

Hummingbird nodded slowly, watching Gretchen's face intently. "I will."

"What about Russovsky? What do you think happened to her?"

"She stumbled into part of a dream, someplace where a fragment of this sleeping power seized and consumed her. In that moment, she was taken over, into its context, rather than our own. Something came back out – the shape you saw in the first cave – like a ghost, perhaps curious, perhaps a reflex of her own memory. Even a shape retains memory of its past."

"The version of her on the ship was only an echo?" Gretchen tried not to lick her lips nervously. "Do you think she might have survived the experience? Maybe she woke up later and found her ultralight gone, taken by the copy?"

Hummingbird was nonplussed. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Have you seen something to indicate she survived?"

"I…no, no I haven't seen anything I could swear was real."

"But you saw Russovsky, or something which looked like her." The nauallis gave her a sharp look. "Last night? When the gray was upon you?"

"Afterward," she admitted. "When the gray – the visions – had passed. She helped me up. I felt her hand – a physical hand – in mine!"

"And then?" The nauallis rose and came to her side. His green eyes were tense and sharp. Gretchen could feel him looking at her. The sensation made her skin crawl and she backed away.

"Then – nothing. I was distracted for a second and when I looked back, she was gone. I looked all 'round, but…nothing. Vanished."

"An illusion?" Hummingbird sounded as if he were questioning himself. "The radiance of the gray grew stronger when the flechettes exploded – and then it weakened very quickly, as if being so strong, so solid, exhausted the energy. By the time it surrounded us, there was barely anything left."

Gretchen spread her hands. "Maybe. I have no idea, really. You're the one with the secret knowledge. But tell me this – you stopped, you sat down, you let the 'gray' wash over you. Why? What had you guessed about them?"

"I risked." The corners of the Mйxica's eyes crinkled up. "Such ephemeral things as these, they exist on a very narrow margin. They are parasites. They need to 'eat' with as little cost to themselves as possible. If there is a rich source of what they need, they will flock to it like bacteria growing in the outwash of a factory power plant." One hand moved to indicate the mountain above them. "This is not a rich paradise. This is a desert. Here we are food, not just our bodies, but the exhalation of our breath, the leakage from our recyclers, radiation from our power-packs. The explosion of the bullets from your gun."

Gretchen pressed a thumb against her left eyebrow. A too-familiar tickling was starting to brew behind her eye. Swallowing a trace of nausea, she punched a code on her medband. "So – you're saying our fear and panic were enough to keep them alive."

"Fear," Hummingbird said, giving her a piercing look, "is always the enemy."

Gretchen turned away again, waiting for the chill rush of meds to blanket her rising migraine. Talking to Hummingbird made her very tired. She peered out through the filament, seeing the daystorm had settled into a reddish haze, reducing visibility to almost nothing. She did not feel at all well.

By mid-afternoon, the storm dwindled away into a herd of dusty whirlwinds dancing on the plains east of the Escarpment. A singular hour arrived, wherein the eastern sky was fully light and the air had fallen still. Gretchen and Hummingbird emerged from the overhang to find the ultralights partially buried in blown sand. The east steadily darkened as they worked, clearing a coating of dark cadmium-colored dust from the wings and making sure the air intakes and engines were free of microflora.

The sun passed behind the peaks of the Escarpment and shadow swallowed the camp. Hummingbird and Gretchen were both busy inside the overhang, packing the last of their gear into rucksacks or carrybags, so they did not notice the upper wing of the Gagarin suddenly glow with a soft, diffuse light. The forward edge grew dark for a moment, then pulsed once, then twice. A brief interval of darkness followed, before the phosphor array resumed flickering in a series of bright, sharp pulses.

After a moment, the light dimmed down to nothing, though close examination would show the phosphor array shifting state with dizzying speed. Inside the aircraft, the main panel flickered awake and a number of gauges and dials registered commands passing through the control system. The in-flight data recorder switched on and, after a flicker of conversation between the appropriate subsystems, went into "quiet" mode.

Then everything went dark again, save for the local comm relay, which was now awake and listening for suit traffic.

The Cornuelle

Mitsuharu sat in his office, overhead lights dimmed down to rows of faint orange glowworms. A single hooded lamp cast a circle of sharp white light on the papers, storage crystals and pens covering the top of his desk. A comp panel on the bulkhead was filled with a navigational plot – a bright dot for the ship and five hundred thousand kilometers of asteroid, meteor debris, interstellar ice and dust in all directions. The image had been building for hours, data flowing in slowly from the ship's skin fabric and the newly tuned g-array.

In the dim light, the captain's face was mostly in shadow, head against the back of his chair, eyes closed, thin-fingered hands clasped on his breast. The rest of the room, the stacks of books, the ancient pottery bowls and rice-paper paintings were entirely dark.

A sound recording was playing. Children were singing, their careless voices echoing from the walls of an unseen building.

Kaeru no uta ga

Kikoete kuro yo

Guwa…guwa…guwa…guwa

In the background, the sound of trucks passing on a road mixed with the high, thin drone of a supersonic transport overhead. Dogs barked in the distance and a woman called out. The children splashed in water and sang another round, voices sweet in unconscious harmony.

Ge ge ge ge ge ge ge ge,

Guwa guwa guwa

In his memories, Mitsu knew the building had whitewashed wooden walls and a roof of green iron. Paper lanterns ornamented with pen drawings of birds and flowers hung from the eaves. Inside the house, the floors were glossy dark redwood, with tatami mats and rice-paper screens between the rooms. An old man would be sitting in his study, short white hair lying flat against a sun-bronzed scalp. He would be reading, a book turned into the cool light slanting down between the closely spaced buildings. The study smelled of mold and paper and dust and ink.

Guwa…guwa…guwa…guwa, sang the children in the yard. They were playing with frogs.

On the comp display, another level of detail slowly appeared, etching images of tumbling, shattered mountains of ice and stone and iron ever clearer.

In his memories, Mitsu knew the street in front of the little house was black macadam, potholed and crumbling at the edges. He heard a delivery truck putter past and saw an enameled red panel with the word ASAHI painted in black and yellow. Thick green grass sprouted from every crevice along the sidewalks. The walls of the houses were tinged with moss and tiny blue flowers.

On this day, as the children splashed in the mud, making frog pens of twigs and glass jars from the kitchen, the sun was shining through heavy gray clouds, making the air sparkle and shimmer. To the east, a line of mountains rose, white shoulders gleaming with ice and snow.

The recording ended. After a short pause, the scratchy, keening sound of a bow scraping across taunt gut string emerged from the quiet silence. The shamisen wailed up into the sound of falling leaves. A hand drum began to tap in counterpoint. Mitsu settled deeper into his chair, letting the warm fabric carry the weight of his head. The strings and the drum lifted into summer wind and a reedy bamboo flute joined them, carrying falling rain.

A man's voice – deep, hoarse, rich as the rivers and streams beneath the Golden Mountain, melancholy with longing for a homeland lost beyond the sea – began to sing. One of the musicians coughed, almost covering the sound with the hem of his kimono.

Kimi ga yo wa,

Chiyo ni yachiyo ni,

Sazare ishi no

Mitsu could see his father sitting on the edge of the porch surrounding the garden, face shining in the light of the lanterns and lamps. The shamisen across his leg was a dark walnut color, faced with amber-tinted pine. In memory, the hands were nimble on the strings, while the porch roof and the house walls gave his graceful voice a full, mellow echo.

Iwao to nari te,

Koke no musu made

On the comp display, the ship continued to move in endless night, skin taut against the fabric of space, straining to hear the slow lilting song of gravity humming in the void.

Slot Canyon Twelve

After hiding in a cave for two days, Gretchen felt relieved to be airborne and mobile again. The Gagarin hummed around her, engines chuckling, broad wings spread wide, canopy whistling with the familiar, proper sound of air rushing past. The night around her was blessedly still and the ultralight made a slow, tight turn in the narrow confines of the canyon. Sheer rock walls drifted past, shining glassily in the glare of the wing lights. Gretchen had turned off the collision alarm – though the canyon was hundreds of feet wide, the turning radius of the Midge brought the wingtips almost to brushing distance on each circuit.

Below, the phosphor-bright illumination cast by Hummingbird's ultralight made the canyon floor a sharp jumble of black and white, boulders and sand. Gretchen could see twin coils of water vapor rising from the idling engines. The nauallis, however, was nowhere to be seen. The tunnel entrance was a void of darkness against the matte nothingness of the cliff.

The momentary vision swept away as the Gagarin continued its turn. Gretchen tried to maintain focus on the aircraft and keep her slow, spiraling turn going, but she was worried. The Mйxica had been inside too long for comfort. Feels like an hour, she grumbled to herself. How long, she suddenly wondered, would it take for the gray to make a copy of a single ragged crow?

The Gagarin arced around again, now at least a hundred meters from the canyon floor, and she caught sight of something bright out of the corner of her eye. Gretchen looked down and to the side, trying not to reflexively swing the aircraft to follow her eye movement, and saw the trapezoidal door now lit from within by a cold, pale light.

"Hummingbird!" Gretchen's voice spiked in alarm. "Let's go!"

A figure bolted out of the opening, cloak flying out behind him. A too-familiar radiance filled the doorway and in the cold sepulchral glare she saw the man hurl himself into the cockpit of the Midge and slam the door shut. Cold oily light spilled out onto the dust, lapping around splintered sandstone and granite. Both engines flared bright with exhaust and the Midge leapt forward, sand spewing away from the wheels.

Gretchen pulled back gently on the control yoke and Gagarin soared up into the dark, constricted sky. The overhanging cliffs on either side rushed in, but she adjusted nimbly, sweat beading in the hollow of her neck, sending the ultralight dancing higher. Through the transparent panel under her feet, Anderssen saw the other Midge dart up the canyon, lifting off only meters ahead of the advancing radiant tide.

The cold light cut off – a shutter slammed on an empty window – and Gretchen felt the air in the canyon heave with a sudden, sharp blast. A cloud of black smoke jetted from the tunnel mouth, drowning the queer light, and Hummingbird's Midge wobbled in flight as a shockwave rolled past.

Gretchen wrenched her attention back to the business of flying, narrowly dodging the Gagarin around a jutting outcropping. The airframe groaned, complaining at such rough handling, but the Midge swept past the obstacle and soared on down the canyon. Below her, Gretchen was peripherally aware of Hummingbird's ultralight straining to catch up.

The canyon behind both aircraft filled with a black, turgid cloud of dust and ash. The cliff-face above the tunnel shuddered, still rocked by the violence of the explosion and then – with majestic, slow grace – splintered away from the core of the mountain and thundered down into the canyon. More dust, ash and grit roared up with a flat, massive thump.

Gretchen heard the blow, and grinned tightly, fingers light on the stick. This business of flying at night, even with goggles, radar and the strobe-white glare of the wing lights was tricky business. I hope that's the end of the nasty dirty color, she thought peripherally, some tiny corner of her mind pleased to see something which had threatened her destroyed.

The odometer on the control panel began to count the kilometers as they flew on into the night. There was a long way to go before dawn roused the slot canyon to near-supersonic violence.

Behind the massive barrier of the Escarpment, dawn was much delayed. When the clear, hot light of the Ephesian primary finally pierced the canopy of the Gagarin, both ultralights were far out over the western desert. Hummingbird's Midge was only a hundred meters to starboard, easily keeping pace in the cool, thick morning air.

Gretchen clicked local comm open. "Shall we land?"

She hadn't heard a peep from the nauallis since they'd left the canyon. Watching the roseate glow of dawn creeping across the rumpled, barren landscape below them was interesting enough without his company. They had passed over a broad valley filled with pipeflowers in the predawn hours and Gretchen had been very glad the spindly, fluted organisms were quiescent after sunset. There had been places – deep ravines or defiles in the broken land – where jeweled lights had gleamed in the ebon blanket of night.

The palaces of the fairy queen, she thought, staring down at the traceries and cobwebs of trapped, frozen light passing below her. And by day? Nothing, only desolation and lifeless stone. I wonder if Sinclair has dared see the desert by night, her veils drawn aside…

"Are you tired?" Hummingbird's voice sounded thick and muzzy.

"Have you been sleeping?" Gretchen frowned across the distance between the two aircraft. She couldn't make out more of the nauallis than the outline of his kaffiyeh in the close confines of the Midge cockpit. "We should set down before the air grows too thin – we need to conserve fuel after burning so much to reach the summit of Prion."

"Understood," he said, voice clearer. She could see him shift in his shockchair. "Pick a suitable location."

He was sleeping, she thought wryly, glancing at the autopilot display on her panel. He slaved his Midge to Gagarin and tagged along like my little brother at a Twelfth Night party.

Scratching a sore on her jaw where the rebreather strap was starting to wear, Gretchen began to scan the radar map of the land ahead, searching for a cave or ridge or anything which would let them escape the heat and brilliance of the sun. I wonder what our trusty guide has to say.

She punched up the travel maps in Russovsky's log and began going through the notes, wondering where the geologist had landed on her circumnavigation of the globe. After twenty minutes of keeping one eye on the horizon and one on the maps, she opened the local channel again.

"There's a place ahead," Gretchen said, squinting at the lumpish dun-colored landscape. "Russovsky calls it Camp Six – a canyon, an overhang big enough to pull a Midge into the shade – she'd stayed there two, three times. About an hour, hour and a half."

The nauallis responded with a grunt and Anderssen was disgusted to see him lean back in his shockchair, apparently asleep again.

The full weight of day was upon the land, flattening every color and detail to burnt brass. Russovsky's overhang stood in the curve of a long, S-shaped ravine where hundreds of tons of sandstone had crumbled away, leaving a fan-shaped talus slope. Gretchen climbed among the upper rocks, laboring to breathe as she pulled herself up onto a tilted, rectangular boulder. She stood up and the roof of the raw amphitheater was within arm's reach.

Curious, she scanned through a variety of wavelengths visible in her goggles. From below, where the two Midge s stood in partial shade and Hummingbird was puttering around the camp, setting up the tent and making a desultory attempt at breakfast, she'd seen a faint pattern on this rock, something like interlocking arcs or circles.

Close up she didn't see anything unusual, which Gretchen admitted to herself was par for the course. Rock fractures or mineral deposits… A little miffed at getting excited over nothing she looked around, taking in the barren, sun-blasted landscape. The ravine was very peculiar-looking to her eye – no water had run on the surface of Ephesus III for millions of years, so the bottom of the "canyon" was jagged and littered with fragile-looking debris. A similar canyon on Earth or Ugarit would have been washed clean, worn down, abraded by flash floods or even a running stream. But there was nothing like that here, only the evidence of constant wind.

No litter in the shade, she thought, left by those who passed this way before. No broken bits of pottery, flaked stone tools, arrowheads. No detritus of bones from the kill, cast aside from where a fire burned against the stone, leaving soot buried deep in every crevice. Nothing but the spine of the world, open, exposed, left out to bleach in the sun.…Gretchen thought she understood why Russovsky had spent so muchtime alone in the wasteland, drifting on the currents of the air, floating high in the sky in her Midge.

"Is there lunch yet?" Anderssen began picking her way down through the broken, eggshell-like slabs of sandstone.

"Yes," Hummingbird said in a grumpy voice.

Gretchen sighed, but said nothing, preparing herself for threesquares straight from the tube.

She was not disappointed, though the Mйxica had scrounged up some flavored tea. Still, protein paste was protein paste, even if the taste approximated the reddish dust covering every surface in all directions. Gretchen watched Hummingbird eat, making sure he finished his daily ration and drank all his tea. When the nauallis was done, she lifted her chin questioningly.

"Can you show me what to do? How to control this sight?"

Hummingbird looked up, green eyes clouded with distracted thoughts. "I can show you how to begin," he said slowly, as if each word were painful. "Small things. Simple things."

"Fine." Gretchen squared her shoulders, feeling a kink in her neck. He's worried. "Whatever you think is safe. Just being able to tell when I'm seeing or just seeing would be good."

The nauallis nodded, looking around him on the ground. "Take a moment," he said, voice subtly changing tone. "Close your eyes, let your mind empty, and feel around among these stones. Find one which feels right in your hands. Don't hurry. We're not going anywhere."

Gretchen did as he bid, though after finally sitting down to eat she felt very tired. Flying by night sort of implied sleeping by day, a little voice muttered in her head, not crawling about among broken shale. As before, when she closed her eyes a great commotion seemed to brew up in her thoughts. This time, the voices and memories and flashes of things she'd seen or done or heard were overlaid by a patina of exhaustion which made them distant and faded. Old sepia-tone images of her life. Despite a great desire to curl up in her sleepbag, Gretchen moved blindly around the camp, letting her fingers see the sand and grit and broken little stones.

Eventually, her hand touched something and she stopped. The bit of rock felt warm, almost hot, even through her gloves. Gretchen opened her eyes. She was at the edge of the rockfall, far from the brilliant demarcation of light and shade. The glassy, dark stone in her hand was curved and sharp along one edge. Could make a tool from this, she thought, turning the piece of flint over in her hands. Without much work at all.

"How does that feel?" Hummingbird said. He was lying down in the tent, his eyes closed.

"Good," Gretchen replied, becoming aware of the rightness of the stone in her hand. "It felt warm for a moment."

"Put it in your pocket," he said. "Now close your eyes again and feel about. But this time, find a stone which does not feel proper. One you do not wish to touch. Take your time."

Frowning a little at the nauallis, who had folded his arms over his chest and gone back to sleep, Gretchen tucked the flint into one of the cargo pockets built into her vest. Closing her eyes brought on a surging sense of drowsiness, but she soldiered on, letting her hands drift across the ground, letting her slow, crawling motion carry her wherever it would.

A little later, after cracking her head painfully against a boulder, Gretchen gave up the search as a bad job and crawled into the tent. Hummingbird was fast asleep, his partially detached breather mask serving as an echo chamber for a snuf-fling kind of snore. Gretchen made a disgusted face at him, then collapsed on her own sleepbag, utterly spent.

"This just isn't the same," Gretchen said, late in the afternoon, as she and Hummingbird were eating again, waiting for the sun to set and the air to chill enough to fly. "There's no campfire to sit around. No flickering light on the cave walls, no darkness beyond the firelight, filled with strange sounds…the gleam of eyes as hunting cats prowl by."

Hummingbird grunted, sucking the last of a puce-colored threesquare from its tube. Gretchen had not offered to share any of her tabasco, drawing an aggrieved look from the old man. "Our common ancestors," he said, wiping his lips, "would not have considered such a scene 'homey' or 'nostalgic'. The cough of a jaguar in the night was a cause for terror, not comfort."

"I suppose." Gretchen was kneeling in the knocked-down tent, rolling up her sleepbag. "So – I didn't find an improper stone this morning – should I look again?"

Hummingbird raised an eyebrow at her and then laid a finger on his temple. "Really?"

Gretchen rubbed her brow, then winced to feel the bump from running into the boulder. "Well, I guess…say, how long will it take me to learn the good stuff?" She started to grin. "Like flying or throwing lightning from my hands or changing into an animal, like in the old tales?"

"I do not teach such things!" Hummingbird snapped, suddenly angry. His face compressed into a tight frown and Gretchen moved back involuntarily. "The way of the tlamatinime is subtle, balanced. We follow the line of the earth, we do not break balance or distort what is."

"Oh." Anderssen eyed him warily, seeing an unexpected, fulminating anger shining in his lean, wrinkled old countenance. "Not a problem. I understand."

"I doubt that," the Mйxica growled, rising abruptly. "You've plighted troth to a science which barely acknowledges balance at all – much less attempts to move in accord with that which is."

"Wait a minute," Gretchen said, her own anger nettled by the fury in his voice. "Science seeks to understand, not to destroy. I was joking, old crow, joking." She paused, a flicker of doubt crossing her face. "Are there…there aren't judges who can fly, are there?"

Hummingbird looked away, attention fixed on the horizon, where the sun was sliding down toward night, a huge red-gold disk with wavering purple edges.

"No," he said after a moment. A hand waved negligently at the Midge s parked in the shade. "Though we fly ourselves, with some help. But your science…" He sighed.

"I don't understand," Gretchen said, trying to keep from sounding antagonistic. "The more we learn, the fuller our understanding grows, the better mankind can exist in this universe. We learn, old crow, our science learns."

"No. No, it does not." Hummingbird rubbed the edge of his jaw, lips pursed, staring at her in an appraising way. "Your science…your science is about control, Anderssen-tzin, not about understanding. Now, listen to me before you raise your voice in defense of the beast which whelped you! I have met many of your colleagues; on Anбhuac, in the orbital colonies, on the frontier worlds. There are men and women among their number I admire. Many of them mean well. My quarrel is not with these people, but with the doctrine they serve."

"What?" Gretchen fell silent as Hummingbird raised a hand sharply, though her eyes narrowed in irritation.

"The basis – the seed, the root, the wellspring – of your science, Anderssen-tzin," he said, settling down to the ground, legs crossed, "is to make things happen the same way not just once, not twice, but a thousand times. It is to learn enough, discover enough, to allow a human being to control the processes of the universe. From sparking fire to forging a bronze knife to making a reliable breather mask." Hummingbird tilted his head a little to one side, amusement glinting in his dark eyes. "Isn't that the heart of your science? The evolution of a hypothesis into a theory? The definition of fact? Of scientific truth?"

"No," Gretchen said, feeling like she'd stumbled into a first-term philosophy class. "You're confusing the goal of engineering with the process of science. And not the first person to do so, either." She sniffed, tilting up her nose. "Engineering is about reliability and process control – but science…science is about learning why things work, not just how. Science…" She paused, failing to wrestle her words into something succinct and pithy. "Our science is just like your seeing, but born from the mind, from logic, not from an organic alkaloid."

Hummingbird grunted dismissively. "Logic is the construct of a human mind and prey to every failing thereof. The universe around us is not logical, not at its heart."

Gretchen's nose twitched, as at a foul smell. "There is always accident, chaos, uncertainty."

"Yes," Hummingbird said, starting to smile. "There is. The bane of your mechanistic technology – the enemy of order, the devil which must always be pursued, always driven out. Consider, Anderssen-tzin, if you turn in a dig report which is incomplete, which leaves data unaccounted for, analysis undone – is your supervisor pleased? Does he laud your efforts?"

"No." Grimacing, she made a so-what motion with her hand. "So we chase something unattainable – is that bad? Is that something to deride or disparage? You're pleased enough to ride in an aircraft which will work reliably! Disorder is no friend of humanity."

Hummingbird's head rose at her words and a calculating, weighing expression came into his lean old face. "Do you think so?"

Gretchen nodded, tapping her recycler. "Yes, I'd rather be able to see another sunset than choke to death on my own waste."

"There is a difference," Hummingbird said quietly, "between the individual and the race." He paused and the hiss-hiss of his air tube being idly bitten filled the comm circuit. "Are you familiar with the mortality rate among infants on planets newly colonized by the Empire? The so-called Lysenko effect?"

"Yes." Gretchen could not keep a dubious tone from her voice. Though the scientists on Novoya Rossiya were good Swedes, she did not agree with all of the work being done there. "Death rates among the first generation of colonists are high, but not unduly so for a new world being opened. First Settlement is dangerous work. But the second and third and fourth generations suffer from an incredibly high death rate among the young – sometimes as high as eighty percent. After the fifth generation, if the colony has managed to survive, the mortality rate begins to drop, eventually approaching, but never matching the Anбhuac baseline."

Hummingbird nodded. "This has been the focus of great debate. Many scientists have urged genetic modification of the colonists to better fit the parameters of their new worlds, so more children would survive."

"Yes, I have heard of this." Gretchen watched him carefully. As a rule, the Great Families did not colonize other worlds themselves, though they financed many settlements. The landless were sent out in their stead. There was great social and economic pressure on the macehualli to gain a landholding, even at great risk. She had reviewed the literature herself, in grad school. Millions had died. "The Empire has steadfastly refused."

Hummingbird smiled at the bitterness in her voice. The flat, golden light of the setting sun gleamed on his high cheekbones. "I will tell you a small secret, Anderssen-tzin. Nearly a hundred years ago, when this trend had repeated for the fourth time, the Emperor decreed that this thing, this genetic modification, would be attempted. A world called Tecumozin was selected and a generation of humans was pre-adapted for life thereupon."

"And?"

"They thrived for a time – two, three generations. Then a plague brewed up among them, something attacked the modifications which had been made to their core DNA. The entire colony was lost. The Emperor was perturbed and listened to us, the naualli, for a change." A brief flicker of irony colored his words. "A judge was sent and he went among the ruins, watching quietly and listening. What he found can – could – be best expressed as the planet being angry with the colony. No accord had been reached between the men who settled there and the fabric of the world around them. They had tried to gain power over it, recklessly. Very foolish."

"What do you mean?" Gretchen was disturbed. Every planet she had visited had held a particular, unique feeling or atmosphere. Ugarit was clearly different from Old Mars, but she had never thought of it as being "angry."

"What I mean is this; the race of man may come to thrive on an alien world, but he must reach a balance, he must pay a price for life within its shelter, and the price is blood. This is old, old knowledge among the Mйxica: All human life is sustained by the sacrifice of a few. In your terms, in the context of your science, the colonists needed to adapt in subtle ways to their new home. This is a delicate process and many die, unable to exist in the new environment. But a few live and prosper. And their children have found a balance with the new world. Your science is not subtle enough to rush the process, but we are a hardy race and teoatl, the fluid of life, is the opener of the way."

Hummingbird fell silent, watching her.

Gretchen stiffened, his words triggering a flowering of thought in her mind. Bits and pieces of studies she had read, personal experiences, stories heard around dig campfires, even the echoes of the old Church coalesced. "The Emperor sleeps soundly at night, does he, knowing the Empire is built on the bones of children?"

"This is the way it has always been. I hope it will always be so."

Gretchen felt sick, but there was a certain, cold sense to his viewpoint. To think progress could be gained free of cost, without struggle, was a child's daydream. She put down her tea, a sort of lost, distraught expression creeping into her face.

"You would let a station die – even if there were thousands of people aboard – to stop some kind of…infection…from entering the Empire. You'd just let them die. You'd let me die."

Hummingbird nodded. Gretchen felt his calm gaze like an iron band tightening around her heart.

"I would trade many lives to save our race," he said with a perfectly grim certainty. "A hand, any eye, a limb – as long as mankind survives, my work is done. An old man said this, long ago: 'It is not true we come to this earth to live. We come only to sleep, only to dream. Our body a flower, as grass becomes green in spring. Our hearts open, give forth buds, then wither.' So did Tochihuitzin say, and his words are as true today as they were then."

Gretchen's mouth twisted into an expression of complete disgust. "You're…you're not interested in justice at all. You're no more than an antibody!"

"Hah!" A sharp laugh escaped the old man. He grinned, teeth very white in the dim light beneath the overhang. "I am. A good word to describe what must be done for our tribe to survive. An antibody." He laid back down, chuckling to himself.

Aboard the Palenque

Parker ran his finger up a control gauge on the main pilot's panel and felt a subdued, distant roar shiver through the frame of the ship. "Commencing turnover," he announced on the public comm. "We are in z-g for sixty-five seconds."

The navigational display showed the Temple-class starship begin to tumble in place, a constellation of maneuvering drives on the engineering ring blazing with light. Parker watched silently, chewing on a rolled-up tube of plastic he'd scavenged from Anderssen's kit. Tastes better than the tabac, he thought, feeling a twinge of nervous urgency. His medband beeped sullenly, refusing to dispense more nicotine into his system. The pilot scratched at a red abrasion along the edge of the silver unit. Freakin' company medical policy…it's my religious right. Goddamit.

"Turnover complete," he said, sliding the maneuver drive control back to zero. Another set of readouts was rapidly spiraling down to nothing as the ship completed the roll. The flare of exhaust guttered out, equalizing the ship's forward momentum. Parker grunted in satisfaction. "Ship at…full stop. Main engines zero thrust. Maneuvering drives zero thrust."

The view in the main display had shifted, following the rotation of the ship, and a red spark glowed among black velvet and diamonds. Parker dialed up the magnification, causing the half-disc of Ephesus Three to swim into closer view. "Better."

He turned, looking over his shoulder at the captain's station. Magdalena was barely visible, hunched down in her nest of blankets and quilts, only the thin yellow slits of her eyes visible. "Orders, mon capitaine?" Parker tried to look properly attentive, which was difficult given his unshaven face, sallow complexion and weary, fatigue-smudged eyes.

"I'm not the pack leader," she hissed in response. Her fur was getting matted too. "But we should stay."

"Okay," Parker said amiably. "I can nudge us into a long parking orbit, maybe spiral us back in a little bit at a time."

Commander's privy comm made an abrupt squeaking sound and Magdalena swung her chair around, scanning the feeds from various shipboard cameras. "Isoroku is coming topship," she said briskly, the tight fur around her nose wrinkling up. "With one of the Marines. Fitzsimmons."

"Starting delay one," Parker replied, as he tapped a series of glyphs on his panel, initiating a detailed diagnostic test of the ship's hyperspace generators. "That's four hours at least."

