DISCLAIMER: This is an (alas) unlicensed work of fan fiction. I do not own the copyright to Eureka Seven, the characters of the anime series or its setting. Bandai Entertainment and Bones Studio have the legal rights to anything directly relating to the wonderful Eureka Seven series - though all my original characters, as well as all original lyrics and poetry, are solely mine.

Borealis is the concluding section of a new story arc (Shine On, Shine On) that began with The Edge, and continued with City of Dust. Both installments can be found here on this website.

Shine On, Shine On is a sequel to, and extension of, the events chronicled in my earlier Eureka Seven followup novel, The Fire in the Heart.

This is the proper sequence of all installments up to this point:

The Fire in the Heart

1: Out of the Nest

2: Loss of Life

3: And I Shall Be Your Light

4: The Flame at the Heart of the World

Shine On, Shine On

1: The Edge

2: City of Dust

3: Borealis

All of these can be found here on this site.

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Borealis

(3)

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A story from the world of Eureka Seven

by

John Wagner

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Chapter One

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Max Condor stood in the bathroom doorway toweling the last of the shower water from his body, wrestling with his decidedly mixed emotions. Felt like the first shower I've had in weeks. Now if only I didn't have to put those damn filthy military clothes back on, everything'd be just dandy.

Almost everything. Sparse but clean, the little tourist cabin had overnight acquired a feeling of home, of peace and stability. Of everything his life had lacked for as far back as he could remember. And now, he knew why.

On the bed, Phaedra mumbled softly in her sleep and put out one arm to the pillow next to hers. She blinked away the early-morning light, scowled and lifted herself up on one elbow. "Max? You going somewhere?"

"Yeah. You and I both need a change of clothes, and I've got to scour the State clothing stores to come up with something. And your cousins will need something to wear, too, and hair dye and sunglasses. If they're still capable of getting up, washing and dressing themselves, that is. The way they were last night, there's no telling what we can expect." He tugged on his socks and trousers, appalled at their dirt and odor. "I'm no good at estimating sizes—could you write down what sizes you wear? And your best guess about Maurice and Ariadne, too."

"Sure, okay." She rubbed at her eyes, then rolled out of bed, groping around for the stained and ripped jumpsuit in which she'd spent the past three eventful days. "Gimme a hand, will you, Max?"

"Uh...right." Max came across the little room and put both hands to her shoulders, steadying her as she wriggled and strained to force arms and legs into their proper places.

"Sorry. I guess I'm still kinda half-asleep." She blushed, all at once awkward and clumsy.

"Maybe it's because of the way you...got me up in the middle of the night."

They stopped, motionless for a moment...then slid smoothly into each others' arms. Only the background rumble of military airships above refused to let them forget the violent world waiting outside.

"What the hell're we gonna do, Max?" Phaedra whispered.

"I was an idiot for involving you in this. I should've left you back at Neuchatel."

"As if you could have. As if I'da let you. It was me who dragged you along, remember, flyboy?" She rubbed her cheek to his shoulder. "Maybe an ordinary girl wouldn'ta wanted to come here at all."

"I couldn't...fall in love with an ordinary girl." With the greatest reluctance, he released her. No time now for personal yearnings; their survival might well depend upon making the most of each moment. "Besides, if I have to be on the run with a pair of crazy InterDominion royalty, I can't think of anybody else I'd rather have beside me along the way."

Phaedra managed a smile, then tugged the zipper of her jumpsuit all the way to her neck. "That doesn't sound much like Max Condor at all. Sounds more to me like...Harold Farnsworth."

"Maybe they're finally starting to merge. Maybe it's about time." He lifted a single slat of the venetian blinds and looked toward Cabin 34, across the deserted lane. "We've got to make it through this. Whatever wild ideas those two have about laying siege to Pilgrim Island and hijacking the Arkship is fine and dandy with me. But you and I have got to make it. Understood?"

"Loud and clear...Hal." Pulling on her socks, she made a sour face and waved at the air before her. "For now, just get me some clean duds, okay? I don't think I can take the smell much longer."

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Chapter Two

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"How much further to Pilgrim Island?" asked Tommy.

Kaz remembered the times, years past, when he'd heard that sullen undertone in her voice. Usually when their parents had told her to do her homework, or to go down to the State Ration Office to pick up their monthly coupons, or to wash the dishes. It all seemed so long ago, now, a world beyond recall.

Viyuuden stood in the partial shelter of a public kiosk, deftly touching up the waterproof silicone makeup that covered the tattoo between his eyes. Though five years of the Coralian Gift's reverse-aging had brought his apparent age down to about thirty, Kaz marveled at how well he played the part of a much older man. "That will depend upon how many obstacles we encounter along the way, Mrs. Stevens." The priest folded the tiny pocket mirror and stowed it in a pocket of his plaid flannel jacket. "My original plan was to have Mr. Emerson put us down in the Wendland Allied State, just over the southwestern border from the Federation. With the help of their regional authorities, we were to have entered the Federation covertly, then make directly for Pilgrim Island, there to wait for our friends to appear."

"What makes you so sure they will appear?" asked Kaz, moody and irritable after nearly twenty-four hours of eventful travel.

Viyuuden looked up into the morning sky. "I can feel it in the emanations of the Coral; in the immanence of Vodarek. Maurice and Ariadne are approaching Pilgrim Island, by what means I cannot guess. Something of vast importance is gathering. The signs are clear."

Yuki sighed and pulled her hair into a high ponytail. The driver of a passing fuel lorry rolled down his window to give a whistle, long and appreciative. "I haven't seen any signs. Guess I'll never make a mystic."

"No mysticism is required, Mrs. Novak. You have only to turn your eyes upward."

They followed his pointing finger. High in the morning air, marred by only a few fast-moving clouds, several faint, gossamer streaks crossed the crystalline sky.

Kaz nearly snickered. "Those're just contrails."

"Are they? How is it, then, that these 'contrails' do not move in the wind, or dissipate? Those are the Ley Lines, Mr. Aruno, the global strands of energy that guide our airships and power the Tower cities."

"But...the Ley Lines're invisible. In fact, until about two hundred years ago, no one knew for sure that they even existed. Nobody can see them without meson-resonance detectors."

"Under normal conditions. But conditions are no longer normal, and they are becoming even less so with each passing hour." He turned up the collar of his coat against the cold. "Come. This is a small town, unlikely to have any kind of Federation Intelligence presence. A bit of coffee and breakfast would cheer us all, I think. Shall we pay a brief visit to that small diner across the intersection?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Lark.

Kaz jerked, startled. "Stop doing that—you surprise the hell out of me when you pop out of nowhere that way. Where've you been?"

"In that little shop down the street. I bought a pretzel stick." She held it up for everyone to see, as if it were an item of evidence. "I don't think I've ever had a pretzel before. Not that I can remember, at least. This town is small, but there's a lot of lorry traffic through here, and many of the customers in that restaurant look like drivers. Even though it's nine o'clock, it's still crowded in there. I don't think it would be wise for us to be seen by that many people. Especially by drivers, who might be questioned later, at Federation checkpoints."

Viyuuden nodded in a satisfied way. "Yes. What, then, do you recommend as our next move?"

"Well, let me see..." Lark frowned down at the cracked sidewalk while a short Federation military convoy roared past on the main street. "The most logical thing would be for us to split up and make for Pilgrim Island individually. But some of us might be captured on our own. And even if we weren't, making a rendezvous all at the same time and place would be a problem."

"I agree. So how can we travel as a group and still continue to evade Federation detection?"

"Why're you harassing her like this?" said Kaz.

"Let her speak, Mr. Aruno. Lark, what do you say?"

She brightened and raised her head at once. "The farmers' market. I saw one one from the bus, on our way into this town, back in that direction. The farmers sell black-market produce and baked goods to whoever wants to buy them. It's illegal, but the Secpos usually look the other way, since the legal distribution channels are so corrupt and mismanaged. If we can find a farmer who's driving home in our direction after the market, there's a good chance he'd be willing to take us as passengers, for a price."

"And why couldn't this farmer just turn us in?" asked Tommy, still looking with longing eyes toward the warm diner.

"Because he's doing something illegal himself, by selling his goods outside the State collective distribution system. He couldn't hand us over without admitting his own guilt."

Yuki rolled her eyes and sighed. "Okay, you've got me. It does make sense."

"You still have objections, Mrs. Novak?" Viyuuden turned his full attention to her.

"Nothing solid. But when I was in Federation Intelligence, I got so my instincts were pretty reliable. And they're telling me right now that something still stinks."

A surge of anger swept Kaz's restraint aside. "Hey, will you stop giving Lark the fisheye when you say things like that?"

"Why? Why should you care?"

Tommy edged between them. "Cut it out, both of you. We're on a mission, in case you all forgot."

"And if there are baked goods available," Viyuuden went on as he patted his wig into alignment and slipped on a pair of false glasses, "they may do something to ease my own disappointment over the loss of breakfast. Come, we'll try negotiating for transportation."

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Chapter Three

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"If you were anybody else, I'd ask you if you were serious," said Holland. "But you're always serious."

The veins in Dr. Gregory Egan's forearms stood out like high-tension cables as he did rapid bicep curls with a ten-kilogram barbell in each hand. "Mischa has occasionally made the same complaint. Nevertheless, ours is a serious business. And I tell you that Eureka and Renton are planning a public announcement later this day, to address Senator Fuillión's reckless charges."

"Dammit." Holland brooded before a monitor in the squalid improvised command center assembled in Dr. Katsuhiro Morita's offices. After so many days of continuous crowding, it reeked of hot electronic components, stale coffee and sweat. "The best thing for them to do is nothing. Just let Fuillión rant, without stooping to answer him. Damn those purehearted idealistic impulses of theirs. Hey, Dominic?"

Across the room at the table reserved for the Security monitoring team, the exhausted Dominic Sorel sat with head on his arms, bent double in sleep. One of his aides gently prodded him in one shoulder until he snapped erect, disoriented, looking about him with eyes that did not yet see. "What? Holland? I was just..."

"Yeah, I know. So do I, every couple of hours or so. Even Jobs can't stay awake all the time."

Job "Jobs" Stevens, his fingers clattering over one of the three keyboards at his console, lifted an annoyed eyebrow. "I'll let that one pass. But apart from us, have any of you been considering how the rest of the InterDominion is taking this situation? Stoner's been pretty careful in making sure that Ministry press releases aren't alarmist, but all the same, nearly everyone can draw their own conclusions. And the plain facts are alarming enough."

"Yes, they are," said Dominic, now fully awake. "We haven't got any mechanism for sampling public opinion, but none of the reports from local police forces mention any unrest or signs of panic. Just the opposite, in fact. Personally, I think most people who can are staying home, glued to their video screens, waiting to see what happens. They know they'll be safe here in the New Lands, but most of them still have friends and relatives back on the other side of the world."

"So do we," said Jobs.

Holland changed the subject at once. "Yeah. What's the latest word on that trapar flow from the Moon?"

"It continues to intensify," said Egan, finally stowing the barbells beneath his table. "Ionization of our upper atmosphere has risen to unprecedented levels. Already the Ley Lines are becoming visible in full daylight; the auroral display this evening should be quite spectacular."

"So will the display right here on the ground, if we can't put a stop to this war that's ready to boil over. Damn." Holland smashed his fist to the tabletop, with enough force to vibrate Jobs' monitors. "Long-range communications out, and we can't monitor...whatever's going on in the Federation. And this wildcard radiation source on the Moon—whatever that is—won't stop breathing down our necks."

"We've been in worse situations," said Jobs. "A lot of them."

"We could do something, in the old days."

Egan turned his placid face toward him. "We have already dispatched fully half the IPF fleet to the other side of the globe, to protect the Allied States in the event of a Federation attack. I need hardly remind you that none of us have been passive."

Dominic wavered to his feet, groped about him for his coffee cup and scowled at the contents. "It isn't just Holland, we're all on edge. As communications break down, our inflow of intel data is dropping to near nothing. There's nothing left to do but stare at our screens and wait for something to happen—all the while knowing that if something does, we'll be too late."

Egan himself rose with sinuous grace. "Gentlemen. Patience is never an easy virtue. I confess that...even I have known moments of irritability during our long vigil. But I am accustomed to maneuvering on an intellectual level, while both of you are of a combat background, more comfortable with direct action. As that option is temporarily denied to us in the wider arena, I suggest that the time has come for you occupy yourselves with a matter of a more immediate and local nature."

"Such as what?" sighed Dominic.

Holland, working his jaw to ease the cramps in his temples, edged nearer to Egan's monitor. There he saw one window, swollen with the image of a bombastic, dark-haired demagogue wearing a thin mustache over a truculent mouth, one fist raised in the air above the Parliament steps.

André Fuillión.

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Chapter Four

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He looked around the den—around the room—and sniffed. Something not right in the air, something not right with the Maeter One. Once, he would have been alarmed and sought a hiding place, waiting, all senses sharp, for the threat to reveal. But since the Knowing had come, things were no longer so simple.

Some time ago—just how long, he could not be sure, since time itself still seemed a curious and elusive concept to him—the Maeter One had made the Knowing Sounds with one of the other Big Ones. Then the other Big One went away, but the Maeter One had not gone to her nest for the sleeping. Something not right in the air.

He puzzled it all out, finding that the longer he gnawed at it, the more complex it all became. The Knowing, having once begun, only seemed to keep growing, to open up so many new pathways, like a trail with a thousand new scents. Something not right with the Maeter One; something not right in the air.

But She might know more. He sniffed again, finding the traces of She, and hurried off. The Knowing, he reasoned just then, would be double, if he found She. The realization astounded him, and he allowed himself several slow breaths of wonder before moving off to locate She.

Something not right.

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Chapter Five

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Kazuya shifted his butt once again in his never-ending quest to find a painless position on the cold, rusty truck bed. Carefully, he stretched both legs in front of him, to rid them of their numbness. They only tingled with little needlepoints of pain that he bore without complaint.

Further forward, toward the truck's cab, Viyuuden meditated in serenity, eyes shut, presumably communing with Vodarek. Yuki sat next to him with knees beneath her chin, still staring and frowning as she had since they'd left town as passengers in the farmer's utility truck.

At Kaz's side, Lark stirred. "There's something I don't understand," she said, raising her voice over the buzz and hiss of the deep-treaded tires.

Yuki barely looked her way. "I don't doubt it."

"What would that be?" asked Viyuuden, as though waking from a pleasant nap.

"It's the way everyone here in the Federation doesn't seem to know anything truthful about the New Lands, or how they were established—or that Maurice and Ariadne even exist. It makes no sense. I was told that when Eureka and Renton levitated the Vodarek pyramid from Thuu Bak to the Heart of the World, Professor Wossel arranged for it all to be broadcast worldwide, over the satellite relays. Everyone on Earth must have seen it. So why is it that so many of them believe the Federation propaganda instead of what they saw with their own eyes?"

"Many of them do not." The priest stretched his limbs in many strange directions, one at a time. "Some of those who still think for themselves have taken the dangerous step of leaving the Federation without an exit visa. Some have succeeded; some have been arrested, or worse. Still others do not believe the Federation, but keep silent, out of fear of reprisals." He pushed an unsold cantaloupe away, making room as he touched his head to his outstretched legs. "But most Federation citizens, I regret to say, simply accept what they're told. An unquestioning acceptance of authority—any authority—is one of Humanity's less appealing tendencies."

Kazuya pressed closer to Lark. "But she's right. They saw the truth with their own eyes."

"And the video networks told them the next day that it was all a special-effects hoax," laughed Tommy, "put on by a bunch of crazy rebels. People believe what the important-looking people on the video screen keep on telling them, not what's right there in front of them." She waved one hand, dismissing his objection as the truck jolted over a pothole. "Jeez, Kaz, how much thinking outside the herd did you do, before the government kidnapped Mom and Dad and opened your eyes for you?" She gave her head a bitter shake. "And how much did I do, before they drafted me and put me to work gunning down the enemies of the State? Look, it's easy to lap up everything you're told. Until it starts to hit you in the face, personally. Then, all of a sudden, you're amazed at how you didn't see it sooner, when it was right in front of your nose all the time."

"You sound bitter, Mrs. Stevens," said Viyuuden.

She shrugged, and looked to the rusty floor beneath. "Maybe. I'm kind of thinking about why I really came along on this trip in the first place. I'm no hero. Maybe...I just felt guilty that it took me so damn long to wake up."

"Don't talk that way!" shouted Kaz, shaken without quite knowing why. "You are a hero."

Tommy smiled, then, shining with sincerity. "Thanks, kiddo."

"Time to cut the family reunion short." Yuki swung her legs around and hurried on hands and knees to a small tear in the canvas canopy. "We're slowing down. Something's going on."

As the little flatbed lorry creaked to a stop, Kazuya pushed aside the rear flap to crane his neck forward. Ahead stretched a kilometer-long lineup of various immobile vehicles. And at its far end, he saw the harsh red strobes of police vehicles, barricading the road in both directions.

He pulled back inside at once. "What is it?" said Viyuuden.

"Secpo patrol cars up ahead, at least four of them, stopping traffic both ways."

"Could be just a routine random search-and-questioning," said Tommy, with little conviction. "Especially with the mobilization and all."

Yuki shot her a caustic look. "And they just happen to be randomly searching the stretch of road we're on, right? I don't think so." She went back to the rip in the canopy, peering this way and that. "There's a line of trees coming down almost to the edge of the road. We can get out of sight in them pretty quickly, if we move before someone pulls up behind us."

"Agreed." Viyuuden stood, shoving half a dozen apples into his knapsack. "I advise everyone to gather up whatever loose produce you prefer and carry it with you. The rather exorbitant price we paid for our passage should entitle us to that much, at least."

Kaz pushed some carrots, apples and broccoli into his own pack, then helped Lark with hers. No one needed to be told to keep as silent as possible, to avoid alerting the farmer in the lorry's cab. At Viyuuden's command, they dropped to the road one at a time and hurried into the pine forest beside them.

Once there, they found hard going. The trees grew on a steep ridge that, after a very few moments, rose to a thirty-degree angle, forcing them to scrabble upward, grasping for handholds. Worse, the damp soil beneath crumbled and slid beneath their boots as they snatched at bushes or young trees to keep from rolling back down to the roadway below them. Sweating even in the chill air, Kaz risked a look behind them through gaps in the trees—and immediately wished he hadn't. Though the rational part of his mind told him they could not have climbed more than a hundred meters in such a short time, the line of traffic now seemed at the bottom of some dizzying chasm.

An outcropping of shale crumbled beneath his feet and he slid back several meters before finding a sapling to break his fall. He clung to it with both arms, his heart hammering.

"Are you all right?" asked Lark, just ahead of him.

"I'll be okay. Just keep moving, and watch out for loose rock. We don't want the others to get too far ahead of us."

She shook her head in an ironic way. "They wouldn't miss me, I don't think."

"Yeah, well that's their problem. Go on, keep climbing. I'll be right behind you."

Kaz struggled stoically on for half an hour or so at the rear, unwilling to display any signs of fear or exhaustion. All the same, when Viyuuden signaled them to a stop on a sharp-edged shale outcropping, he found it difficult not to cheer.

"We can rest here for a time," Viyuuden told them, as he pulled a tiny pair of binoculars from his pack and peered down through a narrow opening in the pines. "Your instincts were correct, Mrs. Novak. I can see military personnel moving up the line of vehicles, inspecting each one personally before allowing them to pass."

Kazuya looked up from the ugly network of cuts and bruises on his hands, all fading rapidly under the influence of the Coralian Gift. "If you can see them, then can't they can see us?"

"Not through such a small gap, or at such a distance. We are safe here, for a few minutes."

"Did you say military personnel?" Tommy asked. "Not State Security Police?"

"Federation Landestroopers, Mrs. Stevens. It appears we've become too important to be left to the Secpos. The Federation military—perhaps the High Council itself—seems aware of us."

"And how did that happen, d'you suppose?" said Yuki through a mouthful of daikon radish. "Our little songbird here—" she indicated Lark with a contemptuous toss of her head "—disappears again back in that town, and when she comes back, she's got a plan all ready for the next leg of our trip. And by a strange coincidence, that plan leads the Federation military straight to us."

Lark dug about in her knapsack for a carrot. "I had nothing to do with it."

"No? I seem to recall you warning us not to stop at that restaurant back there because there might be lorry drivers at the counter—who might be questioned at Federation roadblocks. Which just happens to be what's going on down there right now. I want the truth, dammit. You were up to a lot more than just buying pretzels back there in town, weren't you?"

"That's foolish. Of course I was buying a pretzel. I even showed it to you. Exactly what do you think I was doing?"

"Look, Yuki, why don't you just—?" began Kazuya, clenching his fists in his pockets.

But Viyuuden overrode him. "Put your fears to rest, Mrs. Novak. The Temple staff—not excluding myself—have worked intensively with Lark for the past five years. All of us are in complete agreement that her former Federation conditioning has been broken. Her personality bears no connection to what she once was, or did. "

"I damn well hope you're right," she grumbled, and Kaz knew that she didn't believe he was. "Because if you're not, none of us are ever going to reach Pilgrim Island."

"You have trusted me this far; please continue to do so. As for our goal—" he pocketed the sheet of yellow paper on which Ripper Neary had drawn his crude map and pulled out a detailed topographical chart "—it seems that we are only a bit more than a hundred and fifty kilometers from our goal. But we are once again on foot, and we must come to Pilgrim Island no later than nightfall. Time is growing critical."

Kazuya looked to Tommy and Yuki, finding his own alarm mirrored in their faces. "It is? Why? You never said anything about us having to get there by tonight."

"I didn't know myself until very recently." Viyuuden raised his face toward the clear sky, crosshatched by the contrails of deeplanes, heavy aerial cruisers and the increasingly-bright web of the Ley Lines. "But as the confluence of the Will intensifies, my certainty grows. I wonder, now...if even the date may possibly be significant."

"The date?" Tommy squinted at him. "It's...what, September twenty-second? So what? Why should that mean anything?"

"Perhaps it does not." He stood, motioning the others to do likewise. "I'm neither a prophet nor a magician. The ways of the Coral are not human ways, and I do not always understand the unfolding of Vodarek's Will beforehand. Nevertheless, I know that we must reach Pilgrim Island by dusk. Come, we still have a few more meters to climb before we crest this ridge. And then we must somehow find new transportation."

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Chapter Six

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Maurice watched the tedious Federation landscape beyond his back-seat window with dull eyes, like a drowning man watching the receding sun from the bottom of a lake.

At the other end of the seat, pressed against the opposite door, as if to put herself as far away from him as humanly possible, sat Ariadne, silent and unknowable. She stared outside, unmoving, unspeaking, through the thick polarized sunglasses Max Condor had bought for them. Since recovering from her mental paralysis of the night before, she had kept her mind utterly closed to his thought. Even her ordinary speech was doled out grudgingly, in grunts, monosyllables and terse phrases, all of them for Max or Phaedra.

Max and Phaedra. Maurice had noticed it soon after they'd driven away from their tourist cabins in the stolen car. Seen it in the way they touched, whispered to each other, like dancers whirling to a common musical theme. They're lovers. Who would ever've believed that Phaedra could love anybody at all? Always so snide and selfish, so snotty about...about me and Ariadne. I didn't even know she had love in her at all. But now, look at her and Max, while Ariadne just keeps on giving me the cold shoulder.

He shifted his position slightly, pulling at the full gray blanket covering his wings. It seemed to be military, though Maurice hadn't asked Max where he'd got them, one for him and one for...Ariadne.

Ariadne. I haven't felt so damn alone since 'way back, since before my real parents were killed. Even since she was born, since the first time I saw her, I knew we were meant to be together, always. And she knew it, too. Viyuuden knew it; that's why he married us. We need to be together, just like Mom and Dad. How could Ariadne forget that so soon? How could she forget that?

The crude Federation automobile bottomed out on a pothole, jolting them all. In the seat ahead, Phaedra said something about the High Council being able to afford particle-beam weapons and aerial dreadnoughts, but never having enough spare cash to fix their roads. Max, the tension of the past few days now etching itself into a sort of permanent tightness along his jaw, nodded, and told her that not many private citizens could buy cars, and the military vehicles had powerful suspensions anyway, so the district commissariats simply shrugged and pocketed the funds. Max seemed to know so much, to have done so much. And what about me? Since the start of the New Lands, I haven't been anywhere or done a damn thing. Like a little kid in a nice soft playpen.

One of the seemingly endless roadside "Unity" billboards stared down at them from a factory wall: Unity Is Our Power! In the center stood a bold-faced woman in a Federation Aerotrooper's exosuit, raising one fist high, backed by a line of burly agricultural laborers incongruously mixed together with office workers in black ties and frumpy female business suits.

Unity. Crap. The only kind of unity I've ever known has been with Ariadne. I love her. I thought she loved me. But if she really loved me, how could she cut me off like this? How the hell could she ignore me this way? He drew back a few centimeters, looking at his reflection in the dirty window glass, its hair now a deep chocolate-brown from the dyes Max and Phaedra had used on them that morning. Doesn't she know I had to pull out of the Joining last night? That I couldn't let her turn herself into a murderer, the way Mom did? Even after everything her and Dad did to save the damn world, Mom still has that awful ache inside from the things she did before that. I couldn't let Ariadne be a murderer like that. It was enough just to hit those soldiers with enough trapar to make them dopey and confused for a couple of days. There're times when you have to kill, to protect yourself or the people you care about, as a last resort. But Ariadne, you were enjoying it! You loved it, watching those guys suffer, torturing them to death. I know you're not like that, Ariadne, not really. I couldn't let you turn into that kind of monster. You're not like that, Ariadne. Are you? Answer me, Ariadne, answer me. Please.

-#-

Phaedra bounced in her seat from the force of the pothole. "Jeez, how come the damn Federation can afford Dreadnoughts and LFOs and particle-beam cannon and all that expensive crap—but not fix their roads?"

"Priorities." Max held the car in line with a delicate touch to its slow and unresponsive steering. At over a hundred kilometers per hour, it had an unpleasant habit of pulling to one side or the other without warning. "The good of their citizens is never one of them. You need to read up on something called 'pre-Exodus collectivist totalitarianism' some time. I'll bet Doc Bouchard could give you an earful."

"Oh, thanks, teacher." But from the corner of one eye, he could see her smile as she said it.

"Anyway, you've got to have an Internal Transport Permit to own a private vehicle, even if you can afford one. Farmers get them. So do doctors and a few other special cases. Otherwise, only the elites—officers, Party functionaries and so on—can own cars or lorries. And the military transports all have suspensions that can handle anything, so Federation Central Planning probably doesn't see a problem. Even if they did, the local commissariats would just siphon off the money."

She deliberately turned her back to the enormous Unity Is Our Power billboardscowling down at them from a passing factory wall. "So if only the big shots can have cars, isn't someone gonna wonder what a bunch like us is doing in one?"

"Sooner or later, yes. And it's worrying the hell out of me." A military convoy roared past them in the opposite direction, missile carriers, troop transports and supply lorries, over half a kilometer of them. "The only thing that's let us get this far is the mobilization. They're too busy getting ready for war with the InterDominion to notice small fry like us. But that luck can't hold forever."

"Any more cheery news, hotshot?" The final vehicles in the convoy, a pair of white vans bearing the red hypodermic-in-circle insignia of the Ministry of Health flashed by, silent testimony to the casualties that lay ahead on the path to war.

"Afraid so. We're down to about one-quarter fuel pressure. I can't get away with my military-officer act much longer, and I don't think I can manage to steal another car before dark." The sloppy front suspension twitched again, forcing him to jerk the car back into a straight course, fighting a persistent vibration in the right front wheel.

Phaedra rubbed silently at the seams of her long, dowdy skirt for several minutes. "Is there a hospital anywhere around here?" she asked at last.

"What? I'm not sure. Check our map." A twinge of alarm grabbed at him. "Why? Is something wrong with you? Or are those two—?" He motioned to the back seat with his thumb.

"No, I'm okay. It's just an idea I got from watching that military stuff. Lemme check the map..." She unfolded the chart they'd taken from their first stolen Federation vehicle, turning it this way and that to orient herself. "Okay, here's one. The Madoka District People's Health Sanitarium. Does that mean 'hospital?'"

"More or less."

"Great. Now, here's what I thought we could do..."

—

—

Chapter Seven

—

—

—

Kazuya waited for Viyuuden to call for a rest stop that never seemed to come.

By his own reckoning, they'd been hiking through the dense brush for nearly two hours, descending the mountain from the side opposite the road. The wind whipped and slapped at them here, catching any exposed flesh with insolent fingers. His lips grew numb, reducing him to a slurred mumble each time he tried to speak. To his side, Lark slipped on a loose rock and dropped to her knees. No one made any move to help her.

"Lemme give you a hand," he said, grabbing her by one shoulder to lift her till she found her balance again.

She looked as though she might smile, but then thought better of it and nodded her vague thanks. "What time is it?"

"Dunno. 'Round one o'clock, I think. C'mon, we'll catch up to the others, okay?"

"Do you really think they care about me catching up?"

Kaz spotted Viyuuden's blue knit hat bobbing above a clustered metarak bush a few meters ahead, and steered her in that direction. "I care. Don't let'em get you down."

"I'm coming, let me just get over these tangled roots... They all think I'm some kind of Federation spy."

"Uh-huh." He slipped one arm about her and boosted her up and over a massive knot that reminded him of a black skull brooding amidst frozen, ropy tentacles. "Is it true?"

"What? Don't tell me that you don't believe—"

"I'm not tellin' you anything. I'm askin'. Is it true? Are you some kinda spy, or double agen' or somethin'?" The cold slowed his numbed lips, adding to his aggravation.

For a moment, Lark bent her attention to crossing a low ditch full of frozen melt water. "I think that if I was, I'd have remembered it, don't you?"

"I kind of..." Ahead, Viyuuden lifted one hand, and they all stopped at his signal, waiting.

"Our long descent is nearly over," he announced. "Less than a kilometer ahead is the village of Brotsk. The railway passes through, but I suspect we would be be pressing our luck to attempt further travel by rail."

"Oh, but the last train trip was so much fun," said Tommy, blowing her nose.

The priest ignored her. "Time is pressing upon us. Once we reach the town, we must attempt the most expedient transportation we can find." He unfolded a small regional map he'd picked up from a railway stop, so long ago, so far away. "It's possible that the farmer whose truck we so hurriedly vacated has given our description by now, but we must take that risk."

Yuki wrapped both arms about herself against the cold. "What've you got in mind?"

"Nothing specific. The Will of Vodarek reveals itself in its own way, and cannot be hurried. I suggest only that we all bend our minds toward any available transportation, no matter how we must attain it."

"You mean we should hit somebody over the head and steal a car."

Viyuuden grinned, cold and without joy. "If necessary, though I doubt that we shall see many private automobiles in such a small town. Use your imagination."

"What's this other line passing through Brotsk?" asked Tommy, pointing one gloved finger at a blue tracery that seemed to parallel the State railway right-of-way.

"The river Shinano, now officially renamed the River of Loyalty. I hardly think swimming will be a practical method of reaching Pilgrim Island, though."

"Was that a joke?"

"Of a sort. Long ago, I learned that the humor of the hunted often takes strange forms. Tell me, Mrs. Novak: as a former Federation Military Intelligence officer, what's your opinion as to the form of pursuit that will be launched against us?"

Yuki blinked, as if nudged from a daydream. "Too many variables. Are they wise to who we really are? Do they suspect what we're up to? And most of all, do they know that Ariadne and Maurice have infiltrated Federation territory?" She turned her sharp gaze upon Lark once more. "What do you have to say about that, chatterbox?"

In spite of the cold, Kaz's face grew warm. But Viyuuden spoke first. "I tell you again, Mrs. Novak, I have no doubt whatever as to Lark's loyalty."

"You could be wrong."

It was a shot across the bow. Tommy and Kazuya looked briefly to each other, tense and waiting.

"That is always a possibility. But in the absence of hard evidence that I am, I will proceed on the assumption that Lark presents no danger to our mission. Now, I ask you again: what sort of pursuit do you expect?"

"A lot." Yuki screwed up her face as though she wanted very much to say more, but held herself in check. "There's not much doubt that they know we're here, by now...no matter how they know. And so far, they've failed to get us every time. The military doesn't tolerate failure, especially when it's repeated. That means that a lot of guys all the way up the chain of command stand to get their butts burned in a big way if they don't haul us in. Up to now, they've been trying to keep it all covert, but that won't last much longer. They'll be openly pursuing us, starting soon."

"I agree." He tugged his knit hat down further against the wind. "I know all of us are exhausted and cold, but we dare not let our caution drop for a moment. Wherever we go will soon become a combat zone, and we must conduct ourselves as soldiers from this point. Understood?"

All of them mumbled agreement, including Lark. But Kaz found himself less certain. Soldiers? I'm no soldier. I don't even know if I can do whatever the hell it is he wants us to do. Why'd he pick me for this trip, anyway?

Without further discussion, they hiked onward. The undergrowth that had so hindered their progress up to this point thinned rapidly, and, as Viyuuden had predicted, within half an hour they spied a double-tracked railway line. A rough dirt road paralleled the fenced-in right-of-way. Kaz savored the luxury of walking on level and unobstructed ground, though the biting wind blew stronger here, laced with a faint weedy scent of river water.

"Aren't we kind of exposed like this?" he called out.

Viyuuden turned over one shoulder without slackening his pace. "Yes. Which is why we must keep up this fast march. In town, we'll be less conspicuous as we decide upon our next move."

-#-

In spite of Viyuuden's reassurance—or perhaps because of it—Kaz did his best to hurry his pace as they hiked along the road's edge. Though they encountered no vehicle traffic, still he expected at any second the hooting of sirens and a galaxy of red lights descending upon them with guns blazing.

Lark seemed unable or unwilling to keep up the forced march, and each time she fell behind, Kaz waited patiently for her to catch up before continuing on.

'You shouldn't bother lagging behind on my account," she told him with an air of resigned weariness.

"Don't say anything so stupid. Of course I'm gonna wait up for you. I don't want you to get lost or get caught by the Federation." He took her by one arm to urge her along with him.

"Maybe that's where I belong. With the other butchers."

"Dammit!" Kaz had to fight to hold his voice down, to keep the others from overhearing. "Will you stop that kinda talk? I already know what you did in the old days—"

"You don't know half of it, Kazuya. Even I don't know all the things I've done, the horrible things..."

"Okay, okay, so what? That was years ago. You were somebody else, then, a different person altogether!"

Lark dragged her feet, almost stumbling, pulling Kaz's face around to her own. "Do you really think so? Really? Another person?"

"Well, sure." Puzzled and a bit frightened by her sudden urgency, he held her by both shoulders, a captive of her wide, terrified eyes. "Viyuuden said you'd been brainwashed by the Federation, scrubbing your memories, training you to do the things you did. But that's all behind you, now. You're not that person the Federation created, see? You're somebody different, now. That old Lark's way behind you."