Magdalena was also in motion, keying a private channel to their Welshman, who appeared on camera in the mess area of the habitat ring. Several of the scientists were also in the galley, trying to make an appetizing lunch from Fleet emergency rations and the remains of expedition supplies. "Bandao-tzin – Isoroku is heading to the bridge. He won't be happy we haven't left the system yet – see if you can locate Heicho Deckard. I can't find him on camera."

The gunner set down a cup of coffee and nodded, though he did not look up at the overhead. Instead, he said good-bye to Doctor Sinclair and wandered out into the main accessway, hands in the pockets of his jacket. Magdalena hoped he could run down the stray Marine quickly. She was a little on edge to be letting them run loose in the pack-ship.

The main door into the bridge cycled open, letting light from the access tube spill across a deck still showing gaping holes from their efforts to replace the damaged conduits. Magdalena wiped her hand across the surveillance v-panes and the entire panel went dark. She and Parker looked up with interest as Thai-i Isoroku pulled himself through the hatchway and kicked off to reach the edge of the command station. The Marine gunso followed, his hair a black, oily cloud behind his head, barely restrained by a snakeskin strap. Maggie thought Fitzsimmons looked a little worn down by the effort of restoring the engineering deck to service, though she supposed he might be worrying a little bit about Golden-hair. As he should!

"Repairs are complete." Isoroku's voice was gravelly and unused to conversation. He stared at Parker with narrow eyes, stonelike features showing nothing but incipient displeasure. "Transit status?"

"Running a preflight check right now," Parker said, concentrating on his control panel. "Should be finished in three, four hours."

"A waste of time," the engineer growled. "We've just finished tuning and adjusting every downside system – there's no reason to test them all again!"

"Procedure," Magdalena said, avoiding Fitzsimmons's searching gaze. The Marine was frowning a little and trying to get a good look at her control panel. "I'm sure everything will go smoothly with the test."

Isoroku turned his stone-hard expression on her and the Hesht felt a shiver of adrenaline. By conscious effort, she kept her ruff from stiffening, though facing a member of a strange pack without the restraining ritual of meeting-with-claws-sheathed made her queasy. "Our orders are to make transit from this system," the engineer said in a harsh voice, "for Ctesiphon Station as soon as possible. Both the main drive and the hyperspace gradient generator are now in working order. Pilot, have you plotted an entry vector and course?"

"He has not," Magdalena said, before Parker could reply. Her ears flattened back against her skull. She took care to speak slowly and carefully. "We are in no hurry, Isoroku-tzin. Nothing untoward has occurred on Ephesus Three or in the outer system. We are now at minimum safe distance for a transit, which means we can make gradient to hyperspace in minutes."

"We have our orders," the engineer said, a slight tic starting under one bloodshot eye. "The tlamatinime was very clear in his desire. This ship is to leave immediately. The Cornuelle will be following us with all speed."

"I understand your desire to rejoin your crew," Magdalena said, feeling her limbs tremble with the prickling rush of hunting-blood. "But I will not abandon my pack-leader in the midst of a desert with no hope of retrieval. The Cornuelle -"

"- will pick them up," Isoroku said in a sharp tone. He pulled himself sideways to the end of the command panel. Magdalena's chair turned smoothly, following him. Both of her hands – hidden under the blankets – flexed, claws sliding in and out of bony sheaths of cartilage. Deep grooves were already cut in the fabric.

"If they can," Magdalena said, black lips curling back from shining white teeth. "Yet the long-fang is far away, hunting among the flying mountains, farther than we from the planet. If something happens, then chaguh Hadeishi will have to race back at full acceleration to succor my pack-leader and your judge. The eldest- and-wisest wanted us to be quiet, Isoroku-tzin." She smiled, showing triple rows of curving white teeth. "Heshatun know something about being quiet. We will wait out here, for a few days, and see what happens."

"Our orders -" Isoroku's voice rose appreciably, twin spots of color appearing on his pockmarked cheeks.

"Are not valid aboard this ship," Magdalena hissed, body stiffening. "This is a civilian ship, not Fleet. Our salvage papers have been properly filed. You are our guests."

The peripheral vision of a Hesht happens to be particularly good, which let Magdalena keep an eye on both Parker – who had shrunk down behind his console with a waxy, distressed look on his face – and upon Fitzsimmons, who had anchored himself just inside the doorway, his back to the wall, fingertips on the grip of his sidearm.

"Our ship-den is in your debt, Isoroku-san," Maggie said, struggling to rein in her temper. "Your efforts to repair the engines are greatly appreciated, but we will not abandon our pack-leader."

The engineer looked to Fitzsimmons, who raised an eyebrow in response and shrugged. Isoroku's face screwed up in a bitter grimace. "What can you hope to do, if something happens to the judge and your 'pack-leader'?" Before she could reply, the engineer's nostrils flared minutely and he gave her a searching, sideways look. "How could you tell if they were in danger?"

"In just over a seven-day," Magdalena said, changing the subject, "Anderssen and the eldest-and-wisest will have returned to the observatory base camp. They will need to be picked up by a shuttle, yet we must be quiet in retrieving them." She looked curiously at Parker. "How far away is the Cornuelle?"

The pilot shrugged, spreading his hands. "No idea. They went 'dark' before reaching the asteroid field and we haven't seen a sign of them since. But if they are searching the belt, they must have moved further away from their point of arrival, which was two days at maximum acceleration from Three a week ago. I'd guess an intercept time of at least four days."

Magdalena shook out her shoulders, watching the engineer closely. She was sure the human male could estimate distance and speed as quickly as the pilot. There was just no reasonable or inconspicuous way for the Cornuelle to make the retrieval pickup. After a long moment, Isoroku's bitter expression grew worse, as though his face had been pickled in yee juice.

"Your 'pack-leader' has a plan?"

Magdalena nodded, swallowing a grin. "She does. We will pick her up – very quietly, very softly – in eight days."

"What if the Cornuelle – or one of her shuttles – arrives at the same time?"

The Hesht spread her hands, claws politely retracted. "Then we let long-spear-pack lift the wet cubs from the river and later, when we are all denned on Ctesiphon and fat with meat, we raise cups in their honor. But if they do not come, then Palenque-pride will be waiting and will snatch the drowning from the current and slip away, padding feet soft in the grass."

Isoroku's grimace did not waver, but the bull-headed man looked sideways at Fitzsimmons again. The Marine pursed his lips, tucked a wad of gum into his cheek and said: "Looks bad on the record, Thai-i, if you lose a judge by accident. There're not so many of them, you know."

The engineer's color deepened and he gave Parker and Magdalena a tight, angry stare. "I have no desire to see the tlamatinime or Anderssen-tzin die," he said, biting out each word with a click of his teeth. "Yet these orders were given for a reason. You are putting the lives of everyone on this ship at risk. You should consider what will happen if they die, if we die, or if something worse happens because of this course of action."

Magdalena stared back at him, a dangerous glitter in her eyes. "I will not be foresworn in my duty to the pack-leader, carver-of-stone."

Nodding sharply, Isoroku pushed away and sped off down the accessway. Fitzsimmons looked after him with a troubled expression, but then followed. He did not look back. Magdalena turned around in the circle of her nest once, then twice. Parker started to say something, but she hissed at him and he slunk off, avoiding her eyes.

Males, she grumbled to herself, feeling sulky. Her claws shredded the blanket. Useless copper-stinking males. Bah!

Later, when she had verified the locations of Isoroku, the Marines, Parker and Bandao on the surveillance cameras, Magdalena restored the v-panes showing the communications stream from Russovsky's Midge. Unfortunately, several of the peapod satellites had burned up in the atmosphere, reducing her 'eye' to a bare three orbital cameras. With such a reduced capacity to track and interpret the transmissions from the aircraft, she'd downgraded the feed to burst traffic, sending only compressed voice logs from the aircraft comm. She fretted about losing the video, but there was nothing to be done.

"In flight again," she muttered, watching a plot of the aircraft creeping across the vast curve of the planetary surface. A projected vector arced south-southwest. "Toward the observatory base. Hrrrr… three days at this rate, maybe four."

Checking again to make sure she wouldn't be disturbed, Maggie began listening to the latest set of voice recordings. After an hour, she gave up, rubbing sore ears. Philosophy…kittens complaining about the food! They must be bored down there, just flying all night.

The Hesht flipped quickly through some secondary data which had come up with the burst transmission, just making sure both aircraft were in good shape. As she did, a log section highlighted itself and chimed for attention. What's this? A leak?

"Parker," Maggie growled into her throat mike, "I need you to look at something."

"On my way," the pilot replied, sounding groggy and irritated. Maggie glanced over at the surveillance camera and her whiskers twitched to see the human male shuffling out of one of the cabins used by the scientists. His patterned shirt was on backwards. Turning her nose politely in the air, Maggie routed the log information to his navigation console and sat back, staring at the huge red disc of the planet filling the main v-pane.

A moment later, her head tilted to one side in confusion. "Where did that come from? What an odd color. Ah…" She opened another private channel to the crew's quarters. "Mister Smalls," she asked in a very polite voice. "Could you join us on the bridge?"

In the Wasteland

A pair of glittering white contrails made two rule-straight lines against the velvety darkness of the Ephesian sky. Both Midge s hummed along, wing surfaces finely tuned to squeeze as much lift as possible from the thin atmosphere, ice crystals spiraling out behind them. In the Gagarin, Gretchen was letting the comp fly, her attention turned to the geologist's travel logs. Their flight path had carried them out over a truly vast desolation, leaving the uplands of the Escarpment far behind.

Gretchen looked over the maps one more time. Russovsky had marked them up with a variety of notes and scribbled amendments. Not all of them were in Nбhuatl or even in Norman. Anderssen scowled, trying to make out a note marking an area they would fly over near dawn if they held their current course. What is this? Old Russian, maybe. She scratched her jaw thoughtfully, trying to remember how to read the blocky letters. Her grandmother had some books…thoughts of childhood yielded nothing but a memory of pine-smoke, nutmeg and pumpkin. Checking her comp found at least a phonetic alphabet.

"B-r-i-l-l-e-a-n-t," she spelled out, rather laboriously. Russovsky's handwriting was not the clearest in the world. "Or…brilliant. Hmm." What does that mean? Well, something she saw from the air. Something very bright – perhaps even visible at night. "Hummingbird? Are you awake?"

"Yes," came the answer – and the nauallis, for once, did not sound half-asleep.

"I'm looking at Russovsky's maps," Gretchen said, taking a moment to eyeball the horizon and the ground below. Sand. A barren flat covered with faint linear shadows. Anderssen grimaced, looking ahead. The field of pipeflowers disappeared rather abruptly into darkness. "And we've two options to reach the base camp. We can keep on this heading and enter an area she has marked 'brilliant' or swing north to follow a section of uplift."

"An odd thing to mark," Hummingbird replied. "Can I see the map?"

"It's on your comp…now," Gretchen said, tapping a glyph to send the file to his console.

There was momentary silence and then she heard the nauallis make a curious hmm-hmm sound. "This is in old script – Kievian Rus, I believe – and among those savages, the word 'brilliant' refers to 'almaz' or what we would term 'diamond in the rough.'"

"Diamond?" Gretchen shook her head. "So a geometric figure on the ground? That would explain why she could see it from the air."

"Not the shape," Hummingbird said, sounding a little puzzled himself. "Almaz is a cheap, colorless gemstone. There are Mixtec mining colonies on Anбhuac which mine the mineral for industrial purposes. It makes a particularly fine abrasive for certain processes."

"Hmm. If it's a mineral, perhaps Russovsky could see an open drift of the material as she flew overhead. Or…or her geodetic sensors revealed a vein of the stuff in the earth. She'd be sure to note something like that."

"Indeed." Hummingbird sounded satisfied. "So, do we swing north or not?"

"I think we should be careful," Gretchen said, checking her fuel gauges. "A day won't make an enormous difference one way or another and there's no sense risking -"

Out of the corner of her eye, Anderssen caught sight of Hummingbird's Midge suddenly lurch in the air and lose a hundred meters of altitude. At the same moment, her comp squawked in alarm and she heard the nauallis shout in surprise.

"I've lost an engine," he barked, the ultralight falling away toward the desert floor in an ungainly spiral. "Number one has shut down completely. I'm losing fuel on tanks four and five."

"Set down," Gretchen snapped, the Gagarin banking sharply to the right as she reacted. "I'm right behind you. Shut all your fuel feeds and go to an unpowered glide."

"Understood." Hummingbird's voice was calm and precise, though Anderssen immediately lost visual sight of the plunging aircraft. The contrail ended abruptly in a slowly falling cloud of ice. The Gagarin nosed over into a steep dive, wind shrieking under her wings, and Gretchen felt the pit of her stomach squeeze tight.

Her radar showed Hummingbird's Midge lose nearly a thousand meters of altitude before staggering into a kind of glide. By that time, Gretchen was swooping down out of the night sky, the falling ultralight in sight again. The upper wing of a Midge made a good reflector and by starlight her goggles could pick him out. Below them both, however, the land was dark and featureless, though Gretchen doubted the ground was soft as a pillow. At least we're past the pipeflowers!

"Switch your radar to ground-scan," she said tersely. "You'll need to find someplace flat -"

"Too late," Hummingbird snapped and his breath was harsh on the comm. Gretchen cursed – the altimeter jumped and radar suddenly revealed a broad, deep canyon rushing past below her – and pulled up, turning wide around Hummingbird, whose aircraft was skidding across the crown of a mesalike hill rising above the canyon floor. The Gagarin made a swooping, leisurely circle as the other ultralight bounced to a halt and Gretchen could make out rough, jagged cliffs on every side.

"Turn all your lights on," she said, hoping Hummingbird hadn't been knocked unconscious by the violence of his landing. "And put out your anchors."

Her breath puffing white in the chill air of the cockpit, Gretchen ignored everything but the radar image of the rock and stone and precipices below as she lined up to land. "Gently now," she whispered to the Gagarin as the ultralight drifted down out of the sky, airspeed dipping low, almost into a stall. "Easy…easy…"

The front wheel touched down, sending a shock through the airframe, and then the Gagarin was rolling to a halt a dozen meters from Hummingbird.

"The number four fuel pump is clogged up," Gretchen said, her voice muffled by the cowling around the engine. White fog billowed around her shoulders, oozing from the maintenance hatch in thin streamers. "Looks like a line cracked when you crashed and has been leaking hydrogen vapor into the casing. Everything's frozen solid." A little shaky from too much adrenaline and too little rest, she climbed down from the upper wing, holding tight to the wing struts to keep from slipping.

"Can it be fixed?" Hummingbird was unloading gear from the cargo compartment. He made a vague gesture at the dark, still night hiding the rugged mesa and canyon beyond. "Here?"

Gretchen gave him a sharpish look – completely lost on the man, given the lack of light – and ran her hands over the tools on her belt. "If we have a schematic of the engine and component details, I might be able to fabricate a new fuel line or fix the old one, but I don't know if the maintenance manuals are loaded into either comp." Gretchen tried to keep her voice light, but the prospect of doubling-up in one single remaining Midge made her feel sick. We need both aircraft for the pickup, she thought desperately. The skyhook won't work with just one.

"If they're not, we're in serious trouble." Anderssen cracked frost from her gloves, keeping her eyes away from the old man. "The weight ratio in one of these aircraft is marginal with one person and supplies. Two can fit, but not with much food, water or equipment. We could probably make base camp, but I don't know how long we'd last then."

"Don't worry." Hummingbird's tone was still perfectly even. "The Cornuelle will come looking for us soon and base camp is filled with Company supplies."

"It was," Gretchen said, picking her way across splintery, loose shale. There was a bitter edge to her voice. "You're thinking everything is still in place because we left so quickly. Maybe it is, but I've never seen an abandoned camp last – and with the microbiota here – well, I think we'll find bunkers filled with calcite flowers and beautiful stone cobwebs."

"Well…" The nauallis seemed to have lost track of what he was going to say. "What can I do to help, then?"

Gretchen pulled open the door of the Gagarin and slid into her seat. The lumpy confines were starting to fit properly, but she didn't know if that was because the chair had changed or she had. Biting her lip nervously, Anderssen started to punch up a document search.

"Anchor both aircraft," she said, fighting to keep a rising tide of despair from overwhelming her. "And…and set up the tent. Find someplace out of the wind – we're all exposed up here." Her voice trailed off in surprise.

Her search for "fuel line repair" had returned an immediate hit and the comp had helpfully opened a series of v-panes on the display, showing a complete schematic of the fuel pump, the circulatory system on Hummingbird's Midge, the specifics of the lines and tubes, and a checklist showing how to repair a broken one.

"What the?" Gretchen was entirely nonplussed. "There is no way," she said to herself, tabbing through the array of documents, "Russovsky shoehorned an AI into this comp. This is impossible. Just…" She blinked, staring at the checklist. The last entry read: Buy your beautiful, smart pack-sister a drink, when we get back to the den. Paw Paw, Magdalena.

"Maggie?" Gretchen stared around the deserted, windswept mesa top in amazement. Outside, vapor was still boiling out of the damaged Midge and she could make out the outline of Hummingbird as he stomped around, stitching the anchors into the rock. A creepy shiver ran up her back, making her switch her comm to a private channel. "Can you hear me?"

There was no answer, just the usual warble of tuneless static.

"Ok…maybe dear Magdalena is psychic." Gretchen read the checklist again. Everything seemed straightforward enough, except one part about checking all of the fuel lines for microfine cracks. "How are we going to do that?"

The Gagarin rocked gently as Hummingbird unspooled an anchor line. Gretchen started to sort through her tools, reading each section of the instructions as she worked.

"All done." Hummingbird leaned against the Midge, one hand on the raised door. "I've put the tent in a crevice not too far away. Should be out of the wind." He stopped, watching her suspiciously. "What is it?"

Gretchen was regarding him appraisingly. "So, Hummingbird-tzin, an unbroken fuel line has a certain…wholeness…doesn't it? So someone with the sight should be able to see a crack or break or even a weakness – that would be a distortion of proper order, right?"

"Yes." The visible parts of Hummingbird's face became rather sour-looking. "They would."

"Good." Gretchen tapped the panel in front of her. "Here's a layout of the entire fuel system in your Midge. You need to check every centimeter for leaks or fissures. I'm going to fabricate a replacement for the broken line."

"Very well." Hummingbird stared stoically at the complicated spiderweb filling the v-pane. "Are these data on my comp?"

Gretchen nodded. "Make sure you have the hydrogen tanks locked off – we can't afford to lose any more fuel."

The old man nodded and turned away. Gretchen looked around the tiny cockpit and sighed. Too small for this job. She gathered up all her tools and plugged her hand comp into the main panel to make a copy of the instructions. "Maybe the tent is big enough."

A pale wash of violet was just beginning to tint the rim of the world when Gretchen climbed back up onto the Midge and unscrewed the engine housing. Hummingbird, wrapped in his cloak and a blanket, was squatting beside the main body of the aircraft, rubbing his hands together. Out in the open like this, without even the marginal shelter of an overhang or a cave, the night was ferociously cold.

"Pass me the other heater." Gretchen wedged the tube-shaped unit in above the pump and turned it on high-radiate. The unit was low on power, but she hoped there was just enough juice left to melt the ice and run the forced-air fan to disperse the resulting fog. While the heater hummed and glowed and blew blessedly hot air against her chest, Gretchen laid out her tools and parts on a technician's clingpad.

"You were able to make a replacement?" Hummingbird moved up next to her, angling himself into the warm draft from the heater.

"Yes," she said dryly, craning her head to peer inside the housing. "Modern science and technology triumph again. Did you check all the fuel lines?"

The nauallis nodded, arms wrapped tight around his chest. "Two show signs of damage. I marked them with colored tape. They've not cracked through."

"Yet." Gretchen brushed melting frost out of the way and began unscrewing the two valves holding the broken section of line. "We'll wrap them in steeltape later." She stifled a yawn. "This afternoon we'll press on and see if we can reach the camp in one long flight."

"Very well." Gretchen felt the old man shivering, even with his suit and the blankets and djellaba.

"Get in the tent," she said, giving him a concerned look. "You're losing too much body heat out here."

For a moment, Anderssen thought he would refuse and some sharp words about pigheaded men were on the tip of her tongue, but he nodded and climbed stiffly down. He's had a big day, she thought, watching him disappear in the direction of the tent. Almost crashed twice. Very lucky, these judges, very lucky.

The broken section of line came free in her hands and she put the part aside. A little can of compressed air blew out the usual gunk fouling the valves. "Huh. Should talk to Delores and Parker about maintenance on this bird…needs a tune-up."

Squinting, her goggles dialed up into a moderately high magnification, Gretchen eased the new line into the first valve. Her fingers were stiff from the cold, making fine work difficult. After the third failed attempt to line them up, she eased herself back and took a moment to warm her hands on the heater. Her eyes, back and shoulders were hurting from tension and cold and weariness. Got to loosen up, Gretchen thought, flexing her gloved fingers. Maybe I should empty my mind and count, she smiled a little at the memory of Hummingbird's pedantic, measured voice. Her brow furrowed, considering the situation. Maybe I should…maybe I should try this with my eyes closed.

The tube felt cold and round beneath her fingers, only a few centimeters long, ending in two delicate valve stems and a counter-rotating jacket to fix the connection tight. Gretchen let her shoulders and arms settle. She let herself count until the busy noise in her thoughts settled down and then faded away.

The warmth of the heater was almost hot on her left shoulder, but she shifted the tube gently until a familiar prickling heat suffused her fingertips. Trying not to lick her chapped lips nervously, Gretchen leaned forward slightly, letting the tube slide into proximity with the sleeve. Eyes still closed, working in complete, chill darkness, she slid the tube into the stem and finger-tightened the jacket, first on one side, then on the other. A moment later – it seemed like only seconds – she opened her eyes and smiled slightly to see the tube in place. That was easy.

The Midge tool kit had a specialized microdriver, which torqued down the two connections to the proper, factory-approved tightness. Gretchen sighed in relief when she was done and closed up the compartment with trembling fingers. A wave of complete exhaustion had crept up upon her and now dragged at every muscle in her body.

"Dawn soon," she muttered, climbing very stiffly down from the wing. The tools and the portable heater were slung over her shoulder, making what felt like an enormous, bone-crushing weight. "At least the tent will be nice and warm."

But the tent was too hot and the ground too hard. Hummingbird was snoring again, and she couldn't take the heep-snort-heep sound of his breathing. After laying in the sleepbag for an hour, too tired to remove her breather mask or even brush her teeth, Gretchen crawled out of the tent and into the mind-numbing cold again.

She climbed back up to the ultralights and made a desultory circuit, checking their tie-downs and anchors. The old Mйxica had done a fine job, each cable taut and balanced. Irritated, Gretchen walked to the edge of the mesa, stepping carefully among weathered, wind-blasted slabs and boulders.

The canyon below was entirely, impenetrably dark. Anderssen considered pitching a glowbean over the edge, just to see what might be revealed in the flickering blue-green light. The stars gleamed on her goggles, very bright and steady. The air had chilled to a supernal level of stillness, much as it did during the polar winter on Old Mars. Good place for a telescope, she thought, beginning to walk along the rim of the mesa, her back to the eastern sky. But is there anything to see out here?

Ephesus sat at the edge of one of the abyssal gulfs running through the spiral arm. There were few nearby suns, only clouds of dust, dark matter and interstellar gas. A lonely outpost on the verge of nothingness, hundreds of light years from another habitable world. Gretchen wondered, as she climbed a rough, rectangular outcropping, if the long-dead inhabitants had ever managed to pierce the envelope of air around their home world. Had satellites or orbital stations seen the valkar burst from the nothingness of hyperspace? Had anyone tried to escape? Or were the Ephesians still grubbing in the mud, trying to trap their dinner in woven nets or pit traps when the sky darkened with the killing cloud? A million years…Earth was still a raw, primitive world. Only megafauna and protohominids fighting to survive in Pliocene swamps. Did we escape a similar fate by some quirk of chance?

The thought made her feel despondent. Her heart did not easily agree with the prospect of a universe where man only lived and thrived by the fall of some random cosmic die. Gretchen realized Hummingbird's vision of a universe of frightful powers – of gods – offered a strange kind of comfort. He believes men can alter the course of fate. He believes he can divert the engines of chance. Huh.

Beyond the outcropping, a deep crevice split in the face of the mesa. I should head back…she started to remind herself, but then…what's that? A light?

Anderssen stopped and knelt down, peering over the edge into the darkness. There was a light. There were many lights, spreading in a delicate cobweb across the rock, making the ravine gleam and glitter like the stars above, a hidden galaxy of jeweled-colors and shining motes.

Like moss, a firemoss, she thought, lips quirking in a smile. Life blooming from nothing. Even here, at the edge of annihilation. Gretchen concentrated on the nearest filaments and was rewarded by a vision of delicate tendrils radiating out from a cone-shaped core. The surface seemed to glisten, though she doubted there was any kind of moisture in this system. A superconducting energy trap, maybe? I wish Sinclair and Tukhachevsky were here… They would love this. Ha! They'll be jealous when I tell them about all the things I've seen. God, I even miss that tub vodka of theirs.

A sound interrupted her delight. Gretchen looked up, surprised. A cloaked figure knelt a few meters away, silhouetted by a wash of stars, djellaba and kaffiyeh wrapped expertly around narrow shoulders. An instant of surprise was replaced by a certain sense of recognition.

"What are you?" Gretchen stood up slowly, hoping to leave the firemoss undisturbed. Flakes of rock spilled away from her gloves, falling among the thready clusters. "You're not Russovsky, are you?"

"I am," answered the dark outline. The voice was hoarse, rusty, as if long unused. The shape stood as well, wiry blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. "What are you?"

"A human being," Gretchen said, then stopped, horrified. Hummingbird wouldn't want her to give anything away. "A visitor."

"Am I a human being?" Russovsky came close and Gretchen could see her pale, lean face glowing with an inner light. Stunned, Gretchen realized she was seeing the pattern of a vibrant crystalline lattice seeping through the woman's skin. "My memories are strange. I was flying, high above the world. I was walking under the sea, among the bones of the dead."

"Yes, yes, you were. But you are not a human being now. You are an Ephesian, like the moss."

Russovsky looked down at the colony, her bare, unprotected face perfectly still. "No. I am not. The hathol are an incurious people, content with their long slow lives. I am restless. I need something I do not have."

"Everyone is restless," Gretchen laughed softly, breath puffing white around her breather mask. "Perhaps you are human."

"Are you content?" Russovsky moved closer and the light within her skin grew brighter. Her eyes shone like stars themselves. "Show me!"

Gretchen began to back away, feeling her way along the edge of the ravine. Something in the shape began to change and she felt the prickling of alarm. The voice continued to echo in her suit comm, but she realized there was no way Russovsky could make such a sound in the thin atmosphere, not without a comm link. She scrambled up and over the crest of the rocks. The figure stopped and was staring up at her. Without waiting for the shape to do something, Gretchen scrambled away as fast as she dared, heading for the tent and Hummingbird.

The Cornuelle

Mitsuharu was sitting cross-legged on the edge of his sleeping mat, a fall of snarled dark hair spread over his shoulders and chest when the comm lit up with an incoming message. An officious two-tone chime sounded, indicating a priority connection from the bridge.

"Hadeishi here," he said, putting down an ivory-handled brush. Guiltily pleased by the interruption – he did not enjoy the tedium of brushing – the chu-sa began plaiting his traditionally long hair up in a thick braid. "On screen."

Comm stabilized to reveal Sho-sa Kosho sitting on the bridge. To unfamiliar eyes the exec's stiff, controlled demeanor would have revealed very little beyond an impression of cool consideration. Mitsuharu saw a certain eager excitement in the tilt of the woman's eyes and the set of her mouth. There was also a brief, nearly undetectable, reaction of embarrassment to finding him almost naked, clad only in an undershirt, belt, trousers, boots, comm unit and medband.

"The g-sensor array has yielded up a match for the refinery ship," Kosho reported in a more-than-usually terse voice. "Distance is forty thousand k, by my estimate. Bearing two-six-three, elevation plus thirty-two."

"Right on top of us." Hadeishi allowed himself a quick, pleased smile. He botched the smaller over-and-under at the end of the plait and gave up, letting the shining dark hair, a little streaked with gray, lie loose against his back. "Deeper into the belt?"

Kosho shook her head, looking sideways at a hidden display. "Near the outsystem fringe. The bulk of the local drift is between us, so I've not been able to get a secondary detect with passive sensors."

"Clever." Hadeishi unfolded himself from the bed and found his uniform shirt. "Keeping close to the area they want to work, neh? And behind a shield of debris. What is their gravitational situation? Could they make gradient to hyperspace from their current location?"

The exec shook her head, an eager gleam of flickering in her eyes. "The local field is not smooth enough," she said. "They will have to bolt from cover if they wish to transit."