She turned her face away, staring toward an abandoned bus stop crumbling by the side of the road. "Another person..."

"Sure. The old Lark probably would've given us away to the Federation long ago—if she didn't murder us, first." He smiled through lips still stiff with cold, trying to make her see the absurdity of her persistent guilt. "But that's not you any more. Just let her go, okay?"

Lark wiped at her nose with one sleeve. "And what if she won't let me go? What then?"

"Forget about her. You're the new Lark, now...and I trust you." Wrapping her shoulders in his arm, he pulled her near and resumed the march. "Come on, now. We can't let the others get ahead too far, or we'll get separated. Just keep walking along with me, okay?"

She nodded and shuffled along at his side, not speaking but at least no longer giving in to the despair that hung about her like a poisonous vapor. When we get back, I'm gonna help you get over this, Kaz promised himself. When we get back; when we get back; when we get back...

—

—

Chapter Eight

—

—

—

The cloying reek of solvents and antiseptics choking the supply closet left Max light-headed and nauseous at the same time. He wriggled in the darkness, tugging at his trousers, stumbling with each awkward pull. "This is harder than I expected."

Only inches away, he could hear the rustling and grunting of Phaedra struggling with her own clothing. "I wish we could turn on the damn light."

"Not till we're through. Keep your voice down. We don't need anyone looking in here to see what's going on. And don't forget that this was your idea." Max yanked his belt tight and groped for the buttons of the shirt.

"And you thought it was a pretty good one."

"It was. It is. You're pretty sharp for someone who says she's got most of her knowledge from books."

"That better be a compliment, flyboy. When you said doctors could own cars, I started thinking: why not go all the way with it? There, I think I'm done. Can we turn the lights on yet?"

Max wriggled his shoulders, testing the fit. Good enough. If anyone were to see them now, there would at least be no awkward questions about what they were doing undressing together in a supply closet. None, at least, that would mark them as fugitives from the Federation military. "I suppose so. Go ahead."

She brushed him, hard, against one cheek as she grasped for the light switch. When the naked bulb flared to life, both of them winced in its glare.

"How do I look?" asked Phaedra, standing very straight before him.

"Gorgeous." He smiled at his own enthusiasm and looked over her Emergency Medical Attendant's starched white uniform, then made final adjustments to the buttons of her blouse. "But if you mean will you pass, yes, as long as no one gets too inquisitive. And make sure you put those dark glasses back on the minute you open the door. What about me?"

"Killer sharp." With little pulls and pushes, she snugged the knot of his black tie and straightened the sleeves of his physician's white jacket, finally patting at the Madoka District Emergency Services patch on its breast pocket. "You look good in white."

"Right." Max pulled an otoscope from one of the supply shelves and flicked its LED light on and off, frowning in what he hoped was a good imitation of a proper medical demeanor. "All right, grab that clipboard and open the door. Try not to look at anyone but me, and walk fast—as though we're on our way to a serious disaster somewhere."

"We are."

"That should make it easy. Let's go—and put those glasses on."

She swung the door outward and walked with long, purposeful strides down the dark, green-walled hospital corridor, fast enough to keep Max hurrying to stay with her. Along the way, nurses and other medical personnel passed in both directions, intent upon their own legitimate business. Now and then, patients on crutches, or pushing metal racks that bore their IV drip bags, or struggling along in wheelchairs crept past with dull, unseeing eyes. "Jeez, this is what it used to be like everywhere, isn't it," murmured Phaedra as she scribbled a row of meaningless marks on her clipboard, "before the Coralian Gift? Y'know, I don't think I ever appreciated just how good we have it over in the New Lands."

Max frowned even more intently as they came to an intersection in the hall and he strained to remember the route outward. "When we came in, did we make a right or a left here?" A young man in medic's blue hospital scrubs passed them with a wide smile. Max nodded and lifted one hand, as if deep in thought.

"It was a left on the way in, so now we go right. Hey, how come I didn't get to be a doctor, too?"

"No one would believe it; you look much too young to've been through medical school. Here, down this long ramp."

"I am much too young. I guess even Coralian girls'd have a hard time getting a doctor's diploma in four and a half years."

The essential strangeness of her came to him, then. Watching her walk along the corridor with brisk, efficient steps, shining in her trim uniform, she seemed very much a human girl, a young nurse in training. And yet, behind those dark glasses, the eyes of an alien biology waited to draw him in, fascinating and weirdly exotic...

"Excuse me, sir."

Max went cold as the man clutched at his arm. Resisting the urge to panic, he took the stranger in with a glance: gray-brown hair, a face lined with time and disappointment, wearing an ill-fitting overcoat straight from a rack in the State clothing outlets. Not a Secpo, then. He relaxed his muscles, but not his alertness. "I'm...in rather a hurry at the moment, sir..."

"Yeah, I know you must be, Doctor, 'specially these days. I'm awful sorry, I just... My son's in here someplace, and I can't get nobody to tell me where. He's only fifteen, see, a Dewey Youth Brigade recruit, an' he was hurt in a training accident... Where're they keepin' him, doctor? Please?"

Max stood, riveted by the pleading of a helpless, terrified father, wanting very much to do something for him, knowing he dared not even try. "I'm afraid I..."

"Back along this hallway is a nurse's station for this floor," piped up Phaedra, crisp and confident. "If you'll ask the nurse on duty and give her your son's name, I'm sure they'll be able to direct you."

"Up this way?" The man waved one clumsy arm in the direction from which they'd come, almost comically grateful to have been treated with such respect. "This way?"

"Yes, sir, that's correct."

Max allowed himself a thin smile. "And now, Nurse, those emergency patients need us...er, stat." As they resumed their double-time march toward the rear exit, he looked again toward Phaedra. "That was pretty quick thinking. I'm getting crazier about you all the time. Is there really a duty station back there?"

"Sure. I saw it on the way in, while you were looking for the place they stored uniforms. I'm pretty indispensable, aren't I? Here, this is the Emergency corridor. Aren't we gonna need a key?"

"Shhh." Max feigned a deep interest in Phaedra's clipboard as they passed the crowded emergency in-patient registration desk, with its three very busy receptionists. The automatic doors parted for them and they stepped out into the sharp wind of the parking area. "No, we won't. State ambulances don't have locks. The drivers can't risk not being able to find a key at some critical time. There, we'll take that one." He pointed toward a Madoka District ambulance, one of over a dozen identical vehicles lined up along a loading dock.

"Why?"

"It's the last one in line, so it'll be the last one missed. Come on."

"Hey, wait, what's that stuff up in the air?"

Curious in spite of his nagging need to get away before the shouts of pursuit sounded behind them, Max lifted his face to the noontime sky. "I...I don't know. A lot of trapar contrails, of course, but those other lines aren't moving with the wind at all. What the hell? And another funny thing: I don't see any of the characteristic luminance streams of LFOs. You'd think the Federation'd have every available LFO squadron called out. But there're—"

A metal door clanked open somewhere; both of them tensed and stood motionless. Then the hiss of a methane valve releasing and a medical-supply lorry bounced past, away from the hospital, its driver intent upon his own affairs.

Doing his best to appear in no particular hurry, Max led Phaedra to the ambulance at the end , then helped her up the long step to the driver's cab. Fuel pressure, maximum. Will it be enough to get us where we're going? Well, one problem at a time. Max hit the starter pedal and, as the engine spun up to operating temperature, released the handbrake. On the main road beyond the hospital, he saw only military traffic, streaming in both directions.

Phaedra grabbed at her seat as they crashed along over potholes and frozen ruts. "Jeez, didn't it ever occur to anybody to pave this damn parking lot?"

A pair of nurses, evidently coming off their shift, shuffled along toward the nearest bus stop, bent into the gusting wind. Max slowed a bit, taking no chances on attracting their attention. "Not enough people own private cars to make it worthwhile. Anyway, the central planners never budget enough funds for maintenance, so after a couple of years it wouldn't make any difference... Where's the car? Am I going the right way?"

"Don't panic. It's right around there, right where we left it, hidden just past that trash bin."

He let out his breath. "I thought for a second it was...never mind. Right, I see it now."

Max backed the ambulance near to their stolen sedan. The hospital had few windows at the rear of the Maintenance wing, but all the same he found the wary urge to keep looking up at them difficult to resist.

Ariadne's sungoggled eyes peered over the lower edge of the rear window, and Phaedra hopped out while Max opened wide the ambulance's rear doors. "What are you doing?" asked Ariadne as she stepped out into the sunlight, military blanket still wrapped about her. "This is some kind of a medical vehicle, isn't it?"

"Yeah. We hijacked a new ride, and you two are gonna be our emergency patients. Hurry up, now, and get in the back. You, too, Maurice. And bring the blankets."

"Okay." He ran from the opposite door, making for the ambulance with his blanket flapping in the wind.

Phaedra gave them each a boost up to the patient area and had them lie down on one of the two hospital trolleys clamped to the floor. "Each of you get on one, and pull a blanket over you." Maurice made as if to help Ariadne with her blanket, but she ignored him and pulled it neatly into place before lying back down.

Phaedra noticed, but made no comment. "Right, now, you two just lay there and look like you're about to drop dead, in case anybody stops us for any reason, got it? Oh, and here's some bandage I lifted from the hospital—wrap these over your eyes if somebody wants to know why you're patients."

"You guys stole this stuff from a hospital?" Maurice looked at her with mingled wonder and respect. "And those outfits of yours? And the ambulance, too? How'd you do all this?"

"Natural criminal talent." She paused in front of the open door to the driver's compartment. "Besides, two people can do a lot...together."

Max overheard the pointed hint—and noticed as well Ariadne's lack of response. Once Phaedra came forward into the cab, he shut the door behind her and eased the ambulance forward, away from the menacing hospital. "Are they both okay?" he asked quietly, tapping the side of his head with one finger. "Mentally, I mean."

"Yeah, I think so. They were both pretty normal when I got'em outa bed this morning, and they're still all right now. It's just that she won't talk to him. Hardly even admits he's there, y'know? It's creepy. I mean, they were always so disgustingly lovey-dovey all the time, before. I used to...kind of envy them. In fact, I was jealous of them. A lot." She edged nearer to him on the seat. "But not any more."

For just a moment, Max took one hand from the wheel and squeezed her gently on one knee. "Phaedra, I..."

Then they came to the merge ramp where the hospital lanes rejoined the highway. "Me, too, hotshot. I know you gotta keep your eyes on the road...but hold onta that thought—for later. Okay?"

He nodded, waited for a heavy trailer loaded with surface-to-air missiles to roar past, and they were on the run again.

—

—

Chapter Nine

—

—

—

Job Stevens jumped to his feet—or tried to. Hours of sitting motionless at his monitors had left one leg completely numb and the other unreliable at best. He stumbled, grabbed for the tabletop and held himself upright, very much aware that all eyes in the command center were now upon him. "Dr. Egan."

Chewing on a slice of steamed tofu sprinkled with herbs, Egan looked his way. "Yes, Mr. Stevens?"

"I've been working with Woz and his group, over at the University, trying to re-establish communications with our satellites. We've had some real success, at last."

Egan lifted one eybrow above the tofu. "Indeed? How did Professor Wossel penetrate the ionized-trapar layer in the upper atmosphere? My understanding is that it has been increasing in strength at an accelerating rate."

"Yes, sir, it is. But we have a geosynced calibration-baseline orbiter—CALDAR-8—that carries a laser transceiver. We use it for calibrating ground-based astronomical telescopes—"

"I am aware of its function. Please continue."

Prickling pains stabbed at his leg with little rodents' teeth as sensation crept back into it, but Jobs kept his hold on the table and showed no discomfort. "Woz and his associates have managed to reconfigure the calibration programming to act as a radio relay. In other words, we can send and receive laser-based datastreams, and it in turn forwards that out to our other satellites as radio frequency broadcasts, above the atmosphere. It's a little slow because of all the multiplexing and signal translation involved. And it's restricted to line-of-sight, so only the satellites above CALDAR's horizon at the moment can be reached. But we're finally getting some data back from our orbiting scientific observatories."

"Yes!" shouted Jean-Baptiste Arban, Dominic's second-in-command. He beckoned to the other Security personnel in his corner, pointing at the monitor. "The data's coming in again! Thank you, Mr. Stevens—and please give our thanks to Dr. Wossel and his team as well! Commander Sorel'll be happy to see this when he gets back."

Slowly, Jobs lowered himself once more to his chair. When Dominic gets back. When Holland gets back. When Tomika gets back. When Yuki gets back. When they all get back. Too many people out there, in too much danger. And all I can do is sit here and stare at my screens...

"...do you not agree, Mr. Stevens?"

He shook his head, instantly annoyed with his careless woolgathering. "I'm sorry, Dr. Egan, I was...preoccupied with monitoring the incoming data streams."

Egan curved his lips in a tight smile. "You have a great deal with which to be preoccupied, Mr. Stevens; I am not unaware of that. In any case, as I was saying, I believe that we may already infer some very interesting possibilities from this new information."

Jobs studied the current image of the Moon, now coming from one of the InterDominion's space-based telescopes, then turned to a graph showing a MASCON-derived profile of the lunar seismometry. "It's...vibrating. The entire Moon. Our mass detectors indicate a uniform vibration rate of about thirty-seven cycles per second. Pretty powerful, too—that's what's causing the slightly fuzzy appearance of the surface. The resonance is stirring up the lunar dust."

"Exactly so. And the trapar flow rate from Moon to Earth has increased, as well. What is your opinion on that matter?"

Fighting annoyance, Jobs rubbed at his red and irritated eyes. He could never entirely throttle the aggravating sensation that Egan considered him a well-meaning but none-too-bright student, who had to be gently coached into comprehending the obvious. Well, he probably sees just about everyone that way, with the possible exception of Viyuuden. How he and Holland seem to get along so well, I can't imagine. "I'm just as puzzled as I was before. It can't be the Federation—no one's ever been able to synthesize transparence light particles; only the Coral can generate them."

"Yes." Egan folded both arms across his thickly-muscled chest and gave the minutest of nods. "Yes, I concur. Only a Coral can generate trapar."

But Jobs' yearnings were already back to Tommy, far away, vulnerable and outnumbered in a hostile land, and not until much later did he remember Egan's offhand remark.

—

—

Chapter Ten

—

—

—

The valley town of Bratsk spread itself before them like a gray carpet, smoky and soiled. A broad, turbulent river divided it, crossed by three bridges. As Kaz stood watching from the northern edge of Bratsk, a freight locomotive, air whistle screaming, clattered over one of them. Half a kilometer beyond, a line of coal hoppers crawled along on the other. Pedestrians and cyclists made their slow way in both directions across the third, a series of concrete arches with the look of considerable age. Kaz thought it a bad sign that antiaircraft guns, surrounded by high sandbag walls, had been installed at each end.

"So what's next?" asked Yuki. "Do we catch another train from here, or just collapse and die where we stand?"

Viyuuden shaded his eyes and looked out over the town. "We are all weary and cold, Mrs. Novak, but unfortunately, events do not allow us the luxury of rest. As for the train, I would rather not try it again, for the Federation will now certainly be alert for us on the railway system."

"What's left?" Tommy yawned and tied back her hair once again. "Yuki suggested stealing a car. How about a nice warm one?"

"A tempting idea. But as you can see, there are few private vehicles visible, which would make such a theft very conspicuous. And hijacking a military vehicle in such a small town would be even more so. Let me see..." Before anyone could raise any fresh complaints, he reached into an inner pocket and shuffled through his several maps. "That waterway below is the River Shinano. Some ten kilometers downstream, the lesser Virtuous Labor River branches off from it, flowing to the south."

"So what?" Yuki leaned against the nearest electric pole, eyes closed, not even bothering to look up. Above her head, a weathered sticker screamed Unity Is Our Power!

"The Virtuous Labor River is the source of Sacred Return Lake."

"What, the lake around Pilgrim Island?" said Kaz. "How far away are we now?"

"It's difficult to estimate; regrettably, rivers do not flow in a straight line. Possibly another forty-five kilometers beyond the branch."

Tommy looked thoughtfully at the sky, where a Federation heavy sky cruiser growled along at altitude, its contrail joining the ever more brilliant Ley Lines. "You're thinking of going by water, then, aren't you? Could we really make it by nightfall?"

"Given a reasonably fast boat and no delays, yes. I see a number of small private craft docked there on the opposite shore, perhaps laid up for the coming winter. Since you and Mrs. Novak seem to have theft on your minds, I suggest we concentrate on one of those watercraft."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Yuki threw up her hands and joined them. "Anything to get out of the weather for a while. But I'm damn well bringing up the rear this time." She pointed to Lark, leaving no doubt about her meaning. "So I can keep an eye on her."

Kaz started forward. "Listen—"

"No." Lark held him back by one arm. "No, it's all right. Really. Come on, let's go."

Fuming, Kazuya followed Viyuuden and Tommy down into the town, and did not look behind.

-#-

They plodded on in silence for another half an hour, descending into Bratsk at an easy, ambling pace, trying their best to avoid raising any suspicions. Viyuuden had changed his wig once again, this time to a scruffy, uneven version of a light-brown color not unlike Lark's own. Kaz could not decide if the choice had been deliberate or not.

On all sides, the town unwound itself, no more appealing at close range than it had been from a distance. Kazuya could not escape the feeling that the last Federation town through which they'd passed had been, for all its plainness, bright and easygoing compared to the grim silence of Bratsk. It seemed to him that the residents must be hiding themselves away, appearing on the empty streets only for the briefest of essential trips before hurrying back to the safety of their dimly-lit homes. Is it because of the military being here? He wondered. Or have things gotten worse in this weird standoff with the InterDominion? Either way, it gives me the creeps. Feels like we're marching along waving banners or blowing trumpets or something, with everybody watching from behind their curtains and peeking out of the dark alleys.

To his relief, the pedestrian traffic picked up a bit as they approached the bridge. Beneath the Unity Is Our Might poster peeling from a nearby brick wall, a newly-affixed metal sign greeted them:

ATTENTION!

You are entering a

MILITARY ADMINISTRATIVE AREA

They all gathered around to read the smaller lettering beneath:

The Loyalty Bridge has been designated a Priority Military Target and as such will be guarded against attack by armed troops until the current crisis has been resolved. All citizens must produce their Identification Card and Internal Passport upon demand.

By the authority of:

Armand Cadenza

Chairman, High Council

and

Stefan Grapelli

District Administrator

"Do you all have your forged Federation ID cards where you can reach them quickly?" said Viyuuden in an undertone, pretending to re-read the fine print of the notice. "Good. And your internal passports? Excellent. I propose that we walk across the bridge, then make our way along the opposite riverbank until we find a likely boat to carry us downriver. Are we all in agreement?"

They all nodded and muttered their consent. But before they could approach the bridge, a sharp whining roar from overhead echoed down the narrow streets, making further conversation impossible. Frightened, Kaz instinctively drew back against the closest shopfront, pulling Lark back with him. She offered no resistance, only stared upward at the hostile sky.

A rounded metallic rectangle perhaps ten or fifteen meters long blotted out the sunlight overhead as it passed. Supported by four turbofans, one at each corner, it blasted them with its hot, reeking downdraft before moving on past the bridge and across the river. Kaz had just time to make out the Federation Aero Forces logo on its silvery sides.

Lark coughed and waved stinging fumes away. "What was that?" she asked, once she could speak again.

"A Forward Assault Aerial Vehicle." Tommy scowled upward. "I got emergency training on one for a couple of weeks, before they made me an Aero Trooper. Not very fast, but it's VTOL, and those thrust-vectored fans make it maneuverable as a roller skate. Used for transporting up to fifteen armed troops to combat areas, or for air-to-ground support fire. It carries four seven-millimeter rotary conventional AP cannon in the nose. And for serious damage, there's a single field-wattage plasma cannon." She shook her head, clearly puzzled. "Takes at least five minutes to re-energize the plasmac after each discharge, though."

"But what the hell's it doing here at all?" Yuki wanted to know. "Like you say, a FAAV's for supporting ground troops; an advancing army. It's not something you'd use to guard a bridge."

"Bringing in fresh troops for guard duty, I suspect," said Viyuuden, though his tone seemed far too uncertain for Kaz's comfort. "If we cross now, during the disruption of shift rotation, our chances of slipping over to the next shore are greatly improved. We should go, and waste no further time."

Though it seemed logical enough to Kaz, he followed the others reluctantly. "I don't like this," he admitted to Lark as they walked. "In these winding little streets, we could get trapped."

"We could be trapped anywhere." She took a passing interest in the State Ration Board office next to a tram station, but did not linger. "But we haven't been."

"I guess not. But we weren't so closed in, before. Yuki keeps looking back at us. Damn her, I wish she'd let you alone."

"Why? I still don't understand why you keep trying to look out for me."

"It's..." Unwelcome emotions caught at his throat. He turned away, concentrating on the cobbled streets ahead. Here and there, locals marched along with furtive faces, bent against the icy wind off the river. "Never mind."

Townspeople stood in obedient queues at the approach to the bridge, where it seemed that the military gatekeepers found fault with nearly everyone's papers. The gun crew manning the antiaircraft installation looked out from behind their circle of sandbags with quiet amusement. None of the locals dared raise their voices, but their exasperated grimaces and tight lips spoke volumes. "The military must be on the alert," whispered Tommy. "Wonder if it's just wartime security mania, or if they're looking..."

"For us," Kaz finished for her. "Yeah. And in this crowd, I don't see how we could get away if we're spotted."

A guard approached them, automatic rifle held at the ready in the crook of one arm. "You there. Yes, you!" He made a sweeping motion that seemed to encompass their entire group, and Kaz held his breath. "Are your papers in order?"

"Mine are, sir," said Viyuuden, lowering his eyes and slouching as he fumbled in his pockets, in an uncanny imitation of cowed humility. "Here you are, sir—the internal passport and the official ID card."

"Yes." The guard barely glanced at the forged documents before handing them back. Yuki handed hers over with a great deal less bowing and scraping, but kept her mouth shut, to Kaz's deep relief. One by one, they passed him their papers, all of which passed inspection without incident. "You lot traveling together?"

Viyuuden spoke before any of the others could. "No, sir. That is, we were on the same train from Kobe. But not companions, sir."

"Ah." The guard jerked his head over one shoulder, toward the knots of impatient townspeople who stared with resentful scowls. "Some kind of security risk over there; suspicious papers. It's held up the line long enough. All of you, then—get moving before we have any more of a jamup. Move along, double time. Hop to, I say!"

Kaz hurried; they all did, crossing from the town's rough cobblestone to the rutted asphalt of the bridge surface. Here above the river, the wind struck them and shook them with fresh insolence. His heart pounded in his chest. Every second, Kaz expected to hear challenging shouts from the guards behind them as their documents were belatedly discovered for the frauds they were. Then the shots, cracking in the icy air. Would Viyuuden have them run? Or did he have some more subtle tactic in mind? Kaz held Lark's hand tightly in his own, glad that their gloves prevented her from feeling his sweating palms.

As they reached the halfway point, Viyuuden dropped back, nearer to the rest of them, his face unreadable as always.

"So far, so good," said Yuki, as loudly as she dared. "Now as long as we can get past the guards and the AA emplacement on the other end, we're in the clear. That must've been the first time I've got past a Federation thug without being leered at."

"You see but you do not understand, Mrs. Novak. Neither you nor Mrs. Stevens nor Lark appeared to excite his attentions in any way, though all of you would normally do so. Mr. Aruno—would you be so good as to glance behind us?"

Kaz did. "Nobody following us. I guess most people're still being held up back there at the gate."

"Exactly so. And few others are coming across the bridge from the opposite side. Yet when we observed this bridge from afar, the pedestrian traffic was quite heavy. Can the authorities truly believe that so many suddenly pose a security threat, but not ourselves?" He tugged his slouch hat lower over his forehead.

Tommy looked up, alert and tense. "What're you saying? If you think something's going on, why did you lead us out here?"

"There was no choice, Mrs. Stevens. By the time the signs became clear to me, it was too late to turn back. We could not refuse to cross without raising immediate alarms and being pursued through town. If we could even run so far, amid the crowds."

Kaz looked over the crumbling concrete railing, to the wide, turbulent waters of the Shinano churning past some ten meters below. No escape in that direction, surely. Ahead, at the opposite end of the bridge, he could see guards, holding back a milling crowd of disgruntled townsfolk.

"Damn you!" said Yuki. "We're exposed out here, trapped! They wanted to get us on this bridge, so they could isolate us! We can't jump and we can't run! Your little pet Federation stool pigeon here's shafted us again! Unless you know how to levitate us out of here, our butts are cooked. So much for the Will of Vodarek!"

Viyuuden only nodded. "The Will is a reality, for those who seek to perceive it. We are part of its unfolding, and cannot—"

"Look, I've had it with that crap! Thanks to you and your stupid mysticism, I'm never gonna see my son again, or my husband, and..."

Her mouth continued to move, but her voice faded in the whining roar from overhead. A furnace-blast of astringent wind pushed away the cold as the Forward Assault Aerial Vehicle dropped from the sky, to hover a meter above the bridge surface. Even before the pilot could stabilize its attitude, a broad hatch in one side flapped open and six Federation Landestroopers jumped to the asphalt, weapons deployed, their faces invisible behind helmets and vapor masks.

"Traitors to the Federation!" boomed the amplified voice from the FAAV. "By the authority of the Federation of Predigio Towers, you are commanded to surrender yourselves! You will remain motionless! You will offer no resistance! Disobedience will be punished by deadly force!"

Despair washed over Kaz, colder even than the wind beyond the downdraft from the FAAV. He stood, paralyzed, watching those inhuman insect faces surround them, moving himself in front of Lark, knowing that he had failed...again. Out of long habit, he glanced toward Viyuuden, who gave him a cool smile in return—though for what reason, he was too numbed to wonder.

Yuki and Tommy tensed as though they might make some final act of defiance, but the troopers closed in at once, guns charged and ready. At a signal—evidently from the receivers in their helmets—they deployed in a semicircle, prodding them with their gun barrels, toward the yawning black cavern of the waiting FAAV. Viyuuden went first, hands raised. The vehicle still had not touched completely down, and bobbled lightly as the autostabilizer compensated for the crosswind off the river.

Kaz still held to Lark's hand, though for how much longer he dared not imagine. A rifle in his back urged him onward, hard and arrogant. He saw Viyuuden raise one leg to the lower edge of the FAAV's hatchway, then slip away as it rose in a sudden bounce. His guard moved nearer; Viyuuden leaned forward as if to enter, grasping the hatchway with both hands...

...and kicked upward with an agility that astounded even Kaz, shattering the trooper's faceplate and sending him rolling to the pavement. Viyuuden snatched the man's rifle from his limp hands as he fell, and shouted something unintelligible to Yuki and Tommy. Both of them instantly lashed out at the nearest Landestroopers with hands and feet, deadly combat attacks to neck, head, eyes, legs.

Kaz lost his paralysis at last and pulled an automatic rifle from one of them as Tommy neatly broke his arm with a wrist lock. Without remorse, Kaz unleashed a chattering barrage point-blank into two other troopers before they could move to intervene. They toppled backward, staggering and dropping in the downblast from the aircraft's turbofans. One still clutched madly at his weapon, sending bullets fountaining in every direction before Yuki kicked his weapon away. The remaining trooper, panic glowing even through the anonymity of his mask, hesitated just long enough for a single shot from Viyuuden to end his doubts forever.

"Inside!" Viyuuden shouted, beckoning, his lips moving in exaggerated pantomime that they could all read without hearing. Yuki and Tommy leaped into the waiting hatchway and Kaz hurried behind them, dragging Lark with him, pushing her up and in before throwing himself into the dark cabin.

The floor tilted and dipped beneath them as the aircraft adjusted to their weight. Viyuuden rolled to his feet. "Can you fly this ship?" he shouted to Tommy.

"Yes!" The racket seemed somehow dampened inside, and Kaz found he could understand them both, even over the roar of the fans. He let the rifle slip to the floor, already revolted by what he'd had to do with it.

"What the hell's going on back there?" shouted the pilot from the forward compartment, beginning to suspect that the operation was not going as planned.

Viyuuden jumped to the control section and yanked the man bodily from his seat in a single heave that left his severed headphone cords dangling. Tommy nodded and jumped forward to replace him, grasping at the two control orbs as she settled into the empty seat. The terrified pilot screeched a howl of outrage that ended when Yuki rolled him over her shoulder and out the still-open hatch.

Sharp staccato pings echoed from the hull. "Small-arms fire," said Viyuuden. "We must get out of here before they can bring the antiaircraft cannon to bear on us. Take off, Mrs. Stevens, at once." He slid himself into the empty gunner's station at her side, groping here and there for its unfamiliar controls.

Tommy looked frantically about the pilot's suite, checking the heads-up holo display, then nudging at the attitude orbs. "It's been a long time... Here goes."

The aircraft wobbled, spun once on its vertical axis and leaped into the air, throwing its passengers to the floor again. Its engines screamed as Tommy struggled to bring it under control, with only fair success. Outside, a shockingly near explosion rang in Kaz's ears.

"AA fire," cried Yuki. "Get us down, dammit! Below the bridge level, where they can't bring the guns to bear on us! Hurry up, before they get our range!"

"Right, right. This isn't easy, you know!" Her face sweat-shiny even in the cold air, she brought them downward, too fast, too close to the whitecapped river beneath.

Startled, Kaz grappled for any sort of handhold, finally finding purchase on a fire extinguisher bolted to the hull. He stretched out to Lark. "Take my hand. Take my hand! I can hold us both."

"Port rear fan's overheating!" Tommy shouted. "When that last trooper started spraying lead all over the place, he must've nicked a turbo blade. Hang on, everybody!"

Lark crawled to him, across the swaying floor toward Kaz's outstretched hand, when the FAAV jerked upward at a drastic angle. Across the smooth metal surface she slid, toward the still-open hatchway, eyes wild, grasping, grabbing at the air. "Help me!"

Yuki folded her arms and watched with contemptuous eyes as Lark made one final cry and tumbled out.

"Damn you!" Kaz's rage exploded, then, and hatred for Yuki burned at his heart. But he turned from her, taking the only choice remaining for him. With a final curse, he threw himself out the hatch and after Lark, watching the wild river leap up to claim him.

—

—

Chapter Eleven

—

—

—

Once again, First Speaker Holland Novak checked his wrist chronometer. The damn Parliament building is only four years old, but already it rots with plotting and dirty secrets. He lifted a sheaf of papers to his face and pretended to be engrossed in some high matter of state. A pair of senators—DeBruining and Watanabe, both dependable loyalists, but who could be sure, these days?—came up the dim Senate corridor, their footsteps echoing as they argued passionately in barely restrained voices. Catching sight of Holland, they nodded in greeting, and he waved back, then returned to studying his papers. His chronometer told him the exchange had occupied no more than thirty-eight seconds.

The corridor grew silent once more. A janitor in gray jumpsuit made his way along, pushing a long-handled broom and whistling some current tune. He looked both ways and abandoned his dust pile to approach Holland. "He's still in his office, sir."

"Yeah. He'll be precisely on time, as usual." Holland peered more closely into the man's face. "Krabara? Is that you under that makeup and mustache? Isn't that carrying this Master Spy routine a little far?"

Agent Krabara of the Unified Security Forces tugged his floppy cloth hat lower over his eyes. "Commander Sorel insisted on maximum precautions, sir."

Holland nearly laughed, but could summon up not even the semblance of humor. "Dominic's getting pretty over the top. I think the strain's starting to show."

"He's a cautious man, First Speaker. But..."

"Yeah?"

Krabara looked up and down the empty hallway once again before replying. "Well, sir, it does seem a little to me that the Commander is... Well, feeling the strain of the situation, as you say. I'm not the only one to've noticed," he hastened to add. "Ever since we went on alert, he's seemed...distracted, as if he was thinking of something else. Something he didn't dare talk about, even to the Security team. I'm not criticizing him, mind you, just concerned. If I'm not talking out of place, I thought that as his friend, you should know about it."

Dominic's been edgy since this business began, and it's got worse during these all-night vigils in Morita's office suite. I thought it was just his natural urge to be a stiff-necked military hard case. Maybe not. "I'll talk to him about it, once this little Operation Snatch is done. Don't worry, I won't mention your name."

"Thank you, First Speaker. I have the greatest respect for..."

"I know you do. Are the traces still coming through?"

He nodded quickly. "Yes. The most recent one was less than fifteen minutes ago. Encrypted, of course, but Mr. Stevens says his colleagues will have them decoded within half an hour."

"Good. There's only twenty minutes left till Fuillión springs his announcement to the press conference, and we're not going to stretch that margin. We don't want to make this into any kind of public spectacle. Politics," he snarled with a distasteful curl of his lip. "What a filthy business. Make sure your crew is in place and ready to move at my signal, okay?"

"Yokai, First Speaker." The Security agent lifted his hand in salute, thought better of it, and turned back to his sweeping.

Wasting your time, Krabara. There's more dirt around here than a thousand of those brooms could sweep up. Holland checked his chronometer again. Nineteen minutes.

-#-

"This is going to be hard, Renton." Eureka turned from the wall mirror in their quarters, enchanting as the first snow of autumn in her short white gown. Her silken hair swirled around her face as she turned toward him, but Renton found nothing there but rage and frustration. And something else, the thing they could feel rather than see.

"Sure it is. It's bad enough having to go on national video to tell everyone that our daughter's missing. But on top of this..." He put both hands to his head as if to wring out the growing tension dominating his every moment. "We've got to go, Eureka. You know it, too. It wants us to go."

"We have our duty to the InterDominion, first."

Renton shuffled to the eastern window of their suite at the top of the Vodarek temple, the window that had once looked out over thousands of hectares of Thuu Bakkian jungle. Now he saw only the neat and orderly radial streets of The Heart of the World, fronted by the offices and businesses and dwellings of the people who depended upon them for their very lives. "Our duty, yeah. Eureka, why can't they all..."

"Just let us alone. Yes. You've been saying that for six years." Her smile took the the sarcasm out of it, and she came to his side, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. "I hate it as much as you do. And as much as Holland does, and Doctor Egan. And all the others who've sacrificed so much of their own lives to make the New Lands a place where Humanity can make a new start, in cooperation with the Coral."

"Uh-huh. I guess I've never really gotten over hoping that the InterDominion would be the end of our story, and we could step aside and just be, well, happily ever after. I think I really understand, now, what Norbu and Sakuya meant, when they told us we had so much left to learn and so much left to do." He put one arm about her shoulders, savoring the warmth of her. "Sometimes I think I kind of understand what Viyuuden means, about the Unfolding of the Will. Other times—like now—I think I was right when we were all flying around in the Moonlight together, when I thought it's all just mystical crap."

At last, Eureka could laugh. "You were a boy, then. You're a man, now. And I'd walk with you to the ends of Reality, if I had to."

They stood for a silent moment, wrapped in each others' arms and thoughts, their wordless love flashing between them in bursts and flickers of their Coralian jewels. And at last, Renton released her and took her hand. "It's time, Eureka. For what we have to do now..."

"...and for whatever comes after."

The Guardians of the Flame stationed outside their door snapped to attention as they left their sanctuary for Matt Stoner's waiting camera crew on the next-lowest level of the pyramid.

-#-

Alan Wyngarde, once better known by his symbolic Temple name of "Kitsune," knelt on Maeter's bed, cupping her delicate face in one hand.

"You're shaking," she told him.

"Of course I am. I've...never been so near to you before."

"What do you mean?" Something in her tone suggested that the question might have multiple levels of meaning.

"Just hold still. I'll try to be quick about it...there."

"Ow!"

Alan drew back. "Did I really hurt you?"

"Well...no. I was just surprised, that's all. It's a little uncomfortable, at first."

"I suppose so." He took her face in his hand once more. She smelled of warm limes. "Now open wide again...there. It's in."

Maeter blinked, her crystalline blue eyes, now round with the layered lavender-pink circles of a Coralian. She slid from the bed and looked critically into the dressing-table mirror. "It seems really strange to have eyes like these. I'm going to feel like everybody's staring at me. I wonder, now, how she...how Ariadne...stands it."

"Everyone will be staring at you, although not for very long." He put the soft rubber optical manipulator back into its plastic case, along with the vial of saline solution in which the contact lenses had floated. "These things are usually custom-made, so it's to be expected that they'll cause a bit of discomfort at first. There just wasn't time to have a pair properly fitted to your eyes, especially since we wanted to preserve secrecy about it. The wings and the jewel were the really hard parts. Your wig is in this box."

She lifted the round lid and withdrew a hairpiece of dazzling Coralian electric-blue. "It looks a little small."

"That's because you have to pin your real hair close to your scalp, first, before you put it on. Here, let me help you; time's getting short."

She remained motionless as he smoothed and caressed her blonde waves into a sort of helmet about her head, clipped them tightly and lowered the Coralian wig into place. "Wow. I look...strange. I thought it'd feel something like a costume, you know? But it doesn't. It's like I'm somebody else. Like...Ariadne."

"Don't get too used to it. You look much better as you really are."

"Do you...?"

"Never mind, there's no time, now." Alan extracted a jar of stage makeup from the same bag in which he'd fetched the hairpiece and contacts, and took a small cosmetic brush from her dresser. "Now let me do your eyebrows, so they match the hair. I don't know if that shiny turquoise mascara I brought will do a convincing job on your eyelashes, so we might just have to hope for the best." Once more he held her face near, stroking at her silver-blonde eyebrows with the brush.

"I know you'll do a good job. Thanks. For going along with my plan right away, I mean, and not thinking it was stupid, or anything. And for getting all this stuff so quickly."

He barely nodded, wrapped in the concentration techniques he'd once learned as a Vodarek acolyte, keeping his mind focused, focused... "It wasn't stupid at all, it was brilliant. And courageous. I want to do the best I can for you."

"That's good." She permitted him the tiniest of sly smiles. "Because I swiped one of Ariadne's little gowns from hers and Maurice's room. You know, like Mother's gowns? I'll need your help to change into it."

"You want...?"

"Well, yeah. Can't have me smearing my makeup at a time like this, can you?"

Alan swallowed, and trusted himself to say nothing. Concentrate. Concentrate.

—

—

Chapter Twelve

—

—

—

Another AA shell detonated next to them, off their port side, sending a storm of shrapnel against the aircraft's hull. Tommy winced against the brilliant glare of the explosion and held tightly to the control orbs.

"Can you not get us any lower, Mrs. Stevens?" said Viyuuden from the gunner's station at her side, as he ran his fingers over the controls.

"Not for long. Not with that number four engine acting up. We could end up in the drink." Machine-gun fire rattled below, and one midship porthole shattered.

"We've got a...problem back here," Yuki shouted over the roar of the turbofans and the gunfire coming from the highway bridge.

"Not now, dammit! They'll get our range with that damn AA gun any second!" All around them, sky, river and shoreline whirled and dipped with each swoop of the unfamiliar and crippled craft. "Wait a second—Viyuuden, can you operate the guns?"

"I've done so on other types of ship. This one is unfamiliar to me."

Tommy risked wiping the sweat from her face before returning her arm to the attitude-control orb. "Okay. Those are the handles for the rotary projectile cannons. Arm them with that lever there, and use the heads-up gunsight to aim them."

"Yes." The priest followed her instructions without question. "But the shore-based antiaircraft guns are much more powerful—"

"Yeah, I know. Look, I'm going to try something, and it'll need more firepower. See the red lever? That's to charge the plasmac. Yank it back now."

He did. A vertical thermometer-style display began dropping from green to red, in regular increments. "We are fortunate—there seems to be a partial charge already. Two minutes remaining until full charge."

"Okay." A bullet from the Federation troops gathering on the bridge shattered against one of the turbofan booms. "Keep reading out the countdown for the plasmac charge, okay? You wanted lower, I'm gonna give you lower. I'm gonna try to spoil their aim."

The FAAV wallowed sickeningly as Tommy's confidence grew and dropped first the tail, then the nose as they gyrated next to the bridge. At such close range, the antiaircraft gunners could not bring any fire to bear upon them, but the instant they moved away, they would be blasted from the air. "Let those troopers on the bridge have it with the cannons when we nose up...now!"

Like a dolphin breaking water, the aircraft leaped upward, toward the railings of the bridge, where twenty or more Federation military stood blasting away with rifles. At the very peak of their rise, Viyuuden squeezed the rotary cannon triggers, raking the railing with sustained high-power fire. Concrete, metal and body parts flew in all directions before the FAAV wallowed down again. "One minute to full charge, Mrs. Stevens."

They dropped dangerously low this time. Tommy gave the fans full power to keep them from dipping into the wide waters of the Shinano. She dropped their speed and compensated, bringing the ship just beneath the bridge's central and highest arch.

"Look, you guys," Yuki cried again, "we've got a situation back here. There's..."

"Not now! Viyuuden—what's the countdown?"

"Thirty seconds to full charge."

All round them a roiling mist formed as the hot downblast from the turbofans whipped the riverwater into billows of rising spray that engulfed them, making visibility beneath the bridge a matter of guesswork. Tommy groped for the wiper switch, but the blades made little difference against their watery whiteout. How close are we to the bridge? Or the river? Can't see a damn thing! If we edge into one of those stone pilings, we're cooked.

Something exploded nearby, something with a sharp, ear-rattling blast. 'What was that?"

"Merely a hand grenade, from the bridge above. We are undamaged. Five seconds to full charge."

Doesn't that guy ever get excited? "Okay, I'm taking us forward, out from under this bridge. Keep one hand on the plasmac igniter, but don't fire till I give the word." She inched the hovering FAAV ahead, trying to look both above them and below them at the same time. At a metallic squeal from the forward port engine housing, she twitched the controls to starboard, moving them away from the hulking stone bridge supports. Lost a little shroud plating; watch yourself, Tommy.

As they emerged from beneath the bridge, the spray fell away like parting clouds and a fresh burst of small-arms fire rained down upon the FAAV's titanium-alloy skin. "Eyes sharp, Viyuuden, we're going up!"

She fed power to the fans, carefully compensating for the reduced lift from number four, and the hulking warcraft leaped to just above the highest level of the bridge. Whirling them around, facing the deadly AA emplacement on the far end, she tilted their attitude slightly nose-down...

"Let'em have it! Now!"

With a cool eye to the holographic sights, Viyuuden made a minute aiming adjustment and squeezed the igniter handle for the plasma cannon. A sharp crack of displaced air shook them as the brilliant violet-white dragon's tongue of focused plasma roared out, its heat warming their faces even behind the thermal cockpit glass. A wide section of bridge railing flashed to molten stone before the plasma stream reached the AA guns beyond, vaporizing them in a single fiery blast.

Viyuuden nodded, once. "Now we run, Mrs. Stevens. That way, if you please."

"You said it." Tommy whirled the ship around, away from the blooming black mushroom of death behind them, toward Pilgrim Island and whatever awaited them on the way.

—

—

Chapter Thirteen

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—

—

Kaz struck the water with an impact that smashed the breath from him, slapped at his skin, left his head ringing. He tried to shout, but only coughed water from his lungs as the powerful current caught him, tumbling him over and over.

He flailed about, holding himself upright. The heavy backpack dragged at him like a stone, so he shrugged himself free of it and looked about him for Lark, treading water all the while. There, not five meters distant, he spotted her, flailing about and rolling over and over like a newspaper in the wind.

"Lark!" he shouted, hoarse and faint. "Wait up! I'm coming!" Already the frigid water soaked his clothing, making his every movement clumsy. But he paddled onward, fighting against the current that threatened at any second to separate them. "Lark!"

For a few heart-stopping seconds she swirled about, nearly swept away by the whitecaps. But Kaz stretched his arm forward, snatching at her fingers, pulling her closer, then grabbed her arm until he could hold her about the waist. Her eyes did not open, and it occurred to him, then, that she might have been seriously injured—perhaps worse—by the fall. Can the Coralian Gift keep you from drowning? He strained to hold her head above the churning waters, thrashing with his legs and free arm as he battled the river to get them both to shore.

Above him, from the bridge, he grew dimly aware of gunfire, and the roar of turbofans. Shouts and screams rang out across the water as he kicked and paddled to get the two of them to land. The cold seemed to suck away his energy, tempting him to give in to sleep and death. His mind contracted to a single focused goal of reaching the water's edge, and he pushed onward, rising and falling in the turbulent waves.

The sky above him grew bright as a welder's torch for a moment. His dulled mind registered an explosion somewhere, but he dared not pause to look upward. Only the shoreline filled his consciousness, nearing, slightly closer now, holding his breath with each wave that heaved them up and down, nearer, still nearer...

His feet contacted something soft beneath and he knew fresh fear. Somebody grabbing us? Trying to pull us down? But there it was again, one foot, then the other, finding slippery purchase in the mud. Kaz shuddered, all at once heavy and weak as gravity at pulled him and his sodden clothing once again. Made it. We're at the shore. Anybody coming to kill us?

Falling to his knees at Lark's side, he looked around, his eyes focusing only reluctantly. Smoke, rising above the bridge. People shouting, and gunfire. Whatever's going on up there, it's keeping anybody from looking down here. We gotta get into hiding, before they notice us.

Lark's eyes quivered and she coughed, bringing up a gray slurry of river water. She's alive! "Don't try to talk, yet. We're okay for a while, b-but we gotta get under c-cover." Shivering wracked his entire body, but he forced himself to his feet and dragged Lark upright beside him. She swayed, and coughed again but clung to him and staggered at his side. "Look, there's boats lined up, here. D-didn't Viyuuden say they were put up for th-the winter? Yeah. Come on, let's get in this one. There's a ladder next to it, see? I know it's hard, but you can c-c-climb the ladder. Here, I'll help you. Yeah, that's it, one step at a time, you c-can make it."

Pushing and half-supporting her, Kaz heaved her up and over the gunwales until she collapsed on the little cabin craft's deck. The temptation to join her was near-overwhelming, but he knew that giving in now would mean unconsciousness and inevitable capture. Instead, he wobbled back down and went to the boat's bow, feeling the half-frozen riverside muck crunch beneath his feet.

A stranded cable connected a ring on the boat's bow to a reel bolted to a heavy wooden pole. He fumbled at the pawl until the reel released and he could pull the synthetic cable out, hand over hand, until it lay in a heap on the ground. Whatever's happening up on the bridge, I hope it goes on for a little while longer. We just need them to stay distracted a couple minutes more...

Now for the really hard part. Kazuya dug both feet into the ground and pushed against the bow with his back. Nothing happened. More gunfire clattered from the bridge above. He heaved again, and this time the boat slid a few centimeters down the riverbank. His aching head swam with exhaustion. Kaz braced himself for a final effort and shoved with all the strength left in his legs. This time, it moved and kept on moving, sliding with a sandy hiss across the mud, seeking the beckoning river.

Kazuya nearly wept for joy. He ran, stumbling and wavering, after the boat, splashing in the shallows, then leaped up to catch one of the bow cleats with half-numbed fingers. Though the boat dipped a bit beneath his weight it did not roll as, with enormous effort, he pulled himself up and aboard.

Please don't let it be locked, he prayed as he worked the latch to the folding center section of the windshield. It was not, and he tumbled into the small cabin, feeling absurdly warm and protected. But still he dared not give in to weariness and hypothermia; he stood and opened the rear cabin door to find Lark rising on one elbow on the deck, the very image of misery.

He helped her up and guided her to the cabin, where they both sank to the floor. With all the life remaining in him, Kaz pulled down a canvas tarpaulin from its wall hooks, spreading it roughly over the two of them. The last thing he could hear as he surrendered to unconsciousness at last was the whizzing roar of turbofans, fading and dwindling in the southeast.

—

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Chapter Fourteen

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—

—

"...even though tensions between the Federation and the rebels of the so-called InterDominion remain at an all-time high," said the radio. Max leaned forward to lower the volume, mindful of Phaedra sleeping on the seat at his side. "Chairman Armand Cadenza, speaking on behalf of the entire High Council, continues to express his confidence that the present lunar threat will be removed without recourse to our military might. 'We shall call the rebels' impudent bluff,' he said in a prepared statement for Federation State Radio, "confident in our righteous power to defend against a violent gang of alien-worshiping anti-government fanatics.' In other news, the latest military draft callup..."

"What a load of crap." Phaedra stretched, then pushed back her sunglasses and rubbed at her eyes. "Eureka and Renton could probably blow the whole Federation out of the water if they wanted to."

"Uh-huh. Have a good nap?" He held his breath and watched a Secpo patrol car grow in the outside rear-view mirror, swing out into the passing lane and flash by at well over 130kph, without paying their stolen ambulance any real notice.

"No. I can't sleep worth a damn." She lowered the glasses once more and looked more closely at him. "What about you? You gotta need some sleep."

He shrugged. "Can you drive an ambulance?"

"Um...no. Never driven anything except that rover we had back in Neuchatel, for a little while. Thanks, Hal. For everything you've been doing, I mean."

"Thank yourself, while you're at it. Don't forget that half the credit for getting us this far goes to you."

Phaedra adjusted the little nurse's cap pinned to her blonde hair and looked out the window at the smoke of a passing factory. "It's the first time I've ever really done anything, if y'know what I mean. Back in the Heart of the World, I was just...I dunno...Anemone and Dominic's bratty kid. Nobody, really. And now..."

"And now you've had the chance to show what you can do. I...know how it feels." He turned his attention to the road once again. "How're the two passengers?"

"Okay, the last time I was back there. Y'know, I keep thinking about them. Everything's been so easy for them. 'Prince and Princess' and all that crap. The perfect little bride and groom, y'know? I bet that till day before yesterday, they never even had an argument."

"Could be." Max leaned forward, watching a westbound squadron of silvery deeplanes catch the sun. "Is that what they're doing? Having an argument?"

"Maybe. Or maybe they don't even know how to have an argument. Or to make up. Whatever it is, I hope to hell they're over it by the time we hit Pilgrim Island."

-#-

In the back of the ambulance, beyond the closed partition door, Maurice sat on the edge of his gurney, wondering much the same thing. As the kilometers rolled by on their way to their goal, he still had no idea what would be expected of him once they arrived.

It's not like we're Mom and Dad, he reflected, watching a tattered Unity Is Our Power poster flit by his side window. Sure, bringing down that kidnappers' plane was a pretty good trick, but it's been starting to sound like we're supposed to save the world. I don't have that kind of power. He looked longingly toward the shrouded curves of Ariadne, lying on her side facing the opposite window, silent and unmoving. And even if she has that much trapar control, it doesn't look like she's gonna be in any mood to Join again and use it. Why won't you talk to me, Ariadne? Did I really hurt you that much when I pulled out of the Joining? But I couldn't let you do that, I just couldn't. Mom and Dad would understand why I had to do it. Why can't you?

He sent forth a thread of thought to her, and was not surprised when no answering awareness came back to his mind. He fell back to normal speech, that she could not so easily ignore. "Aren't you ever gonna talk to me again? What about Max? What about Phaedra? They're both risking their lives to get us to Pilgrim Island! What'm I supposed to tell them?"

At long last, she stirred, and Maurice thought she might turn to face him, but she did not. "That they were foolish to give their trust so easily," she told him, flat and without emotion.

"It was? Why? What're you talking about, Ariadne? Say something to me, won't you?I don't have any damned idea what you're—"

But she neither moved nor spoke any further, and Maurice finally turned away, once more staring out at the bleak Federation landscape as they rolled on through the waning afternoon, toward a night that grew more ominous with each kilometer.

—

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Chapter Fifteen

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—

—

Kazuya, never having been truly asleep, could not have called it "awakening" when he finally flexed one arm and blinked eyes gone sticky and blurred.

He knew he had to do something, something important. The floor rolled from side to side, and he knew he was on a boat. How had he gotten to a boat? The water on Lake Epiphany seemed choppy today, as it sometimes did when the winds came up, in the autumn, but...

Then he discovered the wet and exhausted girl sleeping at his side, and it all came back to him.

It's not Lake Epiphany, and we're not back at The Heart of the World. We escaped from the Federation trap, and I had to shoot some of them, and Yuki—damn her a hundred times—wouldn't help Lark when she slid out the door, and I went out after her, and there was shooting and noise and...

A shadow fell across him. He squinted against the brightness of the sky beyond the rearward door and saw there a dark outline, in the shape of something not human.

"Who's there?" Terrified, he sat up at once, feeling pain in every joint and muscle. He groped about him for a weapon, regretting that he'd left the Federation automatic rifle back in the FAAV. "Who's there?"

As he worked at his eyes, rubbing away the stubborn haze, the creature in the doorway moved closer, with little clicks on the glass-fiber flooring. "Ouooo eooooo."

"What?" Kaz swore again and brought his eyes to focus more or less clearly. Before him stood a large brown shepherd dog wearing a leather collar much too small for him and watching in a very strangely intent way. "You're a dog. I didn't know you were aboard. You really had me scared there, for a second. I guess we're taking you away from your humans, aren't we? Sorry, fella, I really didn't mean to. It was kind of an emergency."

"Ouooooo eouooooo," the animal repeated, moving his jaws and tongue in very deliberate increments that made Kaz shiver once again. The dog tilted his head to one side and scratched at the worn collar, clearly uncomfortable with it.

"Oh, I get it," said Kazuya, picking his way out from under the tarpaulin and crawling forward in what he hoped was a non-threatening way. "Some jerk put a collar on you and made it too tight, didn't they? I hate it when people treat animals that way. Here, let me get that damn thing off of you, okay?"

To his considerable surprise, the dog made no move to escape as Kaz picked at the moldy leather and pulled it away as gently as he could. "Jeez, this is awful. You've had this thing on so long that it's worn away your fur and put a groove in the skin on your neck, hasn't it?" A bit of the rage he'd felt earlier in the day toward the Federation troops who'd held them at gunpoint rose to his mind again. "Poor little guy. I take it back—I'm not sorry at all that we took you away. You're better off without whoever did this to you... There." At last, the strap slid free of its buckle and the collar peeled away, not without some painful whimpering from the dog, who nevertheless did not move. The infected blisters in the bare ring about his neck disgusted Kaz, and he looked about to see if the stolen boat might not have a first-aid kit with a bit of antiseptic.

"Aaaaak Ouooooo," moaned the dog.

Kaz paused, staring and wondering, hardly able to believe. "W...what did you say?"

"Thhhhhay... Thaaak eouoo, Ooomin."

Thank you, Human. Kaz shivered once more. "You can talk?" Even the terrible danger that he and Lark still faced fell to the back of his mind for a moment. "Really? You can talk? What's...your name, then?"

"Tonnn't avvv onnnnne," the dog said, shaking his head.

"You don't have one? Man, this is incredible!" He grew excited. "Listen, my grandfather once had a dog called Moonbeam. I always thought it was a cool name. Would you like to be Moonbeam?"

"Y...Ya..." Moonbeam struggled with his lips and teeth, groping for the "s" sound. "Yaasss, H-hoomin. Nooonbeeen."

Beneath the tarpaulin, Lark stirred and rolled upright, blinking as she took in the scene around them. "Kazuya? Where are we? I thought I heard someone else talking..."

"You did. This guy here is Moonbeam. And get this—he can talk."

She took the news with her usual impassivity, but Kaz had the notion that she might not feel entirely safe in the company of someone holding a conversation with a dog. "Tell her, will you, Moonbeam? Her name is Lark. Her and I have been escaping from some people who wanted to kill us."

Moonbeam nodded his powerful-looking head. "Hewo, Rark. I esaypink, toooo."

"You...are?" Lark's own eyes widened. "What happened to your neck? It's all red and raw."

"Some cruel moron never took his collar off," Kaz found a cabinet near the steering wheel containing bandages, alcohol and some antibiotic cream. "Here, Moonbeam. This is alcohol and it's gonna hurt when I put it on you, but it'll kill any infection, okay?"

"O Ay." Though he twitched and whined when Kaz dabbed the rubbing alcohol on his sores, Moonbeam did not pull away.

Lark came to her feet and lurched to one of the seats. Her clothing still dripped in little puddles to the floor below. "It's amazing. I can't imagine... Oh—but what about us? How long were we asleep? Where are we?"

"No idea." Kaz spread ointment on a piece of bandage and patted it to Moonbeam's neck. "We're hung up on some branches at the water's edge right now. We drifted downriver, but there's no telling how far."

"What happened to the others?" Her hair, a delicate honey-blonde when dry, now had the rich dark sheen of city pavement on a night of rain.

"I couldn't tell. Does that feel better, Moonbeam?"

The dog nodded and jumped to one of the empty seats, shaking his head vigorously. "Bed-der." He pointed his nose out the window toward the sky, then turned back to Kazuya. "Fy-in ting wen at way. Town rivvvvr."

"So the FAAV went downriver, did it? At least they got away. I guess they couldn't stick around to fish us out of the water, not with all the gunfire. And you can bet the Federation called in for more help, so they'd have had to get out quick. I guess in all the commotion, nobody saw us get away. That was a lucky break, anyway."

"Uggy bake for neee, tooo," said Moonbeam.

Kaz scratched his ears affectionately. "Let's hope so. Lark and I're in some pretty deep trouble. You might wish somebody else'd found you, before this is all over. How long have you been able to talk?"

The dog rolled his head around, clearly deep in thought. Kaz pulled out the panel covering the boat's electrical gear and began tracing circuits. It's probably pretty tough for a dog to adjust to the idea of time.

"Donno. Far nyttimes. Aybe fife."

"Four or five nights, huh? Not long before we started here, then. Some really strange things've been happening, all over. Okay, here's the main power circuit. Just a second while I short across the wires..."

The cabin lights came up, and from somewhere a small fan whirred to life. Lark jumped. "What's that?"

"The cabin heater, I guess. Whoever used this boat last must've left its switch on. But we've got to get the engine going, or it'll drain the batteries really quick." Handicapped by the shivering that made his fingers tremble uncontrollably, Kaz detached the connectors from what looked to him like the starting-system wires and touched them together. A thin vibration ran through the boat as the methane injectors caught and kept spinning.

He hurried to the operator's seat and checked the gauges. "Okay, pressure's almost at full, so we've got plenty of fuel. Here goes." Kaz opened the feed to the Stirling engine beneath the floorboards. Reassured by its slow throb, he steered them further out into the river, away from any further danger of running aground.

"I must say, you're taking the appearance of a...talking dog very calmly," said Lark, shaking the worst of the knots from her hair.

"I'm not so calm about it; any other time, I'd be running all over, yelling to anybody who'd listen. It's just that right now I've gotta focus on getting us outa here and catching up with the others. With everything else going on, I'm gonna have to wait till some other time to get all astonished over Moonbeam." The dog made a series of short, high-pitched barks that he decided must be a canine rendition of laughter. "How about looking in that compartment there, to see if there're any maps or charts or something?"

"Very well." As Kaz steered them further from shore, she rummaged about in the storage bin, through papers, envelopes and colored folders. "I see now why this boat was fully fueled." She held up one particularly official-looking document with a governmental seal embossed at the bottom. "It's licensed to the Bratsk Metropolitan Emergency River Patrol. This is a rescue boat."

"Oh. That must be why nobody stopped and boarded us while we were asleep. Or maybe it's just because it's getting so cold that not many other small boats are out on the river to see us." A northwesterly wind rolled them toward the eastern shore, and he compensated with enough rudder to keep them on a steady course. "Pretty lucky break, wasn't it? I guess Viyuuden'd call it the unfolding of the Will of Vodarek. Sometimes I wonder about this 'unfolding of the Will' business. Does it really mean...?"

He stopped. Moonbeam had begun to growl, a low rasp of fear.

Kaz turned round. "What is it? Is somebody coming? I don't—"

He saw her, then.

Lark looked around the cabin as if seeing it for the first time, her eyes lidded and languid, lips parted. At another time, he might have found it appealing, but the emptiness of her expression told him something strange and very possibly dangerous had come among them. "Lark?"

Without answering, she rose in a deliberate and measured way, then crossed the cabin toward him in slow, fluid steps, like a girl walking under water. Less than an arm's length away, she came to a stop, studying his face from every angle.

"Lark, what's going on? Can't you talk?"

She reached out one hand and touched the line of his jaw with her fingertips, then traced a slow path upward to his cheek. Kaz trembled, and looked back into the darkness of her eyes. Not empty as he had first assumed, but vast, deep and ageless and quietly compelling. "Lark?"

Her mouth worked in slow movements, like Moonbeam's, suggesting to him that she found speaking an effort of will. "I am not you," she whispered. "You...are not me?"

"Uh...yeah. I mean, no." She wavered, then, and he put both hands to her waist, in case she crumpled to the deck.

At the touch of his hands, Lark swayed minutely but did not fall. Moonbeam ceased his growling. "What...?"

"Kazuya? How did I get...? Oh, no." She turned from him, blushing brightly, and hurried back to her seat. "Not again. Not now. Now you've seen. Now you know...all of it."

Kaz, who now knew less than ever, risked leaving the wheel for a moment to stay near her. "What're you talking about?"

"That Yuki was right," she sobbed. "That I betrayed you all."

—

—

Chapter Sixteen

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—

—

The ENGINE TEMP indicator flashed from amber to red on the FAAV's busy instrument panel. "That nicked fan is still causing overheating," said Tommy. As if to underscore her announcement, the ship wallowed to starboard, responding only reluctantly to her correction. "We've got to put down someplace, before this thing gets completely out of control."

Viyuuden, still strapped into the gunner's station, nodded agreement. "We would have to do so in any case. The Federation will be sending high-speed interceptors after us in very short order. Please land us as quickly as you can."

"Right." She let the ship drop gradually, till they skimmed the treetops of the forest that marched down to the riverbank on both sides. No clearings revealed themselves yet. "Hey, what's that thing just over the altimeter? It keeps strobing, like a transponder of some kind. Are we being tracked?"

The priest loosened his chest restraints and leaned toward the instrument display, where a small LED screen divided into concentric circles showed a rapidly flashing light at dead center. "It is certainly a tracking device."

"Tracking us, I'll bet." No more than a hundred meters ahead, Tommy spotted what seemed to be a relatively clear area, and steered the reluctant FAAV toward it.

"Yes. The indicator cursor is centered, meaning that the target is on board at this moment." He frowned. "It seems we have been somehow tagged, which would explain a great deal. Whatever the signal source, we must rid ourselves of it before traveling any further."

Several acres of ragged clearcut opened up beneath them, crisscrossed by the muddy tracks of logging trucks. "Going down, hang on, everybody!"

Listing dangerously toward the rear starboard, the wounded FAAV settled toward the naked ground below. Under Viyuuden's direction, Tommy brought them as near the edge of the forest as possible before settling with a heavy thump that shook the craft through its entire length. "Okay, that's it." She cut the engines and undid the buckles of her harness. "Let's find the damn tracer and get out of here before the Federation sends in any more of its heavy hitters, okay?"

Tommy scrambled outside, looking over the grounded aircraft with a professional's eye. Even from a distance, she could feel the heat of the damaged fan, which now gave off a thin plume of smoke that dissipated in the light northwesterly breeze. "We didn't get down any too soon—this thing's not gonna fly again without a new turbine assembly. Hey, Yuki, where's Kaz and Lark?"

She stood with arms folded, looking across the muddy clearing. "They're...not here."

"Not here?" Tommy stared at her uncertainly.

"They're gone! Dammit, I tried to tell you back there, back at the bridge! Lark...slid out the open hatch, and Kaz jumped out after her. They went down in the river. Hey, don't look at me like that! I tried to—"

"In the river...?" Tommy leaped at her. "You bitch! She didn't just slide out, you pushed her, didn't you? And you let Kaz go; you knew he'd try to save her!"

"Hey, who do you think...?"

She fell under Tommy's solid kick to her abdomen. Enraged, Tommy rained blow after blow on her, kicking and pounding at her as she lay curled in the mud. "You think you can just do anything you damn well want? Who made you queen, anyway? This isn't the old days back on the Moonlight, Your Highness! You can't just—"

"Mrs. Stevens!" Viyuuden grabbed her from behind, pulling back one arm into an immobilizing lock while he held her about the neck. Still she struggled to reach the motionless Yuki. "You must not—listen to me!—you must not lose your control!"

"She killed my brother! Lemme go, lemme go!"

"It is highly unlikely that she has killed anyone. We will do whatever must be done to retrieve Lark and Kazuya, but fighting among ourselves will only delay that end! Use your intelligence! Allowing your feelings to overwhelm you will only bring disaster to us all—and to our mission. Do you understand that?"

Tommy continued to rage against his hold, but her fury slowly ebbed and she began to sob. "Okay. Okay, got it? But I won't...she's got to...she can't... Okay, let me go."

"You will not attack her again?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. Damn you, just let me go."

"Very well." Viyuuden released her. She shot Yuki a look of incandescent loathing, then stamped a short distance away to wipe at her tear-stained eyes with gloves and sleeves.

Viyuuden turned to Yuki, now slowly rising from the sodden ground. "Now, Mrs. Novak, you must tell us the full truth. What has become of Lark and Kazuya?"

"I told... When we were getting away, see?" She would not meet his eyes. "The ship was tilting and spinning. Kaz grabbed onto something and...and stretched out to take her hand. But she couldn't make it; slid across the floor and out. And Kaz went after her, just jumped out."

"I see. And what of yourself? Were you securely anchored?"

"Well, yeah, I was holding on, sure. But she—"

"Why, then did you not take Lark's hand?"

"I couldn't..." She stammered helplessly, holding her hands before her in a plea for understanding. "She was just... Oh, hell. She wasn't any loss and you both know it! You didn't cure her at the temple. She was informing on us, right from the minute we landed in the Federation! Doing everything she could to let them know right where we were! That FAAV didn't just happen to be there—it was sent for us, waiting for us, back there at Brotsk, and you know it. The Feds let us get out on the bridge, so they could pick us off. She was... Don't look at me like that! She was leading them to us all the time! And so I... Well, you didn't have the stomach to get rid of her, did you? I'm...sorry about Kaz. I didn't mean for him to..." Yuki trailed off, kicking at a small branch left behind by the logging operation.

For several minutes, Viyuuden's face showed nothing. Then he withdrew a folded sheet of notepaper from one pocket and unfolded it. "Wait, it is possible...? Yes. If you wish to blame someone, let it be me, for the fault is mine alone. Please look this way, both of you. Do you recognize this, Mrs. Novak? Or you, Mrs. Stevens? No? This is the crude map drawn for us by Ripper Neary, the night we landed near the Cochinero Canyon."

"Yeah?" Tommy grunted. "So what?"

He raised the paper toward the sky. "Look more closely, against the sun, please. Do you see that tracery of faint grayish threads woven through the fibers? That is an organic circuit, of great complexity. This is, in fact, a slave transponder, which reacts to certain specific high-frequency signals. Your brother was once tagged with a similar device, five years ago—also after visiting the Canyon. I was foolish not to have noticed it sooner."

Yuki's face went ashen. "Neary. He passed us a bug. Him or that blowzy tramp of his."

"Or both of them. Much is now clear, is it not? The Cochinero Canyon reffing community was once known as a center of anti-government sentiment. So the Federation recruited—or perhaps pressured—a few among the reffing community there, as informers and agents provocateurs. I believe we can now accurately guess the fate of Mr. Skeetch Bremmer—as well as the reason the reffer settlement is now so sparsely populated."

"Then we've gotta destroy that thing—" Tommy grabbed at the paper, but Viyuuden snatched it away with the dexterity of a stage magician.

"No. We must leave it where we want the Federation to believe we are. We must leave it with the remains of the aircraft."

"You mean the FAAV?" said Tommy as she rubbed at her reddened eyes. "What 'remains?' It's still in one piece."

"We shall change that. Do you know how to overload its ionic reactor?"

"Oh. I get it. So when are we going back for Kaz?"

Viyuuden pocketed the incriminating paper. "That is our greatest priority. One way or another, we must rescue Lark and your brother."

"Right. I'm going back to the ship and get things ready." She turned and hurried back toward the FAAV without once looking at Yuki.

"And now, Mrs. Novak," said Viyuuden quietly, once Tommy had departed. "have you anything more to tell me?"

Yuki batted away at the clods of mud still clinging to her clothing. "You already know everything. Okay, I could've grabbed Lark's hand. But I didn't, and I let her slip out. Deliberately. But I never meant for Kaz to go out after her, I didn't think he'd do that." She sulked, kicking at a loose bit of pine branch. "Okay, so maybe Lark wasn't a Federation stool pigeon. I still don't know why you dragged her along. What the hell makes her worth so much trouble, anyway?"

"Mrs. Novak, if what I initially suspected—and now believe enve more strongly—is correct...Lark is the primary reason for this expedition, and more important than any of us." He looked upward again, toward the wisps of ragged cloud racing with the wind. "For she may well hold one of the most crucial keys to the terrible threat now facing our world."

"What? How the hell can—?"

But he was already gone, back toward the downed airship, and Yuki could only follow.

—

—

Chapter Seventeen

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—

—

Lark sat huddled against the portside window, wrapped in the tarpaulin, staring at the passing water with eyes that did not see.

"Well then," said Kaz, seated at the wheel, "are you going to tell me how you betrayed us? Because I sure didn't see you doing it."

"Neither did I. I...I have spells, Kazuya. I never know when it will happen, but sometimes I find myself someplace I don't remember going, doing something I don't remember starting. And I find that time has passed, sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes almost an hour." She shook her head, her almost-dry hair curly and bedraggled from its soaking in the waters of the River of Loyalty.

Kazuya opened the throttle a bit and guided the boat around a floating log. "Well? So what? I mean, not that it's nothing to worry about, but it doesn't mean you sold us out. You wouldn't do that."