"A location fraught with compromise." Hadeishi sealed the shirt in a smooth motion with his thumb. "Their holds must be only half-full, but the takings are likely rich, enough to warrant the risk of remaining in-system. Have you laid in an intercept course?"

"Hai, Chu-sa." Kosho stiffened fractionally. "Would you like to review the plot?"

"Not now." Hadeishi's thoughts were already leaping ahead to the next task. In any case, he had full confidence in Kosho's ability to maneuver the ship through this debris field. "I want to be in Outrider camera range as quickly as possible – while remaining hidden!" His tone turned serious. "If they bolt, we will have to catch them and we cannot risk a weapons exchange in open space."

Kosho frowned. Mitsu made a "go-ahead" motion with his hand.

"Hadeishi-san," she said, rather tentatively, "why not just spook them into making gradient? Then they'll be gone and the debris field will probably mask their departure from any…one who might be watching from Three."

"True." Hadeishi scratched at his beard in irritation. "I have considered this. Unfortunately, we know at least one shuttle from this refinery ship was operating in the atmosphere of Three – and what if they picked up someone or something? Though our tlamatinime is not currently aboard, I know he would be…ah…apoplectic if we allowed a gang of landless miners to make off with a First Sun artifact. Even a small one."

"I see." Kosho nodded. "I will arrange to approach under cover and in full stealth."

"Good." Mitsu cleared the comm channel and punched up Thai-i HuГ©mac's quarters on the barracks deck. There was a brief delay and the v-pane cleared, revealing the bronzed face of the Marine commander.

"Hai, Chu-sa?" Half of the Zapotec's face was glistening with shaving gel.

"We have found our quarry," Hadeishi said, shrugging into his uniform jacket. "Are Heicho Felix and her squad ready to go?"

HuГ©mac tensed, lips compressing into a tight line to admit anything less than perfect readiness to his commander. "Almost. They need some more time in the simulators – if we have time to spare, kyo."

Hadeishi nodded to himself and checked the navigational plot Kosho had seconded to his comp display. "Two, perhaps three ship-days, Thai-i. And then we will need to move quickly." He looked back to the Marine. "Is there a problem with the personnel assigned? Should Heicho Felix be replaced as team leader?"

HuГ©mac shook his head slowly, though Mitsu thought he could see a tinge of concern behind the impassive, southern-highlands face. A near-open struggle flickered behind the flint-dark eyes. "No. Felix and her men have done very well. It's just…"

"What is it?" Hadeishi kept his voice conversational and polite. For the Marine to say anything less than "Can do, kyo. Done, kyo." indicated a serious problem. Not for the first time, Hadeishi wished his subordinates would not drink quite so deeply of Fleet tradition and doctrine.

"The simulations, kyo." HuГ©mac actually glanced over his shoulder, though there was no one in his tiny cabin, before meeting Hadeishi's quizzical look. "They're monstrous – vicious – almost unbeatable. The assault team's been vaporized, holed, shot, incinerated, decompressed, blasted, and cut to bits every day. It's hard on the men to keep their heads up when they lose so often."

"And Felix?" Hadeishi cocked his head a little to the side. "How is she holding up?"

"She's still game," HuГ©mac allowed, his expression brightening. "She gets knocked down, she gets back up…but she must be near worn out, too. The sho-sa has just been after her with a flint club, kyo. Relentless."

"I understand." In fact, Mitsu felt genuinely touched by Susan's efforts on his behalf. "Tell Felix to stand her men down for a day – all members of the assault team on shipside leave, no duties – and get some sleep. Tomorrow have them run through a full prep equipment check. They'll be on round-the-clock call starting in two days, so make sure they remember to eat. If anyone has trouble sleeping, override their medbands."

"Hai!" HuГ©mac signed off, vastly relieved by the commander's temperate reaction. Hadeishi made a desultory effort at combing his beard and washing his face, but his thoughts were far away. His attendant fussed around, straightening up the cabin and brushing lint from his jacket. Mitsu let the old man go about his business, thinking of the future.

Now, I'll be the one having trouble sleeping, he thought as a tubecar whisked him toward the bridge. And Susan will be nagging me. The prospect of facing the massive cutting beam on a Tyr-class in a shooting fight did not calm his stomach. There would be little room to maneuver among the asteroids, which took away the Cornuelle's advantages of speed and agility.

As the car slowed, Hadeishi felt an air of melancholy dropping away like leaves from the great oak in his father's courtyard, replaced by a surety of purpose he hadn't even realized was missing.

The Cornuelle held station in the radar shadow of a mountain-sized chunk of nickel-iron, skin mesh at full absorption, engines cold, every ship's system dialed down to minimal levels. On the bridge, where even normal lighting seemed unaccountably dimmed by standing to battle stations, Hadeishi leaned back into the embrace of his shockchair, entirely calm, and watched a v-feed from Outrider One.

Hayes was driving the drone from his Weapons station, broad shoulders hunched over the controls. Both Kosho and Smith were hanging on every flicker of data from their passive sensors and the point-defense network. On the v-pane, Hadeishi saw acres of jagged rock slide past as the Outrider inched its way around the nearer asteroid. The drone had been stripped down – more work for the engineers, he thought in amusement – to little more than a brace of cameras and a compressed air jet for maneuvering. Yoyontzin had claimed the modified skin-mesh on the Outrider would let it avoid detection on radar if the miniature ship did not betray itself with an exhaust signature.

So a machinist's crew – Hadeishi presumed that meant Master's Mate Helsdon and his wrench monkeys, who seemed to get all the tricky jobs – had dismounted the reactor core and plasma thrust drive and jimmied in a hand-built propulsion unit straight out of the "Firetower" era of space exploration on Anбhuac.

"Saw this on a 3v about the race to the moon," Helsdon confided to Smith, while Hadeishi happened to be in hearing. "Simple. Reliable. Not too fast – which is good. Don't want a missilelike velocity signature to pop up on someone's passive scan."

The Outrider crossed a range of spikelike peaks and emerged from shadow. The cameras adjusted to the faint sunlight, though Hayes did not make any course corrections. He was flying almost blind, letting the stream of telemetry returning from the drone via a laser-whisker guide him along a plot derived from the g-array scan data. Somewhere ahead, still out of sight, the refinery was lurking, hidden between the screening mass of two mammoth asteroids.

"Three minutes," Kosho announced, eyeing her navigation display. "You should have visual by now."

Hadeishi steepled his fingers and continued to watch quietly. Young Smith-tzin was sweating hard, eyes flickering back and forth between the confusing array of scan data. A problem with the software running the "consolidated" display had left him to reconcile the regular passive scan and the g-array by hand. The wildcatters did not seem to have deployed their own sentry drones, but…

The camera view changed again. The Outrider had passed into the shadow of the two asteroids. Now – dead ahead – there was a half-familiar outline floating in the ebon void. Points of light gleamed against a greater darkness, and they were not stars.

"Contact," Hayes announced in a whisper. "Stabilizing platform."

The Outrider slowed to a halt, hanging in the abyss, both cameras cycling through a variety of wave- and focal lengths. Shipside comp gobbled up the data and began building an enhanced image on the main display. Hadeishi sat up in his chair.

The keglike shapes of ore carrels became visible, the lights now revealed as EVA lamps strung along supports surrounding the massive containers. A cluster of circular exhausts came into view, the flaring nacelles blackened by plasma flux. A scale indicator appeared beside the screen. One of the Cornuelle's shuttles would fit into the maw of a single thruster. The cruiser itself would fill only three of the dozens of ore carrels now visible.

"Drone hold position," Hadeishi said quietly, his eyes traveling along the bulky, mammoth lines of the refinery. Mazes of pipe filled the spaces between the ore containers. The actual ship itself was entirely hidden, save for the massive engines protruding from the globular mass. "Shift the Outrider so the asteroid backdrops the drone. We need a full scan workup of the refinery before we move to phase two. No sense risking a star or planet silhouette by accident."

He tapped a builder's schematic on a secondary v-pane. "Update the plans we have. I want to know about anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small. And see if you can get a registry number from a side-stencil or something."

Hayes and Kosho nodded before turning back to their panels. Mitsuharu opened a downship channel. "Engineering? This is Hadeishi. I would like hourly updates on refitting progress."

Engineer Second Yoyontzin hurried into the service bay at clockwise two on the engine ring. The high-vaulted space was crowded with machinery, men and the hiss of welding torches. A sharp, metallic tang of heated metal and plastic permeated the air. The atmosphere recyclers in Engineering had been operating over capacity since the Cornuelle had launched from the Teotihuacбn Fleet contract yards sixteen years ago. A packet of schematics were crammed under his left arm, while his right fumbled for a fresh tabac. Spying Master's Mate Helsdon and his crew swarming over a box-shaped structure in the middle of the bay, the engineer turned their way, scowling furiously.

"Helsdon – come down here." Yoyontzin ignored the other machinists, most of whom were packing up their tool bags or doing fine finishing work on the sheets of hull fabric plated onto a big open framework of hexacarbon pipe. The Nбhuatl lit the tabac and puffed furiously, feeling his nerves settle slightly, while the master's mate pushed up his work goggles and shut off a sealing torch.

"There's an addition to this platform," Yoyontzin said when Helsdon had climbed down, rubbing his face clean with a very dirty cloth. The engineer opened the packet on a nearby work table. Like every other square meter of the engineering ring, the metal surface was discolored, scored, chipped and pitted. It was also antiseptically clean. "Chu-sa Hadeishi just called down. He says to disable the broadband and laser comm on the platform. He wants a wire-spool instead."

Helsdon knuckled his chin, looking over the schematics. "How far from the ship to the refinery? Ah – six k – that's a bit of wire. Do we have that much comm wire?"

Yoyontzin nodded, his nervousness fading a little bit. "Of course – first thing he asked me. I've got a crew bringing it up from stores. So – you'll need to mount it underside, I think, keep the spool out of the way of the gas exhaust."

"And a patch to local comm. Wait – how is the assault team going to interface with a wire-based comm system?"

Yoyontzin grunted, exasperation plain on his face. "One of the Marines," he said in a rather disparaging tone, "is going to run a second wire roll from the platform into the refinery. We have…" He dug a glossy sheet covered with cutaway views and a picture of a combat trooper standing in a field out of the bottom of the stack. "…a field relay unit, Marine code 'Snorkel', which runs off the wire and handles short-range, scrambled comm. Backpack-sized unit."

"Sure." Helsdon shrugged. He didn't have the time or energy to worry about what the Marine assault squad was going to do once they were inside the refinery ship. His concern was refitting a maintenance platform to get them there and back again. "Do you have the unspool speed for the wire? Oh, good. Yeah, we can mount this – take a couple hours."

"Get on it." Yoyontzin's brief moment of good humor faded, remembering the rest of his discussion with the chu-sa. "There are some other…things."

Helsdon made a questioning motion with his hands. The engineer stubbed out his tabac on the edge of the table and then ground the rest out under his boot. The master's mate said nothing, but his mustache twitched in surprise.

"The platform needs to be ready to go at a moment's notice. We have the refinery ship on visual now, so as soon as the Marines are ready and command has double-checked their scan data, we'll be standing by for the order from Hadeishi-tzin."

"Right," nodded Helsdon, separating out the diagrams he would need for mounting the wire spool. "We're going to move the EVA platform up to boat bay two. The Marines usually assemble there and the lock doors are facing the right direction. What else?"

"Double-check everything." Yoyontzin's fingers were trembling and the look on his face made Helsdon stare in mounting concern. He'd never seen the engineer second in such a nervous state. "I mean it. The chu-sa is going in with the Marines."

"What?" Helsdon rubbed his ear, refusing to believe what he'd heard. "You're drunk."

"Wish I was." Yoyontzin tapped another tabac out of the pack and jammed it into his mouth. Pinching the lighting paper from the end and taking a deep drag seemed to steady him. His deep-set eyes narrowed in amusement. "I'll bet Heicho Felix is going to faint when she hears."

"I'll take that bet," Helsdon said, rather sharply.

Yoyontzin was surprised. "You're on – how does five quills sound?"

"Twenty." Helsdon crossed his arms, squinting at Yoyontzin. "If you're giving money away."

The pressure door to Hadeishi's office recessed with a hiss and then slid out of sight into the bulkhead. Susan Kosho stepped down into the comfortably-cluttered space. Her white duty uniform glowed in the dim light, sharply distinct from the dark-hued books and paintings covering the walls. Both of her hands were tightly clenched into fists.

"Chu-sa?" She looked around with a compressed, mostly-hidden expression of distaste. The untidiness of the commander's personal space always made her nervous, though the old man in charge of Hadeishi's quarters kept them scrupulously clean. There were just too many things here.

"Over here," Mitsuharu's voice came from a side compartment.

Susan trod gently across deep-piled rugs and paused in the inner doorway. Hadeishi had folded a table down from the wall of a narrow room lined with cupboards. The exec glanced around, puzzled, and then recognized the area as a servant's laundry station. The clever table was an ironing and mending board.

"What are you doing?" Susan stared at the combat suit laid out on the table with something like despair in her almond-shaped eyes. Hadeishi failed to suppress a small, polite smile. He was in an old, rather worn-looking short-sleeved kimono of dark blue silk. The back and shoulders were covered with a delicately stitched wading crane and cattails in golden thread. He turned his attention back to checking the suit seals with a microscanner.

"Prepping my suit," Hadeishi said. "Heicho Felix reports her squad has finished gear-check and is now ready to go, so I would be holding things up but Engineering is still mounting our hardline comm system."

Susan looked around for a seat, found nothing apparent – though she suspected some of the cupboards might slide out or fold down to make one: they had in her grandmother's house – and settled into parade rest instead. "You are determined to carry through with your…plan."

Hadeishi nodded, turning over one of the black, metallic sleeves of the suit. The surface was formed of overlapping, flexible ceramic plates. "Those skilled in war subdue the enemy without battle. If I go myself there is a chance of such success."

"Or you may be killed. This is a very risky maneuver."

Mitsuharu looked up, his narrow face grave. "I know. The art of maneuver is the most difficult – but in this tiny moment of opportunity, we do have some room to move. We hold a positional advantage. Given such an opening, I will risk myself for the best outcome. If we are killed or captured, you know what to do."

Susan nodded, staring at the combat suit with ill-disguised disgust. "You should not have loaned Fitzsimmons and Deckard to the civilians. They are our most experienced assault troopers."

"Water flows." Hadeishi replaced the sleeve and took up the other. "Felix will do."

Susan made a grunting sound and her pale, smooth forehead gained a sharp vertical crease. "Her performance in the combat sims has only been marginal. If there is resistance -"

Mitsu raised a hand and the sho-sa fell silent. "If you," he said quietly, trying to catch her eye, "are commanding the defense of the refinery with the vigor you showed in the sims, then I expect we will all die. But you are here, not there. Felix will be fine."

"Very well." Susan clasped both hands behind her back. Her gaze was fixed on a point somewhere over his head. "Navigation informs me our best-path return course to the planet will now take eleven days. I believe the tlamatinime Hummingbird requested we retrieve him from the surface in only ten days."

"We will not be returning to the third planet until our business here is concluded, Sho-sa. But I appreciate your diligence in bringing this matter to my attention."

"Kyo, the tlamatinime and the archaeologist could easily have encountered -"

"They are in some danger, true," Mitsuharu interrupted gently. "But they will be fine. Hummingbird will be fine. He always is. Our business is here, with the refinery. And it will be resolved very soon, one way or another."

"Hai, Chu-sa." Susan's face settled into a cool, lifeless mask. "Do you require any assistance with your equipment?"

Mitsu put down the right-hand sleeve of the suit and rested his hands on his knees. He considered his exec for a long moment, then shook his head slightly. "I should do this myself, Susan. Such things are traditional. If you have a moment, please check with Engineering and make sure they've rigged something to keep the comm-wire from fouling."

Susan nodded sharply, turned and walked quickly out of the laundry room. Mitsu watched her go with a pensive expression. When the outer door hissed closed, he sighed and turned his attention back to the seals on the inner sheath of the armor. They always became stiff in storage, no matter what the armorer said. Sometimes they split, if not carefully looked after, reducing the wearer's flexibility.

The Palenque

A subtle change in the background vibration of the ship brought Parker awake, his head throbbing from too much alcohol and too little nicotine. He threw back the hood of his sleepbag and squinted blearily at his chrono. Three hours of wonderful sleep, he thought, feeling the onset of a crushing dehydration headache. I will never, ever, sit down for just one glass of Tukhachevsky's bathwater again. Ever. With or without herring.

The pilot spread his fingers against the wall behind his bunk. With the Palenque under constant thrust, the habitat ring was locked in place, allowing him to feel some of the vibrations traveling through the spine of the ship. Something had changed; he was aware of a distinct flutter. A reading light above his head let him see well enough to punch up the comm code for Engineering.

"Parker to Isoroku-san. Are you awake?"

"Yes." The engineer's voice was terse and there was no video. "Maneuver drive three has started to stutter."

"Fuel feed?" Parker climbed out of bed and started to get dressed. "Fusion chamber flow control?"

"I don't know." Isoroku's face suddenly appeared on the comm screen. For a bald man in a Fleet engineer's coveralls, he seemed remarkably mussed. There were heavy bags under his eyes and a salt-and-pepper stubble darkened his chin. Parker assumed he'd been awakened from a sound sleep as well. "Fuel core pressure is constant, which may mean an intake line problem. As a precaution, I am shutting down all three drives."

Parker nodded, pulling a gray shirt on over his head. "I'll get to the bridge and balance the other two engines. And I'll tell our furry friend what is going on."

Isoroku nodded and the comm cleared to a default standby image.

By the time Parker pulled himself along the guide line into the bridge, Magdalena was awake and at her command station.

"What happened?" the Hesht female growled. "Engineering reports all three drives are offline?"

"Yes." Parker slid into the navigator's station and called up a drive schematic and the latest system alert logs and diagnostics. "Drive number three started to develop a thrust flutter sixteen minutes ago. Isoroku has shut down all three maneuvering drives as a precaution."

"How long will this take?" Magdalena was eyeing a chrono and flight plot on her display. "We have an intercept window to match if we're going to pick up the pack-leader."

Parker nodded, scanning through the diagnostic reports for drives one and two. They seemed to be running clean. The fuel system also seemed to be operating properly, which was troubling. Problem's going to be in the fuel-flow system inside drive three, then.

He punched codes for an engine restart on both drives, and then began working up a new thrust balancing configuration. "I'm going to bring one and two back online," he said to the hovering Maggie after a moment. "But we can't increase individual thrust without exceeding our 'quiet' threshold. So…it will be an extra twelve hours before we are inside the pickup window over Ephesus Three."

"What," Magdalena said, throttling back her temper, "if drive three comes back into operation?"

Parker made an equivocal motion with one hand. "Then we might be able to squeak back into the window, but probably not. We'll just have to see."

The 'Observatory' Base Camp

The Gagarin shuddered to a halt, wings creaking as they sagged, bereft of the lifting wind. Gretchen let go of the stick, grateful to be on the ground again, and tried to uncramp her right hand. Clouds of fine dust drifted past, gilded by the early morning light, obscuring scattered bunkerlike camp buildings. Groaning a little – all of her bruises were throbbing today – she reached up and toggled off the ultralight engines and power plant.

Outside, the camp had a familiar air of abandonment. The usual litter was missing – no discarded cans or forgotten clothing, no shutters banging in the wind, no stray half-feral dogs pacing stiff-legged in the streets – but Gretchen could feel the emptiness crawling between her shoulder blades.

I hate this kind of place. On edge, she swung out of the cockpit. Despite how things had gone in the slot canyon, the Sif-52 was slung forward under her left armpit, the pistol-grip only an instant from her hand. The weight of the gun was balanced by a bandolier of ammunition canisters. Gretchen turned on her heel, scanning the buildings for any sign of movement. Nothing caught her eye. The wind was gusting, smudging the sky white with dust, but nothing seemed out of place.

The camp felt dead, an abandoned toy cast aside by careless children.

Wrapping the kaffiyeh tight across her breather mask, Gretchen ducked under the wing and made short work of setting the sand anchors. Hummingbird approached, djellaba snapping around his legs in a dark, sand-mottled tail. He too was muffled tight, the glow of morning simmering in his goggles.

A hiss of static, then "Is there a hangar?"

Gretchen pointed. The largest above ground building in the camp. "Tight fit for two aircraft, but we'll manage. Better get them inside quick – the wind is picking up."

Turning away from the wind, they both hurried across the quadrangle toward the maintenance sheds and the hangar building. Gretchen kept a wary eye out – her dislike of recently-abandoned places had not faded with age and time, only grown stronger.

If I have this sight, she realized, trying to suppress a chill of apprehension, then I might see whatever is left behind. The thought was not pleasant. Her curiosity only went so far.

"Locked," Hummingbird said, gruff voice nearly lost in the hiss of the wind.

Gretchen knelt, checking the mechanism. A bolt and bar assembly, sliding into a quickcrete footing and secured with a cheap padlock.

"Just like our barn at home," she said in amusement, rising and pulling a hexacarbon prybar from her belt. The tube extended with a snap of her wrist and a metallic clank. "Just a moment."

The lever slid in between the padlock and the vertical bar. Gretchen rotated the hexacarbon tube with a sharp, hand-over-hand motion and there was a groaning squeal as she put her shoulders into the turn. The soft steel of the padlock deformed like taffy and then parted with a ringing ting! "Help me with the door."

With both of them pushing against the articulated plating, the hanging door rattled up into the roof of the hangar, spitting sand and rust out of the tracks. Gretchen stepped inside, her lightwand raised high, and nodded in tight-lipped satisfaction to see the cavernous space empty.

"Good. Let's get yours inside first." Gretchen turned back into the wind. Both Midge s were straining against their anchor lines, wings rippling like salmon skin under a heat lamp. "It's getting stronger. Hurry."

Heads down, they ran across the field, gossamer veils of dust rushing past. The still-rising sun was bloated half-again its usual size with rust.

"So." Gretchen pulled a pressure door closed behind her, shutting off the tunnel leading to the hangar building. Taking care to keep dust from spilling onto the recycler apparatus around her neck, she unwound the kaffiyeh. Hummingbird had done the same, leaving his cloak and scarf and other gear stacked up beside the door. "We're here at last, and better off than I expected."

Without a dozen people milling around and the smell of bacon frying and coffee perking, the base's common room was cold, echoing, and unsettlingly empty. Hummingbird sat on the nearest table, feet bare, running an electrostatic vacuum over his boots. Gretchen pulled up a chair – the plastic was badly discolored and the legs were streaked with a calcitelike crust – and sat down. She stared down at her own shoes, grimacing at the ragged edges of the soles and the general ruin of the uppers. Even Fitz couldn't fix these.

"I am going to go outside," Hummingbird said, banging his left boot against the edge of the table. Reddish grit rained down onto cracked quickcrete. "Before the weather gets any worse. I am…a little worried."

"Huh! Why? We've finally reached some shelter, where we can refuel and resupply and you're worried?" She pointed a finger at the roof. "We're even out of the wind. That tent was starting to smell."

"Yes." Hummingbird looked around, his expression becoming almost morose. "That is the problem. I had no idea the camp here was so extensive."

"Ah." Gretchen ran the edge of her thumb against the boot sole. The material was porous and spongy. Bits of glittering crystalline mica spilled out. She felt a little ill at the sight and dialed her lightwand into UV and stuffed it inside the boot. My feet feel fine…sort of. I hope.

"Well," she said, trying not to stare in sick fascination at her socks, "humans get kind of busy sometimes – I mean, they planned on being here for two, three years. A camp for a long-term expedition isn't just some tents or a carryall. It's a little town."

"I can see." Hummingbird fingered the goggles hanging around his neck. The glassite looked like it had been attacked with a power sander or a steel rasp. "I think – no, I am afraid we are too late. Man has been here too long, put too much of his mark on the land. Even our passage across the world has stirred up rumors, echoes…"

"You mean the Russovsky-thing I spoke to." Gretchen swallowed, preparing herself for the worst, and tugged off one sock. The moisture-wicking, thermally insulated fabric disintegrated in her hand, leaving a blue ring of elastic material around her ankle. Suddenly, she felt light-headed. "Oh, oh sister…"

"You saw more than a rumor." Hummingbird was staring out the portholelike windows. Sodium-tinted shadows turned his face to graven brass. "I know it was gone when we went back – but such things are real. We're a stone, cast into a still pond. Though we sink and disappear, the wave from our entry propagates through this world. Some of the waves turn back upon themselves – well, you saw the effect – and the memory of our passing through this place is retained. Layers build on layers…" His voice trailed off, wrinkled old face growing stiff in anger.

"Sure." Gretchen forced down a surge of nausea, bile tainting her throat. She felt faint, but gripped the edge of the table and waited for the sensation to pass. Hummingbird was saying something, but the words were far away and indistinct, unintelligible. Jerkily, she swung her leg up and put her foot across the opposite knee. In the muted yellow light from the windows, the sole of her foot was shiny and slick, almost glassy. "Uhhh…"

A trembling finger reached out to touch the discoloration – she felt a hard, smooth surface and jerked away again. "Oh blessed sister, deliver us from all the fears of the world, from evil, from want…" Is it deep? Why didn't I feel anything? Is it my whole foot? Oh, Sister, how deep does this go!

"What happened to your foot?"

Gretchen looked up, sweating, and saw Hummingbird looming over her, eyes narrowed.

"I – it ate right through my boots."

The nauallis knelt beside her, firm hands grasping her ankle and toes, turning the sole into the light so he could see. Gretchen slumped back into the decaying chair, fist jammed into her mouth to keep from crying out.

But there was no pain. Hummingbird squinted, turning her foot this way and that. She could feel the strength in his fingers, immobilizing the offending limb better than a surgeon's vise. White-shot eyebrows gathered over dusky green eyes and then his face became still, wrinkles fading, a sense of release and settling peace washing over his countenance. After a moment, he reached into his vest and produced a small folding knife.

Gretchen's eyes widened and her leg tried to jerk violently away. Hummingbird's hand tightened and her movement was stillborn. "Hold still," he said, eyes focused on some unseen distance. The blade snapped out of the handle with a sharp click and he put a mirror-keen edge against the heel of her foot. Gretchen felt the world swim again, vertigo surging around her.

"You should start counting," he said, eyeing her with interest. "Or look away."

There was a scraping sound, but Gretchen felt nothing more than a tugging. She blinked, surprised. Shouldn't it hurt? The old man made a hmm sound and his fingers tightened. This time, Gretchen could feel more than a tugging; there was a sharp, piercing bolt of pain.

"Ayyy! Oh, sister…is that blood?"

"Sorry," Hummingbird said, cleaning the blade on his thigh pad. "Nicked you a little."

"How bad is it?" The pain parted a cloud of nausea. Her medband reacted, flooding her arm with a pleasantly cool sensation. Gretchen looked down and her teeth clenched. Hummingbird was carving away a slice of her heel; metallic, glistening skin peeling back from the edge of his knife. "Guuuhhh…why – why isn't that bleeding?"

"Dead skin," he said, lips pursed in concentration. "Whatever got into your boot doesn't seem to have done much more than eat up your calluses."

The nauallis finished with the heel and cleaned the blade again. Gretchen could feel her foot start to throb, but realized the sensation was more from the tight grip he had on her ankle than anything else.

"Now let's see…" He switched the blade around to hold as a scraper and began to work on the instep. Gretchen's leg jerked again and the chair gave out with a little groan as she moved. "Ticklish, I see."

"Just pay attention," she hissed, hoping his hand didn't slip again. Her fingernails squeaked on plastic. "I've only got the one left foot."

The view from the second floor windows was no better than from downstairs. The sun was gone, reduced to a muddy flare in the sky. A sickly yellow fog had swept across the camp, driven by wild, intermittent winds. Gretchen perched in a deep window embrasure, bandaged foot sticking out into the room, her eyes fixed on a narrow view of the quadrangle. Hummingbird had gone out into the storm – she'd seen him open one of the airlock doors and hunch out into the blowing dust – but he'd vanished from sight almost immediately. Grimly nervous, Gretchen kept one hand on the grip of the Sif at all times. Their gear was piled downstairs, but the echoing vacancy of the common room set her on edge.

Out in the blowing murk, the gritty fog parted for a moment. Anderssen stiffened, searching for the nauallis, and caught a glimpse of a dark-cloaked figure near the lab building. She frowned – the shape was moving strangely, a sort of duck-walked sideways shuffle. The head bobbed from side to side – and then the dust closed in again.

"What is he up to?" Gretchen spoke aloud, depressed by the leaden silence in the abandoned room. The echoes of her voice fell away, leaving another bad taste in her mouth. It's almost worse to speak, she thought in disgust. A frown followed. He can't "align" an entire building, can he?

A gust roared past outside the window, rattling the heavy pane. Even the bright patch of the sun had disappeared in a gathering darkness. There was an intermittent glow from the east, but the light was far too low in the sky to be the sun. Gretchen checked her chrono. Not quite midday. She put her hand against the wall, cheap plaster cracking away from the concrete backing at her touch. The entire building shivered in the storm. Snatching her hand away, Gretchen swung around on the window ledge and gingerly tested her bandages. Her left foot, which had suffered the most damage, was completely shrouded in healfast gauze, medicated antiseptic cream and a layer of spray-on dermaseal from Hummingbird's medical kit.