"No. No, I wouldn't. But what if I've been...someone else? Someone who took pleasure in mass murder; who worshiped the Federation and all its representatives." Lark shut her eyes and pulled the tarpaulin more tightly about her shoulders. "You said it yourself, once—that the girl who did all those things was another person."

"Well, yeah, but...that was all a long time ago. That other person isn't you. You can't be more than one person at a time, after all."

"Yes I can!" She held her head in both hands. "I'm not one person, I'm two people. I've spent five years in meditation therapy, building a new life, a new self. But the old Lark is still there, still smirking and laughing inside of me, still waiting to break out and take over, so she can betray and kill again. She's not gone, Kazuya. She's just...waiting. And sometimes when she's feeling strong enough...she comes out, all on her own."

Kaz considered all this. By just what hideous conditioning process she had been made into a willing slave of the Federation, he could not guess. But that Viyuuden and the skilled meditational therapists of the Temple could have overlooked a serious case of multiple personality seemed to him unlikely in the extreme. "How d'you know? I mean, if you don't remember anything during these spells, how do you know it's this 'old Lark' taking over?"

"Don't patronize me! You've seen how the Federation has been just one step behind us since we came here. How can you explain that, if my other self hasn't been contacting her old masters?" She let herself go limp against the permaglass side window. "Yuki noticed it, right from the beginning. I kept growing more and more frightened... Maybe it's better this way. Now that I'm separated from them, I'm no longer a threat to their mission. But Kazuya...I'm still a threat to you."

"No, you're not!" Kaz twisted round in his seat, letting the boat drift while he turned her face toward his. "When you were...in one of your 'spells' just a little while ago, you didn't try to kill me or get in touch with the Federation to turn me in. You just looked around the cabin like you'd never seen anything like it before. And then you said to me—"

"What? What did I say?"

"That...that you weren't me, and I wasn't you. It was all crazy, didn't make any sense. If that was really the 'old Lark,' then she's pretty damn stupid."

Lark sighed, the collapsing of a weary bellows. "You refuse to see the truth about me. What makes you such a naïve idiot? Why do you keep on trying to protect me?"

"Because you need protecting!" Astonished at his own vehemence, Kaz tried, without success, to focus on guiding the boat again. "I mean... I mean, you're having a lot of problems, sure. But that doesn't mean this 'old Lark' crap is real. And I don't care what Yuki says, or any of them. I just care about getting you and me through this mission and back to the Heart of the World, that's all." His hands trembled on the wheel, and he gripped it all the more tightly to steady them.

Several kilometers of river passed in silence. Moonbeam, who had watched their exchange with the greatest of interest, raised his head toward Kazuya. "What mizzun? What mean yous 'mizzun?'"

"What? Oh, 'mission' means a trip, with some kind of purpose. Lark and me, and three others. We've been trying to get to Pilgrim Island to... Well, we're not exactly sure what we're supposed to do when we get there. But it's been pretty dangerous so far, with a lot of violence and killing and stuff. Like I said, maybe you weren't so lucky to get involved with us, after all."

"No. Other hoomin—hoomins—hit me, chain me, shout me. I stay wit' you." He looked toward the floor. "Got food here? Hungry. Other hoomins not give food."

Kazuya devoted a long string of graphic obscenity toward any human who would deliberately starve a helpless animal. "I'm sorry, I guess we've got so used to being hungry these past couple of days ourselves that I never thought to wonder about you. I lost my pack in the river, but maybe there's something to eat in Lark's pack."

"I'll look," she said, and shook off the tarpaulin to open the sealing strips on her backpack. "It's mostly fresh broccoli and some carrots. I don't suppose they'd appeal to you...wait, I still have half a loaf of dark bread and some yellow cheese. Would that be all right? This is the first time I've ever asked a dog what he wanted for dinner." Lark sniffled and wiped at her eyes and laughed at the thought, and dug out the bread and cheese. She tore them into chunks and spread them out on their paper wrapping.

Moonbeam jumped for it at once. "Good!" he gurgled as he gobbled down the simple meal.

Lark sat watching him, smiling to herself, the first smile Kaz had seen since the beginning of their journey. "Finally feeling a little better?" he asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just relieved to have it all out in the open, at last. Since my...spells started, three days ago, I never even told Viyuuden about them. I was too afraid, I suppose. I think it helps, to be able to share your fears."

Kaz felt a cold bubble of memory burst inside him. "Oh. Oh yeah, sure. 'Two strong wings will bear double the weight of trouble,'" he muttered. "Don't be so corny. That's what my mother used to say."

"Don't snap at me. What makes you so bitter all of a sudden?" She moved to the seat next to him, watching him closely.

"Because it's crap, that's why. Sometimes wings can't bear anything. Sometimes they just..." Not trusting himself to say more, he trailed off, gripping the wheel once again.

Lark edged nearer. "Kazuya...what was 'the accident?'"

"What?" He pretended not to understand.

"The accident. I heard your sister say something about 'since the accident.' She was talking about you. It sounded like something important. What was it?"

"She should've kept her mouth shut. That stuff was a long time ago." He hesitated, caught between uncertainty and fear. "I...was an engineering apprentice at New Tresor. I...we..."

A vivid explosion flashed from above the trees not far into the woods at the shore, mushrooming into a pillar of electric flame. An instant later, the shockwave caught up with them, and the boat rocked before its thunder. Kaz threw the wheel hard to port, fighting both the impact and the sudden waves that swelled and broke over their bow. "What the hell? Hang on, everybody!"

—

—

Chapter Eighteen

—

—

—

Hand in hand, Renton and Eureka walked the length of the dark hallway to the Temple's Media Center. Stern lines of Guardians of the Flame flanked them on either side, holding back the hushed reporters, both from Matt Stoner's Ministry of Information offices and from dozens of small local presses across the New Lands. One eager young woman—although, under the pervasive influence of the Coralian Gift, no one could have said with accuracy just how young she truly was—made the mistake of leaning out to shout a question. In only seconds, a pair of Guardians had pushed her back against the stone walls with gentle but firm restraint holds that left her open-mouthed with indignation.

It will seem strange not having Holland and Dr. Egan with us during an Announcement of State, Renton.

—A little, yeah. But they've both got other things to do right now.

It's bad enough having to know that our daughter and son are missing. But to have to announce it to the entire InterDominion makes it so much worse.

—Well, we're not supposed to mention anything about Maurice. Dominic insisted on that, remember.

I haven't forgotten. But all the same...

The heavy door to the Media Center's video studio swung open before they could touch it. Production technicians and stage managers milled here and there, calling to each other in soft, urgent voices. Information Minister Stoner himself stood before them, giving them both a little bow of sympathy. "Welcome. Everything's ready. It's eleven to noon. Fuillión's address is scheduled to begin about now, and we'll get you two on immediately afterward."

Renton nodded, amused even now at the man's transformation from the ragged freelance journalist of their Moonlight days. With his razor-trimmed hair and short pointed beard, he looked every centimeter the successful executive at the top of his profession. "Thanks. We'll just wait over there by those network monitors, to watch the address. Are the land lines still okay? Not affected by the trapar radiation, I mean?"

"The tech crew says land-line transmission is working across the continent. But the satellite relays are still out, so there's no way that the overseas provinces still on the Coral side of the earth can get us, I'm afraid." He took them aside and made fidgety adjustments to the gold chronometer chain across his tailored pinstriped vest, then looked toward the little stage surrounded by its cesium-laser floodlights. "Look...I'm really sorry about what happened to your kids. I just wanted you to know that."

Eureka gave him her devastating smile and turned her Coralian eyes full upon him. "We know. Thank you, Stoner. And for working with Dr. Egan and Holland, to keep your Press Corps from breaking security. I know how hard that must be for you. It's just so important, right now, to make sure the Federation doesn't learn how much we know..."

"I understand. Yeah, I'd put a gag on my own mother, to keep those Federation bas... Well, you get the picture. Listen, when the director—that's him over there—gives you the high sign, head over to the stage, stand at your marks and wait for the tally light on the camera, okay? You've made nationwide addresses before, so you both know the drill. And listen... Dominic's Security group knows what they're doing, see? So don't start losing hope."

"We haven't," said Renton, before he and Eureka moved off to the network monitors.

-#-

The crowd clustered on the Parliament steps bubbled with the nervous energy characteristic of predatory journalists forced to remain within plagiarizing distance of each other. Holland Novak stood among them, a billed cap pulled low over his eyes as he waited for Senator André Fuillión with growing impatience.

His chronometer gave its little beep signifying 11:50, and with characteristic punctuality, the Senator himself, chin tilted up in cocky defiance, descended to the halfway point, surrounded by a dozen stern-faced men in identical sunglasses. A sheaf of unbound papers rustled in the wind as he waved them overhead like a torch. Holland heard the cricket-chorus of video cameras being switched on all around him, and concentrated on being inconspicuous.

"People of the InterDominion!" Fuillión announced at full bellow. "I come to you today with a heavy heart, filled with sadness at the shameless machinations of a government which has so flagrantly conspired behind our backs."

"Is this about the peace talks organized by the Parliamentary majority?" one of the reporters shouted out.

"Those so-called 'peace feelers' from a cabal of defeatists among my colleagues are doomed to failure, Miss Kagamine. The Federation senses our weakness, and will never treat with the corrupt underlings of a non-representative government." He waited for the ripple of excitement and requests for clarification to die down before holding up his hand for silence. "But that is not why I have called you here today! I have an announcement to make, one which must surely sadden us all."

Yeah, I'm sure you're gonna be heartbroken, thought Holland, who nevertheless remained silent.

"When I earlier used the word 'weakness' to describe the impotence of our government, it was no trick of oratory, my friends. For the utter powerlessness of the current administration now strikes at the very pinnacle of our nation. Specifically, at the so-called 'Royal Family' itself. Yes, yes, hear me out, ladies and gentlemen of the press! For I reveal to you now that the so-called 'Princess,' Ariadne Thurston, has been kidnapped by agents of the Federation! I do not..." He waited for precisely the right moment to speak over his listeners' incredulous shouts. "Wait, wait! Yes, I speak the truth! And I challenge Renton and Eureka Thurston to reveal this fact to the people of the InterDominion! To reveal just how weak and corrupt the current regime is, how feeble its ability to protect its own unelected monarchy, let alone its very people! There is..."

This time, the cries of the reporters and the ordinary citizens gathered about on the Senate steps rose beyond his ability to silence them. Fuillión gestured for silence and attention, but it was like trying to quiet a typhoon. Holland's wrist chronometer gave off a tingling vibration, the signal for him to move in.

Holland and the plainclothes Security agents secreted among the crowd elbowed their way forward, through the chaos, shoving and pushing. Fuillión looked down at him, suddenly horrified to recognize his face, and turned on his heel, stumbling upward and gesturing to the guards in sunglasses that surrounded him. But instead of escorting him away, every one of them turned inward, blocking his escape.

"Afternoon, Senator," said Holland with a chill grin. "Sorry, but your little Imperial Guard here are working for the Security forces. You really oughta be more careful who you hire."

"Novak! What kind of fascist bullying is this?" He tried to jump up and down, waving to catch the attention of someone, anyone, in the crowd below. But the Security forces restrained him, careful to make it appear that they were surrounding him for his own protection. "What do you think you're doing? The people of the InterDominion will not—"

"Shut up, Fuillión. Hey, I've wanted to say that for a long time. Feels good. Right now, Commander Sorel over here is going to see that you get to make all the speeches you want."

Even as Holland spoke, Dominic, wearing everyday clothing and carrying a reporter's video recorder, emerged from the sea of faces. "André Fuillión, by the authority of the InterDominion of Coral and Humanity, I now pronounce arrest and remand you to trial. The charge is high treason." Dominic nodded to the other Security personnel, who moved in to form an even more substantial human wall about the panicky senator.

"Charged with...? Trial? But, but I..." His florid face went death-white, and he said no more as he was skilfully maneuvered toward the doorway on the nearest stairway landing.

"There you have seen it," said a woman in expert tones of excitement, chattering into a microphone before a video cameraman. "Senator Fuillón has charged Their Majesties themselves with hiding a kidnapping plot whose details he has yet to release. The senator is now apparently returning to his offices with his entourage. Wait, I'm getting a signal...yes, in breaking news, we have just received word that Their Majesties are at this moment going to deliver a public response to the Senator's allegations. This is Caitlin O'Brien, switching you over to our realtime feed direct from the Vodarek Temple."

Holland, standing to one side, well away from the cameras, looked on. "Is she on our our side or Fuillión's?"

"Neither." Dominic squinted through his video camera, still playing the role of reporter. "She works for Security, and she's delivering the cover story for us. Stoner wasn't happy about us replacing one of his own people with a Security operative, but he's not one to place territorial posturing over a worldwide threat. He went along."

"Hm." Holland looked down at the assembled reporters and bystanders, now dissipating with the departure of their main attraction. "Okay, let's get moving; you and me have other things to do. This is Egan's baby, now, and if he screws this next part up, Stoner'll have stories enough to keep his whole Ministry busy for the rest of his life."

-#-

The MOI director held up one hand with five fingers extended. One by one, he folded them down to Renton and Eureka, who stood serenely before the camera. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The tally light on the video camera went from green to red, and an off-camera announcer's baritone made their introduction.

"We continue to interrupt standard programming to bring you this special statement from Eureka and Renton Thurston, responding to the extraordinary charges leveled by Senator André Fuillión just moments ago. The InterDominion Informational Network now presents our revered leaders, Eureka and Renton Thurston."

Eureka made a half-step forward to speak first. Renton marveled again at her astonishing poise and regal manner. If she really was a queen, there isn't anybody else on earth who'd better fit the part.

"My friends. To all the people of the InterDominion who are watching at this moment, I want to tell you that Renton and I understand your fears and confusion. For we share them with you. This terrible crisis that has been building over the past few days has brought sadness and worry to every one of you, and to us. And so, we will begin by laying all the facts before you. The Senator, as you have just heard, has said that... that..."

She stammered to silence as someone new entered the crowded studio, her brilliant blue-green hair flashing as she moved confidently through the gathered production staff. Too professional to speak during a broadcast, they only stared at each other and shrugged, as if to say "Nobody told us to expect this!"

Renton came to his wife's side, covering for her momentary loss of words. "Uh, please bear with us a minute, will you? Something strange is going on..."

The young Coralian girl, distinctive as her mother in her brief gown and bright hair, came before the camera and looked up at Renton. "Is something the matter, Father?" she asked, blinking her ringed Coralian eyes in the garish glare.

"We're...uh, broadcasting right now. Whatever it is, would you mind waiting a few minutes?"

—It's Maeter, he flashed to Eureka. I get it, I know what she's up to! Keep in front of her, don't let the camera get a clear look at her.

I understand.

"Ariadne, dear, this isn't a rehearsal. We're actually broadcasting right now. Would you please wait until Renton and I are finished?"

"Oh." The Neural Node on her forehead glinted in the cesium light as she turned toward the live camera, but Eureka anticipated the move and stepped in at once to guide her away. "Sorry, Mother."

Away from the video eye at last, she made her unhurried way back through the studio, wings furled as the video crew parted reverently before her.

Renton smiled in the confident way he'd learned from archival recordings of his father. "Please excuse that little family interruption," he told the unseen audience. "Now, as Eureka was saying, this strange radiation coming from the Moon has made things confusing for all of us. The Federation is even claiming that we here in the InterDominion are behind it all. Well, I can tell every one of you that that's nothing but a load of..." he held the pause just long enough for comic effect. "...nonsense. But this current state of fear, with the Federation thinking we're trying to set them up for an attack, isn't nonsense at all."

—Your turn.

"Renton is right." Eureka engulfed the camera with the purity of her otherworldly smile. "Right now, the InterDominion and the Federation are in what's called a 'stalemate,' with both sides afraid one will attack the other. But I can promise you this—" and her face radiated utter sincerity "—that as long as Renton and I are part of this new world we all risked so much to bring about, the InterDominion is not going to launch any first attacks against the Federation. That's not what our alliance with the Coral is all about. Our goal is to work in partnership with the Coral, to make a better world and a better life for all of us."

Your turn now, Renton.

He stared intently into the lens with his father's level gaze. "Naturally, Eureka and I—and I know all of you—feel the same way. But the InterDominion is never going to force anyone to join in our goals. We don't have any bases on the Moon, and our Independent Planetary Forces are for defense only. You have our word on that."

Both of them stepped back in unison and struck a dignified pose. The director, catching the cue, drew his hand across his throat and pointed toward the announcer, who picked up the audio. "This has been a special presentation of the Ministry of Information's InterDominion Informational Network. Please continue to monitor your video for further news on the Federation crisis as it develops."

The camera's tally light winked back to green and Eureka and Renton let out their breaths in unison. "I think we did that very well," she said, watching the video staff begin to dismantle the temporary stage. "Is that what's called 'ad-libbing?'"

"Yeah, it is." Renton put one arm about her shoulders. "And it looks like we're not the only ones who can do it. Come on, let's go find Maeter. That little performance of hers bought us all a lot more time." He looked at her, and felt her answering response. "And now you and me can finally start using it."

-#-

Maeter shuffled and groped her way back to the Media Center door and let herself out. The two Guardians on either side made no move as she wandered halfway down the hall and stood there, blinking and squinting about her. "Alan?" she whispered.

"Here I am." He came from the shadows and took her hand. "The Honor Guard is regrouping, getting ready to line up down the hallway for when your parents come out again. I saw you on a video monitor, and you were great! How did it all work out?"

"Really good—I think. Mom and Dad seemed like they caught on right away, 'cause she kept half-hiding me from the camera. Everybody in the InterDominion thought I really was Ariadne. That oughta shut that loudmouth Fuillión up."

"From what I hear, he's already been more than shut up. Hey, are you having trouble seeing through those contacts?"

"Well, yeah." She twisted her head this way and that. "It wasn't so bad in the studio, where there was bright light, but out here, it's like looking down a tube. I can't see so well on the sides."

Alan put an arm about her and held her tightly to his side. "That's okay. I'll get you back to your suite, and take those things out. And that harness, too—those plastic wings must be rubbing you raw. Did I use enough adhesive to keep your little jewel fastened to your—?"

He doubled over as a heavy fist slammed into his diaphragm, knocking the breath from him. Instantly mindful of his Guardian training, he straightened and diverted his body's c'hi energies to his midsection, keeping him breathing and on his feet. Another blow caught him behind one ear, and he dropped to his knees, losing his hearing on one side, battling the whirling white spots that clouded his vision.

"Alan!" he heard Maeter cry. A tall figure in the black uniform of a Guardian dragged her by one arm, hurrying away down the hall. The second one stood at his side, drawing back for a crippling kick.

Remember your training! Alan rolled to one side and the kick whispered by his good ear, missing him by centimeters. With his attacker off-balance, he kicked out at the man's other leg, bringing him crashing to the floor.

Within seconds, the real Guardians would be returning, but by then, Maeter might be gone. The thought choked Alan with rage, and he channeled that anger into the meridian lines of his body, directing it to the nodal points of head and abdomen and hands. As his assailant struggled to his feet, Alan smashed out at him in quick, concentrated jabs: face, temple, throat. The man clutched both hands to his neck and toppled to the stone, gasping and thrashing.

Screams echoed from further down the hallway. Breathless, Alan ran for all he was worth, barely registering the fact that the screams were male, and far too loud to be Maeter's. And when he arrived at her side, he found her quivering with anger, staring down at the false Guardian who lay bleeding before her.

The impostor's body shifted and crawled in repulsive ripples. Alan shivered and held Maeter behind him, watching as two grayish masses rose up from the kidnapper's chest and stared at Alan with round blue eyes.

"This is second time we save her," said the tree-cat. "You people not so smart."

—

—

Chapter Nineteen

—

—

—

Viyuuden and Yuki returned to the downed FAAV to find Tommy groping around behind a wiring panel at the rear of the cargo section. "The contingency controls're in here," she said without looking toward them. "When a ship goes down in enemy territory, the crew is supposed to overload the ionic reactor, to cause maximum damage. If the crew gets blown up with it, the Federation gives all of them posthumous Hero of the People medals."

"Suicidal bravado is not our goal," said Viyuuden. He carefully lay the tracer-impregnated sheet of paper on the pilot's seat, then looked to the sky, searching it from horizon to horizon. "And time is growing short to reach our destination. What is the lethal radius of a reactor overload's effects?"

"Well, when the UUP-115 pellet in the core implodes, it leaves a micro-discontinuity that lasts for a little under half a second. The surrounding atmosphere for a couple of meters around gets sucked into it and solidifies, giving up all its heat in a single flash. Then the discontinuity closes, which makes a countershock wave that does the real damage. For a small reactor like this, there'll be a crater for maybe fifty meters around. Concussion and heat'll reach way beyond that."

"Thanks for the technical lecture," Yuki said with a roll of her eyes.

Tommy did not turn from her work. "Well, why don't you just stay here while it goes off, and decide for yourself how accurate my numbers are? Okay, genius? As for Viyuuden and me, as long as we can get at least three hundred meters away before the blast, we should be good to get on with looking for Kaz and Lark."

Yuki folded her arms, not deigning to reply. "What about that, Viyuuden? How're we supposed to get back to Bratsk to manage a rescue, and still make it to Pilgrim Island in time for this deadline of yours?"

"If you place no credence in the Will of Vodarek, Mrs. Novak, you should at least have faith in our own skills and ingenuity." He began to drag supplies from the airship: their backpacks; RPP pistols from a rack along one wall; some small tools. "I have little doubt that both will weigh heavily on our side as long as we remain focused upon our goal. Here, please take these items and prepare to run. We should stay close to the treeline and hurry toward the river, I think."

"Why the river? Shouldn't we be going back over land?"

"The water will protect us from the heat and blast effects." A distant roar built in the northwest and Viyuuden looked upward again. "And we must get out of this clearing and out of sight as quickly as possible."

"The implosion sequence is started," said Tommy, snatching up her pack and sprinting past them in the general direction of the river. "Five minutes to detonation."

No one needed to be told twice. With Tommy in the lead, they ran for all they were worth over the muddy ground, strewn with severed branches, sawdust and ankle-wrenching ruts hidden beneath puddles. As they ran, the roaring behind them grew in volume, and a pair of FAAVs appeared over the clearing, hovering with noses pointed toward the dead airship, the downdrafts from their fans throwing up a ring of dense muddy spray. Troopers jumped from both craft, weapons held at the ready.

"They have not yet seen us," shouted Viyuuden, leaping over the trunk of a stripped tree. "They're following the transponder signal."

They bore to to the edge of the clearing nearest the river, no more than sixty meters distant. But the soft ground, sodden with runoff water from the stripped forest behind, became more treacherous with each step. Leaping, sliding, gasping for breath, they ran onward, toward the trees and concealment and safety.

Yuki risked a look over one shoulder, and her foot slid over a hidden rock. She went down, hard, sliding in the mire, rolling over and over. With every attempt to rise, she only slid more, as the treacherous mud sucked at her boots. Gunfire clattered from the direction of their abandoned airship, but whether at the ship itself or toward them, none of them could not tell. She cursed and lifted herself again, only to slip back to the clinging muck.

Hands grabbed at her arm—at both arms—pulling her, lifting her. Viyuuden on one side and Tommy on the other heaved her upright. "Thanks...," she coughed, but they were already on the run again and she hurried to follow.

Twenty meters to the shelter of the standing pines...ten. The roar of the hovering FAAVs faded as they settled to the ground, and more shots pattered like hail on a metal roof. Five meters, and into the forest they sprinted, the ground spongy with fallen needles but still firm beneath their boots. Dodging the indifferent trees, they stumbled on, out of breath, not daring to stop. From somewhere ahead came the hiss and rush of the River of Loyalty, louder with each unsteady step. All at once the trees parted, and they stood on the gravelly riverbank, wheezing and coughing and looking from one to the other.

"Do not stop now!" rasped Viyuuden. "When the reactor—"

A blaze of violet light lit the air around them and the treetops crackled in the heat. An instant later came the first blast wave, throwing all three of them into the waiting river, surrendering their exhaustion to its icy strength.

—

—

Chapter Twenty

—

—

—

Renton looked around them at the cavernous New Tresor hangar, uncomfortable in its unaccustomed emptiness. On every side, strangely-shaped experimental airships sat in various states of assembly, and it occurred to him that this was the place, only days before, from which Maurice and Ariadne had departed, beginning the cycle of strange events whose end still could not be seen.

One of the Guardians standing round them with weapons held at the ready put a communicator to her ear, apparently answering a summons of some sort. She spoke rapidly in a soft voice, then turned to Renton and Eureka. "Your Majesties. I have an update on the attempt to kidnap Miss Maeter."

Eureka nodded. Only Renton could feet the anger and fear boiling inside her. "What is it?"

"The two deep-cover Federation sleeper agents who posed as Guardians are being interrogated now. It seems that Miss Maeter's disguise was even more effective than she knew, for they believed she was the real Lady Ariadne. Apparently the Federation's desire to kidnap the Lady has been a high priority for at least a week."

Renton balled both fists. "Damn. But Ariadne's already in Federation territory."

"Yes, sir. Which would seem to indicate that the Federation leadership is uncertain of that. It's now clear that the Federation Ministry of Security has been planning to kidnap Lady Ariadne for some time, and had more than one group of agents in place, waiting to do so. Miss Maeter's impersonation obviously fooled the backup group into breaking cover. It was well and bravely done."

"What about the Guardian who saved Maeter?" said Eureka. "Was he harmed?"

"Alan Wyngarde was injured, Lady, but has recovered. Miss Maeter...insists that he remain with her at all times."

At any other time, Renton might have laughed. "Yeah, we know how 'insistent' she can be. Fine. What about Linck? Is he still all right?"

"Yes, sir. All the same, we've doubled the guard on his quarters, installed monitors on the entire floor and begun aerial surveillance on the Temple itself."

He put both hands to his head, trying to shut out the hammering wordless insistence that summoned him, summoned them. "Of all the times for this to happen... Well, we're just glad they're all safe. Let us know anything new you come up with, will you?"

The Guardian lowered her head in respect. "Yes, sir. I hesitate to bring it up, but since you ask...there is one peculiar thing. I'm told it's still being investigated, but...it's about the second assailant. I've been told he was brought down by..."

A sudden clatter of boots echoed through the huge deserted hangar, and Dominic and Anemone appeared, ringed by another escort of armed Guardians. Behind them came Holland Novak and a smiling, broad-shouldered officer in the uniform of the IPF Special Directorate.

"Hap?" said Renton. "Hap Fukoda, is that you? It's been almost two years!"

Hap removed his officer's cap and shook Renton's hand. "Well, it takes a while to become a major, y'know!" His wide smile faded. "Holland's been keeping me posted on what's going on. So Dominic and Anemone're gonna be my passengers?"

Anemone, leaning on her husband for support, nodded wearily. "We're ready when you are," said Dominic. "How soon can we leave? This has been dragging on about as long as we can stand it."

One of the Guardians stepped forward, pointing into the shadowed clutter of airships. "Two craft have been readied for you and the First Speaker, Major Fukoda. Identical high-speed interceptors. Semi-experimental, but fully checked out and ready for use. Both of them with all appropriate extreme-temperature modifications. New Tresor ATC has guaranteed us open flight paths in both directions, at your discretion."

Renton's Coralian jewel flickered, and he felt the answering flashes from Anemone, Eureka and Dominic. "Our discretion says right now. Let's get started."

—

—

Chapter Twenty-One

—

—

—

"...and the trapar radiation continues to blanket the entire sky. In fact, many loyal citizens have called in to our Emergency Hot Line to ask about the strange glowing lines we see overhead. These are actually the well-known Ley Lines, the conduits of planetary energy that make our Tower States possible. Normally, the Ley Lines are invisible, but the current high trapar concentration in our upper atmosphere is causing them to fluoresce brightly, even during the daytime. They are not, repeat, not, a rebel weapon, nor is there anything to fear from them at this time."

Max made a growl of frustration at the ambulance's radio. "Listen to that nonsense, would you? 'Not at this time.' Implying that they could get fearsome at any minute, if us devils in the InterDominion start making trouble."

"In other news, the Federation Fleet is deploying still more of our aerial dreadnoughts on the southeastern borders. They will fly patrol, to prevent the recently-arrived rebel warships from attempting any incursions into Federation territory. Yes, citizens, your Federation military is prepared to meet any challenge to protect our glorious Motherland from the alien-worshipping rebels who would destroy all that we have built.

"And as our last item, it seems that even Mother Nature is defying the aggressive plottings of the rebels: a brilliant auroral display is predicted at all latitudes this evening. This is the day of the Equinox, when daylight and night will be equal all over the entire planet, so viewing conditions should be excellent. Now we bring you a selection of rousing military marches, to do honor to those who give their service in our Federation's armed forces. First up will be that old favorite the 'Unity March,' followed by 'Heroic Banners Flying' and..."

Phaedra twirled the volume to its lowest setting. "Jerks. So the InterDominion's IPF Fleet is patrolling the breakaway states, to keep the Feds from invading them. Jeez, it wouldn't take much more than a single soldier getting trigger-happy someplace to start a war, now."

"Yeah." He rubbed at his eyes, rough and itchy from so many hours of driving. Not for the first time, he noticed that the roadside shadows of traffic signs were growing longer. How much time've we got left before dark? "Where are we now?"

She unfolded their map and ran one finger down the route line. "We're just about... Here. Maybe ten kilometers from the Revered Pilgrims aerodrome."

"Revered Pilgrims. That's where 405th was relocated to after Friesland broke away during the Rebellion. You know—my old unit. What's beyond that?"

"After that, another hundred and fifty or so to Pilgrim Island."

"Oh." Max did the basic math over and over, always coming up with the same frightening answer. "And even when we get to the Island, there'll still be armed patrols all around it. And you can bet the security perimeter will be double-thick, to keep anyone from getting near the earthside Council chambers. I...don't see how we're going to get past all that in time for sundown."

"I don't suppose going faster would help any?"

He looked down at the speedometer, wrestling with the guilty sensation that the cold numbers were his own personal fault, letting her down, disappointing her. "I'll try. I've been kind of reluctant to use the flashers and the siren, for fear of attracting too much attention, but maybe it's time to try." Bending for the siren and light-bar controls, Max caught a glimmer of red in the rear-view mirror. "Uh-oh, better not start getting too gaudy just now. Looks like a Secpo car coming up behind, on his way to something important. I'll wait till he passes."

The greenish blob of the patrol car swelled rapidly in the reflected image, growing until Max could make out the State Internal Security Police lettering on the hood. It swung out into the passing lane, and he kept his eyes rigidly fixed on the road ahead, as though intent on saving lives without number, lives in untold danger. Which isn't so far from the truth, I suppose. The Secpo car paralleled them, and Max twitched in his seat as it unleashed the honking klaxon of its siren, its brilliant strobe lights dazzling in the afternoon air.

Going cold, he looked to the patrol car, where its single trooper gestured at him to pull over, waving a beefy fist.

"What d'we do now?" said Phaedra.

"We play it by ear." He willed away the fear rising in his throat, keeping it out of his voice with steely effort. "Right now, I've got to pull over."

Waiting for a stretch of berm that seemed smooth enough, Max rolled to a stop and got out of the ambulance, to walk back to the Secpo car parked at their rear bumper. "What's the trouble, officer? One of our lights out? We can't afford to delay too long—we've got a couple of badly injured patients in the back."

The glowering Secpo emerged from his vehicle like an uncoiling dragon. "Madoka District People's Health Sanitarium's reported a missing ambulance. Like this one."

"Well... We came from Madoka District all right, but all the ambulances are like this one. I'm Dr. Maxwell Condor, and we're..."

"Shut up. You will speak when spoken to. You will obey all orders promptly." He gestured toward the patient compartment. "Open that up."

"But Officer, these patients have had severe trauma to eyes and skull. There was an explosion—probably some rebel saboteurs, they said—and this boy and girl..."

The Secpo slid a heavy-caliber sidearm from his black holster. "I said shut up. Open it now."

A line of military vehicles thundered past in the opposite lane, and a thousand daring plans were born and died in Max's imagination. He's got the gun. And he's as big as two of me. Max nodded and put his hands to the handles of the ambulance's twin rear doors, hoping with all the strength of his fear that Maurice and Ariadne were wrapped in blankets and wearing their concealing eye bandages.

He released his breath. Both of them lay immobile on their gurneys, twitching occasionally. Maurice groaned under his breath and reached out one hand, only to let it fall back.

"I don't see any blood," grunted the trooper.

"Well, no, they're...it was blast trauma, you see. Detonation in a closed room; some kind of rebel booby trap, I was told. No epidermal lesions. Likely to be fatal if we can't get them to a specialist, fast. Stat. They're..."

"Shut up." The Secpo silenced him with a glance, and leaned toward them, gun held ready at his side, squinting at Maurice's bandages. "The registration number of this vehicle matches the one reported stolen. I don't care what's the matter with these two, This vehicle will be impounded until—"

Maurice sat up with a spastic jerk "BOO!" he screamed, ripping his gauze pads away, opening his Coralian eyes full in the face of the Secpo trooper.

The Secpo flailed about him, trying to bring the gun to bear. But Max seized the handles of both doors and slammed them, hard, on the man's head. He screamed and careened about, both hands to his temples; Max grabbed at the gun and pulled it away from him just as Phaedra leaped from the ambulance, swinging a red oxygen bottle with both hands. Two crashing blows to the head and the trooper was down, and did not move.

"I played it by ear," she panted.

"You sure did." Max pushed the hair from his eyes. "Nice work—everybody. Now help me get him inside. Quick, before more military traffic comes our way!"

Phaedra grabbed the dead weight of the man under one arm, while Max heaved and strained at the other. Together, they folded the gurneys out of the way and hauled his unconscious body to the ambulance floor. "Is he dead?" asked Maurice as he pulled the doors shut behind them.

"I don't think so, but he's sure going to be out for a long while. It's a concussion at least, maybe a fracture. You three pull him in and strip him naked, while I go back and rip the radio out of that patrol car."

"What've you got in mind?" said Phaedra, tugging at the trooper's leather tie. "You gonna impersonate an officer again?"

"Not this time. It's way too late for any more masquerade parties. Be right back."

Max let himself out, closed the doors behind him, and hurried to the patrol car, whose lights still whirled brilliantly. Inside, he shut off the strobe and started methodically yanking wires from the radio screwed under the dashboard. Pocketing the keys, he waited for a troop truck to pass at high speed, then returned to the ambulance to find the motionless trooper lying nude amid a clutter of his own clothing. "Good job. Now stand back while I drag this thug outside, before any more military trucks pass us and get suspicious."

He pulled on the inert Secpo's legs, dragging until his center of gravity passed the rear bumper and he dropped to the cold berm, arms splayed. Max looked right and left to be certain no Federation transport trucks were approaching, then opened the patrol car's passenger-side door and pushed him in. He slammed the door shut, then ran back to the ambulance and jumped into the driver's seat. "Everybody get ready to go!" he shouted, and pulled them back to the highway once again, mashing the accelerator and lighting the overhead emergency flashers.

"What was all that about?" said Phaedra as she settled into her own seat once more. "Is that guy gonna survive out there, naked, with a banged-up head?"

Max leaned over the wheel, driving for all he was worth. "At least he has a chance, which is more than the bastard would've given us. If he's lucky, somebody from the military'll come along and stop to see what's going on. One way or another, he's not going to be driving anywhere or using the radio to tell any tales. How much further to Revered Pilgrims Aerodrome?"

While Phaedra riffled through the map, Maurice came forward and stuck his head through the connecting door. "Can we make it by nighttime? I don't know how to explain this, but it's real important that we get there, I know it."

"Yeah, I believe you, Maurice. But this ambulance is hot, now. And anyway it won't get us there in time, no matter how fast we go. But I'm thinking—"

"Maybe seven kilos," said Phaedra.

"—that if you all don't mind taking a big chance, we might be able to make it."

Ariadne appeared at Maurice's side. "Yes. I'll take that chance if Maurice will."

"Welcome back from the dead, Princess," said Phaedra with a smirk.

Max ground his teeth and watched the crumbling roadway unwind beneath them. "Not the best choice of words."

—

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Chapter Twenty-Two

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—

The Parliamentary chamber rumbled with excitement, like a stadium before the opening gun of an athletic event. Matt Stoner could feel it in the air, that heady convergence of expectation and reality that always meant a story.

In the Honored Guests' row just behind the elevated central podium, Stoner watched Dominic's Vice-Commander, Jean-Baptiste Arban, occupying the First Speaker's chair. Stoner thought he looked extremely uncomfortable at being the unaccustomed center of attention, and smiled to himself. That's what life at the top of the pyramid is like, my friend.

Stoner pulled a tiny coordinating monitor from his vest pocket and checked the live feeds from the various Ministry of Information cameras installed about the chamber, confirming to himself that his people had complete coverage. At a time like this, nearly anything could happen, and he would not allow the chance that some juicy tidbit of news might slip past them.

From the secure offices at the rear of the Chamber came the hiss of an opening door, and Dr. Egan, dynamic and powerful even in his formal dark suit, came to the dais. "Hear ye all!" cried the Sergeant-at-Arms. "I give you the Prime Minister, the Honorable Dr. Gregory Egan. The Upper and Lower Senate of the Parliament of the InterDominion of Coralian and Humanity is now in session!"

Three converging overhead spotlights bathed the Prime Minister in their brilliance, and Stoner nearly swooned. Perfect shot! Egan's blazing against the dark background—that rim lighting is the kind of thing any photographer prays for! Whatever gods look out for journalists, please let one of our people is get this for the next Ray=Out!

"Senators," began Egan into the volatile silence, "Members of the press. Citizens of the InterDominion. I thank you all for attending this unusual session. This is a moment of great crisis, and I am certain all of you would prefer to be with comrades and family as the fragile peace of our war-torn world now hangs by a thread."

Great opening, Doc. Did you write that yourself? Oh, hell, Gregory Egan always does everything himself.

"As you will all have observed, First Speaker Holland Novak is not in his accustomed place. He and Commander Dominic Sorel, chief of our Security forces, have both been called away on the most urgent duties in the service of the InterDominion." He looked round the vast chamber, wearing a face of deep and compassionate regret. "Therefore, I shall come directly to the point: Senator André Fuillión has disappeared."

The expected uproar filled the chamber, and Dr. Egan stood impassive as a classical statue, waiting for the waves of shock and outrage to recede. Great job, Doc! Don't tell'em any more until they shut up! You're a master, all right.

"If I may have your ears... Please, colleagues! I shall be happy to entertain questions from the press and other Senators presently, but for now, please hear me out. The Senator's absence from his offices remains unexplained, but rest assured that our Security forces are searching diligently for answers even as I speak."

Egan hesitated, waiting for the indignant shouts from Fuillión's supporters to die down.

"Yes, I am quite aware of the Senator's...inflammatory remarks of late. In particular, his recent—and thankfully false, as we have all seen—charges that Princess Ariadne was kidnapped by Federation agents." He smiled in his most reassuring way and inclined his head toward the main video camera. "We have as yet no information implicating the Federation of Predigio Towers in the Senator's disappearance. However, all members of this Senate are now under greatly increased Security protection, to ensure that no attempts will be made upon their persons. I shall, of course, be pleased to meet shortly with the Senator's supporters in the Security Council chamber, where I shall attempt to answer all of their specific questions."

Stoner could only shake his head in wonder at the skillful deflections in Dr. Egan's remarks. He never actually said we didn't arrest Fuillión, and he didn't say the Federation kidnapped him. But somehow, he managed to leave that idea in the air. Holland's right—the guy's a genius, no question.

Before the echoes of Egan's words had faded, senators and reporters were already leaping to their feet.

"Sir, does that mean Speaker Novak and Commander Sorel have gone looking for—?"

"Dr. Egan, is there any evidence that the Federation has—?"

"Prime Minister, what effect will this have on the peace mission—?"

Egan remained placid and serene. "Please, ladies and gentlemen! First I shall meet with Senator Fullión's colleagues, then with other Members of Parliament on an individual basis. I shall hold a press conference at six o'clock this evening, to discuss this dire situation in greater detail, and to summarize any further developments. In the interim, please contact my offices, where there are personnel standing by to deal with what I am certain must be your many questions. And to those watching across the InterDominion, I appeal to your patience and good sense, in this hour of our great trial. Thank you."

The murmurs from the audience rose to an avalanche of outrage. Dr. Egan bowed to the chamber, then turned and walked back down the ramp to the office complex behind the podium, leaving Matt Stoner shaking his head in admiration. He rose and followed Vice-Commander Arban from the dais, pausing only for a moment to be certain his MOI video announcers were taking it all in with proper breathless wonder:

"And there you heard it, citizens of the InterDominion—Prime Minister Gregory Egan has made the shocking announcement that controversial senator André Fuillión has vanished from his offices! Please stay tuned for a full analysis of this unexpected turn of events, and its possible implications for the international situation..."

—

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Chapter Twenty-Three

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Kazuya fought with the wheel, working to keep the little boat upright in the face of choppy waves and a fierce, hot wind that bent the riverside trees in their direction and threatened to overturn them altogether. "Hang on to anything you can!" he shouted to Lark and Moonbeam.

Lark tugged at his shoulder. "Kazuya, wait! There're people in the water, over there by the shore! The waves're taking them under... We've got to save them!"

"Damn." Anger and fear left him hesitant. Any delay now could spell the failure of their mission. But at the same time... She's right. I can't just let them drown. "Okay, I'll try to get as close to them as I can without grounding us. But get ready to beat'em away if they're Secpos or soldiers."

He narrowed his concentration to the wheel and throttle, straining to anticipate each new wave, gunning the engine against the current to avoid drifting downstream, tacking the boat's nose into the crackling wind from shore. Spray dotted the windshield and he wasted precious seconds finding the wiper control. With maddening slowness, they drew closer, revealing three figures in civilian clothing, thrashing to keep their heads above the relentless waves. "Okay," Kaz called out to Lark, "we're almost there. Get back to the deck and reach over to grab them when I pull alongside. And don't fall in, please"

She made her way back, fighting to keep her footing on the heaving deck with every step. A blast of cold spray broke over her as she leaned over the portside gunwales with hands extended. An arm snaked up from the turbulent waters and Lark pulled upward, bracing herself against the sudden weight.

In the mirror above the windshield, Kaz stared at the sodden woman who fumbled herself up and rolled to the deck. Is that really...?

A purposeful, athletic-looking man came next, and he immediately held out his own arms to the last of the three, a woman with long black hair tied back in a soggy otter-tail that wrapped itself across her face.

The man hurried forward at once and dropped into the forward passenger seat at Kaz's side. "We are all aboard. Please take us out to the middle of the river and make all possible speed."

"Viyuuden?" Kaz could scarcely believe his ears. "It's really you? How'd you find us? Then that is Tommy back there! And Yuki." He steered them away from shore, out into the main current, giving them full throttle.

"Yes. How did you and Lark escape? Never mind, we can all bring each other up to date as we travel." The priest ran one hand over the wheat-brown stubble now growing back on his scalp, sending a fine spray into the cabin air. "The Virtuous Labor River lies less than than six kilometers beyond this bend; we could see it from the sky."

Tommy reeled into the cabin, shivering, and let herself collapse to the nearest seat. "Hey, Kaz! How did you find us? It's great to see you again!"

"Yeah, same here! I thought you'd all be at Pilgrim Island by now."

"We got kind of...interrupted."

Lark was the last in, supporting the weakened, stumbling Yuki by one shoulder. Yuki fell across two seats, coughing and gagging up river water. She groaned and lay still, gulping in great rattling lungfuls of air as she shivered. Tommy drew up the tarpaulin still piled in one corner of the cabin floor and covered her with it.

Kazuya noticed, and the ember of resentment flared in him. "She tried to kill Lark," he said. "She just stood there and watched, while Lark rolled out the door of that airship."

"We are now aware of that," said Viyuuden, shrugging off his backpack. "It was a regrettable mistake, but now behind us. Our minds must be firmly set on what lies ahead, rather than on the past."

"No." Everyone, including Kaz, turned toward Yuki as she heaved herself up on one elbow and faced them all. With her hair streaked across her face and water running in little rivulets across her face, Kaz thought she looked as though she had drowned and been brought back to life. Barely. "No. It's not that—" she broke off to a fit of harsh coughing. "It's not that...simple. Kazuya's right. I did try to kill her." Yuki faced Lark, keeping her red-rimmed eyes level, with obvious effort. "Or to let you die, at least. I thought you were still a Federation stooge. I wanted you dead. I'm...I'm...sorry."

Lark went to her side, but did not touch her. "It's all right. You had reasons for suspecting me."

"But I didn't have any proof, dammit!" She fell to coughing again, then sat up fully, huddling the tarp around her. "I thought I was such hot stuff that I could just knock you off because I didn't like you. Yuki Talhoe, almighty all-knowing goddess of the Moonlight."

With a bitter snort, she wiped her nose roughly on one sleeve. "It took me so goddam long to stop doing that with Holland; I never even thought about how I've been slipping right back into it. Maybe...maybe that's why I really wanted to come along on this trip, trying to get back to being a strutting pirate queen again, lording it over everybody. I thought I outgrew that. But I didn't, and I almost screwed things up for everybody." Yuki lowered her head, and this time Kaz could see that the droplets trickling from her eyes were not river water. "Stupid me."

From the seat next to Kaz, Viyuuden watched her closely, but said nothing into the silence. At last, Tommy sat down beside her and wrapped one arm about her shoulders. "You're no stupider than I am, honey. All I wanted was revenge, to really shaft the Federation the way they shafted me. But it's been nothing but running and killing and hiding and watching people die."

She shook her head in a gesture of regret that Kaz knew well. "And those were all the things I hated so much about being in the Landestroopers, right? You'd think I'da known better to begin with, wouldn't you?"

"Do not let regret dominate your thoughts," Viyuuden told them both. "Knowledge of oneself is a thing to be prized, even when it comes at a bitter price. But we still have a task before us, and accomplishing it must come before all else." He rubbed a clear spot on the misted windshield and pointed forward. "There, Mr. Aruno—that is the fork of the Virtuous Labor River, now visible. We must..."

Lark shouted over him. "No! Not yet!Yuki mustn't go on thinking she was stupid, or cruel or...or even wrong. I am a danger to us, to all of us." Stammering and with a great deal of hand-wringing, she sputtered out the story of her strange periods of missing time.

When she had finished, Kaz spoke up at once. "But look, everybody—that doesn't mean anything at all! I was with her when she had one of those spells, not even an hour ago. And she didn't try to contact the Federation or sabotage the boat or anything. She just...stared around her, like she'd never seen me before, and told me I wasn't her. It was all just—"

"What did you say, Mr. Aruno?" Viyuuden went very rigid, instantly alert. "Precisely what did she tell you?"

"Uh...she said 'I am not you,' yeah, that was it. And then 'you are not me.' It was all just crazy, but it didn't mean anything."

"'Didn't mean anything?'" Viyuuden got to his feet, rubbing both palms together and smiling, almost joyous. "That remains to be seen! Mr. Aruno, my faith in you has been fully justified. Much is now certain that I have previously only inferred."

"Well, how about sharing it with us, for a change?" said Tommy with a sharp look. "Stop playing your cards so close to your chest, okay? What've you been hiding?"

"I have been hiding nothing, Mrs. Stevens. I have had strong suspicions about Lark's crucial role in our mission, nothing more. But as Mrs. Novak has rightly pointed out to us, I can be wrong—and so I kept those suspicions and theories to myself."

Kaz, more confused than ever, steered them from the Loyalty's main channel into the narrower and less turbulent Virtuous Labor. "So are you going to tell us about them now?"

"Not yet, Mr. Aruno, not yet. What lies ahead will demand a great deal from us, and I do not want that knowledge to influence your actions before the time arrives."

"Good idea," said the dog, speaking for the first time. "Smart hoomin."

For a moment, the only sound was the engine's low heartbeat and the slap of wave against bow. Kaz savored the sensation of being the one holding the secrets, for a change. "Say hello to Moonbeam, everybody," he said at last, and pushed the throttle all the way forward again.

—

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Chapter Twenty-Four

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—

The reflective sign along the highway announced "Revered Pilgrims Aerodrome, 2 km," only a few seconds before Max spotted the red flashers far behind them.

"Looks like more Secpos," he muttered, and raised their speed as high as he dared.

Phaedra craned her neck to see out her side-view mirror. "Maybe it's just another convoy. Or maybe it hasn't got anything to do with us at all." She did not sound convinced.

"Maybe. Or maybe they found that Secpo we banged up beside the road back there. If I were you, I'd bet on that last choice. Make sure Maurice and Ariadne're braced for some rough travel."

"Okay. What've you got in mind?"

He swerved around one of the frequent patches of decayed concrete, and the steering wheel shimmied in his hands. Off to their right, a chain-link fence, topped with razor wire, showed itself around the vast runways of the Revered Pilgrims Aerodrome. Here and there, military airships stood for refueling and maintenance, while others thundered upward, on their way to the Federation's far-flung borders. "That'll be the Maintenance Unit over there," he said, half for Phaedra's benefit, half for his own. "Hangars 128 and 146. For maintaining medium battlecruisers of the LIghtning class."

"How d'you know?"

"Because I was assigned to Maintenance, after I was washed out of flight school, remember? It's a training facility, but 405th Aero Marauders deeplane squadron is based here, too, along with the heavy cruisers." He ground his teeth, surprised to find himself still bitter over his lost opportunity for a pilot's badge and its new life. "The trainer ships were always kept lined up next to a fence at the edge of the runway, when they weren't in use."

Phaedra leaned closer to the the connecting door to the rear compartment. "Hey, you guys back there—Hal says to get ready for the worst. The cops're after us again."

Maurice stuck his head through the opening. "I thought his name was Max."

"Things change," grunted Hal. "Now you and Ariadne get back there and hold on for all you're worth, got it? The driving's going to get rough, and soon."

The protective fence drew to within twenty meters of the highway here, with hectares upon hectares of asphalt runways, aircraft service facilities and radar towers stretching away nearly to the southern horizon. Even at speed, the metal signs welded to the fence clearly screamed out their warning in huge red letters: Federation Aero Fleet Restricted Area—No Trespass—Lethal Force Authorized.

"What is it you're gonna do?" asked Phaedra. "What're you waiting for? That red light behind us is—"

"I know about the red light. It's that damn drainage ditch beside the road... Wait a minute." Not far ahead, an access point, where a rutted highway-maintenance path passed over a short culvert spanning the ditch. Getting closer, fast. Won't be another chance... "Hang on, Phaedra, here we go—"

He wrenched the wheel to the right and instantly knew he'd taken the turn too fast. The left front tire buckled under with a bang, breaking free from its steel rim. Hal fought with the wheel, flailing it this way and that to keep them from overturning while still maintaining speed. Rear brakes grabbed, making the clumsy ambulance fishtail on the brink of a spin. Dammit!

They left the road, bouncing wildly, but the bare left rim dug into the dirt and they careened across the ditch, the springs bottoming with teeth-crashing impacts. Hal gunned the engine to keep them from a fatal rollover, then twirled the wheel in the opposite direction, laboring to keep them on a straight path toward the airfield. "Come on, come on...don't slow down now..." He floored the accelerator again, coaxing the dying engine.

Phaedra screamed, a short, shrill squeal of amazement, and they rammed the chain-link fence at full speed. The ambulance teetered up at a steep angle for just seconds as the fence supports bent and flattened under its weight...and they were across, rolling over the razor-wire loops and onto the tarmac behind a row of training craft. He let them coast to a noisy stop just inside the crook of the nearest deeplane's curved scimitar of a wing.

"You all right?" He took Phaedra's hand and she nodded back at him, shaken but whole. "Okay, Maurice and Ariadne—everybody out. This bus's gone as far as it can, hurry it up! To the roof, double time!"

—

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Chapter Twenty-Five

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—

Deep in the bowels of the Parliament building, Matt Stoner approached the temporary interrogation room with a sharp sense of apprehension. Two silent guards—both in IPF Security uniform, he noted, and not Guardians of the Flame—motioned him to enter, and he pushed the door open.

Just what he had expected to find, he could not be certain, but the reality seemed ominous enough. In the furthest corner of the dark room sat André Fuillión, shirtless and looking somehow deflated, shrunken. Three small spotlights blazed at him, and Fuillión squinted into them as someone in the shadows fired questions.

Stoner nearly jumped as Jean-Baptiste Arban touched his elbow. "Remember, Mr. Stoner," he murmured with one finger to his lips, "that you are to make nothing of what you see public, without the expressed permission of Prime Minister Egan."

"Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. And in return, the Ministry of Information Press Services get first pick of whatever Egan releases. Don't you guys forget that. Where...is Egan, anyway?"

"He's the one doing the questioning. You may go closer, if you like. But stay quiet and inconspicuous as possible, please."

With a nod, Stoner tiptoed nearer, still outside the circle of light but close enough to see the sweat beading Fuillión's forehead. "And now, Mr. Fuillión," said Dr. Egan softly, "there comes the matter of your remarkable foreknowledge of current events. Several days past, you made a public announcement to the effect that trapar radiation was emanating from the Moon."

"Yes." Fuillión looked to the floor and ran his fingers through his damp black hair.

"Even though our own InterDominion scientific community had only just become aware of this phenomonon less than half an hour earlier. Remarkable, would you not say?"

"Well, I—"

"And yet of far greater import is your proclamation that 'Princess' Ariadne had been kidnapped by the Federation. Since no one outside of a small circle at the highest levels of our government was aware of this unsuccessful attempt, are we to believe that you have developed clairvoyant powers, Senator?"

"No." He still did not look up into the relentless lights.

Egan pressed both fists together in an isometric exercise, but Stoner knew well that if Fuillión could see the gesture, he would interpret it in a very different way. "Very well, sir, let us then take up another matter. Your recent behavior prompted our very efficient Security forces to place electronic monitoring devices, surrounding your Parliamentary offices and your home."

The Senator looked up at once, his broad face hot with rage. "You had no right—"

"I beg to differ, sir! We had every right, both legally and morally, to investigate the sources of your extremely prescient information. Shall I tell you our findings? Until the recent international communications blackout, your home and office have been both the source and the target of coded burst transmissions centered upon the Federation 'research' satellite CENTOS-16. Our cryptographic experts are the most skillful to be found. Shall I read you the results of their labors, sir? Shall I remind you of the depth of your treason? Let us begin with the afternoon of three days past, when you..."

Fuillión writhed beneath the lights, the very picture of a man in hell. Stoner longed for a camera. "No."

"I beg your pardon, Senator?"

"I said...no. You don't need to read it to me. I admit it all, every bit of it."

Stoner heard a flurry of soft mutterings from the surrounding Security personnel in the darkness, but he could make out no more than a few disconnected phrases.

"It is good that you have chosen to do so." Dr. Egan put down the sheaf of transcript pages he had been holding. "And now, we must go into detail concerning your treasonous activities. Who was...?"

"No, wait." His face sagged, the old familiar truculence melting away as sweat blended with tears of anguish. "Please. Please, Dr. Egan... I admit to everything. Yes, I've been spreading information that came from Federation Intelligence. Deliberately. They wanted me to keep...to keep your attention distracted, keep you looking in the wrong direction. It was..." Fuillión swallowed, his voice a hoarse pleading. "Do whatever you want to me. Execute me, even. I deserve it, I admit it all! Just please, please don't let them know you caught me. If you do, they'll..."

In the twilight beyond the lamps, Egan nodded. "I believe I follow you, Senator, for I have perused your records with extreme care. But tell us now, please, for the record: what hold does Federation Intelligence have over you? How did they persuade you to betray the InterDominion?"

"It's my...my wife. And our children." Again, the faint rustle of voices around him. Stoner thought it eerily like the flutter of bats' wings in a cave.

"Yes. Valerie and Michel. And your wife's name was Catherine, was it not? They were reported killed during the Federation's wars against the Coralian."

"I know. But they're—" He tried to rise, but a firm hand pushed him down again to his chair. "I was...sent a package of photographs. I thought they were dead! That's why I emigrated to the New Lands after the War, to start over, without being reminded of them everywhere I looked! Do you know what it means to lose your entire family, Egan?"

"Thankfully, I do not. Pray continue."

"An envelope of photos arrived at my Senate office. Photos of Catherine and the children, all five years older, but it was them, beyond question! And then...I was personally contacted at a lunch counter, by a woman I didn't know and haven't seen since. She told me that they were being held 'safely'—meaning as hostages, of course—and if I followed instructions, they might be released unharmed." He briefly gave in to wracking sobs. "But the demands kept getting greater and greater. Just espionage at first, but then leading up to those public press conferences, each time with information they fed me, each time with stronger hints that Catherine and Michel and Valerie would be made to suffer, to the greatest extent that their sick sciences could ensure if I...if I didn't..."

The sobbing possessed him completely, then. Stoner began composing the story in his mind. Former InterDominion Senator André Fuillión broke down in tears today as he confessed to spying for the Federation...

Egan reached into the blaze of the spotlights to grasp the man's shoulder. "You need say no more at this time, Senator. Your story will be closely studied, to determine its validity. Until then, you will be held incommunicado, for your own safety and that of your family's. You will be questioned further after you have regained your composure." He gestured to the Security guards around him. "You may turn the room lights back on, if you please. Escort Senator Fuillión to the secure facility—with respect, mind you—and take all precautions to make certain he is not seen during the transfer."

The lights came back up. Fuillión slowly stood, looking very much the broken man. Several of the security guards moved in to wrap him in a bulky black coat; one of them added a pair of glasses and a false mustache. Stoner nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. But it'll probably work at that. Even without the costume-party disguise, the guy doesn't look anything like the cocky André Fuillión everybody's known and hated. Not any more.

As his guards led Fuillión from the room, Egan paused, as if at an afterthought. "Er, one moment, if you would, Senator. There remains one small point which I should like you to elucidate, if you would be so kind."

"Yes. Anything."

"Thank you. It may interest you to know that 'Princess' Ariadne is, in fact within the borders of the Federation, as is 'Prince' Maurice. However, it was not the Federation which took them there. In point of fact, they thwarted the abduction attempt, and went of their own free will. Did not your Federation contacts mention this to you?"

Stoner watched the Senator's—ex-Senator's—face work thoughtfully, like that of a very old man gnawing a strip of rubber. "No. My message—I'm sure you'll find it among your decrypts—was that they'd been captured and were being transported back to Federation airspace at that moment. Since the blackout, I haven't heard anything new."

"Ah." Egan brightened. He winked to Stoner and flexed his fingers as if itching for a pair of barbells. "Thank you, sir."

Just as Fuillión reached the door, he paused and looked back over one shoulder. "Dr. Egan, I've got to tell you...I'm glad you finally caught me. The strain's been like nothing I'd ever imagined. Betraying the InterDominion, worrying night and day about Catherine and the children... Well...I just wanted you to know."

He gave one final nod, and the guards led him away, each of his arms chained to one of their own.

"Well, Mr. Stoner," said Egan, once the prisoner was out of earshot, "you and I now have a task before us. You have heard the truth. Now we must craft a suitable cover story for the press, one which neither leads to dangerous suspicions nor compromises the safety of young Maurice and Ariadne."

Stoner sighed, feeling this ripe and juicy story slipping like water through his fingers. "You still think they haven't been captured, Doctor?"

"Yes, or the Federation would long ago have roared out its triumph. However, it is unclear whether the Federation leadership is yet aware that our young friends are within its borders, bound for an unknown destination."

"Uh-huh. In which case, Ariadne and Maurice'll be walking into a trap."

Egan smacked one massive fist into his opposite palm with a crack that made Stoner twitch. "But we can all take hope in the knowledge that the Federation, though it must now suspect that its kidnap scheme has failed, is at least still uncertain where our young friends may be. And our Miss Maeter's clever and unexpected imposture will have confused our enemies still further. Great events are unfolding, my friend, beyond our poor power to influence them any longer. We have done our utmost to set the stage, and now we must take the difficult role of watching the play unfold. More than we realize, I think, hinges on what will soon occur. Tell me, Mr. Stoner: do you have...faith?"

What the hell? "Uh...faith in what? I'm a guy who once lost faith in everything, Doctor, even myself. Maybe I'm still not ready to start trying it on again. Faith in what? The Will of Vodarek?" He flashed his trademark skeptical smirk.

But Egan's eyes glittered like steel bearings as he ushered Stoner from the room. "It would do, as a start."

—

—

Chapter Twenty-Six

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—

In the boat's rear-view mirror, Kaz watched Viyuuden, still seated cross-legged before Moonbeam, peering intently at the dog as he asked question after question. "Are there others like yourself?"

"Other dogs?"

"Other dogs with the power of thought and speech. This is unprecedented in all of human history."

Moonbeam tilted his head, as he did when pondering something to its utmost. "Is it? Don't know any hoomin history. I think other dogs maybe get like me. Maybe some cats, too. Didn't hear any talk, though. I only start think for day or two, I guess."

"I think we're getting near to Pilgrim Island," announced Kaz. "There's a channel up ahead, and a sign. Something about 'restricted passage ahead.'"

With obvious reluctance, the priest came forward, looking out into the indigo of twilight. "We are approaching the first of seveal public parks which surround the Island. Drop our speed to a minimum, please, and look for a likely spot to tie up. The waterflow into Sacred Return Lake itself is blocked by titanium-steel grids, but we must not draw attention to ourselves by approaching them too closely."

Kazuya considered switching on the spotlight above the boat's windshield, but remembered Viyuuden's warning against drawing attention. Several small craft, he saw, were tied up at the concrete edges of the channel, and he squinted ahead, maneuvering slowly. "It's a lucky thing you guys found us," he said as he edged the boat nearer. "I still can't figure how you we were coming?"

Tommy tugged at the knots in her still-damp hair and tied it behind. "I told you, we didn't. We were just running from the explosion, and there you were. I was wondering how you guys knew where we were going to be."

"All things are a part of a pattern which we can only dimly sense," said Viyuuden, hefting his backpack. "Attuning the spirit to the higher Will of Vodarek can help us to perceive that pattern." He looked once more toward Moonbeam, who sat with ears eager and upright. "That said, I can see that the texture of the pattern has increased geometrically of late. We—all of us, the world—seem to be moving wildly, in epicycles of concentric spheres. Can you not feel it in the shiftings of the Coral?"

Moonbeam stood and wagged his tail rapidly. "Yes. Scent of something new. All over." He looked toward the forward end of the boat, where Lark sat at Kazuya's side. "She knows," he growled, a soft rumble of unease.

"What?" Kaz looked to Lark, whose eyes blossomed wide and wondrous as she faced this way and that in slow, deliberate movements. "Again? Lark, are you—?"

Viyuuden put one finger to his lips for silence, and crouched at the girl's side. "Who are you?" he whispered.

"I am one. The other says." Her voice had a deep, hollow quality that made Kazuya's skin prickle. "I am not you."

The priest gave a deliberate nod, and Kaz had the feeling he was barely containing some vast excitement. "We are not the other," he said.

"You...are not me. You are not the other? The other is..."

The boat drifted into the rubber bumpers at quayside with a little thump. Kazuya cursed his inattention, and Lark blinked and was Lark once again. "Why are you all looking at me? Have I—?"

Viyuuden stood, and lifted one hand, as though in benediction. "You have not betrayed, us, no. Have no more fear on that score. It was what Kazuya has called one of your 'spells.' But it is past, now. Stay near to him at all times, please. Mr. Aruno—if you would be so good as to extinguish the cabin lights? Everyone discard all but the most essential items from your packs, for the final phase of our journey is at hand."

In the sudden darkness, Yuki stood and wriggled into her knapsack. "You act like you expected her to do that, to go all foggy the way she did."

"My dear Mrs. Novak, I have been hoping for her to do so. Please come with me, and help me to secure the boat. Mrs. Stevens, please follow us and keep a sharp lookout. Lark and Mr. Aruno, you will be last out, once we are assured that there is no immediate danger. Do not allow yourselves to be separated."

Kaz put one arm to Lark's shoulders and held her, wondering at his own lack of fear. "We won't be."

As he helped Lark up the short ladder to the quay, Kaz caught a myriad of scents on the breeze: river water, weedy and dark; the shrubbery that lined the walkway on all sides; dry grass, dormant against the winter to come.

"Look," said Lark, pointing almost directly overhead. "Up there! What is it?" Above them, far in the sky of the new night, a brilliant star blazed, outshining even the flaming ribbons of the Ley Lines.

"It's the Arkship," Kaz told her. "Still in geosync orbit after thousands of years, right over Pilgrim Island. Right where our ancestors came down to touch Earth again, after their wandering in the stars. But the Coral had changed it so much that they didn't even know it was Earth, not till the Coralian Wars."

Even Viyuuden paused to look up in reverence. "See how it catches the sunlight. The darkness has not yet climbed to its altitude." He tugged at the straps of his pack and began to walk. "Nor must we permit a still greater darkness to overtake us all. Come, follow me."

They fell in behind him. But Kaz, bringing up the rear with Lark, could not stop peering into every shadow as they walked, expecting the entire Federation military to pop out of the high trees at any second. Beyond the woods, he heard patrolling airships circle and hover, and he knew that Pilgrim Island itself could not be far. "How come we can walk openly like this? The Federation's ready to go to war—why isn't this place being patrolled?"

"This is a public park," said Viyuuden. "And it probably is being patrolled, although lightly. The bulk of the military's attention is surely being concentrated ahead, closer Sacred Return Lake." A small airship roared past overhead, its trapar pulse-jet engines a harsh buzz. "They are preparing against an aerial assault, not a handful of ragtag wanderers."

"Wait!" came a short, throttled bark from behind.

Kazuya spun round, startled to find Moonbeam trotting along toward them. "What're you doing here? I mean, not that I'm not glad to see you, but where we're headed is pretty risky. You shouldn't be coming with us. You oughta—"

"Kaz shut up. Somebody coming. Hoomins, more than one. Hide."

Without a word, Viyuuden pointed into a stand of laurel bushes to one side of the path and they all followed. River dampness, not entirely driven from their clothing during the boat ride, met the chill of the ground as they lay in hiding. Kaz realized, then, just how very cold and weary he really was; how weary all of them had to be. He drew Lark closer and tried not to give in to either shivering or sleep.

Three green-coated patrollers—Secpos, he saw at once—passed along the path, their high black boots squeaking softly. All of them carried heavy-caliber bolt-action rifles, indicating reserve forces, called into service during the current crisis.

For long minutes, they remained beneath the forest-smelling shrubs while the Secpos marched on and out of sight. "Come," whispered Viyuuden, and led them back to the path.

"That was a close one," said Tommy. "Thanks, Moonbeam."

Kazuya remained unconvinced. "I still say he's gonna get hurt if he tags along with us. Look, Moonbeam, you're not part of what we're up to. I don't even understand this all myself, but I have a feeling that when I do, I won't like it much. Go on, will you? Save yourself while you still can."

"Kaz is kind, not like other hoomins. Lark is kind. I follow." He lowered his head for a moment as they walked, then looked up again. "Smell something big. All round us, but near, inside."

"Ah," said Viyuuden, "your perception is strong. You sense the confluence of the Will. Great forces are moving, larger than all of us. Perhaps it is as part of that pattern that you have joined us, my friend. I think it certain, now, that there must be many more like you coming to awareness, all across the earth."

"Why?" asked Tommy. "What's that got to do with—?"

But he raised his hand for silence as they rounded a sharp curve in the pathway, where the dense trees and bushes fell away on all sides to reveal the tiered towers of the Palace of ReturnF, brilliantly illuminated. Both it and the tower city beyond were reflected in shimmering beauty by the water of Sacred Return Lake, the circular lagoon surrounding the Palace grounds. Above it all, small patrol airships circled endlessly, their cesium searchlights spearing downward from time to time.

Tommy stared in both wonder and revulsion "I've never seen it before. Even though I know what that place stands for...well, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Maybe you haven't been there," grunted Yuki, speaking for the first time since leaving the boat, "but I have. And the memory's a dirty one."

"You are both correct," Viyuuden said. He looked far upward, following a silvery thread that rose from the island's central structure and ran till it vanished in the night. In between those extremes, it slithered in and out of visibility, occasionally sparkling in the gleam of the searchlights. "This is the place where our ancestors returned from space. That mighty memorial was constructed long centuries before the Federation even existed—certainly before it became an instrument of oppression. All the same, it's now the heart of a great and violent beast, one we must soon penetrate."

"Oh, yeah? Well, in case you haven't noticed, there's only one bridge over to the Island, and it's on the other side. I can see AA nests over there, and plenty of military armored vehicles. Probably patrol boats making the rounds, too. What d'you say to that?"

He removed his pack and crouched down before it, poking around in its depths. "That you are correct, Mrs. Novak. So we must do our best to avoid those obstacles. Moonbeam—is anyone else approaching?"

"Smell nobody new."

"Good." Viyuuden pulled a folded square of something limp and dark from his pack, then stepped back as it hissed and swelled into a black inflatable raft, large enough—barely—for them all. "It is carbon-film fabric, and reflects little light. Mr. Aruno, if you would help me to unfold this cover?"

Kazuya took one end of the microthin sheet, surprised as it opened up to a matte black shroud as long as the raft itself. Viyuuden fastened it to the raft's sides by pressure-sensitive tabs, and it stayed erect, forming a low, humped cover perhaps a meter and a half high. He pushed the assembly to the lagoon's edge, where it floated very high, barely denting the surface of the water.