Her boots had been a complete loss, which left her slopping around in a spare pair of mulligans Hummingbird had found in a downstairs locker. These would fit Tukhachevsky…okay, let's see about walking.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Dammit." Trying to walk very lightly, Anderssen limped down the stairs to the lower floor and began checking each of the rooms. She didn't think there were any ground-floor windows besides the portholes in the common room, but a queer prickling feeling urged her to check. The kitchen was entirely dark, as were the storage rooms behind the grill.

"We need to get the power working," she muttered after banging her knee on a chair. The circle of radiance from her lightwand seemed very small in the thick, heavy air. A handful of the precious glowbeans broke up the dimness, though they seemed very lonely once they were shining from the ceiling.

Moving carefully, she forced open a maintenance door on the far side of the ground floor. A sloping tunnel led down into close-smelling darkness. Gretchen paused – a low, extending rumbling sound penetrated the heavy walls – and she turned in time to see the portholes lit by the stabbing brilliance of a lightning strike. Almost instantly, the building shook and the crack was clearly audible. Dust sifted down from the ceiling of the tunnel.

"Okay. Time to stick close to home." Gretchen retreated to the pile of gear in the middle of the room and shoved two of the tables together to make an L-shaped work area. Putting down the Sif so she could unpack was a struggle, but her nerves settled a little after checking – and locking – all of the doors.

The intermittent rumble of thunder continued to grow, until the noise faded into the background of her consciousness as a constant rippling growl. The windows stuttered constantly with the flare of yellow-orange heat lightning. Squatting beside the little camp stove, watching a pale blue flame flicker in the heating unit, she was very glad the buildings were quickcrete rather than metal-framed.

The tea finally consented to boil, which reminded her far too much of a particular storm on Old Mars. She'd ridden that one out in an abandoned building too – a mining camp shaft-head in the barrier peaks around the Arcadia impact crater. Too many tricky memories, Gretchen thought, rather sullenly. "Why do all these places seem haunted?"

"Because they are," Hummingbird said, appearing out of the darkness, his step light as a cat. "Is there tea? Ah, good."

Gretchen lowered the Sif, though her heart was beating at trip-hammer speed. "Where…"

The door into the tunnel was still slightly open. She glared at the old man, who was stripping off his gloves, crouched over the tiny flame. "Well? What did you do?"

"I went here and there." Hummingbird dug out some tea, packets of sugar and a steel cup. "Seeing about the destruction of this place."

Gretchen's eyes narrowed. "You going to tell me how?"

"Doors." He said, stirring his tea. In the pale blue light of the glowbeans, his eyes were only pits of shadow, without even a jade sparkle to lighten his mood. There was a distinct air of concern about him, hanging on his shoulders like moldy laundry. "Opening and closing vents. In some places I moved those things which could be moved. Tidying up, as one of my teachers used to say."

"Opening…oh." Gretchen looked sharply at the partly-open door. Her stomach was threatening to churn again. I'll have an ulcer out of this, if nothing else. "Including the one at the other end of the tunnel?"

Hummingbird shook his head. "Nothing in this building. Not yet. We'll save that for last."

"What about the hangar?"

"No. I supposed we might need the ultralights again."

"That's very wise," Gretchen said with a sigh of pure relief. "Please don't destroy our means of transportation."

"Is there anything to eat?" The nauallis looked around hopefully.

Gretchen scowled. "Do I look like a cook to you?" She nudged one of the bags with her too-big boot. "Vanilla, chocolate, grilled ixcuintla, ham surprise, miso, all the usual flavors. And if you want any of my hot sauce," she said in a waspish tone, "you will have to ask very nicely."

Hours dragged by – measurable only by the tick of a chrono, for the storm-dimmed light in the windows did not seem to change – and Gretchen's feet began to itch terribly. Hummingbird had gone to sleep, leaving her to watch in the darkness. The afternoon dragged by and finally, when her stomach was starting to grumble about supper, Gretchen poked the nauallis with a long-handled spoon from the kitchen.

"Crow. Crow, wake up!"

One eye opened and the old Mйxica gave her an appraising look. "Yes?"

"How many teachers did you have?" Gretchen was curled up, leaning back against the baggage, two stolen blankets draped around her shoulders. "Is there a school for judges?"

"Not so much so." Hummingbird clasped both hands on his chest and looked up at the ceiling. "My father was a judge, so there were things I learned 'from the air' as he would say. When I graduated the clan-school, the calmecac, he took me aside." His face creased with a faint smile. "He was a strict man – much given to fairness and justice – but on that day he took the time to ask me if I wished to enter the service of the tlamatinime or not."

Hummingbird turned his head, giving Gretchen a frank look of consideration. "You should understand one does not become tlamatinime by intent. There are no civil exams, no waiting lists, no quotas. There is no one to 'talk to' about a promising son. The judges are always watching, listening, considering. We find you.

"So I was surprised when my father broached the subject. I think – looking back in memory – he was a little embarrassed to do so, because he was a judge, as his father, and his father's father, had been. Later, I learned the examiners found me suitable on their own and he'd learned of their decision from a friend." Hummingbird's smile remained only a faint curve of the lips, but Gretchen had watched him long enough to feel the depth of his emotion.

This is a precious jewel. Conviction grew, as Gretchen watched the old man speaking, that the crow's father had never shown him any special consideration beyond this one moment which was so clearly etched in his memory.

"He wanted me to consider the matter before they cornered me. To make my own choice. To escape the burden of family duty. To be free, if I wished."

Gretchen nodded, feeling a familiar weight of expectation pressing on her own shoulders. "But even so, you said yes?"

"Eventually." Hummingbird's smile vanished. "They were as patient as I was impatient."

"You?" Gretchen lifted her head in a sly smile. "You were the black sheep? The reckless, irresponsible child? Were you in a band?"

Hummingbird made a snorting sound and looked away.

When he did not turn back, Gretchen pursed her lips in speculation. So sensitive!

"What do I need to learn?" she asked, after some endless time had passed. "How do I learn – if there's no school -"

"There are no books," Hummingbird said in a stiff voice. "No tests. No sims. Only a teacher and a student, as it has been for millennia."

"Are you my teacher, then? Can I even be a student? I mean, you said women aren't accepted into the tlamatinime."

The nauallis sat up, jaw clenched tight. "There are women who learn to see," he said in a rather brusque voice. One hand made a sharp motion in the air. "But there are two…orders, you might say. One – the men – the tlamatinime, the other – the women – named the tetonalti. By tradition – more recently by law – the two are kept separate in all matters."

"So," Gretchen said, watching his face, "there are no female judges serving the Empire. They are…soul-doctors, is that what you said?"

Hummingbird's lips compressed into a tight, stiff line. "The tetonalti are not what they once were, in the time of the old kings. Though they too serve the Mirror, I prefer not to speak of their purpose." He made a pushing-away motion with both hands. "You are burden enough, just by yourself, without bringing them into the situation."

"How much trouble will you be in?" Gretchen tried to be nonchalant about the question, but Hummingbird's eyes narrowed at the light tone in her voice. "I mean, if women aren't supposed to learn these things -"

"Not enough trouble," he said, rather guardedly, "to see a certain cylinder back in your hands."

"So cynical," Gretchen said, hiding momentary disappointment. "I get the idea. I even understand," she made a face, "a little. It will hurt my children, that's all. That said – will I be in trouble if it's known I've started to gain this…sight?"

The nauallis nodded and rolled up to sit opposite her. "You will not be troubled by the Imperial authorities," he said. "I will not tell them what has happened. If you keep this to yourself, no one will trouble you."

"Will you show me more? Can you train me to control this clarity? You say some students have become 'lost-in-sight'. Will I become lost too?"

The old Mйxica hissed in annoyance. His fingers tapped on the crumbling floor for a moment, then fell still. "It might be best for you to forget all this, put these matters from your mind, turn your back on clarity and sight and all the rest."

"And how," Gretchen said, irritated, "do I do that? Right now I see double or triple most of the time – very disorienting. And then the hallucinations – I mean, I can almost perceive things in this room – people and voices – that aren't here!"

The old Mйxica looked around casually, then back at Anderssen. "Men talking? The smell of cooking? The half-heard chatter of music? The buzz of machinery?"

"Yes." Gretchen felt suddenly cold and turned abruptly, looking behind her. "Upstairs is better – it doesn't feel so crowded. But down here…"

"You're seeing," Hummingbird said quietly, "the shadows of man. The impression left on this room, this building, by the scientists who worked and lived here for the past year. We will leave shadows too, if I don't clean them up before we go. Right here." He made a circular motion with his finger. "Two indistinct shapes sitting on the floor, talking."

Gretchen felt a little sick again. "How long do these shadows last?"

"Usually," Hummingbird said, searching through his pockets, "they fade. Someone else comes and sits in the same chair, eats at the same table. The shadows interfere with one another and dissipate. Have you ever entered a dwelling where only one person lived for a long time? Where they died? A house left empty afterwards?"

"No." Slow rolling creeps slithered across Gretchen's arms. She could feel every single hair on her arms and neck stand on end. "I don't like abandoned places."

"It is dangerous," Hummingbird said, finding what he was looking for, "for a person to live alone, in the same house or room, for more than a few months at a time. Shadows accumulate. A living person needs to move, to change, to see new things. Say a man lives in the same room, eats at one table, sleeps in the same bed in the same orientation for years on end. Shadows reinforce. The mind is affected by shadows – you're feeling the effects of this empty room right now – sometimes the shadows become more real than the living man."

"Oh." Gretchen managed to smile. "I'm pretty safe then – the Company moves us every year or so."

Hummingbird nodded, turning a square of folded paper over in his hands. "You don't believe me. But think about your children – how many times have they changed their room around? Put the beds under the window, away from the window, asked for bunk beds, didn't want bunk beds? Decided to sleep in the living room instead? Changed rooms, if they had the option? Didn't you do that when you were younger?"

The world seemed to gel to a sudden, glassy stop. Gretchen licked her lips.

"Now," he continued in the same implacable voice. "Do you have an elderly relative? Stiff, old, strangely frightening. A house filled with things you must not touch? Rooms filled with furniture no one uses and which must never be moved? Strict rituals of the home – dinner at the same time, always the same prayer beforehand, things done in just such a way? Do you remember how you felt, when you were a child in such a place?"

"I was afraid," Gretchen whispered, almost lost in memories of her great-grandfather's tall, dark house. "I couldn't breathe."

"It was dark, even when the shutters or drapes were open. Musty. It smelled of shadow."

Hummingbird's eyes were limpid green, sunlight falling through leaves into still water.

"Memory," he continued, "is a physical change in the human brain. So too are skills laid down by repetition. Perception is governed, interpreted by pathways created by experience. A child's mind is loose, chaotic, filled with a hundred, a thousand paths from source to conclusion. But as a man ages, as he grows old -"

"I know," Gretchen said abruptly. "I took some biochemistry at the university. Neural pathways in the brain become consolidated. Fixed. Memories are lost or discarded, replaced by different sets of connections. There are diseases which attack the pathways, trapping people in repeated time."

Hummingbird placed the packet of paper on the ground between them. "Lost in memory. Or they lose the ability to form new pathways, gain new skills, see the world afresh. Trapped in routine, bound in shadows. The mind becomes rigid. A quiet, unseen death – long before the body runs down to silence."

Gretchen roused herself, lifting her chin. "Don't the tlamatinime have homes? Families?"

"Of course." The corners of Hummingbird's eyes crinkled. "They are very lively and we rarely remain in the same physical building for more than a year or two. And in the course of our business, we are always in motion. We have restless feet."

"And this?" She pointed suspiciously at the paper packet. "This is like what you gave me before?"

"This is different." Hummingbird considered her with a weighing expression. "The first packet was a helper to 'open-the-way'. This…this is 'he-who-reveals'. For most students this substance will let you find a…a guide, would be the best description. A guide who can help you control the sight."

"What kind of a guide?" Gretchen's suspicion deepened. "Aren't you my guide or teacher in this business?"

The nauallis shook his head slightly. "He-who-reveals is already within you, but in most men and women he is sleeping. Sometimes, if a person is troubled or under stress, the guide will speak to their dreams, more rarely in waking life – a voice which seems to come from the air, offering guidance. The guide is outside yourself, yet privy to all you know, see and do."

"That is disturbing." Gretchen scratched the back of her neck. "A stranger inside my head? Will this…drug…let me communicate with 'he-who-reveals'?"

"This will wake him up." Hummingbird pushed the packet toward her with the tip of his finger. "For a little while. What bargain you strike with him is upon you to effect. No one else."

"And what does he give me in return?"

Hummingbird shrugged, an obstinate look growing in his lean old face. "Such things are none of my business."

"How can there be another…anything…in my mind?"

"You misunderstand. He-who-reveals is the self which looks upon self with clarity. You are one being."

"What?" Gretchen felt another chill. The nauallis's words seemed slippery, their meaning darting away from her consciousness, silver fish vanishing into dim blue depths. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Hummingbird folded his hands. "He-who-reveals is the honest mirror. In your terms, he is the self without affect, without deception, without delusion. Have you ever tried to see yourself from outside? Perhaps, at the edge of sleep, you've seen yourself from above, as though your mind were separated from the body, able to look upon you with a stranger's eyes?"

"Yes." Gretchen rubbed her arms. "When I was a kid – I was scared to death I wouldn't be able to get back inside my own head. I'd be lost forever and I'd die."

"Fear," Hummingbird said, rather smugly, "is a barrier to sight."

"Fine." Gretchen gained a very distinct impression the old man was laughing at her. She picked up the packet. "I just put this on my tongue?"

Hummingbird reacted quickly, catching her hand before she could open the paper. "You should lie down first. There will be a physical reaction. And drink something. This is thirsty work."

The storm continued to rage outside. Violent yellow lightning flared among the roaring clouds and drifts of sand crept towards the windows. Visibility dropped to less than a meter. Hummingbird's chrono told him sunset had come, yet there was no apparent difference outside. The flare and crack of lightning stabbed through the murk. The building shivered with thunder.

Hummingbird waited, half asleep himself, while Anderssen lay on the floor, covered with blankets, a makeshift pillow under her head. The woman twitched and shuddered. Sometimes she spoke aloud, but even the nauallis could not understand the words.

Near midnight, with the wind howling unabated outside, Gretchen began to cough. Hummingbird rolled over and lifted her head. Her eyes opened wide, staring up at the blue-lit ceiling.

"Huhhh…" She doubled over, hacking violently. Hummingbird crouched down, supporting her arms. "Uhhh…it's too hot. Too hot."

Gretchen shoved the blankets aside, panting, her hair lank with sweat. Without thinking, she tugged the collar of her suit open, gasping for breath. Hummingbird scooted back warily and stood up, a worried frown on his old face.

"I can see," Gretchen said abruptly, her hands raised and trembling in the air. She stared at Hummingbird. "I can see your face, a sun hiding in clouds, your eyes brilliant jade, your face marked with red bands." Her expression twisted in horror, pupils dilating. Sweat flushed from her skin and ran in thin silver streams down her neck. "You're not a human being!"

"I am," Hummingbird said, remaining very still. "You are seeing the nechichiualiztli – a mask of purpose and duty – not me! You must be careful or this kind of sight will blind you. Can you see your own flesh, your own hand?"

Gretchen looked down and her face contorted, the skin stretching back from her teeth. She began to shake, muscles leaping under the flesh like snakes squirming in a calfskin bag. "I can see I can see I can see."

Hummingbird moved carefully to the side, quietly, without disturbing the air. "What do you see?"

"Nothing! There is nothing there! Darkness!" Gretchen was shouting, though her whole body was frozen into trembling immobility.

"Where is your hand?" Hummingbird said, his face close to hers, watching the flickering tic-tic-tic of her eyelids from the side. "See your hands. Here they are. You can see them."

Gretchen's neck stiffened like a log, the tendons and veins standing out like wire. "My hand is gone. I am gone. There is nothing here. Nothing here." Her voice had the quality of a scream, though it was soft, not even a whisper.

"Remember your hand, remember what you saw when we were sitting in the desert? Do you remember how clear it was, your hand, so fine and distinct?"

"Yes. Yes. I remember." Gretchen slumped into his waiting arms, her body loose, each muscle exhausted. By the time he laid her down, she was sound asleep. Hummingbird breathed out, a long, slow, even breath, and a fine mist of smoke hissed from between his teeth, settling over the woman's body.

Sometime after midnight the sound of the wind changed. Hummingbird roused himself from meditation and padded to the window. The rattling hiss of sand against the porthole had tapered off. He could see the sullen flash of lightning far away.

"Hmm." The old man checked Anderssen, sleeping deeply under all the blankets he could find. Her skin was cold and clammy. Worried, he fished a stout wrist out of the covers and examined the medband with an experienced eye. Her body was suffering a toxic reaction, so he keyed a series of dispense codes into the metal bracelet and then tucked her hand away, out of the chill air.

The pressure doors on the main airlock had frozen shut, forcing the nauallis to detour around through the machine shop and out through a hatch jammed open by a chest-high drift of sand. Squirming out into the night, Hummingbird took care to adjust his goggles to the near-absence of light.

The smaller buildings – the lab bunker, the ice house, the sheds for the tractors and carryalls – had vanished under lumpy dunes. Hummingbird turned right and half-walked, half-slid down into a trough in front of the main building. He headed toward the hangar, peering out at the sky and horizon.

There were no stars. The storm had lifted for the moment, but it had not passed. Stray winds eddied between the buildings, throwing sand at his legs. Out on the plain, he made out vague twisting shapes. Lightning stabbed in the upper air, flickering from cloud to cloud. In the intermittent, brilliant light, Hummingbird made out roiling, swift-moving clouds rushing past. A white-hot spark flared in the middle distance and the nauallis saw, throat constricting in atavistic fear, a monstrous funnel cloud snake down from the boiling sky.

More heat lightning flared above and the bloated tornado danced across a range of dunes a half-dozen kilometers away. Millions of tons of sand sluiced up into the sky, the entire ridge vanishing. The air trembled, a shrieking sound rising above the constant wind, and Hummingbird began to run.

The main door of the hangar building was stuck again, the bottom of the articulated metal plating buried in a meter of sand. Hummingbird dodged around the side, feeling the ground shake, and found a service door that opened inward. The reflected glare of lightning threw the entrance into deep shadow, but Hummingbird did not hesitate. He threw his full weight against the locking bar and was rewarded with a deep-throated groan of complaining metal. Two hard jerks managed to unlock the mechanism and he stumbled inside.

Less than a kilometer away, the funnel raced past, shaking the air with a stunning boom. Sand rained down from the raging sky. Hummingbird shoved the door closed, fighting against dust spilling in between his feet. Luckily, the pressure door had a counter-rotating weight and once in motion the door closed itself.

The still, quiet darkness of the hangar was a bit of a shock. The heavy walls muted the roar and thunder of the storm to distant grumbling. Hummingbird switched on his lightwand and made a circuit of the big room. Both Midge s were still in place, wings folded up, engines and systems on standby. The faint smell of idling fuel cells permeated the air. More out of habit than anything else, the nauallis shone his light inside the cockpits, into the cargo compartments, ran his hands across the engines and peered underneath.

And he stopped. His light shifted back, focusing on the forward landing gear of his Midge.

Most of the wheel was invisible, obscured by a dull gray coating – as if the quickcrete floor had grown up to engulf the landing gear. Hummingbird circled around to the front of the ultralight and found all three wheels encased in stone.

"Well," he said, jaw tightening. In the questing gleam of his lightwand, he saw Anderssen's Midge was similarly afflicted. He lowered the light, clicking his teeth together in thought. "I'd better check my boots again."

The funnel cloud broke apart far to the south of the camp, splintering into dozens of smaller vortices and then dissolving into a rush of sand and grit and sandstone fragments. The storm continued to move west, obscuring the plain with towering walls of dust. Clouds thinned, but did not part, over the camp. Stray winds gusted between the buildings, though in comparison to the violence which had just passed relative quiet reigned.

Russovsky stood on the crest of a dune, tangled blond hair whipping around her head, eyes fixed on the low, rounded shapes of the camp buildings. She wore neither mask nor goggles, though the apparatus of a rebreather and recycler clung to her back and chest. The once-glossy black skin of the suit was matted and dull, abraded by the constantly prying wind. Her boots had crumbled long ago, shredded by rocks or eaten away by the tiny, blind maiket.

At a distance, she could feel the presence of the human machine like the warmth of the sun-which-kills, hot and sharp, pressing against her face. The pattern of its movements, the residue of its passage, was clear in the air and upon the ground. There was familiar comfort in the humid smell humanity left behind, the traces of exhalation and sweat mixing in the cold sharp air. Far different from the clean, distinct impressions of the hathol or the furry blaze of the deep-dwelling firten.

A rumbling crack echoed from the north and Russovsky turned her head – a slow, methodical motion – to feel the twisting power in the storm building again. A vortex was building in the upper air, swirling currents rushing into a knot of power building from hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Soon the wave front would smash across the plain, pummeling everything in sight with unbounded rage.

Russovsky felt steadily building disquiet – not at the pending violence, for the pattern of the storm was as familiar to her as the shape of the camp buildings or the spreading stain of the hathol in the dune below her feet – but at a sense of disassociation creeping through ordered, clearly defined thoughts.

Black clouds staining a clear blue sky. Plunging ebon tendrils which flattened and distorted in the summer air, driven by winds at great heights.

Her memories of the-life-before were dying, fading, replaced by confused, diffracted images of things she was sure did not exist in her world, events she had never experienced herself.

A night sky so flushed with stars, night was barely different from day. A bloated, dim sun the color of rust. Obsidian mountains rising to unimaginable heights, rectangular black slabs shimmering against an ochre sky. Fields of silver flowers which constantly turned to face the sun. A sense of impossible age.

Did she see these things herself? Were they dreams? Russovsky examined memories of her life before this life and found them rife with the sensation of dreams and phantoms and half-seen images whelped from confusion or exhaustion. Yet there were no cyclopean towers, no vast cities dreaming under the cruel, brilliant sky of her human memories. These new memories felt strange, foreign.

They felt as things she'd seen with waking eyes.

Disturbed, she turned her attention away from such disorderly matters. The slow, comfortable song of the hathol permeating the dune slope drew her attention. Here was respite from the storm, from the bleak thoughts, from tormenting phantoms, from the nagging pressure of the distant machine. Russovsky knelt, hands flat on the unsteady slope. Her fingers sank into the muted glow of the sand-dwellers. A darker hue spread from her contact, spilling through the delicate threads and spongiform clusters forming the hive. Her own skin became tainted with the reddish radiance of the slow ones.

Russovsky became still, her body locked in position, and the red glow mounted through her arms, into her chest, flooding down into her torso. Even as her body began to crumble, flaking into translucent fragments, skinsuit hardening to stone and dissolving, the darker stain spread across the dune face, rushing through the fragile circulatory system of the hive.

The Russovsky-shape shuddered into a rain of dust, sand and stone fragments. Wind rippled across the debris, anointing the darkened hive with glowing red dust. A second wave of radiance flooded through the hathol, picking out the threads and tendrils in bright new colors.

At the base of the dune, where the dust gathered, where the heart-clusters of the hive dwelt under meters of hard-packed sand, the dark stain pooled, thickened, began to build toward the storm-tossed sky. An outline formed with visible speed, sand and dust and grit knitting into bone, sinew, flesh, blood, the triply-insulated rubbery layer of a skinsuit. In the fullness of time, long, ragged blond hair.

Russovsky flexed her arms, brushing husks of dead hathol away from her fingers. Bare feet broke free of an encasing shell and she turned toward the encampment. The suit was glossy and dark again, made new, refreshed.

The strobe-flare of distant lightning washed over her face. A muttered growl of thunder stirred the air, fanning her hair.

Among the Broken Mountains

Hadeishi clung to a retaining bar, leaning in over the shoulder of the Fleet pilot at the controls of the work platform. Heicho Felix and her assault team were crowded in behind him, bulky dark shapes – combat armor and helmets matte-black to fade into the background, their tools, weapons and ammunition packs slung tightly against their bodies. Crates of hardware filled the rest of the very limited space. The platform slowly drifted forward, barely nudged by a set of four compressed gas jets. Hadeishi watched a passive plot updating on the tiny flight panel.

"Five hundred meters," the pilot's voice was steady. An EVA work platform was not the usual vehicle of choice for the shuttle jockeys, but this job required a steady hand and nerves. Though Master's Mate Helsdon had volunteered, the chu-sa had politely ignored his offer. The machinist was far too valuable to risk on a wild throw like this.

"Four hundred meters."

Hadeishi clicked his throat mike. Though the comm connection to the cruiser was on a hardline, he had no intention of making any more noise than absolutely necessary. A moment later, Kosho's voice was perfectly clear on his earbug.

No sign of activity. The exec sounded entirely at ease. No sign of remotes or drones on picket. You are clear to continue.

Hadeishi clicked twice, indicating he understood.

We have a match on the ship registration number from engine nacelle four. Kosho continued, sounding a little smug. Initial analysis had not found any identifying markings on the visible sections of the refinery. Everyone agreed the miners would probably have replaceable panels for use if they docked in port. The exec had not given up so easily, running all of the visual data through a variety of enhancement procedures. In time, a painted-over number had been found. Ship registry out of Novaya Zemlya Station, Rho Triangulis system. The Turan. A Tyr-class mobile open-space refinery. Master of last record is unknown. Crew registry is unknown.

"Understood." Hadeishi grimaced. He'd hoped to learn something of the man or woman he faced from the public shipping records in the Cornuelle's database. "We are at two hundred meters. Hold one."

The Fleet pilot looked up questioningly. Hadeishi keyed through a secondary comp panel bolted to the side of the carrel. Builder's blueprints and diagrams flashed past. After a moment, he pointed out a particular assembly.

"Left," he said carefully, "six hundred meters, then in about a hundred and full stop."

The pilot glanced out at the massive shape looming in front of them. Against the mountain-sized bulk of the Turan, the EVA platform was a fly buzzing against a temple column. The woman grinned, showing perfect white teeth in a cocoa-brown face, and gently swung the control stick over. The carrel tipped and scooted along the boundary of an enormous, round ore tank. Hadeishi gripped tighter on the bar, watching girders, panels, lading-ports, a ten-meter high "16" and intermittent singleton work lamps glowing against the darkness, drift past.

Hadeishi turned and caught Felix's eye. "Someone needs to watch the comm wire as we turn into the approach. We'll stop and untangle if we snag."

The heicho bared her teeth in a tense grin. One hand was clinging like a limpet to the overhead retaining bar, the other was steadying the blunt, wicked shape of a six-barreled Bofors Whipsaw squad support weapon. "Tonuac's on it."

"Good." Hadeishi swung round to watch the curving wall of ore tank sixteen drift past – then it ended abruptly, leaving a dark canyon framed by the looming bulk of tank fourteen. Despite an outwardly calm demeanor, Mitsu's hand clamped tight on the bar as the pilot swung the platform into the pitch-black space. "Steady as she goes, Sho-i Asale."

The Mixtec ignored him, her entire body concentrated on the delicate control required by the four maneuvering jets. Without even the faint gleam of the stars or the irregularly-spaced worklights, she was flying blind, guided solely by a carefully crippled radar unit whose power output could almost be measured in candles. Hadeishi gained an impression of vast shapes rising on either side among a forest of girders and pipes. Once the platform made a hard course correction to port, then back again. The sound of his breathing was very loud in his helmet.

Asale was sweating too. He could see silvery beads slithering down her forehead, but the pilot's concentration never wavered. The platform glided to a stop, then rose up, swimming past ill-defined structures. A single light suddenly appeared – a recessed door with an illuminated faceplate and lock window – but the pilot did not stop. The platform continued to rise, minutes ticking past. Then she brought them to a stop, stabilizing the platform with two short bursts.

"We've got a problem." Asale looked up at Hadeishi, biting her lip in thought. "We've got thirty meters to go, to reach the airlock you want. But the space ahead is constricted – some kind of framework running crossways in front of the lock." She fingered the blueprint, showing where they were.

Felix pressed in close, eyeballing the schematic, while Hadeishi was thinking. "We could dismount here and go in on suit thrusters."

"No." Hadeishi wanted to rub his jaw, which was entirely impossible in the suit. "We'd have to move the gear by hand – and we'll need it inside. What clearance do we need?"

Asale consulted the weak, scattered radar image. "Side to side we're fine, but this platform is just a bit too high."

"Felix, cut off the roof." Hadeishi moved himself carefully into the space directly behind the pilot. "We'll crouch down."

"Hai, Chu-sa!" Felix replied immediately, moving into the corner he'd vacated. "Hand tools on cutting blade," she ordered the three Marines floating behind her. "Cut the framework off at one meter. Then we'll push it clear – gently."