"Please enter now, all of you. We must get across before the moon rises above these trees, which it will soon do. We will not have much room, but then, our journey will not be a long one."

They climbed in, with Viyuuden at the bow, behind a small slit in the cover fabric for navigation. Kazuya let Yuki in first, followed by Tommy, Lark, Moonbeam and Kaz himself. "Should I push us out?" he asked. "Where're the oars, anyway?"

"We could hardly have transported oars over such a long distance, nor could we risk their noise as we cross." With metallic clips on wires, Viyuuden connected a device no larger than a wallet to a pair of raised studs on the boat's fabric. "This is the power cell for a magnetohydrodynamic strip along our keel. Would you be good enough to push us free, Mr. Aruno?"

Kaz reached out and gave the little raft a shove from the sandy shore. It slid away easily, and kept on moving forward after he drew his hand inside. "Is this water really saline enough for MHD to work?"

"Not efficiently, no. But our primary need is for silence, and for that it will serve."

"But...that little powerpack you've got there can't hold much energy for an MHD drive. After we do our job...how're we going to get back?"

It was Tommy who answered him. "We're not. Don't you get it, kiddo? Coming back alive is just a secondary priority for us."

"Do not be so pessimistic, Mrs. Stevens. I have never yet planned a suicide mission. Certainly we dare not try to retrace our steps, for that would lead to certain capture at best." In the faint glow from the power cell's LED, Kaz saw him smile. "I cannot say what opportunities will present themselves to us."

"Have faith in Vodarek, is that it?" Yuki made no effort to hide her cynicism.

"Vodarek is a state of mind with a Will. Aligning oneself with that Will opens many doors. For the moment, Mrs. Novak, I would ask your advice: you have been to this island on many occasions, most of them unpleasant. What sort of guard deployment would you expect during a military crisis?"

"In normal times, there's an Honor Guard of two hundred troops marching around the Palace. Their guns're pretty much for show, but they know how to use them, all right. I'd expect them to be a lot more worried about air attacks tonight than any kind of ground assault, though. AA emplacements, radar, Mascons, LARAN, plasma cannon, missles—you know, the usual air defenses. Hell, the Council's probably gone into hiding up in the ship anyway, keeping their precious butts safe. They won't be anyplace where things could get dangerous and dirty."

The raft undulated in slow waves, pushing Lark into closer contact with Kazuya, a sensation he did not find disagreeable. "Do they have some kind of spacecraft, then?" she asked.

Yuki did not respond. "No," said Viyuuden. "You have already seen the monomolecular filament stretching from the orbiting ship down to the ground station within the Palace. It is a remarkable design, never yet duplicated. In the beginning, it was a way for our ancestors to ferry themselves to the planet with a minimum of energy usage. An ascension gondola uses the filament as a sort of tramline, to shuttle the Council to and from their chambers on the Arkship above the the earthly base station. It is to that base station that we must now go."

Beside him, Kazuya felt Lark shake her head. "So that's how they do it. We—the Swallowtails, I mean—were always on the Colonel's personal flagship, so we never got to see those things. I hate him. The ways he used me..."

"You're not the only one," mumbled Yuki, barely audible. "When I was nineteen and just out of Intel Ops training..."

"Hoomins coming," growled Moonbeam. "Hoomins on water."

—

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

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—

"Okay, Maurice and Ariadne," Max was shouting, "everybody out. This bus's gone as far as it can, hurry it up! To the roof, double time!" The door slammed behind them as he and Phaedra jumped to the ambulance's hood and from there to the roof.

"What's going on?" said Ariadne. "Are we wrecked? Has the car been shot?"

Maurice took her hand and pulled her to the front compartment. "We're not shot. Max—or Hal, or whatever his name is today—ran us over a fence. We're in a Federation airfield. Let's go."

Still she hesitated, holding back and staring at him, confused and afraid. "Maurice...you don't really want me to... I'm not..."

"Are you crazy? Look, I don't know why you've been holding back like this, but we can work all that out later." The roar of engines rolled across the aerodrome's tarmac, and, nearer, sirens, approaching from the highway side. He seized her by the shoulders, gripping her, her face only centimeters from his own. "Whatever it is, I still love you. Got it? Whatever I did to get you so upset, I still love you. Now come on, please, and we can..."

She opened up her mind, then, her Coralian node flaring as she drew him into her innermost nightmare. Maurice, it's not you! It was me! I couldn't tell you. I was so ashamed.

—Ashamed? What for?

Because you were right! Those soldiers back there in the forest, the ones I was holding in the trapar stream—I wasn't doing it to protect us. I just wanted to kill them, slowly, to make them suffer before they died! And I was enjoying it! All I could think of was Gabriel and his wife, being hauled away by the Federation. About you and I being kidnapped, about all the people they killed...

—But Ariadne, you're not like them...

Yes I was! I had the power to torture them and make them scream, to take their lives, and I wanted to! And I would have, if you hadn't pulled free, broken from the Joining. Afterwards, I was so ashamed...I couldn't let you see, couldn't even talk to you.

Maurice reeled from the burst of self-loathing radiating from her mind in that instant. Time froze for both of them as their feelings, thoughts, fears sparked from one to the other in dancing microseconds.

—You mean like Mom? About how she did all those horrible things before she met Dad?

It was worse than that! Mother didn't know any better; she'd only just been born and she didn't know what she was doing! I knew, and I wanted it! I thought I was so powerful that I could do anything I wanted and it would be right. I was the Princess who came back from the dead, and I'd decide who to kill. I almost didn't come with you at all after that...I was so disgusted with myself, I didn't want to see the disgust in your eyes, too...

Maurice felt the tears brimming in her without seeing them. He took her in his arms and held her fiercely, even as the scream of the sirens swelled from outside. "You didn't kill them, though, Ariadne. And you're ashamed of even trying. I'm not disgusted by you, not ever, and don't you ever even think so. I love you, I'll always love you, okay?"

"Come on, dammit!" screamed Phaedra from outside.

—She's right. We can make it up to each other later, all right? We've gotta get moving. We're together again, now.

Together again.

Jewels throbbing, they jumped from the cab to the tangle of wire fencing that lay mangled beneath their silent ambulance. Maurice pushed her to the hood and rolled himself up after her. The wind was strong out here, surrounded by so much flatness, and the sustained blast of the airships taking off and landing rang in their ears. Ahead of them, Hal stood on the portside wing of a deeplane, operating its canopy release with one hand and beckoning to them with the other. "Stay away from the wing edges," he shouted, "they're sharp as razors."

The two of them jumped to the roof, then across to the slick, mirror-bright wing, hand in hand as they struggled to keep their footing. Hal jumped into the cockpit and Phaedra crawled in after him, settling onto his lap. She stuck one thumb out behind her, and Maurice nodded understanding.

—There's a back seat in this thing; it's a trainer. You and me can squeeze in there. I'll get in first and you ride in my lap, just the way they are. It's gonna be tight, but we can squeeze in.

Yes, hurry.

The instant they secured themselves in the secondary instructor's seat, Hal activated the canopy retractors and the transparent permaglass teardrop sealed itself around them. Silence fell like fog while he cursed and groped about the controls, working to bring the ship into operational mode.

Maurice risked a look behind. At the side of the road, two Secpo patrol cars stood with red warning lights strobing. Three troopers crouched by the fenders, pointing rifles in their direction; the fourth jabbered on a radio microphone. "They're not shooting at us."

Hal jammed a pair of switches downward and the instrument lights glowed a demonic red. At the same time, the deeplane took up a low hum that made it quiver before rising into the near-ultrasonic. "Territorial rights. Federation military'd have the butt of anybody—even State Security cops—who fired onto their aerodrome or airships." He pushed Phaedra's knees apart and drew two levers back. A jolt shuddered through the ship from nose to stubby stern. Then the landing brakes clanked loose and they began to crawl forward. "But you can make book that guy with the radio is on the line to the nearest Aero Corps authorities. The military'll be down on us like a truck full of bricks just as soon as they realize what's going on. Where the hell're the gyro controls on this model...dammit, they used to be over here...there we go."

He flicked on the comm and punched up the appropriate frequency. "Affirmative, Kilo Lima Golf," squawked the tinny little voices, "cleared for takeoff on runway Pantafive Unaone. Yokai, Kilo Lima Golf, ah, wind is from the northwest, twenty-five kph, with visibility unlimited."

"What's all that mean?" asked Phaedra.

"Runway Five One is long and wide, for the big aero cruisers. Something heavy's about to take off." The deeplane picked up speed, though still awkward and lumbering on the ground. From the nearest hangar, two enlisted men ran toward them, swinging glowing orange batons in an obvious effort to flag them down. Hal ignored them and rolled out toward the busy runways, alert and watching the skies above for incoming traffic.

The comm screeched to life once more. "All aircrews, repeat, all aircrews, we have a rogue. Pursuit ship November Romeo Lima Kartefour is in a rogue situation. Repeat, we have a rogue."

Maurice turned his head to the right, finding the letters NLR-4 stenciled on the starboard wing. November Lima Romeo-4 is us. Above them, a trio of long, narrow spiker assault craft streaked by, dark against the swirling glow of the sky.

Under Hal's delicate control, the deeplane rolled past the nearest runway, over the grassy median strips, and across another narrow fighter-class runway. Landing lights blazed to their left, and a Nakajima KI-201 strategic bomber roared overhead, clearing their cockpit by no more than five meters. The radio chattered again, but this time, no one paid any attention.

"Where are all the LFOs?" Maurice said. "They should be all over the place. Why aren't they sending LFOs to nail us?"

"Count your blessings," Hal told him, and stared intently toward his right, as though finding something of great interest outside. "There. This's runway Five One. That big ship down at the end is a manta, a heavy cargo transport. That'll be KLG, building up thrust for takeoff." He turned their deeplane parallel to the broad Five One runway, setting the brakes and feeding power in precise twitches to the reactors.

"Behind us," said Ariadne. "I can see men running in our direction, across the field."

"Uh-huh. I guess the word's got out. Keep an eye on'em, and let me know if they get closer than thirty meters." The distant manta grew larger now, its six engines illuminating the runway behind.

Something hard pinged off their portside wing.

"They're shooting at us," said Phaedra.

"Yeah. Come on, KLG, get the lead out..."

Another shot slid across their titanium skin, this time nearer to the cockpit. Manta KLG lifted ponderously from the ground as it bore down on them, pulling in its landing gear, rising and gathering speed, a great dark winged demon fighting its way into the sky.

And then it was above them, blotting out everything, thundering till the ground trembled. Its wide-open engines lit the night as it passed, and Hal swung the deeplane round behind it, releasing the brakes, pushing the throttles all the way forward. The light, high-powered ship picked up speed at once. Maurice swallowed as he watched the blue runway markers flash by in an accelerating strobe, and Hal tilted the ship's nose up radically, slipping the chains of gravity. They took flight, following the blaze of the massive manta's engines, bobbing in the vicious turbulence of its passage.

"They won't dare scramble anybody to blast us," said Hal, to no one in particular. "Not if we stay close enough to our big friend out there. I'll hold us at a half-kilo distance, with just enough altitude to keep us above the worst of the backwash for about ten minutes. That'll confuse the radar, too. Then we drop to low altitude and make for Pilgrim Island."

Maurice had more than a few reservations about this plan. "But they know we're on the run, and the crew of that manta is probably telling the base all about us right now. Won't they be waiting for us?"

"The chain of command is strong, but it's clumsy. By the time Pilgrim Island's air defenses hear about us, we'll already be there. I hope. There aren't any airstrips on the Island, so you two better have some really good plan for what to do about landing."

Maurice's mind and Ariadne's touched in a single chilling thought.

We don't.

—

—

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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—

—

Everyone in the boat froze.

Only the faint slap of rippling water disturbed the silence as their little inflatable rose and fell with each wave. Viyuuden brought them to a dead stop, and all of them went as still as mushrooms, barely daring to breathe.

Kazuya wondered, for a moment, if the dog might have been mistaken. And then he heard it: the faint thump, thump of a small boat's engine, along with the sloshing of a solid hull parting water before it. Patrol boat, he realized, and held even more tightly to Lark.

As the last to enter the raft, he found himself next to the rearmost visibility slit, and leaned fractionally closer, peering out as the now-powerless raft turned lazily in the wind. Some distance off—about twenty-five meters, he estimated—a ten-meter patrol boat chugged by on the Island side of the circular lake. Someone on deck sent the beam of a flashlight back and forth over the water, but if the patrollers had proper searchlights aboard, none were now in use. An airship passed overhead, apparently on routine patrol, and the Federation boat moved slowly on.

Tommy let out her breath. "That was a close one."

"Fortunately," said Viyuuden as he fed power to the raft's MHD strip once again, "they passed between us and the Island. Had we been on the Island side of them, we would have been silhouetted against the lights. Let us hurry now to make our landing before they return. Moonbeam, thank you for your timely warning."

Presently, the hiss of sand against inflatable hull told them that the raft had made landing on Pilgrim Island. Very cautiously, Viyuuden poked his head out of the black shroud, then beckoned to those still inside. One by one, they crawled forward and out onto the narrow beach. Even through his fear, Kaz could still feel awe at the glistening monomolecule line reaching from the peak of the Palace to the Arkship above, now unseen as the darkness finally caught up with it. From horizon to horizon, weirdly flickering glows flashed like heat lightning, in green, red, blue and lurid yellows. And against it all, the shining tracery of the Ley Lines burned brilliant green, under the influence of what strange energies, Kaz could not imagine.

"It's weird," he whispered. "What's going on, anyway?"

"Perhaps that will soon be made clear to us." Viyuuden crouched and opened all of the raft's inflation valves, then rolled up the flaccid mass and stowed it in a stand of lakeside cattails. "A poor hiding place, but by morning it will not matter, one way or another."

"I don't like the sound of that," said Yuki.

"Neither do I." Tommy pulled an RPP from her pack and hefted it before stuffing it in one pocket of her jacket. "Don't you think it's about time you told us what we're going to do once we get up there?" She pointed up the steep bank separating them from the broad plaza above.

"Certainly. We are going to enter the Palace and proceed to the ceremonial procession room where the tramcar from the Arkship docks."

"Oh, is that all?"

"No. Then we shall enter the Council's tramcar and ascend to the ship itself."

Kaz stood stunned, waiting for the cool smile that would tell them it was all a joke. "That's your great plan? D'you seriously think we're just gonna stroll in there? Do you think maybe the guards we saw from across the lake are gonna just sit back and watch while we do all this?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Aruno. We shall need stealth, intelligence and courage. Those of you who still have weapons should carry them on your person. Our packs are no longer needed, and we should leave them here." He pulled his makeup kit from one pocket and reapplied the tint covering the wheel tattoo on his forehead.

"This is crazy," sighed Kazuya, staring back across the lagoon and wishing very much that he could swim all the way back to the Heart of the World.

Lark drew him aside and slipped the oval plastic bulk of an RPP into his hand. "You should take this. You lost your pack when you pulled me from the river."

"But you might need it. Lark, I can't take—"

"No, it's all right. I was never any good with hand weapons, anyway. Not even in the old days, when I was a tool of the Federation." She touched his cheek and smiled. "You should trust Viyuuden. I've known him for five years, while I worked to throw off my...conditioning. His intuition is amazing."

"His 'intuition' might be getting us killed in the next couple of minutes." He held both fists at his sides, appalled at the sudden thought of what her former masters might do to her if she were captured alive.

Pulling back her hair, she tied it behind her head and looked up at the fiery skies. "I don't think so. After all, I have you to look out for me, don't I?"

Viyuuden beckoned to them, and she was away before Kaz could think of a suitable answer.

He hurried along to catch up, staying beside Moonbeam as they crept up the damp and slippery bank. Above the rim of the embankment—for flood control, he guessed—he could only stare at a scene like something out of his most extravagant dreams.

At the very center of the almost perfectly circular island, the Palace of the Return rose in stages, like a huge and well-lit wedding cake. Each white synthestone story shone with the reflected light of hundreds of small spotlights, all of them aimed up the curved walls to produce an effect of cascading beauty. Each layer narrowed as it climbed to the monofilament itself at the very peak, a visible symbol of the connection of humankind to the stars themselves. "It's beautiful," he whispered. Then, immediately afterward, "But how the hell are we gonna get into that?"

Tommy could only agree. "Looks like seven AA batteries spaced around the perimeter. I count five searchlights aimed at the sky. Three radar lorries on this side; maybe more beyond the Palace."

"Not to mention a couple of hundred ground troops marching damn near everywhere," said Yuki.

"Those were too obvious to mention. Viyuuden—what now? Has the Will of Vodarek finally run out of steam?"

"Hardly, Mrs. Stevens. If we wait till the next cadre of guards passes, I suggest we make a run for that bronze statue of Colonel Dewey next to the courtyard—"

Yuki struck the soft ground with one fist. "It is Dewey! They actually put up a statue of that son of a bitch? Just look at him there, staring up into space, like some kind of noble martyr! That filthy—"

"It is as a noble martyr that he has been presented to the people of the Federation since the end of the Coralian War, Mrs. Novak. Now please pull your head down as the guards pass!"

They withdrew further down the bank, out of sight. As they waited for the metronomic crash of high-stepping military guards to diminish in the distance, Kaz thought to hear Yuki still muttering bitterly under her breath. The reality of what the late Colonel Dewey Novak had done to her life took on a tangible reality to him at that moment, and he looked to Lark, finding only a face showing no emotion at all, blank and void...

"It is near, now," she said with precise, toneless inflection. "Absorption must soon begin. It says It is not me, but how can it be so? These dreams are without meaning or logic. Only absorption is communication..."

To Kazuya's amazement, Viyuuden hurried across Tommy and Yuki in a series of quick, crablike sideward leaps, to take Lark by the arm. "No!" he insisted, a harsh whisper of desperation. "It is not a dream! There is more than you! There is 'I' and there is 'we!' Wait only a little longer, and you will see!"

"Guards're past," said Yuki. "If we're gonna make a dash for that pile of wasted bronze, now's the time."

Viyuuden nodded, and Kaz saw fear in his hard features for the first time. "Protect her, Kazuya." He stood, then, and faced the courtyard above. "Now, so near to the end, comes our greatest trial. All of you, keep your weapons ready but concealed. I shall walk toward the base of the statue. The rest of you please follow me at five-second intervals. You must resist the temptation to hurry. Simply walk as you would normally, to attract as little attention as possible."

He walked up the remaining slope and disappeared over the top. Yuki followed, her chin held high, then Tommy. "We're next," said Kazuya to Lark and Moonbeam. To his deep relief, she seemed herself again. He helped her to her feet and they stood together, climbing up and over the ridge. Protect her, Kazuya. The words would not leave his mind. Protect her. Protect her...

—

—

Chapter Twenty-Nine

—

—

—

Hal banked the deeplane into a hard portside barrel roll, taking them out of the jetwash of the Federation manta. They leveled out at an altitude of no more than a hundred meters, skimming along just over trees, buildings and bridges.

Ariadne touched Maurice's mind. Does he know where he's going?

—He's been right so far. He seems like a pretty sharp guy to me.

Phaedra thinks so, too. She's so different, now. And she loves him.

—Yeah. Maybe that's why she's different.

"Two minutes to Pilgrim Island," called Hal, never moving his eyes from the terrain ahead. "If we don't get shot down first, I'm gonna circle the Palace and bring this thing as close to stall speed as it'll let me. That okay with you two back there?"

"Uh, yeah." —Ariadne, we've gotta do something! We can't just let him crash. And with us doubled up the way we are, the ejection seats aren't gonna do us any good.

I know. I have an idea. Join with me, Maurice. I'm all right, now, I promise. Please trust me again. It'll take both of us to do this.

-#-

Kazuya felt naked in a nest of venomous serpents as he walked out onto the wide plaza surrounding the Palace of Return. The Palace itself loomed enormous before them, its surrounding wide strips of concrete walkways interrupted by frequent groves of trees and shrubs that radiated outward in bands of green. Lights blazed everywhere, making the plaza as bright as noon. "You smell anything we oughta know about?" he asked Moonbeam, mainly to keep his mind from the utter terror of being a slowly-moving target on a well-lit backdrop.

"Hoomins all over. Most of them tired. Some starting to get scared."

"Scared? You mean us?" Ahead of them still marched Viyuuden, Yuki and Tommy, in varying states of theatrical unconcern. The heroic sculpture of Dewey Novak still lay twelve or fifteen agonizing meters distant. Gray dishes of sensor antennae rotated slowly on their raised platforms, and Kaz imagined they could see directly through him, to the terrified core of his soul.

"No. Other hoomins. The ones in green coats."

"I think he's right," said Lark. "Can't you hear it? Some of them are shouting to each other, over that way. Something is—"

"Stand where you are!" The voice came at the same instant as the ratcheting click of automatic rifles being charged. "You will not move without authorization! You will answer all questions promptly when ordered!"

Kazuya took the risk of turning his head. Directly behind, three Federation Landestroopers stood with feet apart and weapons trained on them. Kaz held his breath, waiting for Viyuuden to do something clever that would free them all. He did not.

"Hey, what's with you guys?" said Tommy, to his frightened surprise. "We're from Engineering Unit Foxtrot-Tango twelve. Civilian consultants, you jerks! We're here to bring the radar and LARAN units up to spec."

The leader frowned. "We've heard nothing about this."

"Well, you'd better check with HQ, Sarge. You know how the brass can be about noncoms not keeping up on the Orders of the Day." She rolled her eyes. "Even though it's usually their own damn fault."

Yuki joined in the performance. "Haven't you got a Political Officer in this unit? They're supposed to be kept up-to-date directly from the General Staff. Come on, will you? It'll be our butts in a basket if there's an attack before we can do a firmware upgrade on the MOBTRAC systems."

The leader—the sergeant, Kaz now understood—wore a deeply undecided face. Judging from the many stories Tommy had told him about the rigors of military discipline for incompetence, he knew the man had to be contemplating a fifty-stroke lashing for letting unauthorized personnel pass, versus a twenty-stroke lashing for delaying a critical systems upgrade. "Well..." he told them at last, "show us some ID, then."

Wearing a conciliatory smile, Viyuuden casually walked up to the man and reached for his back pocket. "Certainly, Sergeant. Here you—"

Klaxon horns sounded all over the Plaza of the Return. The spotlights turned and converged in one area of the sky, where something flashed brightly in their reflected light. "General quarters!" a hundred speakers commanded at once. "All units general quarters. Incoming intruder alert! To your posts at once."

The sergeant, seeing bigger fish to fry, beckoned to his men. The three of them ran off on the double, leaving the "civilian consultants" to be dealt with by someone else. "Take cover!" he shouted to them over his shoulder as they disappeared around the base of the Dewey monument.

Viyuuden slipped the RPP he'd been about to use back into his rear pocket. "That is three lives spared, for a change. Hurry—to the Palace, before we are stopped again!"

-#-

Hal Farnsworth swore as the floodlights hit them in mid-air. "They're onto us now, yes they are. There's the Island down there. We took'em by surprise, but not by much. Damn, and this trainer hasn't got any ECM!" An amber light flashed on the instrument panel, accompanied by harsh squealing from the cockpit speaker. "They've got radar lock! Hang on, everybody!"

He threw the deeplane into a sharp dive that sent Phaedra bumping into the cockpit overhead. The thin streaks of tracer rounds made flaming dashes in the air where they'd just been.

—He can't fly his way out of this, Ariadne! There must be a dozen antiaircraft nests down there.

Then we must bring it down for him. Join with me, now. Please, Maurice.

-#-

Kazuya ran for all he was worth, following Viyuuden, Lark at his side, sprinting over concrete, grass and bits of hot shrapnel as the night exploded around them. The antiaircraft units around the Island spewed a deafening barrage into the skies, long gouts of flame that left a caustic smoke in the air behind them.

Ahead, Viyuuden shouted something that Kaz could not understand, and pointed down a flower-edged pathway. Moonbeam bounded after, flinching with each explosion. Lark stumbled, but Kaz held her tightly and she nodded, then ran again. Before them, the huge Palace rose like a cliff face that flashed in the angry glare of the AA cannon, always ahead, never seeming to grow any nearer. His head rolled with the dizziness of exhaustion, his knees trembled with every step. How much further? he could not stop himself from wondering. How much further? He coughed and staggered, but with Lark's help, kept on running. And still the Palace remained impossibly far away.

Viyuuden came to a stop. Yuki nearly collided with him and Tommy lurched, almost falling. Is he lost? Kaz wondered. And then he saw the ring of Federation troopers arrayed around the entrance to the Palace, and wondered no more.

The soaring entry arch remained a scant ten meters distant, across a broad encircling avenue. We can run back, he thought, then immediately realized the impossibility of it. No. They've already got their rifles on us. They've seen us. They'd cut us down before we could even turn around. And with all this damn racket, nobody's gonna be able to pull that "civilian consultants" routine a second time. We're cooked.

The platoon leader shouted something into his headset mike, and the rest of them shouldered their automatics. Viyuuden stood tall and resolute, not giving in to defeat even now. Kaz and Lark held each other, and he wished more than anything else that he could speak to her at that moment. He waited for the burst of gunfire that would be the last thing they would hear.

But instead of firing, the troopers turned abruptly to their left. A harsh greenish glow lit their faces and a hideous screeching came echoing down the Palace avenue, screaming metal and the crash of debris, drawing nearer, fast.

Kaz stared, unbelieving, as a silver deeplane roared down out of the night, bouncing along the paved walkway, its guns clattering, raking the Federation troops that still remained. Its landing gear crumpled and its edged starboard wing grazed along the entrance arch. Plate glass shattered in rainbow showers; door frames smashed and crumbled. It slowed, and tilted nose-down, and nearly tipped over forward before the surrounding pale green envelope of trapar flowing along its wings settled it gently to the cracked concrete.

The deeplane's engines guttered and flamed out just as the canopy unsealed. A Coralian girl dressed as a nurse—Anemone Sorel? No, her daughter, what's her name, Phaedra—climbed out, followed by a grim-looking blond man in physician's white hospital coat. He paused to help two others from the rear cockpit level. Holy crap, it's the Prince and Princess! Maurice and Ariadne! What the hell're they doing here?

As though he'd expected it all along, Viyuuden beckoned them onward, past the downed plane. None of them hesitated for an instant.

—

—

Chapter Thirty

—

—

—

Holland checked the holo display once again. The special low-temperature flight suit chafed under his arms, but Egan had insisted he wear it, and Egan was pretty much always right.

The IX-14A interceptor had taken the ballistic flight to the polar cap at a speed that would have had him dancing in the aisles in the old days of the Moonlight. But those days were over, and whatever might be going on now, Holland knew for a certainty that dancing would not be in order. "We're six minutes from geographic north," he announced over the cockpit intercom. "You can just see the Boundary Cliffs ahead. I'm throttling back so we don't overshoot into Federation airspace."

"Right" said Renton. But Holland knew from that hollow intonation that it was not Renton, that it was the two of them, merged together, mind to mind. And that usually meant trouble in a big way.

"Dropping below sonic speed...there. I'm circling us around the zero point."

"Please land a hundred meters from geographical polar north," they said. "It will protect you from any unexpected effects."

The interceptor's speed dropped rapidly and Holland ignited the vertical thrusters, kicking up a storm of snowflakes while he looked for a likely landing spot. "'Effects?' What kind of 'effects' are you two talking about? Why won't you tell me what the hell's going on?"

"We don't know ourselves, yet."

"Oh, now that's encouraging." Ice crystals danced up before them, shimmering little rainbows in the thrusters' light. Holland extended the landing gear and cut power. They settled to the icy desert with a soft crunching of snow. He throttled back the engines to Warm Ready and cut the cockpit lights.

The sky was like nothing he'd ever seen in a long life of wonders, the Ley Lines brilliant as neon tubes, with gigantic curtains of red and blue and violet and orange flapping over an enormous blue-green waterfall that converged directly ahead. Holland looked to the instruments. All of them registered either nothing at all, or readings so off-the-dial as to be useless. Tiny sparks of trapar sizzled along the fuselage and wings, running up and down, rising into the air to join the gaudy sky. "I don't know what kind of forces those are out there, but they're damn sure nothing like anybody's ever seen. Are you two really positive it's going to do the InterDominion any good to go out there?"

They stood, Eureka cool and ethereal, Renton watching with his father's confident eyes. A thin curtain of trapar enveloped them both. "It's for the whole world that we're going out," they said. "Thanks for bringing us, Holland. No one could have gotten us here as fast as you."

"Yeah, well I've been ferrying you two around for so long, it's gotten to be second nature by now—hey, wait a minute! It's minus forty-six centigrade out there! Put on your damn survival suits!"

The Renton part of them smiled. "We won't need them. You'd better close your faceplate, now."

Before he could stop them, Eureka released the rearmost cockpit hatch, and the permaglass folded upward. Holland imagined he could almost feel the brutal cold through the fabric of his heated suit. "Okay, I guess you—or the Coral, or whatever—know what you're doing. I hope so, anyhow. And listen, you two give me a buzz on the double if anything goes wrong, you hear?"

They floated lightly to the snow with no evident discomfort and Eureka looked up at him. "Keep an eye out for us, please. Just in case we need a bit of help...afterward." The hatch shut silently behind them.

"What? What the hell is 'afterward?' After what? Look, what am I supposed to—?" But they were already running ahead, like two carefree kids on the beach, and Holland Novak, not for the first time, could only watch.

-#-

"Is that the South Pole ahead?" said Dominic.

Hap Fukoda throttled back the IX-14B and checked the gyrocompass. None of the other instruments had reported anything useful for hours. "Yeah, looks like it. Right where all those lines of light are coming down to earth. It's weird; like an underwater whirlpool or something. What is that stuff?"

"Trapar, mainly. But also ionized particles from the solar wind and a dozen other charged particles that shouldn't be here at all. Or so Dr. Egan says."

Anemone stared out and upward, mesmerized. "Would you look at that aurora. Jeez, I've seen it before, but never like this. It's like the whole damn sky's on fire."

With one eye on the gyrocompass and the other on the holo display, Hap switched over to thruster hover. "Want me to put down right on the geographic pole?"

"No. Better settle down a hundred meters or so away. We'll walk the rest of the way."

"Walk? Like hell you will! This is the Antarctic, and Barrier Cliff or no Barrier Cliff, it's cold out there! Minus fifty-one point six, to be exact, and a seventy kph wind to make it all the colder. Even after you put on your cold suits—"

He saw Dominic look to Anemone, and the little oval jewels in their foreheads flashed. "We won't need the cold suits," said Dominic. "We'll be all right."

Suspecting they were harboring some bizarre death wish, Hap let the interceptor float to the ice and cut thruster power. "Are you guys serious? You really think the Coral is gonna protect you out there, in that?"

The two of them faced one another with interlaced fingers. "It'll protect us," said Anemone, her eyes never leaving her husband's. "And Phaedra, and Maurice and Ariadne, and everyone else. But it needs us to do that." As she spoke, Anemone's voice merged with Dominic's, until their words came in perfect unison. The Coralian Nodes on their faces glowed brilliantly and stayed lit. "Please open the hatch for us," they said.

Somehow, Hap found it impossible to refuse them. He reached for the switch and opened the cabin to the savage antarctic chill. "Okay. Best of luck to you."

He shut the hatch behind them immediately and watched them run forward toward the whirlpool of light, eagerly, like two breathless stars ready to return to the night.

-#-

Jobs stared at his monitor, slow to react, his mind dulled from sleeplessness. He cleared his dry throat, twice. "Dr. Morita."

Katsuhiro Morita, now occupying Dr. Egan's seat in the control center, did not look up from his own display. "I see it, Mr. Stevens. The lunar trapar flow has begun to increase exponentially. And yet it's being somehow contained by the earth's magnetic field. If I may be pardoned for such anthropomorphism, It's almost as though the earth is resisting the trapar infusion."

The door swung open and Dr. Egan himself marched in like a victorious athlete. "You are not being fanciful, my friend. No, please—stay in your seat. I will pull a second chair over. The earth—or, to be more precise, the Coral—is resisting. Mr. Stevens, would you be so kind as to route these satellite images to Mr. Stoner's network center? What happens next should be seen by the entire InterDominion."

Jobs tapped out the destination code for the Ministry of Information network feed and when the coded confirmation came back, directed the data channels to their consoles. "What will happen next, Doctor Egan?"

"I am as anxious to find out as yourself. Please be certain that Dr. Wossel is recording all possible aspects of this phenomenon."

"Yes, sir." He opened the link to Woz's University team. "Anything else?"

Morita faced him with dark and anxious eyes. "I suggest that you pray, Mr. Stevens."

—

—

Chapter Thirty-One

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—

—

Over the shattered plate glass and bronze shards they leaped and ran, across the ruin of the Palace's main entry gate. Glass crunched and crackled beneath their boots. Moonbeam whimpered at the cuts to his unprotected paws until Kazuya bent to pick him up and carry him beyond the debris field. "Thanks," he barked, and jumped to the floor once again.

A great domed arch soared overhead, and on all sides, rows of wooden benches. Service lights cast their dim illumination everywhere, and by their ghostly light Kaz could see that they were running toward the center of a great dome, the Cathedral of the Prodigals, covering the very spot where the returning Pilgrims had made planetfall so very long ago. The deafening roar of gunfire from outside faded, here, muted and distant, but he had no illusions of escape. Within minutes, more Federation troops would be flooding in here, and no respect for hallowed history would hold their fire.

The Prince and Princess, he noted, ran with feathery tread, as though their feet barely contacted the ground at all. And the mysterious blond doctor and Phaedra Sorel looked out for each other with the unmistakable instinct of lovers. Kazuya coughed, and held to Lark's hand, and kept running.

At the very center of the Cathedral dome, on a raised floor ringed by soft tubular lights, waited a sort of glassed-in calliope, fifteen meters across and built around a central metallic cylinder. "What's that?" wheezed Lark.

"It's the official tramcar, for the Council members to get up and down from the Arkship. Their actual chambers are up there. They hardly ever come down. I think Coda was the last Council member to descend, and that was..."

"I know. Before Dewey murdered her and the rest of the Council. He—" she fell to coughing, then hurried to keep up "—he corrupted everything he touched. Including me."

"You're not the only one with a score to settle—"

Viyuuden leaped into the open door of the tramcar, crouching with his RPP drawn, alert for any possible traps. Finding none, he motioned them inward. "Hurry, please!"

No one argued. Yuki and Tommy, their own RPPs drawn and ready, stood by the door as Ariadne and Maurice, followed by the blond doctor and Phaedra Sorel, entered. Kazuya and the exhausted Lark brought up the rear, along with Moonbeam, his tongue lolling, panting heavily.

"Now what?" said Tommy. "Anybody know how to drive this thing?"

Viyuuden lifted an elaborately-inlaid bronze panel to reveal a control panel, its status lights glowing in pastel shades. "The power to ascend the tramline has been disabled. I expected no less." Then, turning to the Prince and Princess: "Would you be so kind?"

They nodded in unison, like puppets on joined strings, and held their four hands before them. At the same time, the rattle of gunfire boomed hollow in the vast chamber, and Kazuya groaned to see Federation soldiers, at least a dozen of them, charging down the long aisle. "Is this glass bulletproof?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter," said Maurice and Ariadne, in that eerie synchronous voice. A blue-green stream of trapar leaped from them, engulfing the tramcar. Its doorway closed at once, and bullets vaporized in the surrounding trapar cloud without touching the glass itself.

The doctor reached out to shake Viyuuden's hand. "Hal Farnsworth, sir. I know you by reputation."

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Farnsworth. Whatever you've done to ensure this reunion, I am deeply grateful."

Yuki jerked her RPP back and forth, looking for targets. "Save the introductions, dammit! We're surrounded!" Kaz and Lark drew back, toward the central cylinder, watching as the troopers spread out to encircle the tramcar, firing randomly, only to see their shots flash to harmless trapar flares against the green glow.

Ariadne and Maurice raised their hands and the tramcar trembled. Overhead, the five stories of the Palace irised open up one by one to the sky and the entire device levitated, rising on its indestructible monomolecular guide line, accelerating until they burst free from the Palace altogether, leaving the chaos of Pilgrim Island far below.

In the shocking silence, the only sound for a moment was the ragged breathing of the fugitives. Phaedra spoke up at last. "Hey, you guys, what's a dog doing here?"

"Who you?" Moonbeam shot back. "What you do here?"

Her big Coralian eyes grew even rounder. "What the hell? Did somebody—"

"There is little time for explanations," said Viyuuden, waving toward Maurice and Ariadne, who stood motionless while the trapar cloud bore them all upward. "Our friends have joined with the Will of Vodarek, weaving the Pattern of which we all are now a part. Our trials have not yet ended, for we have no idea what awaits us in the Arkship above."

Lark clutched at her head and wavered, as though she might collapse. Kaz threw both arms around her and bore her upright. "What's the matter? You okay?"

"I think so. I just...I thought I heard something. Like...like a big booming voice, only without words. And I don't know what it was trying to say, but somebody else did, and didn't like it."

"Have no further fears for your sanity, Miss Lark," Viyuuden regarded her with a sly smile that Kazuya didn't like at all. "Your remarkable strength and patience will only be tried a little longer. And if the burden becomes a heavy one, rely upon Kazuya to share it with you."

Kaz's face glowed, and he knew it. "I will. I'll be here for her. Two wings'll lift twice as much, y'know."

"How fast're we going, anyway?" Hal Farnsworth stood at one of the transparent walls, looking out at the curve of the earth, faintly luminous in the shine of the full moon. Above them, the tiny spark of the Arkship took on shape and form as they rushed up to meet it.

"My paws are healed," said Moonbeam as he touched them to the floor in an experimental way. "Why so fast?"

"You are among vectors of the Coralian Gift, my friend." The priest hefted his RPP, and did not pocket it. "As for our speed, only Maurice and Ariadne could say for certain, and they are otherwise occupied at the moment."

Kazuya looked up through the permaglass roof, and shivered in wonder. "It's huge," he said. "I always knew it was big, but not like this."

Above them, the starfield was rapidly being occluded by an enormous metallic oval, glowing dully in the aurora that swirled around them. One by one, they all fell silent as it expanded over their heads, watching in disbelief.

Yuki stood with open mouth, shaking her head. "Holy crap. How big is that thing? Ten kilometers long? Twenty? Forty? How could the ancients have ever built something like this?"

"Its actual size is no longer recorded on earth, Mrs. Novak. Nor is the number of passengers it once bore. You do well to feel such reverence in its presence. Our ancestors had mighty dreams, and a determination not to allow our race to be annihilated by the encroaching Coral. And yet in escaping it, they unknowingly forged the future beginnings of the partnership between Humanity and Coral that we must now protect. Perhaps, even in those dim and distant days, the Will of Vodarek was already making itself manifest."

"What d'you mean 'we must now protect?'" said Phaedra. "That doesn't sound so good. Is the partnership in danger?"

"Very much so, Miss Sorel. So much so that it is no exaggeration to say that all life on Earth now hangs by the most fragile thread. We are in time, I think—but barely."

No one spoke after that. Buoyed by the uprushing cloud of trapar surrounding them, they sailed upward on their golden filament, staring in silence as the vast Arkship swelled to fill their entire sky.

—

—

Chapter Thirty-Two

—

—

—

The Arkship's docking recess, that had at first appeared no more than a pit on the skin of a distant orange, expanded as they neared, to become a hemispherical cavity into which the tramcar nestled itself. Automatic latches clanked and hissed around them and a green light glowed on the central shaft, to the accompaniment of a discreet welcoming chime.

"Does that mean we can go up into the ship now?" asked Tommy, a bit dubious.

Viyuuden touched a contact on the central cylinder and a door opened, revealing a spiral stairway leading upward. "So it appears. I will go first; the rest of you prepare to take action if anything happens to me."

Kaz wondered what "action" they would be expected to take, but no one argued the point. With cautious steps, he ascended. There was the sound of a hatch opening, and Viyuuden called down to them. "All seems clear. You may come up, now, but stay alert for hidden traps."

Yuki went first, followed by Tommy, then Maurice, Ariadne, Phaedra and Hal Farnsworth, both of them looking absurdly out of place in their medical uniforms. Kazuya let Moonbeam trot ahead, then took the final position behind Lark. He cast one last look back at the tramcar and the sparkling city lights from the earth far below before turning his eyes upward, toward the ship. I've never been so far from home. In fact, nobody's been this far from the earth since the Pilgrims. It feels weird.

He emerged from the hatchway to find himself in an unexpectedly luxurious chamber lit by a self-luminous ceiling. Muted abstract patterns in an unfamiliar style lined the walls. The air smelled faintly of some exotic lubricant, perfume and fresh bread. All around them, the sounds of the great ship maintaining itself formed a faint background: hissing, the hum of servomotors, the gurgle of liquid in invisible tubes and others, less easily identified.

Prince Maurice—it seemed that he and the Princess were no longer linked—went to the furthest wall, where the characters of unfamiliar tongues were inscribed on a plate of golden metal. "What languages are these?"

The Princess joined him and ran her fingertips over the glyphs. "Japanese, English and Russian. But I don't know what they mean."

Even as she spoke, the plate reacted to her touch by opening a door in the wall before them. Viyuuden, RPP held ready, hurried to look through before allowing them to pass. "Apparently they say 'Press here to open door.' I see nothing immediately threatening beyond."

"And then what?" Yuki said. "This ship's gigantic. Are we just supposed to wander around until we find what we're looking for? And by the way, what are we looking for?"

"The thought-broadcasting device in Chamber 82, described by the researcher Miku Ichigo, twenty-six years ago." Ariadne's wings quivered as she spoke. "The arkship contains alien artifacts that the Pilgrims picked up during their travels. No one knows how many, or what they all do. That's the one we have to find."

For a moment, Yuki stood speechless. "An alien machine? This is a joke, right? Someplace on a spaceship the size of the whole solar system, there might be a magical alien gadget that broadcasts thoughts? And we're supposed find it, recognize it and know how to operate it—if it exists at all? Viyuuden, you really have lost your mind. This is your big plan for saving the world?"

He led them through the doorway into a long echoing corridor, brightly lit by the same uniform illumination as the entry chamber. "If it were not so, I would not have asked you all to risk so much to bring us here. Come, there is no time to waste."

They all followed, though—it seemed to Kazuya—less enthusiastically than before. "When Yuki puts it like that," he said quietly to Lark, "it does sound pretty crazy. How can the Princess know all that? Or Viyuuden?"

"I trust him. He can perceive the Will better than anyone. And they say the Prince and Princess can sense the direction of the Coral's thoughts." She slipped her arm through his. "It ought to've been impossible for us just to get this far, oughtn't it? And yet here we are. Don't start losing hope now."

Ahead of them, Hal Farnsworth kept craning his neck this way and that, looking around the hallway with a great deal of unease. "Big as this thing is, it's still a ship, so it's got to have a bridge. That's where all the controls'll be, and that's where we ought to be headed."

Phaedra tilted her head to one side and slowed slightly. "I dunno, Hal. Seems to me... Feels like that's not right. Like we should be looking someplace else, know what I mean?"

"We feel it, too," said Ariadne. Kazuya wondered why she seemed a bit surprised, but then a Federation soldier in full battle dress appeared at the far end of the corridor, and he positioned himself instantly next to Lark.

Tommy and Yuki crouched low, arms wide, each of them holding an RPP. Even the Prince and Princess stepped nearer to each other, and, though they did nothing to suggest taking any violent action, Viyuuden held up his hand to them at once. "No," he whispered. "Not now."

A second trooper stationed herself at the rear of the corridor. Doors began opening, and two more joined her; three; four; six. The first one came closer, never lowering his rifle. "You will drop all your weapons. You will make no resistance. You will—"

"Yes." Viyuuden nodded agreeably and lowered his RPP to the ground. "We will make no resistance, Captain. All of you—drop your weapons as this gentleman has ordered."

Hal looked as though he might try smashing his way through the encircling soldiers in spite of Viyuuden's command. Kaz felt much the same way, but Viyuuden seemed to sense their intentions and looked to them both, shaking his head in an mistakable No.

"Trust him," Lark said in a soft undertone. Though it took all his will power, Kaz knelt and put his own RPP on the floor. This better be good.

Viyuuden faced the commanding officer. "Very well, Captain, we are disarmed, as you wished. Will you now take us to the Council chamber?"

Behind his vapor mask, the soldier's eyes registered surprise. "How did you know that?"

"You would hardly be here if at least one Council member were not aboard. If you and your troops will guide us, we shall follow without resistance."

The commander eyed him warily, but said no more. He waved the barrel of his rifle forward, then gave a hand signal to the other troopers, who urged the prisoners onward and picked up their discarded weapons.

Kazuya fumed in silence. If you expected this lace to be guarded, why the hell did you lead us here in the first place? Maybe Yuki's right, and you are crazy.

They allowed themselves to be herded into a side corridor that ended in a lift, far larger than anything found in ordinary terrestrial buildings. Kaz guessed it to be a freight elevator of some kind, for moving heavy equipment from level to level. But then, why's there gravity here at all? We all oughta be floating around in zero-G to begin with. This ship's creepy.

After emerging from the lift, they were marched down a second corridor ending in an elaborate bronze door, bas-reliefed with strange and somehow disturbing scenes from Pre-Exodus earth. The troopers came to a halt while their captain spoke rapidly into his helmet microphone. He nodded and the door slid soundlessly open. "In there," he said. "You lot go first. And remember, we're coming in with you and we're ready for any tricks."

Viyuuden made a formal little bow. "I shall not forget."

They entered in single file, to the strangest room Kaz had ever seen. A ring of seats, apparently of some molded material, surrounded a central crystalline tube large enough to hold several adult humans. One side had been shattered and never repaired. Everything in the chamber—walls, furnishings, ceiling—was the same monotonously vibrant green. Kaz thought it all looked like the transcapacitance fluid in a Compac drive, and disliked it at once.

The guards ringed themselves along the circular wall and a shifting of shadows at the far end of the cramped room caught his eye. There, from a seat—almost a throne—somewhat higher and more impressive than the others, a solemn man rose to his feet. His silver-streaked and carefully-sculpted hair had once been pure black, as had the thin mustache. Kaz guessed him to be in his late forties, and he moved with the reined power of an athlete, not unlike Viyuuden himself.

He displayed the insincere smile of a carnival barker and spread his arms in welcome. "Anton. It is you! I knew it, I knew it. I recognized the audacity in your approach at once; all the reports of your long journey dazzled with that unmistakable Antonescu panache! And who but yourself would have made so bold as to storm the Arkship itself? How fine to see you again, after so many long years."

"I don't use that name any more," said Viyuuden. "Though you have apparently changed your own as well—Hayato."

"A minor conceit. For some years, it's been customary to assume a Name of Office when ascending to the chairmanship of the Council, surely you know that." He stepped down to floor level, but did not approach any of them too closely. "Since the late, unlamented Coda chose a musical motif for her own, I felt that 'Armand Cadenza' would be an appropriate follow-up, don't you agree? A 'cadenza,' in classical terminology, is a musical passage characterized by difficulty of execution and brilliant displays of technical virtuosity. I chose it as a personal ideal."

Viyuuden showed no sign of being impressed. "Since you remember so much from your days at the University, I fail to understand why you have forgotten so much about your opposition to totalitarianism."

"Unrealistic, Anton! Rebellion is so counter-productive, you know." His high-necked ceremonial robes, sparkling with greenish metallic threads, hissed and whispered as he waved his arms about him. "It's so much more effective to work within the system. Once one has one's hands on the levers of power, the masses can easily be guided in the proper direction."

"Should you not say 'compelled' in the proper direction?" The priest appeared as near to open anger as Kazuya had ever seen him. "And exactly what is your idea of the 'proper' direction? A police state in which all are required to parrot the State orthodoxy on pain of imprisonment—or death?"

Cadenza's face twisted into a passing grimace of rage. "If that's what's required to ensure that Humankind remains free from the domination of alien monstrosities, yes!" He struck at the damaged crystalline chamber with one fist, leaving it ringing like the tolling of a distant bell. "Sacrifices must be made, for the good of all." At once, the broad smile fell into place again. "You're looking very well, I must say. Years younger, in fact. So it's true, then, the tales of unlimited youthfulness, courtesy of the Coral? Was that what it took to seduce you into worshiping the alien growth that came so near to wiping all life from the earth? Was that your price?"

Viyuuden folded both arms and shook his head in slow pity. "I worship nothing; Vodarek is not a deity, nor is the Coral. You're no better informed than your mentor, Colonel Dewey."

"Dewey? My mentor?" The Chairman startled Kaz by breaking into braying, mocking laughter that echoed in the small room. "Dewey? That depraved maniac, fixated on his mad fantasies about kingship and Divine Right? That fool nearly led us all into our own annihilation. I loathed him. A fine icon of heroic dedication, to be held up before the ignorant masses on State occasions, certainly. But he was insane, a blunderer, lost in his sick dreams—as my predecessor discovered, to her ultimate regret." He turned with the swiftness of a snake toward Yuki. "And as you yourself discovered, did you not, Lieutenant Yukiko Talhoe? Oh, don't look so embarrassed—power is truly the greatest female aphrodisiac of all, isn't it? You sold yourself to him, and only turned instead to his brother when Dewey discarded you. You were neither the first nor the last, my dear Lieutenant."

Yuki could only stare at the floor, spluttering out half-words of empty denial, her face a terrible red.

Cadenza turned his attention now toward Lark, whose trembling Kazuya could feel in her hand. "You were yet another of Dewey's most fervent worshipers, were you not, Marjorie?"

"You... Is that my real name? But I don't..."

"Yes, I know your name, and much more. The molding of your mind to suit Dewey's inclinations may have damaged those memories, but the Federation keeps meticulous records. I could give you back your past, Marjorie, if you were to turn your talents once more to the State which nurtured you."

"Which used me!" she snarled back.

The Chairman only shrugged. "So be it. If you prefer the company of this juvenile deserter, it's of no consequence to our great Cause. You—"

"Where is the remainder of the Council" said Viyuuden. "Have you killed them, to consolidate your own power?"

"Nothing so cliché, Anton. I was the only one with the insight to recognize that you and the Coralian creatures were coming. The rest of those effete worms all scuttled back to their villas and their countryside dachas, as if by hiding in luxury they could escape the menace that threatens us all." He faced the entire group with open arms. "Which brings me, at last, to the reason you were permitted to come so far."

"About time," muttered Hal.

"Indeed?" Cadenza smiled at him. "I confess, sir, that I did not anticipate your arrival, nor that of your very welcome companions. Might I ask your name?"

"Tech Sergeant Harold Farnsworth, 405th Aero Command." He faced the Chairman squarely, before adding, "Another deserter."

"It seems a common theme among you rebels. In any case, time's growing short." He touched a contact on one arm of the throne, and another door slid open and shut behind an elderly man who glanced about him like a frightened rodent in the presence of a roomful of cats. "This is Academician Lewis Ragowski, whose name you might recall, Anton."

Viyuuden lowered his head in respectful greeting. "I do remember you, Professor Ragowski. I learned much about the history of Humanity in your classroom."

"The good Professor has seen the wisdom of aligning himself with Federation policy," said Cadenza before the man could answer. "But that will explain itself later. For now, it is enough that you know the Earth is again under attack, from a second alien macroorganism."

"I have suspected as much. LFOs all over the planet have become inoperative, and a trapar flow of unprecedented strength is being emitted from the Moon."

"Quite so. And that is why, contrary to the wishes of our short-sighted military, I have permitted the approach of these two young mutants." He pointed toward Maurice and Phaedra. "And now it seems I have struck gold, for I've discovered not only a second fully-developed alien monstrosity, but a larval third, whose existence we suspected but could not confirm. That alien scab which still encrusts half the planet almost appears to have begun a...selective breeding program."

Phaedra caught Hal by the elbow, restraining him. "Don't. He just wants to give those executioners an excuse to gun you down."

"Not yet, young woman—if woman you truly be. However, all three of you will prolong the freedom and lives of your friends if you cooperate."

Viyuuden rolled his eyes. "Get to the point, Hayato. No doubt you're enjoying these subtle insults and threats, but as you already admit, time is precious. The lunar trapar flow will soon reach overwhelming intensity."

"Yes. As I take it for granted you already know, this ancient vessel contains many secrets. Its vast storage areas hold artifacts from a thousand worlds, gathered during the Pilgrims' long voyage through the stars. Since they did not begin with the technology for faster-than-light travel, and were gone for a mere twenty-five hundred years, history is at a loss to explain so many side trips."

"Yet the ancient writings confirm it," said Viyuuden.

"Quite so. Five years ago, the parents of these two green-haired mutants somehow stopped the rampages of the Coral and caused it to blow half of itself away. How they accomplished this, I don't pretend to know, but if they could do so with one alien, their spawn should be able to do so with another."

"So that's why you kidnapped Ariadne!" Maurice's fists quivered.

"Yes, of course. She was to have been the source of...parts, for cloning, to be used for alien defense. And by the way, how did the pair of you escape from our Special Operations unit? Never mind, there's no time—now. Unfortunately, the crisis has outpaced our original plans, and we're forced to demand that both of you give us your services while still whole."

"Or else?" said Maurice through his teeth.

Annoyed, the Chairman waved the air around him. "Don't try my patience, boy. Or else, we will kill each and every one of your friends, one at a time, until you cooperate."

"What of Professor Ragowski's role in this sadistic charade?" said Viyuuden. "Is he, too, one of your murderers?"

"Oh, he's far too faint-hearted for such practical work. In point of fact, he is the greatest living expert on the Exodus and the Arkship itself. You see, Anton, one of the alien devices hidden in this vessel is a mechanism for broadcasting one's very thoughts, in a highly-amplified and precisely-focused manner. These two half-aliens do not have their parents' power. But they will be able to channel what unnatural abilities they do possess through the machine and into the mind of that amorphous creature now laying siege to the earth. They will destroy it—or at least repel it."

Viyuuden appeared to consider this plan. "And if they cannot?"

"You had better pray that they can. The last time Earth was invaded by a trapar-based organism, the result was the complete extinction of all living terrestrial creatures! Even you must fear that prospect!"

"I do. Only one thing is still unclear to me, Hayato. Since you've clearly been aware of the existence of this device for some time, why haven't you gone into the Arkship's interior and attempted to use it yourselves?"

The Professor spoke up for the first time, in a reedy voice hoarse with emotion. "Because it won't let us, of course. The Arkship won't let us!"

—

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Chapter Thirty-Three

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—

—

"The trapar flux coming from the Moon is still increasing," said Jobs. With unsteady fingers he gulped down half a bottle of water and rubbed at his eyes. "It's exciting the lunar dust to such an extent that the characters the Coral inscribed on the surface are being obliterated."

Dr. Egan, for once not preoccupied with some exercise apparatus, stared at his own monitor. "That is of sentimental consequence only, Mr. Stevens. At the moment, our only concern is that our own planet not fall victim to the same forces. Has there been any signal from either Holland or Major Fukoda?"

Across the room, Jean-Baptiste, now back at his own station, looked up. "Nothing, sir. But the ionization has gotten so intense that even communications within the InterDominion are being affected."

"I never expected the trapar levels to reach such an extent, so rapidly." Morita rubbed at the back of his neck. "Were it not for the counterstream being generated by Earth's Coral, I think we would have been enveloped by now."

Matt Stoner, impeccably dressed and groomed, breezed into the stuffy command center. "Would that be so awful?" He pulled out a seat at Jobs' side and dropped himself into it, folding his arms over his vest. "We've had trapar in our atmosphere for 'way before the Pilgrims left Earth. But we're all still alive and kicking."

"Yes," said Egan. "But this trapar stream is of a wholly different nature. It is not simply particulate matter infusing our atmosphere. It does not behave like a either a cloud or a gas at all, in fact. It does not expand and disperse the way physical law requires a fluid to do in a vacuum. Instead, it moves in controlled and contained ways, purposefully directed."

"'Purposefully?' That makes no sense. Hell, you almost make it sound as if it's..."

"Yes, Mr. Stoner. Alive."

—

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Chapter Thirty-Four

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—

Viyuuden stared at the aged Professor. "You say the ship will not let you experiment with this thought-transmission device?"

"It will not permit us even to approach it—or any other of the alien artifacts. Twenty-five years ago, Federation scientists began to explore the Arkship in a methodical manner. They photographed several devices and examined others in a superficial way. But when they attempted to return..."

Cadenza cut in. "Enough. There's no need to waste any further time on explanations. Anton, you seem to be leader of this band of tramps and freaks. Will you help us voluntarily or not?"

"I believe that I can guarantee our complete cooperation in protecting the Earth, yes." The others said nothing, but Kaz found himself strangely relieved that none of them explicitly refused.

"Very well. Guards! Follow us, and shoot any of them who try to be heroes. Ragowski, you can go on explaining as we walk."

All of them hurried along at a near-run, always conscious of the eager guards and their weapons. Lark swayed for a moment as they passed through a circular alcove lined with panels of mysterious readouts, but she recovered herself at once.

"There is a barrier of some sort at the ship's first bulkhead," the Professor panted. "Not physical, not energy. At least no energy that science can detect. We tried entering by cutting through the hull from outside. But the barrier seems to extend past the metal. We could not get in. The ship had sealed itself against every method we tried."

Maurice laughed without joy. "So what're we supposed to do? Unlock it? We're not aliens."

"Look in the mirror, boy," said Cadenza as they descended a long, broad flight of stairs. "I think you'll agree that no humans have wings, pink eyes or hair the color of a child's beach toy. Whatever unnatural powers the Coral has passed to you—watch your step, all of you, the floor is strangely glossy at this point—you must apply them to defeating the alien barrier."

Hal held to a shiny black handrail with one hand, keeping Phaedra close to him with the other. "Where do you get this 'alien' talk? The Arkship was built by Humans."

They came to a huge, oval chamber, like an auditorium with no seats. Above them, blobs of many-colored light played across the ceiling, with no apparent source. Their voices and footsteps echoed from all directions as they crossed to the opposite side. "It was built by humans, yes." Ragowski gasped for breath but kept moving. "But somewhere on its journeys, it suffered multiple mechanical failures. Something—someone—perhaps many someones—rebuilt it, time and again. It repairs itself, protects itself. That's how it got back to Earth; that's how it traveled such remarkable distances. Nothing shuts it down. And it will not share its secrets. Can we not slow down? I am near exhaustion."

"None of the Pilgrims ever wrote of such a thing," said Viyuuden as he extended a hand to the aged academic.

"That remains a mystery. They might have concealed it. Or they may never have known. Who knows? They were all in cold sleep when they returned. Possibly never realized that some alien race'd rebuilt their ship for hyperoptical travel, then sent them home. No one knows. Really, I'm near collapse..."

"Stop bleating, you old fool." Cadenza spun a locking wheel on a pair of high metal doors and flung them wide. "We're already here."

The others, even the guards, stared at the opening before them. Beyond the doors, all light was the deepest, clearest, most crystalline blue Kazuya had ever seen, as if the space beyond were submerged in liquid sapphire. "It's beautiful," he murmured.

"Y'know, it really is." Phaedra went forward, fascinated, and touched the interface between them and the blue world within. It did not yield, but sparkling concentric ripples spread out in all directions.

Armand Cadenza wrung both hands together and nodded greedily. "There! You see, you see? Nothing has ever produced a reaction like that from the barrier. You two—" he indicated Maurice and Ariadne "—line up at this doorway and open it for us."

Both of them hesitated and looked toward Viyuuden. "Now is your hour," he told them, "as it once was your parents'. It is now time for you to...join...in the effort, do you not agree?"

"I agree." Ariadne joined hands with Maurice, smiling confidently. "We agree."

"The rest of you, stand clear," ordered the captain of the guards. "I don't want to see any funny business while those two creatures distract us."

The haggard fugitives backed away at once. The two winged Coralian hybrids, still holding hands, stood facing the blue world beyond. Seconds ticked away, with nothing very obvious happening. Professor Ragowski's ragged breathing slowed, while Cadenza shifted from foot to foot. "Hurry up," he mumbled, "Get busy, open it. Stop dawdling..."

An aura of electric blue-green spread outward from the young couple, fringed with writhing sparks. The barrier trembled and a prickling infused the air. Before them, a white halo formed in its surface...

Kaz heard a series of soft clicks from around them and turned in horror. "Don't do it!" he shouted. "It's a trick! Once it's open, they'r gonna shoot!"

The nearest trooper swung his rifle toward him; Moonbeam leaped for the man's arm and bit through the protective fabric, into the soft flesh beneath. He screamed, struck out with the gun butt and fired a wild burst at the ceiling.

At the same instant, Ariadne and Maurice turned, lashing out with out long snaking tendrils of trapar, each one enveloping a guard, lifting them from the floor. They squirmed in their glowing prisons; some managed to fire, but the bullets simply dribbled slowly from their gun barrels and flashed into harmless nothingness. Within seconds, all of them floated immobile several meters above the floor.

Viyuuden curled his lip at Cadenza, who had begun to sweat. "At University," he said, oozing contempt, "I always suspected you of cheating. You haven't changed, I see. Maurice, Ariadne: can you enter?"

"Yes," they said in their simultaneous voice. "The soldiers are not dead. The barrier seems to be managed by a kind of trapar-based field. We can pass it, now. Where is the machine?"

"I can show you!" cried Ragowski. "I was part of the original expedition to this ship, and I can lead you to Chamber Eighty-Two quickly. I can even show you the thought device." He hesitated, shuffling from foot to foot. "But I have a price."

Viyuuden's eyes narrowed. "And it is?"

"When you escape, you must take me with you. Away from the Federation, to the New Lands. I've grown old cringing and kowtowing to the Security Police, always depending on government support for funding, knowing the horrible uses to which my researches would be put."

"Another traitor," snarled Cadenza.

"Shut up! Most of all, I am tired of you, and your callous arrogance. I have no one and nothing left to tie me to this corrupt regime, and I want to leave it and my ghastly memories of it behind. You Coralian mutants—those are my conditions."

Their neural nodes shining, Maurice and Ariadne came to an immediate decision. "We accept them. Now please lead us. We can feel the pressure from above; the Moon is almost at zenith."

—

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Chapter Thirty-Five

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—

Kazuya followed the rest of them through the barrier at the doorway. He realized at once that he'd been half-expecting the rest of the ship to be filled with some deep blue fluid, but found breathing to be no more difficult than normal. Sound traveled differently here, making everything distant and muffled. He found it hard to avoid an eerie feeling of being watched.

Worse, Moonbeam crept along with his tail folded and ears held high. "What's the matter?" asked Kaz, raising his voice over the deadness of the blue atmosphere. "Is your head hurting from being hit by that stinking guard?"

"No. Head healed. But don't like here-place. Can't smell. Can't hear good. See...things."

Lark slowed and almost stumbled, but caught Kazuya's arm. "What things? What do you see, Moonbeam?"

But the dog only shook his head and slinked along at their side, saying nothing more.

The Professor led them through a confusing labyrinth of corridors and passageways that soon left Kaz completely disoriented. "At least that weird guy Cadenza stayed behind. I wonder if he could pass the barrier at all?" Down a curving flight of stairs they rushed, then into a cramped lift that seemed to take them only a few meters sideward before opening again.

Lark shook her head. He could see that she was suffering in some way, but doing her best to conceal it. "It's dizzying. There doesn't seem to be any direct way to reach anything on this ship. Was it built that way in the first place, I wonder, or did the...aliens redesign it?"

"No idea. Watch out for those pipes, don't hit your head. Look, would you like to sort of lean on me while we walk? I could take some of your weight."

"You've taken so much of my weight already... All right, yes, that'd help. Thanks. I just feel so...lightheaded. Maybe it's just the long journey. I'm so exhausted. I think I could sleep right now..."

Her eyes fluttered and she went limp in his arms. Alarmed, Kaz caught her around the waist and held her upright while she regained her feet.

She looked at him closely for an instant. "Did I have another spell? Did I—?"

"No. I told you—and so did Viyuuden—that you're not losing your mind. Just keep on walking, and try to stay awake, okay?"

Privately, he worried. What's going on with her? Viyuuden seems to know something about it, but he's paying more attention to finding this alien machine than he is to Lark.

"Here!" cried Ragowski, pointing triumphantly to a wide, arched passageway. "It's all in here. This is Chamber Eighty-Two. See for yourselves!"

Viyuuden held up one hand and entered first. Then, after looking back and forth for possible danger, he beckoned them to follow.

Kazuya gaped at the immense chamber, larger by far than any enclosed space he'd ever seen, even the experimental hangars at New Tresor. On raised platforms that stretched as far as the eye could see into the blue distance waited rows and rows of devices whose purpose he could only guess. On the nearest of them rested a complex mechanism about the size of a common refrigerator, apparently cast of dull-silver metal, with three tubes that might have been glazed porcelain curving from one side. Beyond, a dark framework from which hung a multitude of multicolored disks on strings no more than a meter in length. Then a large tank of liquid in which little spheres like transparent marbles danced and swirled, with no visible power source. And beyond that one—

"Which of these devices is the one we seek?" said Viyuuden. "Are they indexed in some way?"

"Yes, they are." Ragowski nodded rapidly and activated a screen next to the doorway. "The Pilgrims kept meticulous records of all the treasures they collected during their travels. They called these records the 'Psalms of the Planets.' We made a fragmentary partial copy of the Psalms before the ship sealed itself against us, but this is the list in its entirety." He scrolled through an immense catalog in the tiny letters of some ancient language. "Amazing. Unbelievable. How we've all longed to peruse this information in its complete form. To think that such devices..."

"Please hurry," said Maurice and Ariadne.

"Yes, yes, of course. Here it is. The device is located at coordinates thirty-two and five-sixty-one. Not far from here at all, which is why we were able to discover it so early in our researches. It's up this aisle, then twenty-two platforms to the right. Come."

Again they followed him, past instruments so fascinating that even Kaz found them hard to ignore. But the trip took only a few minutes this time, and the Professor finally halted, stretching his hand forward with a showy flourish. "There. This is the device, the thought amplifier. "

"How do you know?" Yuki asked. "It doesn't look like much."

Kaz could only agree. He had expected something huge, bedecked in mysterious flashing lights and spinning antennae. Instead, they stood before a limp mass of putty-colored paste that seemed to be the partially-melted remains of a plastic sphere a meter or so across. A crystalline tube protruded from somewhere near its center, surrounded by a silver ring about the size of a lorry tire, that had no visible support whatever. "How...does it work?" he said.

"I have no idea; we never had the opportunity to test it. I simply assumed that your friends, here..." Ragowski indicated Ariadne and Maurice, both of whom stared intently at the amplifier.

"We are aligned with it," they said, their Coralian nodes blazing like the heart of a double star. "It will work. But two is not enough. We need all, the polar anchors, the nodal and the anodal. Join us."

They held out their free hands toward Phaedra, whose own forehead now shone with its own radiance. "Me? You guys want me to...?"

"Not just you. Your other. Both of you."

Hal Farnsworth looked up, plainly amazed. "Me? What do you want me to do? What the hell can I do?"

The alien mechanism on the platform stirred now, making shrill chirping sounds as the silver ring glowed a dull yellow, driving back the blue atmosphere around them. "Encircle it. Join hands. Hurry, the Coral is waiting, it needs us to hurry. The Other is coming. Quickly, Hal!"

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Chapter Thirty-Six

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"Dr. Egan!" shouted Jobs. "There's an energy spike!"

Egan and Morita turned from their whispered conversation to their own monitors. "Yes," said Egan. "I see. What is its location?"

"From...let's see..." Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Jobs superimposed an overlay map on the global display. "It's coming from...from Pilgrim Island. No, wait, it's higher...somewhere in space over Pilgrim Island. And there are two trapar energy sources, feeding into it, one at either pole. Drawing power, somehow, across the entire planet!"

Morita grasped the edge of the table. "Have those maniacs begun some kind of attack? Are they launching—?"

"No, Katsuhiro." Dr. Egan shook his head. "Neither you nor Mr. Arban need fear such a catastrophe—yet. This energy field is of a type I have never yet seen. And it is...yes, see, it is reaching out toward the Moon. Mr. Stevens, contact the University and make certain our satellites are keeping both this planet and the Moon completely scanned at all times!"

-#-

Hal hesitated, unsure if he had heard correctly. The two young Coralians stood waiting, hands joined but with the other ones beckoning toward him and Phaedra. Around the throbbing alien machine on the platform, an expanding sphere of white clarity cut through the blue light suffusing the ship. Short tendrils of what might almost have been grass protruded from the blobby central mass, which itself now began to stir and ripple. "I don't know anything about this gadget. And I haven't got any trapar-handling power. Are you sure you're talking to the right guy?"

"We are sure. This is what the Coral wants." Even their combined voices held a frightening power, now, completely unlike anything he'd heard from them during their long and dangerous trek across the Federation. Ariadne held out one hand to him. "Join with us. Phaedra—take his hand and Maurice's. We must reach around the machine."

He stepped forward, finding Phaedra's hand with his right and Ariadne's with his left. She smiled up at him. "I think it's gonna be all right, Hal," said Phaedra, and reached out for Maurice's waiting fingers.

They touched, the circle completed, and Hal Farnsworth's world changed forever.

-#-

Holland Novak, waiting in the cabin of the IX-14A, stared out into the polar night with eyes that would not believe. Under the raging aurora that churned and swirled above them, Eureka and Renton ran across the jagged ice and came to a stop, hand-in-hand, at the spot Holland knew had to be geographic north. The blaze directly above them changed from blue and red to a soft yellow-white light, and a clear shaft of illumination descended directly upon them.