Hadeishi settled in to wait. He could feel a vibration in the platform through his boots as the Marines began cutting through the framework of hexacarbon pipe the engineers had taken such care to install. Losing the shroud of absorptive fabric would reveal them to any active sensors in the vicinity, but he hoped the miners had not decided to mount a targeting radar inside the ore-tank shield.

Felix's team worked with commendable speed, and only three minutes later the encasing roof was pushed up and away, drifting back a few meters, hull-fabric standing out stiff from the edges of the cut.

"Let's go." Hadeishi rapped gently on Asale's shoulder. The pilot nodded and the platform began to edge forward. Far ahead, Mitsu thought he could make out the oblong rectangle of an airlock door edged with tiny green lights.

Kosho turned away from the video feed transmitted by Felix's helmet.

"They are almost at the airlock," she announced to the bridge crew. There was a full complement at their consoles, though by shiptime this was early in third watch. Every hand aboard was awake and standing to battle stations. "Hayes-tzin, do you have a firing solution?"

"Hai, Sho-sa." The weapons officer nodded sharply, his face mostly obscured by the helmet of his combat suit. The sho-sa was taking every precaution. At any moment, they could be engaged in a point-blank beam weapon shoot-out with a hostile ship sixty times their size. "One bird, sprint mode. Shall I load out?"

"Proceed." Kosho turned her attention to a camera view shot from one of the point-defense sensor clusters on the skin of the Cornuelle. Hayes tapped a series of commands on his panel. A section of the ship's hull retracted, revealing the mouth of a missile accelerator mount. Gleaming magnet rings shone brightly for a moment and then the snout of an Atlatl-IV antiship missile emerged with graceful speed. The missile exited the ringtrack and drifted free of the ship's hull.

Not the usual kind of launch, Susan thought, suppressing a snort of amusement.

On the screen, three z-suited figures drifted into view, guiding an EVA collar between them. Five minutes of careful work clamped the collar around the Atlatl. Two of the men jetted away, while the third accessed a control panel on the collar. Susan leaned slightly forward, watching for signs of trouble.

"Guidance test underway." Yoyontzin's voice burred on the intership channel. "Test is green."

Hayes tapped a glyph on his own panel. "Remote comm test is go." A v-pane appeared, displayed a variety of results, then vanished gain. "Test shows green. Remote control is live."

After acknowledging the results, the engineer jetted away from the missile and Susan waited patiently until all three men were processing in through number eight airlock. She looked to Hayes and nodded. Her own hand drifted above a preprogrammed point-defense weapons order.

"Sprint One is under secondary power," the weapons officer reported. "Maneuvering."

Susan watched the fully-armed Atlatl move away from her ship, accelerating slowly as the jets on the collar hissed thin streams of white vapor into the black abyss of space. Fifteen minutes later, the missile had vanished from sight, curving away around the mass of the asteroid screening the Cornuelle from the Turan.

"Sprint One has cleared self-destruct distance." Hayes consulted his panel. "Sprint One will be at launch station in sixteen minutes."

Susan nodded, allowing herself to savor an atom of relief. She had moderate faith in Yoyontzin's abilities, but the prospect of anything – much less an antimatter-charged shipkiller – colliding with the hull of the Cornuelle precipitated a cold sweat of tension. "Proceed with inertial guidance check and targeting comp test."

The weapons officer nodded, keying a new set of commands into his panel. There had been some problems with reconfiguring the Atlatl to acquire target, lock and ignite within the minute acceleration time frame required by their current situation. The manufacturers had not envisioned using the heavy-class shipkiller at knife distance. Susan wondered if the code modifications would hold up in a split second of reaction time. As the gods will.

She looked away from the view of the stars, returning her attention to the feed from Felix's helmet.

Hadeishi swung out of the platform, tucking in his legs to clear the ragged edge of the now-missing frame. Felix and her men had unloaded all of the gear, anchoring the crates to the refinery hull in a semicircle around the airlock door. Corporal Felix and Tonuac were crouched at the lock access panel, having removed the faceplate, with a cluster of cables snaking from the blocky comm relay into the opening. They were watching a hand-held spin through millions of control code combinations. At the far end of their hardwire, the Cornuelle's main comp was prying at the commercial-grade control circuits in the lock mechanism.

"Almost through…" Felix motioned to the chu-sa. "Thirty-five seconds, kyo. Please stand out of the line of fire. Maratay and Clavigero will enter first."

Obediently, Hadeishi touched down beyond the ring of equipment, letting his boots adhere to the scarred, blackened hull. He found it wryly amusing that the EVA platform now seemed to be hanging in the air overhead. The two Marine privates shifted themselves to include him inside the immediate fire perimeter. Both men were crouched and braced against the hull, shipguns out and armed.

"Sho-i Asale," Hadeishi clicked open the comm. "You should back off, out of this confined space. Take station a hundred or so meters from the exterior ring of ore tanks and stand by."

The pilot frowned – Mitsu could see her worried expression through the glassite of her faceplate. "Kyo – what if you need extraction? I should stay close."

"We might not need pickup from this particular airlock," he replied, keeping an eye on the darkness among the gantries and space framing joining the ore tanks to the refinery hull. "Take your time and stay clear of the hardwire."

Asale nodded dubiously, but ran through her flight check and then – in a faint cloud of vapor – began to back the platform away from the airlock. At the same time, Felix stood and took up position to cover the airlock opening.

"We're in," she said, thumbing the safety on the Whipsaw to live fire, single-shot.

Hadeishi crouched down as the two privates swung round and took hold of the locking bars on the face of the lock. He did not bother to check his own sidearm. If things degenerated to a firefight, his own nominal skill with a pistol or assault rifle would not make much of a difference.

The airlock unbolting vibrated through the hull. Hadeishi could see the seal outgassing and then a brighter light flooded out as the heavy pressure door recessed and slid aside, leaving a half-moon–shaped section exposed. Maratay ducked inside, crabbing around the corner, gun first. Clavigero followed a heartbeat later and their voices – low and clipped – filled the comm channel.

"Clear. No hostiles."

"Clear. Inner door seal intact. No warning lights."

Felix signed for him to enter and Hadeishi swung 'round and inside in a single motion. He felt the tug of a differential gravity interface inside the white-painted chamber and oriented himself by the g-deck logo stenciled on the wall. Clavigero was already at the inner hatch, peering this way and that, watching for opposition.

"Chu-sa? We could use a hand here?" Felix was standing above him, boots still adhered to the outer hull, looking down impatiently. Tonuac was releasing the first of the equipment cases from its anchor.

"Of course," Hadeishi flashed a reassuring smile. Some officers would have been content to stand aside, but he did not believe in shirking and speed was of the essence. He braced himself and took hold of the lanyard attached to the first case. A blocky gray container marked with the ownership glyph of the Engineering department drifted solidly into his hands. Hadeishi swung it aside to the wall of the airlock and thumbed the adhesion patches 'live'. The case attached itself to the wall with a solid thump.

As Hadeishi hauled the equipment inside, Felix angled through their midst with the octopuslike assembly of the comp interface. There was a second access panel beside the inner door. She removed the faceplate with her hand tool in a series of crisp, flawless actions. Hadeishi, watching her out of the corner of his eye, was pleased to see the endless round of sims had imparted noticeable effects.

The heicho began clipping interface leads onto the exposed components. At the inner door, Clavigero was counting nervously, marking the seconds while the airlock was exposed to open space. The builder's blueprints indicated a two-minute safety interlock, past which an alarm might sound. Hadeishi hoped the miners had not wired a direct alarm system to the bridge.

"Stand by to pierce outer hatch." Tonuac swam inside with the last case. The bulky shape of a shipyard hexacarbon drill was strapped to his chest. As he did so, Maratay kicked himself out through the opening, catching the edge of the opened lock door. He swung round to face back inside. His motions had the same kind of controlled, endlessly-practiced grace shown by Felix in disassembling the access panel.

Hadeishi flattened himself against a wall now covered with gear. Felix ignored Tonuac as he powered up the drill and maneuvered the machine to sit flush with the airlock door. A series of lights on Felix's panel flashed amber in warning.

"Forty-five seconds," she announced in an offhand voice. Tonuac ignored her, checking the seals around the base of the drill. A pressure test showed green and he punched the GO button. Immediately, Hadeishi felt a thready, intermittent vibration through the wall at his back. The drill attacked the inner surface of the airlock door, ejecting a stream of sparking hexacarbon flakes through a side vent.

"Thirty seconds." Felix consulted her handheld and let the Cornuelle comp attack the access panel. This time, there was a barely noticeable flash of numbers and the inner door unlocked. "Door two unlocked."

Hadeishi clicked his circuit to the Cornuelle. "Comm will be dead in five seconds."

Kosho did not have time to reply. Felix rotated a locking ring and the hardline disconnected. The monofilament wire hung suspended for an instant before Maratay – his gloves protected by magnetically active pads – reeled the line out of the lock.

"Fifteen seconds." Felix glanced at Tonuac. The drill was still vibrating against the door.

"Twelve seconds." Maratay nodded sharply and moved out of sight.

"Door one pierced," Tonuac announced, disengaging the drill adhesion seals. He handed off the tool to Hadeishi, who stuffed it into the appropriate case. A cloud of drifting metallic curls floated around him. Outside, Maratay forced a pressure-sleeve into the fresh drill hole. The comm hardwire was tucked inside. Tonuac grabbed the connector as it eeled through the opening, slid a seal gasket around the device and handed off to Felix.

"Outer segment sealed." Maratay's harsh Gujari accent conveyed some of the tension Hadeishi felt. The Marine swung nimbly around the edge of the airlock door. He and Tonuac moved out of the door frame itself. "Inner segment sealed. Outer door cleared to close."

Hadeishi heard the comm channel chime open and saw Felix had reconnected the hardline to the relay. The system warbled happily to itself, signaling a clear connection back to the ship.

"Six seconds," she declared, one hand poised over the outer door control lever. She eyeballed Tonuac and Maratay to make sure they were behind the cross-hatched danger stripe and swung the control down. "Closing outer door."

A thump followed as the airlock engaged, rolled closed and slid into secure position. Tonuac kept an eye on the hardwire, guiding the monofilament with his hands. "Outer door secure. Pressurizing."

Two minutes later, the airlock was at positive, nominal pressure, the seals around the hardline were holding and the inner door rotated aside. Maratay and Clavigero sidled out into a dim, gray-walled passageway. Hadeishi waited until all four Marines had exited the lock and taken up positions on either side. He stepped out into shipside gravity and frowned.

The bulkhead opposite held a dark – apparently broken – map panel. Streaks of rust spilled down unpainted metal. He looked up and down the corridor – some of the overhead lights were missing, while everything had an unmistakable air of decay and long-overdue maintenance. The difference between the immaculate, shipshape Cornuelle and this wreck was striking. Hadeishi shook his head in dismay and consulted his handheld.

"Left-hand corridor," he said, trying to avoid staring at the deck, which had a thin sheet of some kind of oil shimmering underneath the waffle-grid flooring. "Three hundred meters straight on, then there's an internal pressure hatch."

Maratay moved out on point, gliding down the dingy passageway at a run. Hadeishi looked around again and clicked open the channel to the ship. "Sho-sa, what do you make of this?"

The crew is too small, Susan's voice came back, as clear as if she stood at his side. And the ship is too large. According to the builder's plan, there are nearly a hundred and twenty k of corridor and pressurized space inside a Tyr.

"Understood." Hadeishi closed the channel and bent to help Tonuac and Felix haul the rest of the equipment cases into the corridor.

The Palenque, Inbound

One of the v-panes showing a peapod data-feed suddenly went dark. A warning light flared on Magdalena's control panel and the resolution of the composite image on the main display degraded markedly. Now there was only a flickering, indistinct image of a vast, sprawling storm seen from a great height. Barely better than looking out a window at the distant planet. And who knew what was happening under the mottled ochre clouds?

"Only one eye left. We see no better than a snake," the Hesht snarled helplessly. She wanted to pace or run or just crash through a stand of high grass, long legs blurring across hard-packed, dusty ground. Trapped on a tiny ship without proper exercise facilities, limping along at half-speed, a vast distance from the lost steppes of Heshukan, her options had been reduced to shredding the furniture…and now even the joy of exercising her claws palled. "Parker, engine status?"

A comm pane flickered and shifted as a hand in a work glove adjusted a camera lens. The blunt, broad, plant-eating face of Engineer First Isoroku glared out at her. "There has been no change since your last request for status. Maneuver drive three is still offline."

Magdalena showed her incisors in response, though she knew the challenge was lost on these humans. "Where is Parker-tzin?"

The engineer shifted and pointed with a tilted head. The pilot's work boots were partially visible, wedged inside some kind of maintenance accessway. A sort of muffled song was barely audible, leaking out from the opening. Maggie's ears twitched – Parker's idea of a pleasing tune did not coincide with hers. Where are the yowls and shrieks? "He, too, is still busy."

She could tell – feel, really, from the tense tilt of his head and the flare of his nostrils – that the engineer was getting rightfully upset by her constant badgering. Despite their standing difference of opinion over remaining in the system, the Fleet officer had set himself to work in an admirable way. Even a Hesht of her particular temper could see he was making an honest effort. Though every instinct screamed to rush ahead, to boost output on the remaining two maneuver drives – and emit a radiation signature visible throughout half the system – she forced her mouth closed, politely hiding her teeth.

"Isoroku-tzin," she said, forcing the words out in a strangled-sounding voice. "My apologies for interrupting your activities. Please carry on. When drive three is online, I would appreciate…yrrrr…being informed."

The engineer did not respond immediately. In fact, he squinted rather suspiciously at her. At length, lips pursed, he said, "Apology accepted," and signed off the channel, still frowning.

Magdalena ran half-extended claws through her fur, wondering what passed for thought in the heads of these tree-dwelling fruit-eaters. "Rrrr…what is going on down there?"

The storm-covered surface of the third planet mocked her, the single staring red eye of a monstrous serpent. Still on edge, she began experimenting with the different kinds of sensors mounted on the peapod. None of them proved immediately helpful.

"I think," a gruff human voice said from the entryway, "you've confused Isoroku-tzin."

Maggie turned and gave Gunso Fitzsimmons a level stare. In the daily routine of the ship, the Marines stayed off the bridge – Parker claimed they didn't like the smell, though of course he did – and contented themselves with gambling with the scientists, lending the engineer a hand and obsessively checking their equipment.

"I was rude," she said bluntly. "They are working hard and I am impatient."

Fitzsimmons nodded, drifting over to catch the railing circling the command station. "What does our interception window look like?"

"It shrinks." A claw tapped up a plot echoed from the navigational display. "This Shhrast-damned storm is making a mess of plotting pack-leader's pickup. Parker had hoped to make one pass around the planet…" The v-pane showed the path of the Palenque shearing close to the Ephesian atmospheric envelope, then hooking away in a sharp return path for the outer system. "…and picking up speed like a slingstone out again. But now…" she sighed, ears limp with despair, "now we will have to decelerate into a parking orbit, losing precious velocity."

"Are you sure?" Fitzsimmons frowned, leaning over the console. He smelled strangely familiar – bitter, pungent, smoke and old wood – and Magdalena raised her head, plush nose sniffing the air. Then she grinned properly, ears canted forward.

"You've been avoiding Parker-tzin, haven't you?"

The Marine looked at her quizzically for a moment, then smiled in a very impolite way, showing stumpy yellowed teeth. "Use of tabac," he said in a conspiratorial way, "dulls the human sense of smell."

Magdalena shuddered, her fur twitching from head to tail. "A wretched weed," she hissed. "And this is enjoyed by your entire stunted, corrupt race?"

"Parker is a very religious man," the gunso said in a roundabout way. "But Thai-i Isoroku requested our assistance in keeping his engines – well, the Company's engines – free of tabac ash and other contaminants that might otherwise foul power junctions, mar the efficiency of computational cores and soil the sacred decks of the engineering compartments."

Magdalena hissed in delight. "You ate of his kill, pleading an empty belly," she said in mock horror, "while hiding your own in the river-pool! I saw you smoking his disgusting little sticks when we first came aboard."

"Sure." Fitzsimmons shrugged. The whole situation was water off his furless back. "Share and share alike, right? Though Marines are never caught short of supplies." He held up four pink wormlike fingers. "Air, ammo, booze and tabac. Don't need much else."

"He was generous," she started to say, but had to admit – as she had admitted Isoroku's efforts on their behalf – she did not miss the foul smell clinging to her fur and making her sneeze. "But I see the efficiency of the pack-ship is improved by this…deception."

"The Engineer First," Fitzsimmons said, scratching a jaw black with stubble, "is my superior officer. In the absence of other command authority, his operational requirements are my holy writ. But while it's fun to pick on Parker, we need to talk about getting Gretchen and the judge back."

"Yess…" Magdalena stared at the plot again. "If we still had the satellites we could see pack-leader and eldest-and-wisest take off from the ground, allowing us to adjust course properly. But with only one eye left – and that one losing more altitude each day – we are close to being blind."

"Well," Fitzsimmons said slowly, eyeing the display. "In drop school one of my instructors was always saying 'It's all about angular momentum,' which sort of applies here. There's a Marine assault-ship technique which could solve your problem, something Fleet pilots call the 'Pataya knot'. Parker's not the greatest shuttle pilot in the world, but he might be able to handle it."

Magdalena growled, giving him a suspicious look. She wasn't sure this hunter-from-another-den could be trusted. But, she reminded herself, he was sniffing after the pack-leader, so he might soon be in her den as well. "Show me this knot."

Unaccountably, Fitzsimmons turned a sort of russet color.

The 'Observatory' Base Camp

These blankets are real, Gretchen thought, awareness returning from unnaturally vivid dreams. Real scratchy.

For a moment she remained still, eyes closed, listening. The wind outside had died down to an intermittent moan. The camp stove was a soft hiss of burning gas. Hummingbird's spoon made a metallic sound stirring sugar into his cup. He was breathing as she was, momentarily free of the mechanical counter-rasp of the rebreather mask. Everything seemed very normal, even the sensations of chill air against her face and constant throbbing pain in her mutilated feet.

The darkness of her closed eyes was vastly comforting. There were no phantoms, no visions of impossible vistas, no cloudy indistinct body rippling with clouds of buzzing lights. She felt solid – terribly tired and wrung out like a dead towel – but having substance. Okay, here we go.

Gretchen opened her eyes, focused on a perfectly normal-looking roof formed of honeycombed prestressed concrete, crisscrossed by metallic tracks holding cheap lights, and was vastly relieved.

"There is tea," Hummingbird said. She turned her head. The effort of putting aside the heavy blankets could wait. The nauallis was watching her from the other side of the little stove, his face filled with open worry. Reaching over, he put a cup of steaming tea beside her. From close range, pitted and scratched metal revealed the foggy, indistinct image of a pale-faced woman with sweat-streaked hair. "How do you feel?"

Gretchen nodded, but was exhausted even by moving her head. After gathering her strength, she managed to say, "Tired."

Hummingbird nodded, the deep grooves and wrinkles in his face deeper and more distinct than she remembered. The faint reddish glow from the heaters lent him a sepulchral aspect. "How is your vision?"

"Only…one of you," she said, too tired to smile. "What…happened?"

His jaw clenched, then he visibly forced himself to relax. "The storm has mostly passed. I have tried to contact the Cornuelle, but there is no answer. Also, something has gotten into the hangar. Both aircraft have become one with the floor."

"Huh!" Laughing hurt, but the baffled look on the old man's face was priceless. Gretchen managed to worm one hand out of the blankets to take hold of the cup. The metal was only lukewarm, but the liquid inside burned her lips. She tasted more sugar than tea. "Told you so."

"Yes." Hummingbird tilted his head in acknowledgment. "You were right to be concerned. The rate of decay in the camp buildings is faster than I expected. But we should be able to clear out this set of rooms, get the generator started again and rig a positive-pressure environment. That will help."

Gretchen set the empty cup on her chest and stared at the ceiling again. "What day is it?"

"Plus fourteen from landing," the nauallis replied, taking the cup away to refill.

"Two days." Gretchen mumbled, feeling exhaustion overtake her. "The Palenque will be here. But we need both Midge s in working order."

"How…" Hummingbird saw she was asleep again, a soft snore escaping her lips. "Working order? I thought we were done here, but…" He got up and began gathering up what tools he could find. "Must be a sledgehammer or rock chisel somewhere in these buildings."

Still limping, using a survey marker pole as a cane, Gretchen stopped beside the Gagarin and peered suspiciously at the undercarriage. The floor was remarkably clean for a base-camp hangar, which proved Hummingbird had been very, very busy while she was sleeping. For her part, Anderssen felt remarkably refreshed for a woman with two bad feet, a medband whining about alkaloid toxins in her blood and no immediate prospects of rescue from an increasingly hostile world entirely unfit for man.

"Kind of banged up," she said, biting her lip at the dents and chipping visible on the landing gear assembly. Curious, Gretchen put her weight against the wing and the wheel clunked over. The heavy rubberlike material was badly pitted. She looked over at Hummingbird, who was squatting beneath his own ultralight. "Good work to get this place cleaned out."

"Does it matter?" The nauallis spread his hands, looking at her expectantly.

"It does." Gretchen opened Gagarin's cockpit door. "We need both ultralights to get off this rock. I was sure we were done for when your fuel pump froze up." She threw the comp restart switch and leaned back on the pole, watching the system spool up.

"We need only wait," Hummingbird said, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "The Cornuelle will return soon."

"The day after tomorrow," Gretchen said, shaking her head at his optimism, "one of the shuttles from the Palenque will make a skip-pass through the upper reaches of the planetary atmosphere. The approach will be entirely ballistic – no power, no radiation signature, no more evidence than a meteorite burning up in the mesosphere – and we will be waiting, both of us in a Midge, for a skyhook extraction."

"Impossible! A Midge can't fly that high and we'd asphyxiate or freeze before reaching an altitude where a shuttle could pick us up on an approach like that."

"If this were Anбhuac, you'd be right." The comm console beeped pleasantly and Gretchen felt her stomach sink. There were no system messages waiting for her. No mysterious notes from Magdalena. No word the Palenque was actually coming to fetch them. "But this is not Old Earth."

Anderssen shuffled out, the pole scratching on the floor. "Like Mars, this world's atmosphere is very thin. Maybe only half the depth of Anбhuac's ocean of air. Even the individual layers of the atmosphere are compressed or thinned. We only need to reach thirty k to escape. At such an altitude, in fact, we'll be worrying about broiling in solar radiation rather than freezing, but these Midge s are pretty well equipped to protect us from the heat.

"Air is a problem, but we can secure these suits for a super-low-pressure environment. We won't have to stay at height long – in fact, we won't be able to loiter for more than about thirty minutes – but the shuttle will be there when we are."

Hummingbird was scowling, his face dark as a thunderhead above the Escarpment. "A skyhook can only intercept one Midge at a time – if your Mister Parker can keep his hands steady enough to catch us. And how do you expect one of these dragonflies to reach that altitude?"

"I'm not trying to get us killed," Gretchen said in a stiff voice. "But it is dangerous."

She ran her hand across the Gagarin's wing, taking a long look at the battered, scratched, wind-worn surface. The ultralight had traveled thousands of k across this world, with two pilots of varying abilities, making at least one complete circumnavigation. Mountains, plains, all the diverse wastelands…all without complaint. A sturdy, battle-hardened plane with a brave heart. Gretchen blinked, trying to restrain a wellspring of emotion.

"We," she said, after clearing her throat, "are going to strip everything unnecessary out of this one. The fuel tanks on yours detach, so we'll stuff them into the cargo compartment, doubling our range." Gretchen tapped a pair of brackets on the underside of the airframe. "Beneath my seat are two chemical rocket boosters, which fit here."

She turned and gave the old man a weary smile. "This world does not enjoy an evenly distributed gravitational field. There are huge disparities of mass inside the crust and core. Near the Escarpment there are eddies where g spikes three or four times surface normal. West of here, out in the Great Eastern Basin, there is an area of very low g. Our escape velocity will be drastically lowered once we enter the zone. We'll use the rockets when the air becomes too thin to impart any lift at all."

Hummingbird blinked. "And if no one is waiting in high orbit?"

"We fly back down." Gretchen felt her stomach go cold. No sense in lying… "I hope."

"Hmm." The nauallis clasped his hands and stared at the floor for a long time. When he looked up, a weight seemed to have lifted from him. "Even so, flying such a distance will take time. So we had best get started."

Gretchen nodded, then reached out her hand. The judge looked askance for a moment, then accepted her arm in rising. "Let me get my gear – you need a special socket wrench to unbolt the fuel tanks."

Three hours later, Hummingbird ducked through the door from the main building with the last of their baggage slung over his shoulder.

"I've good news," he said, dumping the duffel bags on the floor of the hangar. Gretchen looked up from the cockpit of the Gagarin, her face streaked with grime, oil and tiny flakes of shredded plastic. The shockchair had been dismounted and moved aside, an effort which required cutting away the armrests to make room for the second chair from the other Midge. The compartment seemed very bare with the side panels torn out and everything stripped down to bare metal. Only the 3v of her kids and Russovsky's icon remained, tacked to the overhead. The power cell worked into the paper had finally failed, leaving only a static, fixed image. "We needn't take more than one or two days' supply of food with us."

The nauallis unsealed one of the bags and dumped out four or five packs of threesquares onto the floor. They made an audible clanking sound, stone striking stone. Gretchen tried to grin, but she was very tired again. Even the effort of dismounting everything which could be removed from the Midge had left her shaking.

"Infected?" Gretchen took the opportunity to sit down.

"Some surface dust must have gotten into the bag." Hummingbird began separating the petrified bars from those still good. "And our water is down to maybe three liters, plus whatever is in our suit reservoirs."

"We can make more water," Gretchen said, rubbing her eyes. "The fuel cells generate waste H₂O as a byproduct. But they won't make food from nothing."

The old Mйxica clicked his teeth. "What progress?"

"Fuel tanks are moved and hooked up. I can't find any leaks, so I hope they're not there. If you help me lift in the second chair, I can bolt it in place. Then the rockets need to be mounted and control linkages tested."

"And then?"

"Then we'll be done and I can lie down." Her vision was getting hazy, but not from hallucinations. She started to slump over, then caught herself. "What?"

"Go lie down now," Hummingbird said. "I can do the rest."

"Okay." Gretchen wiped her hands on her thighs, which made absolutely no difference to the grime on her gloves or legs. "Think of anything else we can get rid of…I'm stumped. Weight is the enemy right now."

Hummingbird watched her limp into the tunnel, a pensive expression on his seamed old face. Then he stood up and went to the second shockchair, which was sitting beside the cockpit door. He braced himself and started to lift, grunting in surprise at the weight.

On the open plains surrounding the base camp, sunset ushered in a long dusk. There were no towering mountains to the west to swallow the sun, plunging the land into shadow. Instead, the sun settled amiably toward a brassy gold horizon. Heavily laden, Gretchen limped down a sandy gully between the half-buried headquarters building and the lab. In the soft gilded light the empty doorways and barren eyesocket windows no longer seemed so disturbing. She wondered if Hummingbird's efforts to align the camp had driven away the shadows he claimed inhabited abandoned places.

Beyond the lab building she paused at the edge of the crude shuttle field. The most recent storm had destroyed both of the vehicle sheds. The eight-wheeled Armadillo carryalls had disappeared. Did we pack them up? Did Hummingbird do something with them?

"Enough procrastination," Gretchen said to herself, sounding very much like her mother.

The Sif felt heavy in her hands. The gun carried a sense of solid menace, as though weapons obeyed some different order of density. Gretchen looked around, fretting at the thought of abandoning a perfectly good tool for almost no reason at all.

"But you're too heavy," Anderssen said, speaking crossly at the shockgun. "And useless."

Letting go proved difficult, though, and she wandered back and forth at the edge of the camp for nearly an hour before stumbling across a narrow fissure in the earth. Something about the unexpected opening convinced her this was a safe place to discard the gun.

The Sif clanked and rattled down into the shadows. Gretchen tossed the ammunition canisters in one at a time as she walked the length of the fissure. The bandolier was easier – the cheap old leather was cracked and ugly – and she just tossed it into the crumpled ruins of an equipment shed.

In the gathering darkness – more than half of the sun was now hidden behind the western horizon – Gretchen could make out familiar pale gleaming lights in the wreckage. Politely, she pressed her fingertips to her forehead before limping back toward the headquarters building. She hoped the microfauna in the sand enjoyed the meal.

"Sister…I should get rid of all this stuff." Gretchen fingered the tools on her belt and the work vest. There had to be at least six kilos of gear draped on her or tucked away in the thighpads on her suit or in the back of her equipment belt. She took out her trusty old multitool.

Grandpa Carl gave me this, she remembered, ratcheting the drill attachment in and out. Middle School graduation. Long time ago. I can't throw these things away, they're my friends. I might need them.

And, Gretchen realized with a sinking, sick feeling, she couldn't keep them either.

I'd better keep just this one, she resolved, limping back toward the main building, the multitool snug against her side. Loyal service should be rewarded.

Gretchen angled to her left, aiming to cut around the lab to the hangar entrance, when someone stepped around the corner of the low-slung building. She slowed, feet shuffling in knee-high drifts of freshly blown sand, and raised her hand to wave hello.

The figure – features obscured in a tightly wrapped kaffiyeh and respirator mask – paused, startled, one leg unusually stiff and something – she had no idea what – made her lurch to a halt. Gretchen's throat went dry and a familiar chill feeling stroked the back of her neck.

"Crow…?" Gretchen backed up, realizing the bulk of the lab building hid her from view, should anyone look out the windows of the headquarters or even go outside the main airlock. "Stand away!"

The figure stopped, kaffiyeh coming loose, djellaba flapping dark around short legs. Gretchen squinted, trying to peer past the half-mirrored facemask. Startled pale blue eyes stared back through greasy blond hair. Gretchen felt the world come unglued again.

"Oh blessed sister…" Her voice sounded queer – strained and tight – almost lost in the gusty evening wind. The sun had vanished into the west, leaving behind a glorious sky glowing orange and red and dusky purple. Along the horizon, the vast sandstorm was still visible, burning golden with the last rays of day.

"I've been copied!" A double echo vibrated in her comm.

Gretchen flinched back, her stomach burning with a chill knot of fear. Unbidden, the sight crept up on her and the figure's arm blazed with a cool flame. She shook her head violently, trying to clear her untrustworthy vision.

Anderssen was suddenly only a pace away, reaching out to take her arm.

"Are you all right?" The face behind the mask was stiff with concern.

"Stay back!" Gretchen tried to scramble backward but her feet dragged in the sand and she fell. The woman stopped, a penetrating look on her face as Gretchen crawled away. She could feel – and almost see – a familiar cool fire in the watching eyes. A sense of heat flushed her face. Gretchen recognized the sensation and both eyes grew wide, casting from side to side.

Forcing her fingers to steadiness, Gretchen switched her comm live. "Hummingbird?"

Static, warbling, rising and falling in tuneless rhythm. The voice of the wind.

She shut down the comm. The sky was darkening steadily and down among the buildings night gathered around her. Anderssen did not move. She seemed to be watching her intently. Mouthing a prayer to the Sister to fill her limbs with strength and guide her to safety, Gretchen closed her eyes. Fear boiled behind her eyelids, clinging, cold, leaching thought of motion. Now, encompassed entirely in darkness, the night felt heavy, pressing against her from all sides. There was menace hiding in the darkness. Why didn't I feel this before? None of this was here!

"I need your help," her own voice said from the night. Her face warmed again, as though a bonfire roared and leapt only meters away. "Just come with me."

Gretchen gathered her legs under her, forcing the awareness of stabbing pain in her brutalized feet away, and drifted away from the sickly heat on her face. Her hands brushed across sand, gravel and slivers of rock, searching for just the right place to settle.

The voice followed her, not too far, not too close. "It's growing cold. We should go inside. Gretchen, I know this seems terribly strange to you…"

Shuddering with relief, her outstretched hands found barren rock, exposed by the ceaseless wind and there, among chipped, splintered shale, was a sense of solidity, of rightness. Gretchen scurried onto the stones, halting when her left boot skidded out over unseen emptiness. Digging her hands into the loose rock, she exhaled slowly and opened her eyes.

A cloud of chilling mist wavered in the air. She could see a single, solitary light burning in one of the second-floor windows of the main building. Everything else in the camp was dark and deserted. The sense of menacing abandonment rushed back, stronger than ever. Even the stars seemed faint.

Anderssen approached, stepping over the ridges of sand. Her movement was odd – jerky, a half-motion slower than expected. The odd doubling and tripling of her vision returned, stronger than before, showing an Anderssen ablaze with the chill blue light or blocky dark or illuminated again. Nothing about her, no matter the wealth of detail in her face and suit and cloak, seemed even remotely human.

Hummingbird sang bravely when they came against him, she remembered, a sharp fragment of the dreadful night under the cliffs of the Escarpment. Damn it, I can't think of any songs! I hate singing. Why would I have to sing?

The shape paused and she saw it had reached the edge of the stone outcropping. Furling the djellaba aside with a deft motion, the shape settled into a crouch, puddled in shadow and darkness. Gretchen swallowed, closing her eyes in concentration. The warmth in the stone seeped up into her fingers, into her hands, filling her arms with strength.

"I am not afraid," she said aloud. The sickly heat returned, beating against her face. She started to sweat, feeling moisture bead on her neck and forehead – and then the dampness froze. Alarmed, Gretchen opened her eyes. The sky had grown fully dark, awash with pale emerald, topaz and carnelian stars, all trace of the blinding sun fled.

A faint blur of light tainted the sand around the crouching figure. As Gretchen watched, the blur thickened, brightened and spread. Slow radiant threads crept across gravel and scattered stone, winding their way onto the rocks. A fierce desire to flee gripped her, seeing the glassy illumination advance, but everything beyond the steady, solid warmth in the rock was cold and remote.

Wait, she wondered. Is this something only visible to my sight, or is it real?

The blur washed closer, now rippling in faint, ghostly waves across the stones.

What do I really see? Is anything really there? What if it's just an echo of myself?

Gretchen let her body become loose again. A stiffness in her arms and legs resisted, but slowly faded as she controlled her breathing. In the brilliant dreams, the turmoil of hallucinogenic visions and uncontrollable sight had been subsumed into a crystalline sense of order. In the perfectly etched world the bitter powder had shown her, there was sight and sight. There was the promise of focus and a diamond-bright perfection of intent.

She groped to recapture the sensation. Memory fled, vanishing in a chaos of confused images, in delirious phantasms. Heat burned suddenly in her fingers. Gretchen jerked back, forcing her eyes open.

The cold blur lapped around her feet and covered her gloves. Stunned, she saw clouds of tiny flickering particles swarming among the broken, dead stone. An effort to lift her hand failed – a steadily growing web of jeweled threads chained her to the ground. Oh, shit!

Gretchen dragged at her leaden arms, trying to wrench free of the spreading jewelstain permeating the glossy black of her suit. Despite straining with both feet braced, she only succeeded in wrenching her shoulder. The sense of steady warmth vanished in the moment of effort, leaving the biting cold of the Ephesian night flooding in around her. A wild glance to either side revealed only darkness and some kind of pit or fissure in the earth. Trapped! Both forelegs in the trap. I can't even gnaw free.

Stomach churning with nausea, she looked across the outcropping, expecting to see the shape looming there in triumph. Instead, she gave a tiny, fierce shake of her head, stunned.

Anderssen rose, bloody feet bare on the gleaming sand. A queer emerald fire licked through her short blond hair, then faded away. The woman shifted her shoulders, letting the djellaba fall properly. Her face was bare to the thin, frigid air – the red welts of a breather mask worn too long were plain on her round cheeks, nose and neck – every tool and gadget was in place, comm and medband clasped around well-muscled wrists.

"Wha -" Gretchen rallied, violently collecting her thoughts. "You don't look like me."

The stance was all wrong, weight evenly distributed, not leaning to one side, favoring the wounded foot; even the face seemed distorted – lopsided – one eye fractionally higher than the other.

Hummingbird will be able to tell. Gretchen found the thought a frail comfort. If he has time to see as she rushes out of the darkness or creeps up behind him.

The chains of jewels dragging at her arms pulsed with delicate, subtle color. Gretchen felt something change and shift in her mind. Half-familiar memories stirred, clamoring for her attention. They felt strange – not soft and faded, burnished by the passage of time – but cold and clear, freshly struck from the die.

A sullen yellow sky filled with hundreds of bright pinpricks loomed overhead, a harsh, claustrophobic vault crushing the breath from her lungs. In every direction endless ranks of vast obsidian towers soared in counterpoint to the sulfurous heavens. She turned, images blurring past – more towers, some shattered and cracked with age, some newly raised from the plain.

In the distance, heat haze shimmered in deserted avenues, yielding the sickly black image of a vast, implacable lake. Somewhere, beyond the horizon, down just such an avenue as this, ringed by the same colossal buildings, the lake was real; oily, infinitely deep, stretching from horizon to horizon, a choking black band wrapped around the wizened throat of an ancient, dying planet.

"No – I was never there!" Gretchen shouted aloud, filled with an all-encompassing fear for her own memories, her own thoughts. Voices roared in her ears, shouting and accusing her of monstrous deeds. "I'm not one of the things in the library! I'm not one of them!"

A cloud of brilliant stars spanned the arc of a blue-green world. Great whorls of white cloud obscured most of the surface, but mottled green and brown continents peeked through. Seas and oceans blazed blue, shining in the light of a dim yellow sun.

Across the face of the void, stars rippled and twisted, distorted by something vast. Space boiled and tore, splitting aside. A shape forced its way through the burning gap, something nearly dwarfing the world shining below. Tatters of space and time flew past, the light of distant suns still reflected in long streamers of darkness. An ebon shape swept across the world, blotting out any view of the green hills or shining seas.

In the passing wake, the fabric of space reknit, stars falling back into their accustomed courses, the glare of the sun once more traveling as it had done for millennia. Yet the spilling, fluid darkness already englobed the world, a tightening black web, shutting out the sun, blocking the light of the stars.

"No…" Gretchen tried to concentrate, to hold back a titanic flood of images – not her thoughts, not things she had done – from overwhelming her mind. They crowded in, pushing aside memories of her friends at the university, time spent hiking in the tall pines behind the steading, the smell of coffee perking in her dorm room, the harsh taint of diesel in the fog as she hurried across the Quad to class. "Give them back!"

But her memories were dying. Wiped away. Replaced by images of a horizon boiling with black ink, of shining silver sparks raining down out of the sky, splashing into the sea, tangling in saw-leafed palmettos. The single burning image of a four-fingered hand lifting a muddy cylinder from a stream.

"Not mine. Not mine. Not mine!" Gretchen wailed, clutching desperately at carefully hoarded memories of two little girls and one little boy. The sound of Isabelle crying, swaddled in fluffy blankets. Duncan's face screwed up in a pout, thin little arms crossed over his chest, one of his grandfather's flannel shirts rolled up sixty times to fit. Tristan declaring she would be planetary president right after third form. Everything they had ever done or said or shouted. Bare feet pattering down wooden stairs into the kitchen.

A sharp sense of disassociation overtook her, a threshold breached by urgent need.

The sense of brilliant clarity from her dreams was suddenly there, around her, a perfect, frozen world of absolutes. Black stains upon her memory shone very clear in this incandescent vision. Mine, she raged, driving back the distorting clouds. Where the shimmering visions had lain entwined with her own imperfection, she summoned up every detail from faint traces, from ghosts, from the neural residue left in the rubble of invasion. Mine!

For a moment, she hung in a balance, staring into endless corridors of memory, where every lost day, every forgotten word, every kiss was still alive, poised for her to plunge into them again. Youth. Tiny wrinkled pink babies drawing breath for their first wailing cry. Tiny hands clasped in hers. Frost on the porch in the morning. Melting snow plunging from the steep, slate roofs of the university halls as spring sunlight shone through the last clouds of winter.

Freezing cold engulfed her hands and Gretchen hissed in pain. Her eyes were still open, staring at sand spun with a web of jewels, but the vision was very distant from her thought. A jolt of physicality shook her body, tearing her mind away from the swarm of memories and plunging her once more into the cold, bruised, bleeding, frightened body crouched on a bare stone outcropping amid desolation. "Ahhhh! Oh Sister…that hurts!"

Her work gloves and the z-suit covering her forearms had been eaten away, leaving nothing to protect her skin from the subzero Ephesian night. Her fingertips were turning black. Gretchen clutched both hands to her chest and cried out at a fresh burst of pain.

A rasping cough tore itself from her chest, then another. Tears froze at the corners of her eyes. Still afraid to move, she curled herself up on the bare stone, trying to protect her ruined hands with the bulk of her body. Cold closed in on her, heat seeping away through the damaged suit into the open sky.

In the darkness, Anderssen frowned, displeased. There are no answers here.

Aboard the Turan

Tonuac, shipgun at high port, scuttled up to a pressure door at the end of the corridor. A dozen yards back, Hadeishi tensed, waiting for Heicho Felix – who was covering the Marine on point with her Whipsaw – to wave him forward. Tonuac crouched, keeping his head below the level of a glassite panel set into the door, and listened intently. A moment later he made a hand sign. Felix did not turn, but her hand slashed at the floor of the corridor. Traffic ahead.

Hadeishi settled in to wait. Maratay was right behind him, making sure the hardwire for the comm relay spooled out properly while keeping an eye on the chu-sa, who as an officer – a Fleet officer at that – needed constant supervision. Clavigero was ten meters behind, at the last bulkhead frame, watching the backtrail for unwanted visitors.

Nearly two hours had passed since they'd broken in through the airlock. The Turan had proved vaster than Hadeishi had expected. The schematics did not do justice to the endlessly snaking passages, countless levels, ramps, elevators, and gangways they had traversed to reach this point. From his handheld, Mitsu knew the corridor ahead was a main artery in the primary hab core of the refinery. Here, at last, they were reaching territory where they might encounter the crew.

"There's a galley and common area listed on the spec," he whispered to Felix. "Through the hatch and to the right about twenty meters."

"I know." The heicho grinned mischievously over her shoulder. "You know, in the sims, everything was very shipshape."

Hadeishi swallowed a guffaw. Nothing they'd seen so far had been clean. A thin layer of oily, pastelike grime covered every visible surface. Some of the gangways they'd climbed had left black stains on his gloves and boots. The chu-sa had neglected to pack an analysis comp with a sampler, but he suspected all this finely coated debris was residue from the refinery operations. He could feel the ship vibrating through his boots and shoulder – somewhere downship enormous machines were grinding raw asteroid rock down to a molecular grit for ore separation. Some process of the sort was leaking this slippery, invasive grime. Civilians…is it like this on commercial, licensed miners, too?

Shaking his head slightly, he nodded to Felix. "Is this a bad spot? In the sims, I mean."

"No." Felix adjusted her grip on the Whipsaw, dark brown eyes troubled. "So we're going to go careful."

Tonuac motioned, drawing her attention back to the door. The point-man keyed the pressure door open, revealing a brightly-lit corridor with rubberized carpet. Tonuac eased out, swinging his gun sharply from side to side, then signed all-clear. Felix was moving the instant Tonuac cleared the door, one hand guiding Hadeishi through the opening. Behind them, Maratay scuttled along, playing out hardwire from his spool. Clavigero sprinted up the passageway, running as quietly as he could to catch up.

Hadeishi caught a glimpse of a broad passage lined with working, reasonably clean overhead lights. There were even 3v posters of beaches and wooded mountainsides on the bulkheads. Tonuac punched the access plate of a door facing them as Felix and the chu-sa reached his side. The two Marine privates were crowding in behind, shipguns covering the hallway in either direction.

The door hissed opened and a man – a crewman with short, sandy hair and an armload of briefing binders in his arms – stepped through into their midst.

Hadeishi froze, startled. Felix smashed the butt of the Whipsaw into the man's face without so much as a heartbeat's hesitation. The miner jumped back with almost equal speed and the gunstock slammed into his binders. They flew everywhere in a spray of paper and diagrams.

"Intruder…urk!" The man's scream was cut off abruptly. Felix seized the throat of his braided jacket, lifted him bodily – an easy task for her suit – and flung him back through the hatch. Tonuac had already leapt ahead – the map showed a cross-passage leading to a maintenance shaft which rose to the bridge deck – and slewed to a halt, cursing.

Instead of a narrow, pipe-lined corridor, there was a ready room with an entertainment center, a wet bar and four very startled-looking miners. The clerk crashed past the Marine and took out a card table in a clatter of shattering plastic and plywood. The other men leapt up, shouting in alarm.

"Other way," Hadeishi and Felix shouted simultaneously. Tonuac short-stroked the trigger on his shipgun and jumped back through the doorway. A sharp bang! flung a room-suppression munition into the compartment. The miners scattered away from the bouncing black sphere.

"Portside," Felix shouted, shoving Hadeishi past her. Maratay darted ahead, still concentrating on the hardwire spooling out in a silvery ribbon behind him as he ran. The heicho cranked a round from the Whipsaw into the access panel for the compartment door. A violent, concussive boom followed and smoke billowed out of the wall. A second, muffled whoomp followed hard on its heels as the room suppression munition blew apart inside the ready room.

"Schematic is offset ten meters," Hadeishi commented into his throat mike as they charged down the corridor. "Reset and relay to my handheld."

Maratay skidded to a halt at another compartment door. "This one?"

"Knock it in," Felix shouted, waving Clavigero past. Tonuac had already dashed ahead of the chu-sa to take flank-point. The little Rajput Marine swung the comm relay onto his shoulder, hoisted up his gun and jammed the access keypad with the muzzle. The door cycled open.

An alarm began to blare, filling the corridor with eardrum-crushing noise.

Maratay sighed. The maintenance corridor was stacked floor to ceiling with crates. "No go!"

"Keep moving," Felix said, shoving her chu-sa ahead. "Go to access route plan three."

They jogged forward and suddenly a wide cross-passage opened to the right. Men in dark-blue uniforms were running toward them, overhead lights gleaming from steel-gray weapons. Hadeishi leapt aside and back – there'd been a compartment door – shouting "Sureshot! Sureshot!"

Tonuac and Felix had already spun to cover the new threat. Both froze as the chu-sa's order registered. Maratay threw himself out of the line of fire, staying on task, but Clavigero skidded into the open and his shipgun twitched sideways automatically. His finger clenched tight and a burst ripped from the weapon, filling the side-corridor with a stuttering series of sun-bright flashes.

Hadeishi threw the wardroom door aside with his shoulder and rolled in. A man rose in surprise from a computer station, a still-smoking tabac dangling from his lip. Maratay rolled the other way, flipping the hardwire around the doorframe. Mitsu realized no one else could deal with the miner and sprang across the table separating them.

The man shouted, fell backward over his chair and Hadeishi jammed him to the deck with the point of his elbow. The suit-magnified blow slammed the man's head into the carpet, stunning him. Encapsulated in complete, unhurried calm, Hadeishi rolled the miner over and pinned him with a knee. "Maratay – restraints?"

The Marine tossed over a set of zipcuffs from a pouch at his belt.

Outside, the echo of Clavigero's shipgun had been swallowed in a roar of beam weapon fire. A lurid red glow flooded the hallway. Felix and Tonuac dropped through the door and swung to covering positions. A smoking, scarlet beam licked past, searing a three-meter scar on the opposite wall. The heat of the blast singed Hadeishi's combat suit, but his hands did not pause in securing their prisoner.

"Chu-sa?" Felix hissed, gesturing for Hadeishi's attention. "We've got to break out of here. Get ready!"

"Wait one," Hadeishi said, making a sharp quelling motion. "Clavigero?"

Here, kyo. The man's voice was harsh with adrenaline. I'm in the main corridor, fell back to the last space-frame.

"Hold position, Marine." The chu-sa clicked his throat mike. "Kosho, how many men in the cross-corridor?"

Six, two down. Susan's voice was refreshingly cool in his earbug. He had a very clear mental image of her in the command chair on the bridge of the Cornuelle, watching the combat v-feed with dispassionate, professional interest. More will reinforce from the galley area.

Hadeishi caught Felix's eye. The heicho was very tense and seemed ready to leap out into the corridor and take the miners on with her bare hands. "Sureshot, Heicho. No casualties."

"Two down now, Chu-sa," she replied, eyes flicking between his face and the angle of the corridor she could see. "Their blood will be up. N is high."

Hadeishi nodded. Fleet training assumed every operational plan would reach a point of failure at an indeterminate point of time offset from the 'go' moment. The possibility of failure was termed "n", which began accumulating even before operational kickoff. Some planning officers believed n accumulated for individuals as well – eventually your day came and there was nothing you could do to erase the failure-debt you'd accumulated. "Clavigero – suppress the backside corridor. Felix – exit options?"

The heicho dragged out her handheld, scanning through the level schematics. Outside, there was a sharp coughing sound as the Marine in the passageway fired two RSM rounds down the main corridor toward the galley. Hadeishi could hear men shouting in the distance, but their voices were drowned out by a heavy whoomp-whoomp!

"We're backed up against a bulkhead here, kyo." Felix pointed at the rear wall. "But both sides lead into other compartments… What's he got?"

Hadeishi rolled the unconscious miner over. His name tag read GEMMILSKY and the tag for his ship department indicated he was a system tech. Eyes narrowing in consideration, Hadeishi rose, stepping to the miner's computer display.

"Ship's librarian," he said slowly. "Maratay – get the relay over here and jack in. Felix, we need some breathing room."

"Hai, Chu-sa!" Felix signed to Tonuac. The Zapotec craned his head to look outside, muttering under his breath to Clavigero. The Marine out in the hallway replied, but Hadeishi was concentrating on disassembling the desk. Maratay reached in, handing him a spare multitool and between the two of them they had the tabletop unscrewed as fast as humanly possible.

"Susan," he said, stripping a dust cover away from the comp unit hidden in the desk, "get Smith on this circuit. We need to break into their shipside comm."

Understood. A soft chime sounded as the midshipman came on channel. Standing by.

Hadeishi identified the comm interface and Maratay handed him a cluster of adhesive leads. Been a long time since I had to do this, Mitsu thought, his thoughts blurring into action as quickly as he could find the circuit ports and nudge the leads into place.

Under the watching snout of Felix's Whipsaw, Tonuac darted out from the door and across the passageway to the opposite bulkhead. Parts of the deck and junction facing were on fire, spilling a bitter, acidic smoke into the air. The intruder alert continued to blare, now joined by the honking of a fire alarm. The hallway leading toward the galley billowed with sleepgas from Clavigero's RSM rounds. Tonuac's visor adjusted automatically, shifting into multispectrum range. The resulting gray-tinted image showed him unconscious men scattered in the corridor. No one seemed to be moving that way.

"Mop up," he hissed at Clavigero, waving the Marine toward the ready room. "Sureshot, remember. Use tanglewire."

As the private loped off into the smoke, Tonuac glanced over at Felix, received the go-ahead and plucked a spare-eye from his belt. Sliding the hair-thin video camera around the corner, he watched the feed on a heads-up inside his visor. The enemy was gathering – the two men Clavigero had knocked down were gone, dragged away – and at least twenty miners were crouched along the walls. They had an amazing number of weapons to hand – but Tonuac didn't see a single man with a rocket launcher or in armor.

"Waited too long, my friends." Tonuac laid the eye down on the floor so it could continue to transmit. He checked to make sure his shipgun was set to fire RSM, caught Felix's eye – she nodded, the Whipsaw raised – and poked the muzzle around the corner.

Instantly, the air curdled with the snap-snap-snap of beam pistols. The wall beside his head blew apart as plastic and light metal atomized. Tonuac felt the shockwave slap his shoulder and neck, but the absorptive composite of his suit shrugged the blow aside. His shipgun coughed twice and he scuttled back before someone hit him with something big enough to punch through his armor. Felix waited for him to clear her line of sight, then overhanded a tanglewire grenade into the adjoining corridor.

The whoomp-whoomp of the RSM rounds detonating amid the miners was drowned by a chorus of exited yelling. More thick gray smoke flooded the passage, disguising the detonation of the tanglewire. The grenade bounced once and then shattered. Thousands of monofilament spools unwound at near-supersonic speed. Adhesive thread-ends blew in all directions and dug deep into the bulkheads, overhead and deck on impact. Within six seconds the corridor was blocked by a misty, half-seen web of magnetically active wire. Wherever the strands touched they adhered and fused solid.

The tone of the fire alarms changed, dropping in urgency. Flame suppression foam flooded from vents in the ceiling, smothering the fires licking along the walls.

Tonuac held position, waiting for Clavigero to return. On general principles, he fired an RSM round down the other branch of the main hallway. More sleepgas and smoke billowed up, making sight difficult for anyone not already in combat armor or using goggles tuned to the 'clear' wavelengths designed into the Imperial smoke.

"Four minutes at the most, Chu-sa," Felix reported, watching the v-feed from the spare-eye. The miners were milling about, confused by the smoke. Some of them had fallen down, overcome by the gas.

"Get me a directory." Hadeishi attached the last of the relay leads to the desk. Now the local network could be directly accessed by the Cornuelle. "And update our floorplans if you can."

Understood. Smith's voice was already distracted, concentrating on overwhelming the refinery ship's security systems. Five minutes.

"Maratay – we need a way out." Hadeishi consulted his handheld, then pointed at the upship-side bulkhead. "Through there."

The Marine nodded, slinging his shipgun. Between the two of them, they ripped away racks of data packs and printed books to get at the wall. Maratay dug into a thigh pouch and produced a reel of cutting gel. Hadeishi stood back, letting the private sketch the outline of a door.

"Kyo – they've seen the tanglewire." Felix was still watching the corridor. Her chrono was spinning, counting the seconds. "Someone's taken charge – they're falling back with a guard left behind. They'll flank us left, right, up, and down."

"Smith-tzin?" Hadeishi started to scan through the schematics of the level above and below their position. They were inside the main hab area, which meant the overhead – in particular – was the deck of the room above. Their own floor lay atop a maze of service ducts.

Working…the midshipman replied. We have comm access. And registry information.

"Master's name?" Hadeishi crouched down, turning away from the upship-side wall. Maratay knelt as well, then triggered the electrostatic charge in the gel. Felix, still covering the outside passage, didn't even flinch as the bulkhead ruptured with a rippling, strobe-bright wham-wham-wham!

Ketcham, Tristan, R. Born Chatham, Duchy of Kent, Lower Skawtland, forty-three years old… Kyo, he's ex-Fleet! Discharged nine years ago.

"Clear," Felix barked and Maratay knocked the broken section of wall into the next compartment. Hadeishi waited for the Marine to sign the room was safe, then ducked through the opening. The new compartment was filled with racks of comp equipment. Some of it was on fire, ignited by the blast. "Tonuac, Clavigero – let's go!"

Hadeishi stood aside, away from the burning equipment, while Felix slid into the room, her Whipsaw drifting from side to side, a tireless shark. "Smith, pull his service record. I need reason for discharge. And get me those deck plans."

Working.

Tonuac bounced in, his armor spattered with smoking, still-molten plastic. Maratay and Felix were already at the far side of the room, trying to clear racks of equipment away to get at the wall. In the first room, Clavigero darted in and spun into cover. Stabbing bolts of beam weapon fire followed, setting the walls alight again. The Marine found a refractive grenade on his belt, pitched the stubby cylinder into the passage and rolled forward through the breach in the wall.

Another crump! followed and the main passageway filled with a cloud of metallic flakes.

Nozzles opened in the overhead of the equipment room and Hadeishi's environment sensor started to squeak about lethal levels of carbon monoxide outside his suit. Ignoring the alert, the chu-sa strode to the far end of the room. "We've got to go up," he snapped at Felix. "Schematic says there's a laundry on the other side of that wall on this level. We'll never get through."

Susan's voice interrupted his train of thought. Kyo, we have a tap on their shipside comm. Ketcham took a voluntary discharge after being denied promotion to command rank. Hadeishi heard a pause in her voice, and guessed the rest even before she continued in a clipped, angry voice. He filed a letter of protest with Fleet, claiming a Mйxica officer of lesser demonstrated ability received command of the heavy cruiser Dundee in his stead. Thai-sa Four-Mountain was named as the other officer.

"Understood." Hadeishi understood perfectly. He'd even met the captain of the Dundee once. A fine example of the high-clan patronage endemic to Imperial capital ship squadrons. Four-Mountain wasn't a bad commander today, but he would have been very, very inexperienced nine years ago. Probably best suited for an exec's slot, not an actual Fleet command. For an aggressive commander, for a man wanting to make his life in the Fleet, being passed over in such an obvious way would have been hard to swallow. Ketcham was neither the first nor the last officer who'd left the service after being snubbed in favor of someone closer to the Seven Hundred Clans.

While he was thinking, Felix and Tonuac had made a hand-and-hand brace. Maratay climbed up, bracing one leg in their grasp and the other against a rack-array of data packs. The little Rajput drew a fresh circle of cutting gel on the ceiling.

"Wait one," Hadeishi said to Felix after Maratay dropped down to the deck again. "Stand by. Smith – patch me onto the shipside comm, direct channel to Ketcham if you can pick out his ident code."

There was a pause. Things seemed to have quieted down outside. Mitsu presumed this meant the miners were preparing to attack their position by some means. He unsealed his sidearm holster.

You are in-circuit, Susan said and a confused babble of voices flooded Hadeishi's earbug.

"Not here, Paulson," Ketcham barked, turning on the riggers crowding the hallway behind him in their z-suits, gloves clutching beam cutters and wrenches. "Go round to the 6-D gangway and up to level thirty-six. Secure the rooms above the 78-H junction and make sure they don't burn through the roof and move up a level."

Confused but spoiling for a fight, the riggers turned around and ran off down the passage.

The refinery captain swore to himself, peering around the corner into the H-port-side hallway. A round dozen crewmen were at his side, most armed with sidearms or beam cutters, though none of them were in armor. The passageway ahead was entirely choked with clinging black smoke. There was no sign of the tanglewire blocking crossway 78.

Ketcham grabbed the nearest shift leader. "Termovich, send a runner to get me a handheld. We need plans of this level and all the rooms. Leave two men forward here on watch and then fall back a frame – and send someone else to get pressure masks or even z-suits if they can find them."

Men melted away from the gang of miners, eager to make themselves useful and get away from the sound of the guns. Ketcham ran a hand through thick blond hair, thinking furiously. He figured they'd already exhausted the day's ration of luck by having him within shouting distance of the firefight when it started. Hardly anyone else aboard had any military experience, though you couldn't deny they were game for a fight.

"No heavy weapons inside," he muttered, "barely anything like combat armor. Miners, technicians, shuttle pilots… Termovich, where's the nearest emergency engineering panel?"

"Back two frames, sir." The Novoya Rossiyan looked scared to death, which only mirrored Ketcham's own gut-twisting fear. Someone – Company mercenaries? Pirates? – had entered his ship undetected, in combat suits and armed to the teeth. Tanglewire and RSM rounds didn't come cheap. But what could they want? To steal the whole ship? Why sneak aboard?

"Get over there right now and drop the bulkheads all round this section and on the level above and below. We'll seal 'em off."

Captain Ketcham? An unknown, unfamiliar voice intruded. Ketcham started and stared around before realizing the voice was coming from his earbug. There is no reason for further conflict.

"Who the hell is this?" Ketcham's bellow caught Termovich by surprise, but the Rossiyan bolted away from the captain's volcanic glare. "Identify yourself!"

Chu-sa Mitsuharu Hadeishi, IMN Cornuelle, at your service.

"Fleet?" Ketcham's voice choked in astonishment. Then his brain – which seemed to have stumbled into tar – kicked into gear. He slapped his comm unit, scrambling the channel. "Override six-twenty-six," he shouted, desperate for even ten seconds of clear air. "Bridge, this is Ketcham. A Fleet Marine assault team has entered the ship. Lockdown all levels and accessways, seal the bridge and -"

None of this is necessary, Captain Ketcham. I need to speak with you directly, but I mean you, your ship and your men no harm. The quiet, reasonable voice had cooled slightly.

Ketcham found his sidearm in his hand – a silver-chased Webley 220 with an over-and-under magazine – and reflexively cycled a round into the firing chamber. The safety unlocked and the see-through-shoot-through sight activated. The board of directors had presented the pistol to him last year, a custom model from Toporosky and Sons gunsmiths. A small token of appreciation for four years of profitable service. A corner of his mind – a part long neglected, but not entirely atrophied from disuse – calculated he would need to be within fifteen meters for the depleted uranium rounds to penetrate a Fleet combat suit.

"You've killed three of my men already," he growled into the comm. "My ship is on fire. You're not making yourself welcome!"

If any of your men died, Captain, I apologize. My Marines have been firing solely RSM and knockdown rounds. I admit an eyesocket hit might kill a man, but that is not our intent.

"What do you want?" Ketcham stared down the back corridor, silently pleading for Termovich to hurry or the bridge to react to his override command. To his great relief, a distant banging sound echoed down the hallway and the lights flickered. The fire alarm cut off and was replaced by the shrill honking of a ship-wide red alert. "Finally!"

I am coming out into the hallway, the voice said, apparently unaware of the bulkheads sliding closed amid flashing lights and the drone of the alarms. I will be unarmed. There is a matter we must discuss. Tell your men to hold fire.

"What?" Ketcham turned, surprised. "What did you say?"

"This is necessary," Hadeishi said to Felix, gently moving the Marine aside. The heicho looked gut-shot, speechless, alarmed, and outraged all at once. The chu-sa drew his sidearm and spun the gun round so the barrel was firmly in hand. "Susan, status please?"

We're going to lose hardline, she replied, her voice sounding as tense as Felix looked. The bulkhead doors are dropping all over the ship. The line might handle one kink, but not sixteen.

"Alternate comm?" Hadeishi stepped to the door of the compartment and pressed the access plate. The door did not move. The chu-sa frowned, realizing the puncture alert had sealed all of the compartment doors even as the bulkheads in the pressure frames were coming down. He looked sideways at Maratay and raised an eyebrow. The Marine jumped as if struck across the face and rushed to swipe cutting gel around the doorframe.

Smith has a hunter loose in their system. I'll let you know when – sqqqwk!

"The hardline is down." Hadeishi turned away from the door, clasping his hands behind his head. Gel volatilized in a rippling streak of fire. Debris rained against Mitsu's suit and smoke coiled past. "Heicho Felix, deploy to hold this block of rooms. The Cornuelle will attempt to restore communications through alternate means. No one – no one – is to open fire without my express order, no matter what happens outside."

The woman nodded, nervously cycling the Whipsaw into firing position.

Hadeishi stepped through the opening into a hallway choked with smoke. The refraction grenade's payload had mostly settled from the air, leaving the floor covered with drifts of shiny metallic glitter. There was fire suppression foam everywhere, dripping from the walls and pooling on the ground. The smoke itself was separating out into oily layers as he walked out into the middle of the cross-corridor and emerged from the fog into sight of the miners.

One of the miners squeaked like a startled rat and his beam-pistol flared. Hadeishi was facing the weapon straight on, his hands wide, his sidearm extended on his middle finger. He saw a discharge corona blossom in the microsecond before his visor polarized and felt the beam glance from his left shoulder.

The snap of the ionizing beam rocked the hallway. Hadeishi staggered, nearly thrown down by the hit. A section of articulated armor plating on his shoulder glowed white hot for a moment, then the surface ablated away, shedding shell-like layers of composite destroyed by the beam. Suit chillers kicked in, bleeding away the heat, and the molten spot began to fade.

"I am unarmed," he announced, voice echoing from the suit's speaker, and tossed the sidearm to the floor. The gun made a clanking sound – very loud in the sudden, shocked silence – and fell over on its side. "I need to speak with Captain Ketcham urgently."

One of the men in the crowd – flattened against the wall, watching him over the muzzle of a massive handgun – twitched and Hadeishi turned slightly to face him. The man – the captain, Mitsu realized, spying rank decorations on a dark-blue uniform with red and gold piping – was tall and broad, easily a foot taller than the Nisei, with wavy blond hair and deep-set, narrowed blue eyes.

The very image of our ancient enemy, Hadeishi thought, continuing to walk forward.

"Stop right there!" Ketcham moved forward, the miners around him – most of them technicians and machine operators, if Mitsu was any judge of their work clothing and departmental insignia – shrinking back to make way. The gun centered on his breast did not waver. "I'll accept your surrender, Nisei, and we can discuss whatever you want once you're in the brig."

Mitsu shook his head. "Captain, the Imperial Navy does not surrender. You should remember the oath you swore at Academy -"

Ketcham's face twisted in a foul, ugly snarl of rage. His finger twitched on the trigger of the Webley and there was a deafening crack as the gun discharged in a gout of expelled gas. Hadeishi tried to throw himself aside, but the flechette round had already broken into a dozen supersonic splinters and at least four smashed into his chest, flinging him around like a broken doll.

Base Camp One

Another bone-deep cough wracked Gretchen's body, coupled with a shiver running from head to foot. Vapor leaking from her mask formed a rime of ice across her collarbone and goggles.

I'm going to freeze to death. The raw thought managed to force itself past crippling pain. Gretchen lifted her head, staring around in the darkness. Through the fog on her lenses, the queer lights had faded away and the nighted shape of Anderssen was gone. Heartened, she rolled up, feeling bone and muscle creak. Though her hands were tucked into her armpits, they had lost all feeling.

The single light on the upper floor of the main building shone clear and distinct, a welcome beacon in the darkness. Gretchen forced herself to her feet, the twinge of her brutalized soles barely noticeable against the hacking cough torturing her upper body. She swayed, dizzy and short of breath, but managed to stumble forward.

Putting one foot in front of the other was torturous work, but she kept her eyes on the light in the window and kept walking. The drifts of sand now seemed to be monstrous ridges.

Near the corner of the lab building, she stumbled and fell. Lying on the ground felt good – for a moment – but then the cold seeped into her suit again. Gretchen staggered up, then slid along the building wall, leaning into the concrete for support. At the corner, she took a careful look around – saw nothing – and then limped stiffly across the quad to the hangar door.

The pressure door was locked. Bumping the access plate with her hip evoked no reaction.

"Shit." She lifted her wrists – eyes averted from the lacerated, discolored flesh – and clicked the comm band alive with her chin. "Hummingbird? Hummingbird?"

Anderssen? His response was immediate and surprised. Where are you?

"Outside, outside the hangar pressure door. I can't get in."

The side door has frozen up. Come around to the main airlock. It's clear now.

"Sure," she grunted, slumping forward against the wall. A wave of dizziness threatened to pitch her over onto the ground again but the cold ceramic of the hangar door caught her. She decided to take just a moment to regain her strength. "I'd love to. I'm hurt."

Gretchen jerked awake, barely cognizant of someone helping her stumble through the pressure doors on the main airlock. A little old man in a z-suit was holding her up, his wiry shoulder under her arm. Then they were in the common room and the air – the air was warm enough to breathe without a mask – and there were lights and a heater humming on the floor.

Hummingbird sat her down and bundled blankets around her shoulders. A minute later he was tipping a cup of warm – not hot – syrupy liquid into her mouth. Alcohol and sugar and something mediciny flooded her throat and then a matching warmth spread through her chest.

"Show me your hands." Hummingbird sounded concerned and his face tightened into a grim mask when he saw the blue-black sheen to her flesh and the ragged welts where the jeweled chains had bound her to the earth. His green eyes lifted to stare into hers. "What happened?"

"She was here – outside – she caught me on my way back from getting rid of the Sif."

"The Russovsky echo?"

"Yes," Gretchen mumbled, the frail burst of adrenaline ebbing away. "She looked…just like me."

Completely drained, Anderssen curled up and fell sideways into the blankets. Hummingbird rummaged around and found another blanket for a pillow. He put the heaters on either side of her and started to warm more of the rum/cough syrup/energy concentrate mixture on the camp stove.

He made her drink more of the nasty fluid. "The shape attacked you?"

"Ittried…" She frowned, trying to remember. Her head felt very strange inside, all jumbled and disordered. For some reason – and now she became cognizant of not knowing why – memories of her children and graduate school were very sharp and close at hand. Remembering what had happened earlier in the day was suddenly impossible. "Something happened," she said helplessly. "I saw her, but she was me. There were shining lights in the sand. I can't remember everything…properly."

"Were there two figures? Or just one, which changed?"

"One." She mumbled, feeling her wounded fingers throb. "I couldn't move – something had hold of me, of my hands…and you were there. There were – I had a vision! Yes, there were visions in my mind, someplace ancient, dead…under a foul yellow sky."

The nauallis squinted at her curiously, then carefully examined her hands. Clicking his teeth together in thought, the old man sprayed them with something cold and prickling from his kit, then carefully cleaned the welts. The pain of his touch lanced through her, drawing a whining cry, robbing the last breath from her lungs. At some point, she passed out.

"I'm really doing very well," Gretchen said, staring at her hands wrapped in more gauze and stinging from the dermaseal working away on the freeze damage. "Between my feet and hands I look like a cirq clown." She sighed, shaking her head, and gave Hummingbird an aggrieved look. "Aren't you the lucky one? You crash and walk away, while I fly halfway round the world and am fine, then I'm here at base camp for two days and I look like a tree-rigger on leave."

"You're lucky," he said, giving her a severe look. "Your medband was working the whole time and dispensed enough circulatory booster to keep you from losing any fingers or toes."

"Great – I could have suffered heart failure instead." Being flippant was making her tired, so she decided to stop.

"You're alive and will heal." Hummingbird squatted at her side, peeling back an eyelid with his thumb. "You might have more drug than blood in your system right now, but you don't seem to have become psychotic."

"Yet." Gretchen felt grainy and tired and wrung out. Again. "Is the Gagarin ready to go?"

The old man nodded. In the morning light streaming through the round windows, he seemed rather drawn and gray. "You'll want to check everything."

"I slept a day?" He nodded. "Then we need to get in the air. Where's my chrono?"

Hummingbird held up a mangled, pitted chunk of wire and metal. "No chrono."

"Fine. What time is it?"

"Six-thirty," Hummingbird said after rather ostentatiously checking his own bare wrist.

"Time to mount up." Gretchen lifted her gauze-muffled hands. "Help, please?"

The hangar door groaned, both track engines long since consumed by the microflora, as they dragged on the chains. Reticulated metal clanked and rattled and the door inched up. Gretchen found she could lend a hand by clinging limply to the chain and letting gravity and weight do the work.

As the door rose in fits and starts, the morning sun blazed on their faces, shining hot through unusually clear, steady air. Gretchen peered suspiciously at the lab building. There were no mysterious figures silhouetted against the skyline on the dune ridges, nothing lurking in the shadows of the recessed doorways.

"What did I see?" She let the chain fall from her fingers, turning toward the Gagarin. The ultralight looked rather strange with the rockets strapped underneath and its wings folded up in parking mode. The other Midge was gone – stripped of parts and then broken down and scattered in the desert. Hummingbird had been busy while she slept, going here and there, scattering their belongings to the four directions.

Gretchen hoped, with a rather sick, dreadful yearning, there would be a shuttle waiting for them at height, ready to take them away into a universe of hot showers and sprung beds and differently flavored threesquare bars. I don't want to come back here. Not even if they offer me the dig director slot.

"As I said before," the nauallis grumbled, "you saw an echo. A copy engendered by your presence on this world."

"With my memories – my speech patterns? What could make a copy like that?"

"Something," Hummingbird said, opening the door on his side of the Gagarin. "Descended from a race of machines designed to disassemble organic molecules into their component atomic parts. You saw the matrix of patterns in the cylinder."

"Maps." Gretchen opened her door and – wincing – slid into the seat. Hummingbird was not a large man, but the cabin of the ultralight was now very, very crowded. With the doors closed they were cheek by jowl. Anderssen reached across him and keyed up the preflight check. The sound of the fuel cells waking up and the engines turning over had never been so welcome. "Diagrams of what to destroy…the eater had to be able to differentiate between targets."

"Not an impossible step from such a mechanism to one which could recognize and replicate an equivalent molecular system." Hummingbird tried to strap himself in but found the spacing between the seats very tight. Gretchen rolled her hip to the side, jamming her face against the window so he could lock in. "At least in broad strokes. The thing on the ship could not sustain itself, not out of the magnetic field of the planet."

Thinking about what he'd said, Gretchen reached across and tested his restraints. "Solid. Okay, engines are up, fuel pressure is constant…controls are responding."

The Gagarin shivered as the wheel brakes released. Gretchen goosed the engines slightly and the aircraft clattered out onto the sandy ground. One eye watching the fuel line readings, she turned the ultralight and they bounced and rattled across uneven ground toward the landing strip. After clearing the buildings, the Gagarin shivered, struck crosswise by a heavy gust.

"But…" Anderssen turned the aircraft nose to the wind and felt the wings flex slightly, even retracted. She flipped a series of switches on the overhead panel. Both wings began to extend, micromotors whining with effort. "You're thinking creatures that can live down here can't survive beyond the influence of the, ah, the thing hiding in the world. They need its presence to live?"

Hummingbird nodded, trying to keep calm as the ultralight shimmied and swayed from side to side. The extending wings weren't providing any lift, not yet, but their cross section was providing the gusty, prying wind with plenty of surface area to press against. The Gagarin began to bounce backward across the field, raising clouds of fine, sticky dust with each hop.

"Even a nanomachine," he said, gritting his teeth and clinging to the support bar as they slammed up and down, "must be powered by some means. The safest way is a broadcast system, so they may be denied sustenance if they run wild. Hazarding a guess, I would say the sleeping valkar is leaking power on some wavelength the descendants of the planet-killers can absorb, can use. While they are within the beneficent aura of the entity, they can live, work, replicate themselves."

The aircraft jounced sideways, throwing Hummingbird against the door.

"Making a copy of something like a human must use a lot of power." A clanking sound signaled the wings reaching full extension. The sharp hops transformed into long, slow arcs. Gretchen settled her hands – still wrapped in bandages and feeling enormous – on the control stick and sideboard panel. "Hold on. Here we go."

Both engines flared to life as she ran up the power. The ultralight settled out of a bounce and Gretchen pushed to maximum thrust. The Gagarin began to move forward, wheels whirring across the gravel and sand. With the wings at full extension, the aircraft generated a tremendous amount of lift and they were airborne within seconds. The camp buildings rushed past under their wheels and Gretchen swung the ultralight around in a long, broad turn. They continued to climb.

The plains sprawled below them. The camp became a collection of match-boxes. Off to the east, the standing stones of the observatory and the jagged lines of the excavation trenches stood out against a dun-colored background.

"Comm check." Gretchen clicked her throat mike live. "Clear?"

"Loud and clear," Hummingbird answered. The roar of wind and the hiss of the engines filled the tiny, cramped cockpit. "It may be…" He paused and Gretchen wondered if he was at a loss for words. "Perhaps the Ephesian life-form you saw – whatever had taken Russovsky's shape, and yours – learns in this way, by consuming another entity, by taking its memories and thoughts, even its physicality into itself." The nauallis's voice was almost tentative.

"Well," Gretchen said, filled with joy just to be airborne again, the nose of her ultralight pointed at the black vault of heaven. The Gagarin climbed steadily toward the southwest. Slowly, the dark sky swelled to fill the forward windows. The planet dropped behind, then bent away, the horizons receding into a white arc. "Then it tried to consume my memories. I can't remember much of what happened, but I know it was painful and unpleasant."

Hummingbird said nothing. Gretchen glanced aside at him and her eyebrows narrowed in concern. He looked ghastly. "What?"

"If that is true…" He turned to look at her. "How did it learn to make your shape?"

Gretchen blinked, then took a long swallow of water from her recycler tube. "Well," she said after thinking for a moment, "we'll know pretty soon if I'm a copy."

Ahead, the solid black bar of the sky was beginning to sparkle with the gleam of faint, diffuse stars. The hiss of the engines grew more strident as the air thinned.

Wind stirred in the empty hangar, scattering dust and hathol spores across the clean, smooth concrete. A rule-straight shadow delimited sun from shade, slowly edging toward the door frame as the sun moved in the sky. In the shadows, blowing sand and grit accumulated in a corner, gathered itself and began to exert an electrostatic field. More sand skittered across the floor. A nubbin of gravel compressed. The day continued to lengthen.

When the killing sun had passed zenith and the hangar was entirely in shadow, the collecting sand stirred, rose, sprouted long thin crystalline tubules. They knotted into the outline of two legs, a torso, a chest, arms, finally a head. The wind circled in the hangar, bringing a heavy cloud of dust and small stones.

Russovsky compressed out of the air, grit and debris rushing together with a sharp hiss. The shape's eyes opened and shook a dusty head. The husks and shells of the dead hathol and firten puffed away from a gleaming black skinsuit. Russovsky wiped her cheek, hand coming away covered with a glittering gray stain. She looked around the empty shell of a building.

Gone. He is gone. Russovsky considered her memories, finding them filled with moments of parting. In some of the vignettes there were tears, impassioned words, something she remembered as ‹loss| sorrowlonging›. She did not think these last two humans had lingered, delaying their departure, hoping to squeeze a few more seconds from the grasp of implacable time. They had moved with admirable efficiency. They had taken her Gagarin away.

Now there was something disorderly in her cold, perfect thoughts. The aircraft, the battered old Midge, held meaning – something tantalizing at the edge of comprehension. She wished the ultralight would return. Russovsky raised her hands, feeling the echo, the vibration of its presence. The machine had stood here, just so, wheels pressing against the concrete. Minute indentations had been left in the aggregate. Tiny flakes of rubberlike material from the wheels lay on the floor. Even the air itself, troubled by the wind as it was, had not yet forgotten the shapes of the wings, the body, the landing gear.

A shadow remained, still visible to her eyes in the chaos boiling behind the individual molecules of gas in the air. An absence where the Gagarin should stand. Something in her revolted at the void, pressed her to summon forth creation from nothingness, to fill an emptiness in the hangar which echoed dissonantly with her colorless memories.

Russovsky spread her hands and wind howled in the chamber. A dark yellow cloud roared in from outside, borne around her by billowing, violent zephyrs. Sand and gravel and dust flooded in, caught up in a standing tornado roaring and shrieking in the cavity. The roof groaned and shook, panels cracking away. All three walls shivered and the concrete floor splintered and cracked and crushed into more dust and grit.

The shape closed her hands. There was a thrumming whoomp and the air congealed.

When Russovsky dropped her hands, the Gagarin stood before her, wings retracted, metal struts gleaming with a newly manufactured shine. Even the wheels were glossy black. The shape paced around to the side and opened the pilot's door.

These memories, these motions seemed proper – they seemed right – and Russovsky wondered when a flush of pleasure would fill her heart, rising in her breast like the dawn wind. She settled into the seat. The display before her was cold and dark. Slender fingers flipped a series of switches on the ceiling panel. The right hand flexed the stick, checking the resistance and response of the control surfaces. She rolled her shoulders back and forth, memories flushing with strength.

The display did not change. The engines did not ignite. There was no familiar chuckling hiss of hydrogen filling the fuel lines. Russovsky moved her hand across the panel again. Nothing. The machine did not stir to life, did not shiver awake to answer her will.

Is this disappointment? The memories held many examples, though they were distant and cold, untouchable. Sealed away behind layers of glassite. The machine does not work. There is no…fuel.

Russovsky scrutinized the memories with more care. A universe of mechanical systems was revealed, awareness of thousands of substances and chemical processes was uncovered. And with them, the slow, growing conclusion the human had not known enough about the intricacies of their manufacture to allow Russovsky – as she now stood – to replicate them, even with a firm grasp of molecular control.

Again, an emptiness where memory suggested there would be ‹furyragedespair›.

There was something inside the human which was not in the hathol, a brilliant unique spark which could not be ‹consumedknownunderstood›. Russovsky thought, considered and decided this was the emptiness she felt within. Something lacking which made even the carefully hoarded memories of the human Russovsky, as tightly held as Gretchen's children splashing in the pool, seem flat and lifeless. I am like the hathol and the firten, she thought sadly, only a mechanical process of electrons and chemical reactions.

Russovsky climbed out of the aircraft and walked to the hangar door. The sun was still high in the sky, but she turned and paced down to the edge of the landing field. Long blond hair luffed in the wind as she raised a seamed, weathered face to the sky. Far above, far away now, there was a shining bright speck. A gleam of metal and composite spiraling higher and higher into the black heavens.

Tendrils of hair began to break down, smashed by the radiation flooding from the blazing disk blazing in the west. Then the skinsuit turned gray and began to crack. The constant wind abraded Russovsky, chipping away at tools, djellaba, the threads of the kaffiyeh. Slowly, she eroded, eyes still raised to the slowly dimming spark high above.

Aboard the Turan

Smoke curdled in the air, seeping back into the space blown clear by the Webley's concussive blast. Thrown flat on the deck, Hadeishi's combat armor sizzled with waste heat from the impact of the flechettes. Four hand-size blotches glowed cherry-red on his breast and side.

Alarms continued to honk in the distance. All three corridors had been sealed off by the pressure doors. A half-heard, half-felt vibration was absent from the usual run of background noise aboard ship. The air circulators had shut down when environmental override isolated the level.

Among the uneasy crowd of his men, Ketcham slowly lowered the pistol. The blowback mechanism had already reloaded the firing chamber. The riggers at his side started to inch forward, emboldened by the sight of the stricken black-armored figure.

"Wait." Ketcham's basso voice carried easily in the smoky, troubled air. "He might not -"

Hadeishi's head moved. The suit speaker, mostly destroyed by the impact, made a distorted growling sound, then the control fabric adapted to the damage. "Uhhhh… that hurts."

The chu-sa levered himself up from the ground, the mirrored faceplate of his visor reflecting the crewmen shrinking back from his movement. Ketcham raised and sighted the gun again, his face blank with surprise. The refinery captain seemed equally shocked at having shot Hadeishi and at the chu-sa surviving the blast.

"There is no quarrel between us, Captain Ketcham." Hadeishi's voice was slurred and tinged with a buzzing edge of feedback. He was having trouble breathing. He wondered how many ribs he'd broken. The Nisei braced himself with both hands and stood up, swaying slightly. "I know what Fleet did to you, but I am not the Admiralty or the promotions board. I'm just a ship captain, as you were. All I want to do is talk."

"About what?" Ketcham bit out the words, his blood pressure rising again at the very mention of the word "Fleet." He usually accounted himself a patient, reasonable man, but the very sight of the Nisei's black combat suit inspired stomach-churning hate. But the absolute, unflappable confidence of the man standing in the middle of the passageway gave him pause. Unless he was insane, no officer – much less a commander – was going to put himself in harm's way like this, not without an enormously good reason.

Hadeishi gingerly prodded the impact points on his armor. Hissing cherry-red slivers of metal poked from the outer layer. A heat haze trembled around them. He decided they were better left alone. "Captain, you should put on a breather mask."

Without the vents going, the smoke from the RSM rounds was beginning to percolate down the corridor. Most of the miners already looked a little green around the gills. Ketcham noticed the danger and backed up, waving his men back. They scrambled down the hallway in a confused mass, pushing and shoving each other.

The refinery captain ignored the dissipating gas, continuing to block the hallway, the Webley still centered on Hadeishi's chest. The chu-sa took two steps forward, then stopped. He reached up and unlocked his visor, letting the servomotors in the joint swing it up and away from his face. Ketcham's gimlet-eyed expression became even harder as he took in the classically Japanese features.

"A brave gesture," the captain said bitterly. "But you've proven yourself recklessly bold already. Say your piece."

Hadeishi thought he had the measure of his opponent. Seeing the man now, in person, and knowing he'd been a ship captain in Fleet had settled his mind about one thing. The sense of imminent death – a taut, blood-stirring tension vibrating in every muscle – had not slackened. Indeed, Hadeishi was very sure he was far, far closer to death now, staring down the muzzle of the pistol, than he'd been before stepping out into the corridor. He had, in fact, a very clear view of the inside of the pistol barrel from where he now stood.

"The third planet of this system is a First Sun artifact."

Ketcham did not blink or otherwise react. "I know, we saw the Company exploration ship in orbit when we…wait. The entire planet?"

Hadeishi nodded. "This system is now under interdict. An Imperial nauallis aboard my cruiser has issued a directive-six order encompassing the entire Ephesian system and everything within twenty-five light-years."

"Wha -" Ketcham shook his shaggy head from side to side in disbelief. "Interdict? The planet…" His eyes widened in astonishment. "A ship? The planet is a First Sun ship? There's a planet-scale starship orbiting this sun?!"

"It is necessary," Hadeishi continued in a firm, level voice, "for all human ships, yours and mine alike, to leave this system in the quietest possible manner. No comm transmissions, no hyperspace transit within detection range of the third planet. None of us will be allowed to return. In the fullness of time, a distant picket will be established to keep the unwary from stumbling into danger."

Ketcham gave him a pitying look. "Do you really think that will happen? The Empire will cordon off this sector and leave well enough alone?" He made a disgusted gesture. "If what you say is true, if that world is a ship, they will have survey teams and exploration drones and an entire bloody battle fleet here as fast as a reliable squadron commander can make transit from Earth."

"I know." Hadeishi nodded slightly, acknowledging the man's point. "I am not a well-connected man, Captain Ketcham. I am not reliable. My family is small and poor, though we have a noble name. I do not have any friends -" here he placed a sharp emphasis on his words "- among the great princes or the clan lords. But I do believe in duty and in honor."

Ketcham started to interrupt, his broad face twisting into a furious epithet, but Hadeishi made a sharp motion with his hand, cutting him short.

"I swore an oath, Captain Ketcham, to protect humanity." A finger stabbed at the refinery captain. "Including you and your crew. Now, what you do once you're out of this system is your business. But right now, today, I need your help before you leave."

Ketcham just stared at him. At the same moment, there was a soft chime in Hadeishi's earbug. He almost collapsed in relief and could not keep from swaying a little. The refinery captain did not lower his pistol, but a worried look flitted across his face.

"You're going to let us go."

Hadeishi nodded, realizing the pain in his chest was not all from bruised flesh and bone. "Yes – but I need your help first. I need you to help me restore this system to as close to its original state as possible."

"What? That's insane…there's no way you can disguise the base camp those scientists built on the planet!" He chuckled evilly. "Dropping a nuke or a c-boosted rock won't exactly remove the evidence without making a bigger mess."

"The planet is not my concern." Hadeishi keyed his medband to dump a higher level of painkillers and coagulant agents into his blood. A sensation of spreading dampness was creeping down his chest. Mitsu couldn't see the wound, but he guessed the impact had turned his left pectoral into a pulpy, shattered mass. He tried not to move suddenly or raise his arm. "The judge is taking care of business there. I need you and your ship to restore the mass you've extracted from the belt…uhhh…as near to the source planetesimals as possible."

"Dump my load?" Ketcham's gun rose again, though Hadeishi felt his legs give way. He crumpled slowly to the deck. On the nearly-muted combat channel, he heard Felix hiss an order.

"Hold your position, Heicho!" Hadeishi's exclamation caused Ketcham to stiffen in alarm. The miner had forgotten – in the brief space of time they'd been talking – there were Fleet Marines aboard as well. Now he eased back, squinting into the slowly-settling smoke. "Captain Ketcham, I'm offering you a trade. The ore you've taken aboard while in this system – all of it! – in exchange for your ship and your freedom." Hadeishi coughed abruptly and his head swam with pain.

A spray of reddish droplets glistened on the deck. My lung is perforated.

Ketcham was staring at the blood. His face was a little gray.

"You need to be in medical," he said, lowering the pistol.

"Will you…uhh…help me? Dump your load in predetermined points? Circulate quietly through the belt. We have a nav-track…huh!" Another cough racked him and Hadeishi covered his mouth. His hand was wet when the spasm passed. "My navigator has a plot of your path through the asteroid zone. You can retrace -"

"Medic!" Ketcham was at his side, fingers pressing on the release points around the collar of the combat suit. "Marines – your CO needs a medic right now!"

Hadeishi blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. All he could see was a swirling gray haze. "Susan? Can you hear me?" The refinery captain was still shouting and there were people running in the hallway.

Your signal is very faint on this tap, but I can hear you. What do you want me to do?

Mitsu blinked again. He felt a tight cold sensation in his chest and wondered what kind of drugs the suit was injecting. Was he still bleeding? Had one of the flechettes penetrated, piercing more than his lung, perhaps his heart?

Mitsuharu, you must remain focused and alert. There is still work to be done. Susan sounded very angry. Hadeishi smiled, wondering who had made a mistake on the bridge. Something must have gone wrong to make break her composure. Smith. It must be the midshipman. Poor lad, she'd flay him alive.

Mitsuharu! I'm sending in another assault team. Asale will dock and take you off. Medical bay is standing by right now.

"No, no." Hadeishi stirred, concerned. There was pressing business to conclude. His father would not approve, rushing matters in such an impolite way, but he remembered there was really no time left. A big man was looming over him, blue eyes very bright. The gray haze was thinning. Long rectangular lights were shining through the mist behind his head. "Captain Ketcham, are you going to help me?"

The big man's eyes narrowed. His thoughts seemed to burn so obviously in the broad, high-cheeked face. Fear and avarice and worry struggled to capture his attention.

"Captain," Hadeishi tried to speak clearly, though there was something wet in his mouth. "If you will not help me, then my executive officer will be forced to disable your ship and imprison your crew. You will lose…everything."

Ketcham's face hardened, but at the same time, the spark of concern in his eyes flared into open fear. Hadeishi coughed again and everything became very hazy, very distant. I'm shutting down, he realized, thoughts moving very slowly. The suit is knocking me out…

"Susan." He whispered. "No shot. There is no…shot."

Above Ephesus III

Both rockets sputtered, blew a thin trail of black smoke and died. The Gagarin hung in emptiness, a white-hot sun reflecting in the mirrored upper surface of the wing. The sweep of the horizon was filled with stars, with the darkness of the void. The rust-red disk of the planet below seemed very small and far away.

Gretchen stared anxiously over her shoulder, searching the black vault overhead for any sign of a shuttle. The Midge's radar was scanning wildly, but nothing showed on the scope. Sweat streamed down her face, pooling in the suit, overloading the recyclers. They had passed through a region of intense heat, though now the windows were crackling with ice. Hummingbird was stiff as a board, clutching his restraints, knuckles white.

"Do you see anything?" Anderssen barked at him, craning her neck to try and see past the nauallis. Only stars and the wispy white arc of the planetary atmosphere were visible. Her medband began to chirp in alarm, but she ignored the alert. Radiation, she thought sickly. Doesn't matter.

She realized Hummingbird's eyes were closed and his lips were moving silently.

"Prayer might help," she laughed – only slightly hysterically. "But I need your eyes."

The altimeter began to fluctuate. Tumbling slowly, the Midge began to arc back toward the planet below. Low gravity or no, the mass of the world tugged at them, drawing them back into a hot, close embrace. She punched the old man in the leg as hard as she could.

Hummingbird's eyes flew open.

"Do you see anything?" Gretchen jerked her head sharply toward his side of the Gagarin.

The nauallis blinked, then turned, staring out at the ebon sky. "Nothing…there's only…wait – there's something shining!"

Gretchen rapped the radar display sharply and though the mechanism ignored her, a spark suddenly flared at the edge of the Midge's detection range. Something was approaching at tremendous speed. "Oh thank the Sister, the Mother and the Son of God! Hang on!"

"I am…" Hummingbird's cry was drowned by a roaring hiss as Gretchen blew the last of their fuel and twisted the Gagarin away from the oncoming object. Surviving the next sixty seconds required reducing their intercept differential as much as possible. She slapped a control and the Midge trembled as the skyhook ratcheted out of the roof.

"Wings away!" Gretchen threw a lever and explosive bolts banged sharply. The cockpit shuddered as both broad, shining wings spurted away from the sides of the cabin. "Brace!"

For a moment, the Gagarin rushed forward, racing across the world below. The hissing stopped and the engines went dead. A light flared on the panel, indicating they'd switched to battery power with the loss of the solar panels and fuel cells. Gretchen felt cold pour into the cabin around her feet and did not look down. Instead, she forced her head back into the headrest of the seat and braced her arms.

Something flashed overhead, glowing red-hot and the entire world jerked away in a blinding jolt of pain. A flood of white sparks roared across her vision. A massive wave of sound slammed into her, battering her eardrums. Someone's scream was lost in a dragon-throated roar. Metal squealed, stressed beyond all expectation of design and manufacture. Gretchen caught a glimpse of the planet rolling past, then Hummingbird's face slack in unconsciousness.

The windows shattered as the airframe deformed, spraying glassite into the cabin. What little air remained was wicked away into a supersonic slipstream. Waves of heat boiled in, raging against her face. Blinded, Gretchen gritted her teeth and hung on. Somewhere above and behind her, there was a shrieking whine as cable spooled in at tremendous speed.

The blazing red shape – superheated air flaring around the Komodo in a brilliant corona – swelled over her head. For a single instant, a black maw gaped before her, limned with fire.

Everything slammed to a halt, flinging her violently against the seat restraints. She choked, feeling bone and muscle tear. The world outside went black, even the stars blotted out by a roaring, twisting storm of abused atmosphere. She was still bouncing back into the seat, a shattered retaining ring spinning free to fly out through the window, when the side door tore away.

A pair of hands reached in, seizing the centerline join on her suit. Something blazed blue-white at her back and shoulder, then she was free of the restraints and being dragged from the shattered wreck of the Midge. A combat-suited figure – broad, well-muscled – wrapped her in powerful arms and leapt back as a workline reeled in. They hit the wall of the shuttle's cargo bay together and his hand wrapped around a support brace.

"Clear to eject," shouted a tense male voice on the comm. Every other sound was overwhelmed by the shriek of air whipping around the hold doors.

Gretchen squirmed around – so slowly, time stretching like taffy – and saw, in a brief, perfect image: the crumpled cabin of the Gagarin sprawled on the deck of the cargo hold. The clamshell doors stood wide, Hummingbird in the arms of another man in a combat suit on the far wall of the hold, the launching pad rushing back, slamming into the broken, twisted metal of the Midge.

No!

The ultralight punched out into the darkness, spewing glassite and metal and bits of plastic. The Gagarin hit the shuttle's slipstream and blew apart, vanishing in the blink of an eye. Nothing remained, even the debris was already dozens of k behind, falling toward the planet in an expanding, jumbled cloud. The clamshell doors swung inexorably closed, blocking out even a momentary glimpse of the white arc of the planet.

Gretchen slumped into the man's arms, feeling their strength holding her up. Poor little plane. After all you did for us, for me.

"Pressure doors secure," Fitzsimmons shouted into his comm. "Kick it."

The shuttle engines lit momentarily, pitching the Komodo up into a higher angle of exit from the gravity of Ephesus Three. Somewhere ahead, the Palenque was waiting, swinging through its own wide orbit, gathering speed from the planet's gravitational pull. Glowing wings turned, catching a glint of the distant sun, and they sped on into the sea of night.

Aboard the Cornuelle

Gretchen became aware of a peculiar, antiseptic smell. Feeling strangely unencumbered, she opened her eyes and blinked in pain. Everything was so bright! A pale gray ceiling inset with soft white lights shone down on her. Walls of pale green. Chrome fixtures and subdued paintings in black, gray and brown on wrinkled rice paper. She looked down at her body and found a fuzzy cotton quilt laid across her.

"My suit…" Some kind of flannel pajamas had replaced her z-suit and Gretchen felt horribly, dangerously naked. Her arms clenched reflexively across her breasts. The sight of her hands was a surprise. The grungy, stained bandages were gone. Instead, patches of new skin shone pink in the clear white light. She flexed her fingers and found they moved without pain. The welts and ridges left by the jeweled chains were only faint reddish lines on her skin.

"No scars," said a tired male voice from her left side. Gretchen rolled her head sideways.

Captain Hadeishi was lying in an adjoining bed. He too was under a quilt decorated with oak leaves and cherry blossoms, wiry arms lying across his stomach. Seeing him without his uniform struck Anderssen as being particularly indecent, a feeling made more so by the sight of his muscular bare arms. Despite a lingering air of exhaustion, he struck Gretchen as being as clean, trim and at-attention as ever. Even on his back in a hospital bed.

"Our medical team does good work," he said, allowing her a small, warm smile. "Our esteemed judge is already up and about, though he did not suffer nearly so much damage as either of us."

"What…" Gretchen coughed, clearing her throat, and realized the crushing pain in her chest was gone as well. "…happened to you?"

Hadeishi turned back the quilts, revealing a huge patch of dermaseal covering his left chest, shoulder and arm. "Depleted uranium flechette burst at close range," he said, considering the repaired wound with a pensive, sad expression. "Very foolish. My death would have precipitated even more violence."

"Why…" Gretchen stopped, wondering if she were allowed to question a Fleet captain on his own ship – for this was most obviously the Cornuelle. Even before being gutted, the Palenque had never boasted such a clean, efficient, advanced medical bay as this.

"Did I put myself in front of a gun?" Hadeishi shook his head, amused with himself. "Because my father used to tell me stories about the samurai in their days of glory, before the Empire and the treaties of Unity and gunpowder. They would have ridden alone into the enemy fortress and challenged the rival lord to single combat. There could have been a great deal of bushido in what I did. As I said, very foolish."

"You lived." Gretchen wondered if she could ask for more blankets. Her bare skin felt cold and exposed without the snug, warm embrace of her z-suit. She tried to take a drink from the water tube, but found her mouth closing on empty air.

"There is water." Hadeishi pointed at a table beside her. There was a cup – plastic, half-full – and a little sick-shrine of offerings. Origami animals and paper flowers, Grandpa Carl's battered old multitool, a bar of "Ek Chuah"-brand chocolate and a fresh, shining 3v of three little children smiling up from a watery-green pool.

"Where did this come from?" Gretchen felt her heart lurch, knowing the original had been blasted away into nothingness with the Gagarin.

"Your exec sent the xocoatl and the picture over from the Palenque." Hadeishi's expression had become composed and polite again, but his eyes were shining. "The origami is from Gunso Fitzsimmons, though I did not know he had learned to make such fine examples himself. I suspect -" he visibly suppressed a merry grin "- he begged them from communications technician three Tiss-tzin, who is noted among the crew for her nimble fingers."

"That is very sweet." Gretchen ran her hand across the surface of the 3v. The electropaper was fresh and thick and carrying a full charge. Pressing her lips together and blinking back tears, she pressed the upper right corner of the picture.

Mom! Mom! We're mermaids! Mermaids!

Am not, I'm a merman!

She moved her finger away and the bouncing, splashing figures stilled. I'll see you soon, she promised them. I'm coming home.

"What about you?" Gretchen lifted her head, trying to see if the captain had anything on his side table. It was bare, save for a matching half-full glass of water. "Nothing?"

"I believe there were cupcakes," Hadeishi said, rather solemnly. "From Marine Heicho Felix, in apology for getting me shot while we were aboard the Turan. But I was asleep when she brought them by. I think," his eyebrows narrowed in suspicion, "Fitzsimmons ate them."

"Oh." Gretchen pressed the 3v against her breast. For a wonder, she didn't feel at all tired or sleepy. "That was rude. He's in the brig then?"

The passage leading into the number one boat bay was cold in comparison to the medical pod. Gretchen shivered a little, rubbing her arms. Fitzsimmons had tried to loan her a heavy leather pilot's jacket for the trip across to the Palenque, but she'd refused. The Marine spent enough time loitering around, all charming and friendly, without her borrowing his clothes. I've been down that road before, she thought, stepping over the sill into the cavernous, echoing space of the bay itself. Next it's audiotracks and 3v recordings and before you know it, they're snoring in your ear late on Sunday mornings.

One husband was enough, she thought, patting the sidebag filled with her paltry collection of personal effects. Most of the things in the bag had accumulated while she was recuperating in medical. Some photos, including a new one of the Gagarin and a dupe of the Rossiyan icon Russovsky had left behind, presents from the Company scientists: an ink-brush drawing of Magdalena on rice paper from Sho-sa Kosho: and instructions from the Cornuelle's doctor.

The crewman guiding her through the maze of the ship turned. "This is your shuttle, ma'am. Have a safe flight."

"Thank you." Gretchen nodded and walked across the open expanse of the deck, following a painted walkway. The military shuttle loomed up before her, back-swept wings sleek and dark, the tail fins glossy and shining with the snake-eagle-arrow glyph of the Fleet. A raptor where our Company shuttles are fat brown hens.

"Anderssen-tzin."

Hummingbird stepped out from beneath the wing. Gretchen slowed to a halt, surprised and pleased to see him. "Hello, Crow! How are you doing? They said you'd been released from medical early."

The nauallis did not respond to her light tone, his face a chiseled mask. Instead he looked from side to side as if making sure none of the crewmen working in the bay were near enough to overhear. "You will have to file a report," he said in a stiff, rather cool tone. "I suggest you mention as few details about our foray to the surface as possible. Any scientific data you wish to relate is, of course, up to you. I would restrain any speculation about the life-forms on the planet to that which can be proven."

Gretchen felt her good humor – and living instead of dying usually made her very cheerful – fade in the face of this cold reception. Her eyes narrowed and she looked him up and down very slowly. He seemed larger in a cream-colored mantlelike shirt, pleated dark trousers and civilian shoes. In the z-suit he'd seemed small and wiry, lean enough to survive in the desert. Now he looks like a Company lawyer, she decided and the last of her cheerfulness disappeared.

"I guess I'm not a copy," she said in a dry tone. He nodded very slightly in answer.

Long absent from her thoughts, a memory of the cylinder-book surfaced. Considering the prize in retrospect, she weighed, judged and decided the secrets inside the ancient device would not be unlocked by her. The decision – made in an instant – left her oddly peaceful. The kids will still have shoes, even if they're not imported leather.

"The matter of your life aside, I understand," she said in an equally formal tone. "My report will reflect the professionalism and excellence of all Fleet and government personnel involved in the operation. I will take equal care with any conclusions which may affect the security of the Empire."

Hummingbird nodded, unfazed by the withering glare she'd turned on him.

"Is there anything else you wanted to know?"

He shook his head, hands clasped behind his back.

"I have one question for you, Huitziloxoctic-tzin." Gretchen matched his formal posture, realizing with a tiny bite of delight she was noticeably taller than he was. She tilted her head a little to the side, pinning him with a considering expression. "My medband has been taken away. When I get a new one on the Palenque or on Ctesiphon Station or at my next dig, will I find there is some kind of exotic drug in my system?"

The nauallis's expression did not change, but there was a dark flicker in his eyes.

"I've not experienced any unusual effects of sight since I woke up." Her lips parted slightly, showing white teeth. "Even when I settle my mind and let my thoughts become calm. Now, my memory has been damaged, but I haven't forgotten everything that happened down on the planet. Did you really think I was so untrustworthy you needed to drug me? Did you really think I would tell anyone you'd broken tradition to show me this tiny, paltry bit of your precious knowledge?"

Hummingbird did not respond, his face becoming even more still, more masklike. Disgusted, Gretchen turned away and climbed the steps into the shuttle. A crewman inside the door directed her forward and the pressure door levered up with a hiss to close with a solid, heavy thud.

Settling into her seat for the thirty-minute flight to the Palenque, Gretchen rolled her shoulders and let out a long, angry hiss. Against all expectation, she'd thought Hummingbird might trust her just a little. Stupid old fool. Did he think I'd blab to everyone what I saw, what I did? I work for a bureaucracy too.

And that thought crushed the rest of her lightheartedness. She rubbed her left eye, feeling an incipient twinge. Reports. Oh, the reports I will have to file. Company property, loss of – one Temple-class starship gutted, one completely equipped base camp abandoned, two Midge-class ultralights destroyed, two Komodo-class shuttles severely damaged, ten Company staff dead in the line of duty – data recovered, minimal. Artifacts recovered – none. Opportunities for follow-up research – none, system sealed by Imperial interdict. Chances for staff to publish data and gain tenure, university position or even a publication byline – none, data sealed by order, Imperial Office of the Tlachialoni - the Mirror-Which-Reveals.

Sullenly, she stared out the window, though the sight of the Palenque drawing closer did not lift the gloom weighing on her. Maybe I should tell someone what happened…not the Company, maybe a 3v'zine like Temple of Truth or the Xonocatl. Then I'd have a few quills to shake in my hand.

Ctesiphon Station, Just Within Imperial Mйxica Space

This time they had docked in the Fleet section of the docking ring of the enormous station. Everything was clean and shipshape, with deckhands and loading trucks to help them haul their gear from the Palenque. Even the air was quiet and cool, without the humid cattle mob of the commercial landing. Parker, Magdalena and Bandao were waiting at the end of the lock tunnel. The pilot was puffing on a tabac with a blissful expression on his face.

"Pack-leader! You look cheerful for a change." Magdalena grinned, showing only the tiniest points of sharp white teeth. The Hesht had a truly enormous travel bag slung over her shoulder. Anderssen had not asked what was inside, but suspected some equipment listed on the Palenque manifest as "destroyed" had actually survived. Her own tool belt and z-suit gear had been replaced in the same way. The Company was notoriously bad at honoring requests for replacing equipment lost on dig or survey – which resulted in endemic pilfering by all the dig crews.

"I'm off that tub, my initial reports are done," Gretchen said, waving a cloud of tabac smoke away from her face, "and we can go someplace on station where I can buy us all real food for dinner at a real restaurant."

"Damn." Parker stubbed out his tabac. "Do you think they have steaks here? Like, real ones? I mean – you know – Maggie's probably missing food that bleeds."

He ducked away, laughing, though the Hesht's claws were only half-extended in a cub's strike.

"Maybe." Gretchen put her arm around the man's shoulder and raised her eyes to the bulkhead arching overhead, stretching out her hand toward some glorious, unimaginable future. "Maybe we can even get mashed potatoes made from…potatoes!"

"Aw, boss, you're going to make me cry." Parker rubbed his eyes. Gretchen squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. "Next you'll say something crazy like they have real butter."

"Everyone have their gear?" Gretchen looked around out of habit, making sure no one had been left behind and everyone had their baggage and shoes and hats. As she did, Bandao caught her eye and pointed down the curving platform.

Anderssen turned and a smile lit her face. Sho-sa Kosho approached, sword blade straight in a spotless white Fleet uniform. Gretchen bowed very politely as she came up. "Konnichi-wa, Kosho-sana."

"Good morning, Doctor Anderssen." The officer returned her bow. "I am glad to see you and your team together again."

Everyone else bowed politely, and even Parker had the sense to remain silent while their oyabun spoke to the Imperial officer.

"Thanks to the generous hospitality of the Fleet, Sho-sa, we are all in excellent health and spirits."

"Good." Kosho nodded to the others, then stepped aside, hand on Gretchen's elbow. With a meter of polite space between them and her subordinates, the Sho-sa's expression changed. "Chu-sa Hadeishi requests a favor," Kosho said, watching her intently. "A common acquaintance is waiting, a little ways away, and would like to speak to you again."

Gretchen frowned. "Need I guess who? Will he offer me an apology?"

"What passes for one from his mouth would not be acceptable in polite society." Kosho's calm face did not reflect the venom implied by her tone. "I will inform him you had already left when I arrived."

For a moment, Anderssen groped to speak, stunned into silence by the angry glitter exposed in the Nisei officer's eyes. After a moment, the sho-sa stepped back and settled into a pose of polite attention. The movement broke Gretchen out of her paralysis and she managed to squeak out a "No."

Clasping both hands in front of her body, Anderssen made a small bow. "I – we – are in your debt. I would be happy to speak with the chu-sa's acquaintance."

Not very far away proved to be a conference room around the corner. Kosho ushered Gretchen into the rectangular room – cold gray walls, recessed lighting, tatami mats – and closed the hatch firmly behind her. Within, Hummingbird was kneeling beside a low teak-colored table. A leather jacket worked with subdued glyphs lay over his usual civilian attire. Gretchen's attention, however, was not fixed on details of his dress, but a massive gypsum panel covering the rear wall of the room. A low-cut bas-relief showed a pair of short-bodied lions leaping at a crowned man standing in a chariot. The king held a bow raised, one arrow already lodged in the throat of the first lion. Every line of the ancient carving gleamed with meticulous, superbly carved life.

How did that get here? Gretchen was nonplussed by the sight. Then she focused on the nauallis instead of the graven slab.

The old Mйxica inclined his head in greeting, but said nothing. As usual, his face was composed and expressionless. In this clear, directionless lighting, his eyes were flat chips of jadite. In comparison, Hadeishi's face – the chu-sa was standing a polite distance away – positively gleamed with welcome, though a 3v would not have captured the warmth in his eyes.

Gretchen set down her bag, removed her shoes and watched with mild curiosity as Hadeishi made a careful circuit of the room, and then placed a small black box on the table in front of the nauallis. The Fleet captain retired to the far corner of the room and knelt with his back politely turned.

"Anderssen-tzin." Hummingbird seemed to relax, though he remained as straight-backed as ever. His mouth was tight. "I must…apologize for speaking impolitely on the ship."

Gretchen did not bother to hide her surprise and she saw Hadeishi jerk minutely. "Apology accepted."

Hummingbird nodded and the grooves beside his mouth grew deeper. Gretchen stared at him in interest. Words were trying to come out, but the old man was having a hard time giving them breath. "Is there something else?"

"Yes." The old man shifted slightly. "I would like you to come with me. Though there is no precedent for a nauallis to take a female student, the situation -"

"No." Gretchen crossed her arms. "I have already thought about this. I have no desire to become a judge or nauallis or brujo or whatever you are. You showed me a glimpse of your world – and I'll admit the thought is seductive – but I don't want to spend even more time away from my family, from my children. So thank you for the thought, but I will not go with you."

Hummingbird became entirely still. He did not blink or otherwise show surprise, but the strength of his astonishment gave the air in the room an almost electric charge. Hadeishi had given up being polite and turned away from his careful examination of the Assyrian panel, watching both of them with open interest.

The old man's teeth clicked softly. "It is very dangerous for you to go on without training."

"I guessed." Gretchen reached for her shoes. "So I'm not going to go on. If I understand all of this properly, if I do not exercise the sight then my mind will forget what to do. Long-accustomed patterns will reassert themselves."

"You'd knowingly blind yourself?" Hummingbird's bronzed skin was turning a queer pale color.

"I choose to go down a different path, Crow." Gretchen's eyes narrowed in a glare. "Your way is fraught with danger and sacrifice. I have given up enough already. I'm not going to abandon my children or the profession I love." She pointed away from him with one hand. "Seeing past a shadow on a wall for an instant does not require me to step around the screen. You shouldn't presume others will follow your path simply because it is secret."

Hummingbird was frankly speechless. Clearing his throat softly to draw their attention, Hadeishi bowed to Gretchen. His expression was very composed, but Anderssen suspected he was fairly agog himself and wondered how quickly this story would circulate through the Fleet. Perhaps never; the captain seems to be a very circumspect man.

"Thank you for your time, Doctor Anderssen. Have a safe journey."

"Thank you, Chu-sa Hadeishi."

Gretchen turned to the old Mexica, who was staring at her with growing fury radiating from his weathered old face. "Don't worry," she said, bowing to him. "Though I nearly lost my life, I regret nothing that happened there." A grin flashed. "I certainly won't forget. Good day, gentlemen. Safe journey."

"You," Hummingbird bit out, "must not leave."

Gretchen paused, one shoe on. "I am leaving. And I really don't think you can force me to be your student."

"You could…" Hummingbird's expression became particularly sour "…be placed in protective custody."

"To protect me from myself? To assuage your conscience?"

"To learn control!" Hummingbird snapped. "To be properly trained."

Gretchen shook her head, feeling a thread of anger stir in response to his pigheadedness. "As I said, I do not wish to be trained. Now, I'd guess you're worried, but not about my health. No – you're worried about my pitiful salary, aren't you?"

The nauallis's nose twitched as if a foul smell wafted on the room air.

"You think I will sell my little tale to a 3v for rude, raw gold, don't you?" Gretchen shook her head slightly in disbelief. "I told you I wouldn't. You doubt my word?"

"What about young Duncan's tutoring?" Hummingbird made a jerky motion with his hand. "I know what he means to you. Your resolve may be strong today, but in a year? What about when the girls are old enough to apply to the calmecac schools?"

There is that. Gretchen hid a sigh, thinking of her bank account. Nobility does not pay so well, but I will manage to make do. Somehow.

"Fine," she said, forcing herself to let go of that particular worry. Her chin came up and her blue eyes snapped with irritation. "Then if you're so Sister-bless concerned, the Imperial government can make good the bonus I won't get from the Company. You stole my data, you can bloody well pay for it!"

Hummingbird drew back a fraction, as if she'd slapped him in the face. "Extorting the Mirror will not…" he began in a hot tone. Hadeishi, still sitting quietly and watching them both with a quizzical expression on his face, raised both hands slowly.

"If I may offer a suggestion," the chu-sa said in a calm, collected voice, "there is a middle way."

The hatchway hissed closed behind Doctor Anderssen. Hadeishi looked sideways at the Mйxica. Hummingbird seemed stunned and disgusted at the same time.

"This matter will have to be hidden," the nauallis said, the timbre of his voice indicating what the Nisei might call fumeiyo – disgraceful shame. "No one must know."

"I understand," Hadeishi said, thanking generations of stoic tradition for the ability to keep his face from breaking into a broad grin. "The blatant misuse of your station – of your honorable position – would cause disquiet among your peers."

Hummingbird turned slightly, favoring the slim chu-sa with a withering, furious glare.

Unabashed, Hadeishi continued: "Surely no other nauallis – or any member of the Mirror, for that matter – would ever use his familial connections to influence calmecac selection, or to sponsor likely candidates for entry into university."

"You," the old Mйxica growled, "are presuming upon our acquaintance, Nisei."

Hadeishi shook his head, lips pursed. "You have rewarded her honorably. She has rendered good service – no goshi ever did better, placing her life in the way of danger to her lord -"

"Enough!" Hummingbird turned away. "She is not my tenant. She is not of my clan, nor are her children! Once I will extend the advantage of my house to aid her. Once! And no one will know."

"I understand." Hadeishi clasped both hands behind his back. "Service for service." But silently, he added So do all lords and vassals arrange their fates.

After a moment of silence, Mitsu said: "You cannot make her accompany you."

Hummingbird seemed to wake, life returning to his sharp green eyes. He glowered at the Fleet officer, hands clasped stiffly behind his back.

"This is easy for you to say, Nisei. Your traditions hold that letting go of the world is the path to enlightenment. Mine are different. I have a responsibility to my student." His head tilted toward the hatch. "She has only passed through the first door. Her will, her intent, are weak and unfocused – at any moment she could be trapped by this new clarity, she will be lost, blinded by the simple ability to see. Even if she tries to forget what happened! What will happen to her then?"

Hadeishi nodded slightly, his elfin face serious. "Anything might happen to her. She might be killed or driven insane or turn away from her path. Hummingbird, you cannot save, or protect, every single human being. That is impossible. Men die."

"Yes, that is so." Hummingbird looked away, anger fading into bitterness, his weathered old face settling into its long-accustomed mask. "Men die."

Hadeishi pointed with his head, indicating the door. "Even your student will die."

"I know this!" Hummingbird's nostrils flared.

"Do you?" Hadeishi met his eyes with an unflinching stare. "I do not think so. Not yet."