He whispered a prayer from his long-ago childhood and leaned forward as far as the cockpit instrumentation would allow, to watch in wonder as the two of them raised up into the electrically-charged air, hovering there, eyes closed, at least fifty meters above the surface.

"This gets crazier every minute," he said, wishing very much that he could open a radio link back to the Heart of the World. "What the hell is going on?"

-#-

The whirling vortex of light above the South Pole threw back the Antarctic dark on all sides. Hap Fukoda turned up the polarization of his faceplate to look into its sunlike center, astonished to see there the outlines of Dominic and Anemone, holding hands and bobbing slowly at an altitude of about fifty frigid meters.

Sparks ran along the ice floes and the wings of the IX-14B, and he knew that the electrical potential in the surrounding air had to be immense. Yet still, the couple in the icy furnace above floated serenely while the sky went mad around them.

"What's going on with you two?" he asked quietly, knowing full well that they could not hear. "What's going on with the whole damn world?"

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Chapter Thirty-Seven

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Hal reeled under the impact of the overload.

All around him, he saw now with four eyes; six eyes; eight. Massive forces he had never before imagined flowed about him in colors for which no language existed. Ariadne and Maurice were a part of it, and he could feel their fear and their determination, but saw no deeper into them. And Phaedra, too, her own mind slowly opening to his, and a near-painful closeness and intimacy of awareness. They reassured each other and knew each others' strengths and weaknesses and secrets, and still their love bound them. And around it all, a living Pattern wove itself, infinitely complex, encompassing the entire universe and far beyond, incomprehensible yet in some way reassuring.

And, too, they felt beneath them, around them, a vast Intelligence that was one and yet many—so many—watching them with its immense, patient urgency.

And another. Another seeking to know, to discover, but aware of only itself. Reaching for the Earth, reaching with tendrils that would kill, even though it knew nothing of killing, for it knew no other lives beyond its own.

The first one is the Coral, came the thought, and he knew it was Ariadne's.

—And the other one is the Outsider, the thing that's been living in the Moon, said Maurice.

The frightened Hal gathered his own thoughts, forming them and passing them into the matrix that held them all. +Then there's something coming to Earth? From the Moon?

—It's something like the Coral. Only, its body isn't a solid crust, it's kind of a gas.

And it's like the Coral in another way, too. The only way it can understand other creatures is to absorb them. And when it absorbs them, they die, just the way it was when the Coral first started growing on Earth.

%But the Coral learned better, right? Hal recognized the flavor of the question as Phaedra's.

Yes. And it's been trying to make the...the Mist understand. But it can't. The Mist has never known anyone but itself. After all, it wasn't till Mother and Father were able to show the Coral that other things were alive and thinking, too, that it experienced Satori, and started living with Humanity instead of absorbing it.

+So how're we supposed to let it know... Oh,wait—the machine.

—Right. As soon as Ariadne heard about it, she knew. Don't you see, now?

And the strange thing was that he did see, now. Down long tunnels of bright and perfect logic, afloat in rainbow bubbles of inconceivable happiness, spreading through dimensions beyond all tallying, he could see. With their temporarily conjoined minds, separate but united, it all made the most perfect sense.

+I do, yes! The Coral's got to use us as a kind of translator, tied into the power of the alien machine. It wants to wake up the Mist, to make it see it's not the only living thing in the universe.

Mother and Father are with us, now! Can you feel them?

The shining sun that was Phaedra answered at once. %Yeah! And my Mom and Dad, too! Joining us, ready to spread the transmission all over the world, wherever the Mist is touching it! Hey, we haven't got much time, do we?

No, the Mist is almost here.

In his thought, Hal could see the alien broadcasting device,with eyes far beyond the physical, amazed that only the part of it that extended into the third dimension was a shapeless lump of rubbish. In higher levels, it shone, sharp and precise, a construction of magnificent complexity and order, waiting for them, waiting for their interface.

+So let's get going, okay?

They all understood, now, what had to be done. The titanic silence of the Coral grew to a great throb, an intangible pressure irresistibly building beneath them. Then the alien broadcaster ignited and their separate selves took flight.

-#-

Kazuya watched, mesmerized, as the unearthly machine took on the glow of hot iron, rising quickly to a white blaze almost too bright for human eyes. He held up his arm before his face, marveling that such a powerful light generated no heat at all. Of Hal Farnsworth, Maurice, Phaedra and Anemone, he could see only vague, transparent outlines.

Moonbeam yipped, frightened, and ran from the sight, cowering behind the speechless Ragowski. Yuki, Tommy and Viyuuden squinted and waited, for whatever might come next.

Lark. Ashamed of forgetting her, even for an instant, Kaz spun round to find her standing erect, transfixed, gazing at nothing. He took her shoulders and shook, gently. But something, some sharp snap of energy, burned at his hands, sending him staggering backward toward Viyuuden. "What's wrong with her?" he shouted.

The priest pulled himself away from the workings of the otherworldly transmitter and went to her side. "Nothing. She is doing now what only she can do. She is—"

"I see it!" Lark screamed, in a voice far too deep and powerful for her throat. "Yes, now I see! There is me...and there are others, as well! It was not a dream! I have achieved Revelation! I understand!"

"Yes, yes!" Viyuuden flung his arms wide, his eyes sparkling with joy. "I am Viyuuden. This is Kazuya Aruno, and you are speaking through the one called Lark, who is the only one of us capable of bearing your mind. Who are you? What is your purpose?"

"The others named me the Mist," it said, modulating its voice a bit for the safety of human ears. "Like the one you have named the Coral, but I am of a different physical density. We were, the both of us, created by Others, yet drawn to this planetary system."

Kaz nerved himself for a question. "Why? What for?"

"I do not have that knowledge. Nor does this creature you call the Arkship."

"The Arkship's alive?"

Viyuuden overrode him. "Do you know that your approach to Earth will cause death to all others who live here?"

"I understand that, now. I am even now withdrawing from the Earth. The Arkship is giving me your history, your background. I will not return until I can do so without absorbing you. The Coral understands. It has questions, many of them, as do I. How was I placed on your moon? Why was the Coral directed toward the Earth? So many questions, so much we must know."

"Thank you." Viyuuden bowed, though Kaz wondered if the Mist understood such human formalities yet. "What will you do now?"

"I will seek. The Arkship has information in its knowledge that may lead me to my originators. I shall seek them, if they still exist, and learn their minds."

Viyuuden took on a pleading tone. "We, too, seek after knowledge. Can you not tell us—?"

"No, no more can I say. The one whose mind has received mine is growing weak. I will endanger her if I speak longer. It is inevitable that your kind and mine will meet again." It hesitated, then began once more. "You must leave this place, and very soon."

"Yes, very well, and thank you for..."

But Lark twitched and looked around her, and fell forward into Kazuya's waiting arms. At the same time, the alien broadcasting instrument went out, and the four who surrounded it collapsed to the floor.

-#-

Holland knew at once that something was wrong. The whirlwind of light that had been supporting Eureka and Renton thinned and evaporated until only the aurora still churning above remained. And when it was gone, they began to descend, limp and unresisting, to the polar ice.

He popped the cockpit, disconnected his thermal suit and ran for all he was worth across the Arctic plain, toward the spot where they lay motionless. "Come on, you guys, hang on. I told you you were gonna freeze your butts out here!" Even through the insulating layers of the protective suit, he could feel the polar night seeping into his flesh. Slinging one of them over each shoulder, he slogged back to the interceptor through ankle-deep snow, threw them into the rear of the cockpit and climbed into the pilot's seat. The reactor output rose to full capacity in seconds, and he fed power to the thrusters, lifting the ship from the ice and up to a hundred meters. "Just stay alive, you two," he told them as he swung the nose due south and accelerated up to cruising altitude. "You never were worth a damn without me flying you to and from the trouble spots, y'know. Lucky thing for you, ol' Captain Holland's on the bridge again."

-#-

Hap Fukoda ran and ran, tripping over ice blocks harder than stone, rushing toward the spot where Anemone and Dominic had drifted back down after the spectacular auroral tornado faded and vanished. Without protective gear, he knew, they would survive no more than minutes in the brutal Antarctic cold. Or will they? You never know what kind of power the Coral can give. For sure, in the old days, we never knew what Renton and Eureka had in them, did we? All the same, I've gotta get them back in here, PDQ.

With one arm around each waist he dragged them at a fast trot back to the waiting IX-14B and rolled them to the rear compartment. He climbed back in and sealed the hatches, then reached for the reactor-level switch when something he had glimpsed in the polar night nagged at his memory. Did I really see that? Or was it just the light from the aurora? Hap turned behind him and raised the faceplate of his helmet.

And laughed.

"Well, I'll be damned! Just wait till I get you two home. I have got to be there for this one!"

-#-

"Is that what I think it is?" said Jobs.

Egan smiled, a joyous baring of white teeth. "Unquestionably, Mr. Stevens! The flow of energy from the Moon is reversing itself, pulling itself back from Earth's atmosphere. The energy spike is dissipating—though I see it has in some way...but that can wait for later study. For now, it appears that somehow, our friends in Federation territory have fulfilled their mission." He stood and stretched, his arm and neck muscles writhing. "Mr. Stoner, once we have made certain that the interfering presence has truly departed, we shall discuss how much of these events may safely be published."

"Uh-huh." Alone of all the personnel in the room, Matt Stoner did not rise and cheer. "But look..."

"Yes, Mr. Stoner." With a knowing nod, Dr. Egan edged nearer to him. "I believe I can anticipate your objection."

"Well, yeah, Doctor. It's about Ariadne and Maurice. And Viyuuden's bunch that went in after them. If they're the ones who just now put a stop to this thing, whatever it is...how're they going to get back?"

—

—

Chapter Thirty-Eight

—

—

—

Hal levered himself up on one elbow and struggled to readjust his mind to only one level of reality again. "Phaedra?" She stirred, and he lifted her gently from the floor, holding her to him as she blinked her Coralian eyes and smiled.

"Hey, that was cool, wasn't it, flyboy?" But before he could answer, she threw both arms around him and kissed him, hard and throughly.

"Just don't expect to make a habit of it! I don't..." he felt something shift along the back of her nurse's uniform. "Wait a minute, something's in there..." With unsteady fingers, Hal undid the zipper running down the rear, until something warm and soft sprung out like a parachute in a gale.

Maurice and Ariadne, separate once more, applauded and cheered her on. "About time!" Maurice shouted at her.

"What the hell?" Phaedra came to her feet, craning her neck over both shoulders to better see her new wings, blue and green and streaked through with brilliant pink. "My wings? I got my wings?" She danced around in hopping circles, both fists held high. "Hal, look! I've got wings! I really do! My wings!"

Hal took her in his arms again, proud and delighted and happier than he had ever thought possible. "Think maybe they'll fit into a wedding dress?"

"Any time, mister! The minute we get back—"

"I'm afraid you won't be going back, Miss Sorel."

Ragowski stood against the nearest wall, covering them with an RPP in each hand. "Stay apart, all of you! You two simpering lovebirds, separate now. If I see the slightest sign of any Coralian energy manipulation, I'll shoot at once, without troubling to aim. I don't care if the Ministry gets your body parts alive or dead, but one way or another, they will get them."

"You disappoint me, Professor," said Viyuuden. "I would rather my memories of you had remained cherished ones. It seems that Hayato was not the only cheat at the University."

Hal watched Ragowski's eyes sweep back and forth across the little group, timing the twitches, getting their rhythm.

"The Chairman has always gotten things done in the most direct, most effective ways, Anton. He said it was you coming to us, but I didn't believe him. Then, in spite of my doubts, he proposed this little backup plan, to get you to neutralize that monstrosity from the Moon, then assure ourselves of a fresh supply of Coralian hybrid cloning tissue. I think, after all, that he was the greater achiever, don't you, Anton? And I think—watch your step, Farnsworth, or your little butterfly, here will be the first to die—I think, after all, that I prefer to be on the winning side."

"That remains to be seen." Viyuuden folded his arms, causing the perspiring Ragowski to jerk one RPP in his direction.

Keep him talking, thought Hal fiercely, He's nervous. Just keep him talking. Without moving, he tensed all the muscles in his body, as the military had trained him, so long ago.

"Enough chatter, Anton!" The professor waved one of his weapons toward the nearest aisle. "Get moving, all of you. That way. No talking and nothing that even looks like an escape attempt." He jerked his head, tossing back a silver comma of hair from his face. "There'll be—"

The pure blue suffusing the artifact chamber cleared in a heartbeat, flooding them with the brilliance of noonday sunlight. Reflexively, Ragowski cringed against the glare, and Hal Farnsworth saw his chance. He kicked out with all his strength and felt his boot sink satisfyingly deep into the man's midsection. At the same instant, Moonbeam jumped up from the floor to catch Ragowski's left wrist in his jaws. The professor swung the second gun around to fire, but Viyuuden was faster and caught the man's right arm in a swift and complex lock, dislocating his elbow with a sickening crunch. Ragowski screamed; Viyuuden took both pistols and stuffed them into his own pockets.

"What's with the lights?" shouted Yuki. "Did he turn off the barrier?"

"No, the Arkship itself has done so. The Mist's warning to us is now clear. We must run, back the way we came, and get off this vessel." Even as he spoke, a deep rumble shuddered through the entire body of the great ship, followed by a dizzying tilt of the deck beneath them.

"It's turning," said Hal, holding Phaedra about the shoulders. "The ship's turning."

"Yes, Mr. Farnsworth, it is awakening once again! We must leave, now. Back to the Council chambers—at once."

Tommy looked from one side to the other. "But what is the way back? That creep—" she waved in the general direction of the Professor, who lay on the floor, groaning "—led us through a maze, probably so we couldn't find our way back by ourselves!"

"Stupid Hoomin!" Moonbeam jumped ahead, running along the ranked rows of alien contrivances. "I can smell the way back! Follow, all you! Hurry!"

-#-

Kazuya ran, no longer at the rear, with Lark at his side. All of her earlier lethargy was gone, now, burned away by her contact with the Mist. Up stairs and through chambers and corridors they sprinted behind Moonbeam, their way now clear in the near-normal lighting.

When they burst through the door to the Council chamber, Armand Cadenza stared at them with bulging eyes. "What the hell? You're supposed to—"

Viyuuden trained one of the RPPs on him but did not fire. "We already know what was supposed to happen to us." He shrugged one shoulder toward the nearest of the unconscious troopers, still floating just below the ceiling. "Ariadne—what of these frozen soldiers?"

"They're all right. I told you, we didn't kill them. They're in suspended animation, and it will wear off in a few hours."

"Very good. Hayato, your disgraced comrade is below. He has—"

Even as he spoke, Professor Ragowski himself came soaring through the doorway, to land in a heap against the far wall. Behind him, the clear blue of the barrier re-formed itself, sealing off the artifact decks once more.

Cadenza's hands curled into impotent claws of fury. "What have you done to him? You've contacted that alien monstrosity, haven't you? You've sold out Humanity, as I always knew you would! Was Ragowski your blood sacrifice to your new masters? Will I be next on the altar?"

"Do you imagine everyone to be as base as yourself? It seems that even this ship itself now recognizes the danger of your presence, and has rejected both you and the professor from areas where you might find new tools for domination." Viyuuden seemed as though he might say more, but turned away in disgust. "Stay where you are, Hayato. The rest of you follow me, quickly, back to the tramcar."

As they ran from the green chamber, Kaz took one quick look back to see Armand Cadenza standing over the muttering Ragowski, cursing him over and over, punctuated by sharp kicks. Viyuuden's right. They're just pathetic.

He wondered if their first trip up from the gondola had really been as long as this. The Arkship's oscillations increased, now, tilting them this way and that as it repositioned itself for reasons none of them cared to know at the moment. Another tremor ran along its entire length, just as Kaz spotted the doorway to the tramcar. Viyuuden stood to one side, motioning them down the spiral stairwell one at a time, before joining them himself.

Once inside the tramcar, he could see the starfield outside roll and twist beyond the panoramic permaglass of the windows. "It's moving," said Lark. "The Arkship. What's it doing?"

Behind them, Viyuuden slapped at the docking controls, and the gondola's seals activated as the docking latches released. The linear motor of which the monomolecule tether formed one pole hummed, and they sprang away from the vast ship overhead.

They dropped earthward, and as they fell, the movement of the Arkship became more evident. A pale green sheen enveloped it as it turned with ponderous beauty, its tail dipping lower. As it moved, the tether line down which they plummeted shifted and tightened, jerking them dangerously from side to side. Tommy and Viyuuden were thrown to the floor; the rest hung on to any solid projection while the gondola wobbled with increasing violence. "Look!" cried Yuki, pointing directly overhead.

Kaz looked, horrified to see a flash of yellow light from the docking bay where they had been only seconds before. From that distant anchor, a brilliant spark, like a welding arc, raced downward, devouring the tether line as it traveled. "The tramline. The ship's cut it loose. And it's burning up! We're already caught in the Earth's gravity—we're gonna fall and crash!"

Maurice struggled to his feet, pulling Ariadne up beside him. "No, I think we can slow it down. We can Join, and keep us from falling so fast. Right, Ariadne?"

She nodded back, stern and confident. "Right."

The two of them stood with hands locked for long seconds, during which the gyrating tramcar creaked as it met the resistance of Earth's atmosphere. But at last, the glow of trapar energies formed around them, and their descent stabilized, slowing to a safe velocity.

"Thank you," said Viyuuden. "On behalf of us all." Before anyone could agree, the sizzling flame of the tramline passed through their central docking cylinder from top to bottom, then continued on earthward, vaporizing the incredibly strong fiber as it bore downward like a meteor.

"Can you guys...fly this thing?" Tommy asked.

Maurice and Ariadne looked toward her with their four eyes. "No. We don't have that much power. We can only bring it back down to the Palace safely."

"Uh-oh," said Kaz, rubbing at a swollen bump on his temple. "I'll bet the whole Federation Army is down there waiting for us."

Bits of flak spattered off the gondola's permaglass as a star-shell detonated a hundred meters away. "Wrong," said Yuki. "They're not waiting."

"It seems that our friend the Chairman has already contacted the ground forces," said Viyuuden. "Which implies that the atmospheric ionization is dissipating, and radio communications are operative again. Everyone come closer to the central core, away from the perimeter."

"Will we suffocate if the glass shatters?" asked Lark as she hurried toward the middle of the gondola with Kaz.

"I think not." Another shell detonated, this one close enough to make their fragile craft shake. "We are dropping rapidly. The atmosphere at our current altitude is still thin, but can support life." Some distance below them, an antiaircraft rocket detonated, and the shock wave wracked the gondola with fresh violence.

"Look!" Tommy pointed overhead. Beyond the still-glowing Arkship, the stars rippled and spread as though reflected in a disturbed pond, and a stream of twinkling blue fluid unwound itself from the Moon. Breathlessly, they watched it gather itself into a tightening spiral that spread itself from horizon to horizon, then contracted inward into a scintillating whirl upon which no eye could focus. In a blinding spark, the Mist was gone, away on its self-imposed exile beyond all human knowledge.

An antiaircraft bullet penetrated the glass at one edge, disrupting it into thousands of bright shards. Kaz's ears popped with the loss of pressure, but he held tight to Lark, ready for whatever might come. She pointed away, toward the western rim of the moonlit Earth, where a green flame wavered, like a meteor burning rapidly nearer to them. "What's that?"

Two fresh explosions shook the gondola, shattering more of the permaglass panes in a simultaneous crash. The high-altitude wind roared in over them, frigid and unforgiving. Beside him, Kaz could hear Yuki, her voice low with anger and despair. "What the hell's the point? What's the point? I've had it up to here with being Queen of the Pirates. All I wanna do is get back to my husband, my kid and my goddam life. But what's the point, if we're just gonna—?"

Viyuuden jumped to his feet. "Do not surrender so quickly, Mrs. Novak! Our friends have not deserted us!" He pointed westward, where the green flame grew, resolving itself into a bulging black airship, its sides streaming with a fast-flowing curtain of trapar. "It is the Orange Blossom, returning as planned! Our pilot must have picked up the transmission from the Arkship."

"Jimmy?" said Yuki, her face a caricature of surprise. "He was supposed to pick us up? Wait—when he dropped us off, you said I'd have to wait to thank him till the return trip! Now I know what you meant!" Another fragmentation shell burst to the south; this time, hot fragments of metal sprayed inside, scorching holes in wall and floor. "Over here, Jim! Over here!"

The Kikka drifted itself next to the gaping opening in the gondola's glass, matching their downward speed. "Let us line up, please!" shouted Viyuuden over the avalanche of wind. "Maurice and Ariadne—can you maintain lift on this tramcar, even after transferring to the Orange Blossom?"

"For a few seconds, we think."

The side hatch of the hovering ship flapped open, its invitation clear. "Excellent. Mrs. Novak and Mrs. Stevens, please go first. Jump with all your strength! Now, you, Moonbeam. And Mr. Farnsworth and Miss Sorel. Excellent. Mr. Aruno, now you and Miss Lark."

Kaz and Lark looked to each other and found there the courage to cross that deadly chasm. Taking each others' hands, they ran to the shattered edge of the forward permaglass and leaped. On all sides, the night and the wind and the awful altitude clawed at them, but they made it across the one-meter gap...almost.

The dying gondola wavered in the Kikka's trapar slipstream, only for an instant, but the resultant ripple shook both craft just as Kaz and Lark hit the edge of the deck. Lark toppled backward, teetering on the edge, grabbing at the hatchway with one hand, holding to Kazuya with the other. He felt himself being pulled out...

"Gotcha!" Yuki's arms seized him around the chest, and with Tommy behind her, they together pulled Kaz and Lark back into the shelter of the airship's cabin.

A moment later, Viyuuden followed, and then Ariadne and Maurice, wings extended, riding a shining stream of trapar out of the tramcar. "We are aboard!" cried Viyuuden to their pilot, and the clamshell halves of the hatch closed and sealed.

"You guys sure know how to make yourselves popular, don't you?" said Jimmy Emerson, banking them into a tight curve away from Pilgrim Island and toward the distant west. "I had to activate every bit of ECM that we built into this thing to keep us from being blasted out of the sky while I picked you up. I don't think..." He pointed to a rear-facing video screen on his panel. "Oops, there goes that Federation tramcar, up in flames. I guess those gunners finally got the hang of it."

Lark laughed till the tears came, and she buried her face in Kazuya's chest. "We all have," she sobbed happily. "We all of us finally got the hang of it."

—

—

Chapter Thirty-Nine

—

—

—

"...and so, the trapar buildup coming from Earth's Moon has at last been declared a natural phenomenon by an InterDominion science team led by Professor Fernando Wossel. An unusually high level of solar wind generated a buildup of charged particles on the lunar surface, which were in turn attracted to Earth's own charged magnetic field. Now that the two charges have neutralized each other in the most spectacular auroral display in centuries, we can expect a return to normal conditions across the planet, reports Professor Wossel."

Annette looked directly into the video camera and folded her hands before her in a practiced gesture of reassurance. "But of course, the news we all really wanted to hear is that the Federation of Predigio Towers has called off its accusations of warmongering against the InterDominion. The Federation fleet is standing down and the Full Alert status issued to its land army has been canceled. Likewise, our own Independent Planetary Force has recalled its reinforcements. High Admiral Juergens gave the recall order today at eight hundred hours, after consultation with Prime Minister Egan and the Parliamentary Senate's Security Committee. We'll have a full wrapup of this week's events at twenty hundred hours this evening.

"Other news in brief: InterDominion Security forces still have no leads on the mysterious disappearance of controversial senator André Fuillión. Acting Commander Jean-Baptiste Arban refused to comment when asked about rumors that the senator had been spirited away by Federation agents. And in the meantime, the Senate Peace Delegation has announced that its planned peace talks will be held as scheduled, as a tribute to their missing comrade. That's it for the Midday News, this is Annette Emerson wishing you a great day."

Dr. Egan switched off the video and turned his swivel chair to face the conference room, high in the Temple of Vodarek. "Mr. Stoner and his team have crafted an excellent cover story, one delivered with great skill by Mrs. Emerson."

"I don't like all this lying," said Eureka. "Is this what we started the InterDominion for? To lie to the people who live here?"

Renton, who quietly fumed beside her, agreed. "She's right. It's starting to seem to me that the longer the InterDominion exists, the more like the Federation it's starting to become."

Viyuuden leaned back in his chair and nodded. "Naturally, your will is one with the Will of Vodarek, and we will do whatever you command. But in this case, I recommend that we all be cautious. It is not the people of the InterDominion we need to deceive, it is the Federation. If we were to release public confirmation of our recent incursion into Federation territory, they would see no choice but to declare open war. In order to remain in power, the remaining members of the High Council would regard the assault on the Palace of Return as an act of war. And the bloodshed would begin again."

"Don't they already suspect Ariadne and Maurice were involved?" said Renton. "And your team, of course."

"Almost certainly. But although the High Council is composed of power-hungry ideologues, they are pragmatic and have no more desire than we for a pointless bloodbath. They have pretended to accept our story. Their current official position is that the damage to the Palace and the relocation of the Arkship were due to a freak burst of solar wind. It allows them to save face—and most importantly, allows both sides to avoid a new war."

"They won't forget this, though." Holland Novak drummed his fingers on the conference table. "They'll bide their time, but sooner or later, they'll decide it's payback time for us uppity rebels."

Dr. Egan produced a pair of small dumbbells from beneath the table and began doing bicep curls. "Very likely. In the meantime, at least, their Council leader has been neutralized. Armand Cadenza's failure has left him in disgrace. By the time the Federation mounts an expedition to reach lunar orbit and retrieve their personnel on the Arkship, he will be a nonentity. Already, our sources tell us the remainder of the Council has stripped him of power. We are, of course, eagerly awaiting news of his replacement from Vice-Commander Arban."

"Arban's still running the show? Where's Dominic? Hap told me that him and Anemone got back in one piece, but I haven't seen him since."

"My information is that he is temporarily indisposed. No doubt he will return to his duties as soon as he is able."

"No doubt." Holland scowled. "Look, what are we going to do about Fuillión? If he's ever seen in public again, The Federation'll murder his wife and kids."

Egan nodded judicially. "Quite so. No one was actually harmed by his performances, and since he was compelled to obey Federation orders under extreme duress, he will not be punished. But as you say, he must not be seen again. Therefore, Vice-Commander Arban proposes to create a new identity for him, far from this city, where he will begin a new life. In a few weeks, we will announce the discovery of a body which may be the senator's, and subtle hints will be dropped that Federation assassins are responsible. And in the meantime, steps will be taken to...ensure the safety of Mr. Fuillión's family."

"Okay." Holland made a check mark on a pencilled list before him."Now let's tackle that business of the Arkship. This 'Mist' creature put it into lunar orbit, but why? Is it trying to lure us into space again? The Federation'll be starting up a space program as soon as they can. They'll say it's to rescue their people on the Arkship—as if they give a damn—but it'll really be to try getting at these 'Psalms of the Planets' gadgets again. And once that starts, we'll have no choice but to do the same thing. Why do I have this bad feeling that the ante's just been upped all around?"

"Quite so, my friend. It seems we are entering into a dangerous new world of armed stalemate. And this time, we must do so without the use of our LFOs. I have recently received a communication from Professor Wossel's unit. They now have reason to believe that it was the Coral itself which disabled the archetype armatures worldwide. I agree. Their theory is that it did not wish to risk that the approaching Mist might attempt to control them, thereby causing widespread destruction." Egan turned over his forearms, to begin a series of upper-wrist strengthening exercises. "And there seems to be no sign that the Coral will relinquish its deactivation in the foreseeable future."

Katsuhiro Morita raised a hand for attention. "If I may, I should like to suggest that, important as these matters surely are, the most significant aspect of recent events sits before us, even as we discuss matters of state." He pointed toward Moonbeam, who had sat quietly during the meeting, lifting his nose now and then to sample the air from the windows. Occupying the chair next to him were the two Thu Bakkian tree-cats, Nirvash and TheEnd. "It seems that all of Earth's animals above roughly the brain volume of a mouse have attained self-aware intelligence. Surely this will mean a radical re-ordering of society, both here and in the Federation."

"You right," said the dog. "All different, now."

Nirvash nodded her furry gray head. "You think it was the Coral that woke us up?"

Viyuuden nodded. "Yes, certainly. Though, why remains a mystery. It is my theory that..."

Dr. Egan let off his exercises. "Yes? I, too, have given the matter my consideration. Is it your belief that the Coral has increased our available pool of intelligent minds, in order that we should have..."

"...allies," the priest completed. "Yes."

Renton sat rigidly upright, sensing the same fear in Eureka. "Allies? But...against who?"

"That," said Morita somberly, "remains to be seen."

—

—

Chapter Forty

—

—

—

The Floral Gardens in the Heart of the World's Reconciliation Park made a blaze of color beneath the autumn sun. Beds of bright chrysanthemums spread themselves in all directions, contrasting with the little violet stars of asters and splashy clumps of yellow helianthus.

Yuki held one hand above her eyes and looked across the Gardens, beyond the City itself, to Lake Epiphany, almost lost in the mists of fall. "It's so beautiful, isn't it?" she said to Tommy, who stood quietly at her side. "I don't think I ever really looked at it, before." Yuki's young son Holland Junior wandered aimlessly through the brick pathways, among tourists and Parliamentary staff on their lunch breaks. "Maybe you have to almost lose something before you start to really see it, you think?"

"Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky...," sang Tommy softly in a clear soprano.

"What's that?" said Yuki. She wore sunglasses and a light yellow dress that rippled in the warm southerly wind.

"It's a translated fragment of an ancient song from the pre-Coral centuries. Job taught it to me. It seemed sort of appropriate, considering what's been going on over the last few days." She sighed, and jammed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. "God, but it's good to be back, isn't it? Don't laugh, but when Viyuuden asked for volunteers, I actually thought it might be a sort of...adventure. Ha! Me, who should've known better than anybody, forgetting just how...sordid any kind of a military operation really is." She looked down at a red-and-gold chrysanthemum, stroking its petals. "I learned a few things about myself on that trip. Not all of them were things I wanted to know."

Junior stared wide-eyed at a tawny cat, who crept through one of the flower beds to find a sleeping place in the grass. "You and me both," said Yuki, with great conviction. "Hey, listen, there's something I've been meaning to ask, if it's not too personal. When we were on the way into the Federation, you said something to your brother about 'since the accident.' What accident? What was that all about?"

"I don't think Kaz was too happy I brought it up." She looked off to the south, toward the distant lake. "About a year and a half ago, when he first started on his Engineering apprenticeship, he fell for a girl in his same program. Galatea was her name. Mom and Dad and I never knew just how serious he was over her. In fact, we never even met her. Kaz wasn't giving much away. He can be like that."

Yuki brushed long black hair back from her eyes. "I hope I'm wrong, but I think I can see where this is going."

"You're not wrong. They were almost through with their apprenticeship, and their final project was to build a working trapar airship, capable of carrying at least one person. They were always working together on it, usually putting in a lot of overtime. Maybe it was more than just overtime." Tommy squinted up at the brilliant sky and fished her own sunglasses out of her back pocket. "Anyway, they built it. The XP-3, they called it, and left it overnight at the hangar. Then they went out to dinner to celebrate."

"Hey, get straight to the bad part, will you? Get it over with."

"Okay. It was the last time they ever met. According to the rules, all student-built craft were supposed to get a complete inspection and approval from the senior staff, before they were even allowed to think about making a flight test. Evidently Galatea couldn't wait." She lowered her face, away from the sunlight. "She got there early in the morning, and took the XP-3 out by herself. It folded at five hundred meters altitude. That's a long way down. Kaz was the first to find her."

In spite of the midday warmth, Yuki shivered. "The poor kid."

"Yeah. He just went completely to pieces over it. Blamed himself for not being around to protect her. Dropped out of the Apprenticeship program and took a job as a riveter. He was just about to re-apply for a new apprenticeship when Viyuuden started collecting volunteers."

"Viyuuden..." Watching Junior darting from place to place, touching the flowers, an outrageous idea took shape in Yuki's imagination. "Viyuuden. I get it, now. That sly bastard."

Tommy lifted her eyebrows. "What?"

"That's why he wanted Kaz along. Lark was our mouthpiece to that Mist thing, and Viyuuden paired Kaz off with her right away. He knew. He knew Kaz would protect her, no matter what it took."

"Oh, come on, he couldn't...is he really that subtle?"

"All that and more, honey. Say, I wonder why he wanted me and you along..." She threw back her head and laughed, music on the soft wind. "I'll be damned!"

Junior stared up at her, shading his eyes with one small hand. "What's funny, Mom?"

She crouched and held him tightly. "Maybe I am. Maybe we all are."

"You're teasing me," the boy scolded. "Let's go out to New Tresor and watch the airships."

"Just like your father. Already." Yuki stood, and smiled, and held tight to his hand. "Maybe later, kid. Right now, we've gotta pay somebody named Lark a little visit. Your Mom's got a whole lot more apologizing to do."

-#-

Maurice fluttered and went into a sickening downslide, watching the Heart of the World spinning up to meet him.

No! You've got to stop thinking you're on a ref board, Maurice. Use your wings to make the attitude adjustments, not your feet!

—Yeah, okay, okay. He pulled upward slightly on the leading edges of his upper left wing. Just as Ariadne had said, he stabilized at once, and rose again to join her, some hundred meters over the Heart of the World. —It's kind of disorienting, not having a solid board under your feet when you're flying.

Well, you have me. I'll always be solidly with you.

—Yeah. And you'll always have me. Hey, look, Ariadne, I've been thinking...I'm not so sure I like having 'Maurice' for a name any more. It's starting to sound a little, I don't know, feminine or something. Now that Mom and Dad are going to start bringing us into the meetings and public addresses and that kind of thing, I was thinking of maybe shortening it to 'Rick.' A gust of air off the lake caught them, and he compensated, pleased that his alar reflexes were finally beginning to have an effect. —How does that sound to you? Rick Thurston.

She smiled across the meter-wide gap between them. I think you're being silly. You'll always be the same to me, no matter what you call yourself. I suppose I'd be just as happy with 'Rick' as with 'Maurice.' Look, isn't that where Dominic and Anemone have their suite?

—I think so. I'm still not used to going there this way. Why aren't Mom and Dad coming?

Together, they leaned into a shallow, circling dive, losing altitude gently, trailing little sparkles of trapar behind them. Dr. Egan's meeting is probably still going on. I think the only reason they didn't want us there this time is that we'll be one of the things they're talking about.

—I'll bet you're right. I thought Mom and Dad were gonna...

'Going to.'

—Yeah, going to melt on the spot when we told them all we'd been doing in the Federation. Especially the part where you were frozen... Listen, Ariadne, do you kind of get the impression that things are different, now? Between us and Mom and Dad, I mean.

I think things must be different because you and I are different, now. Just the way Mother and Father were different after he rescued her from the Coralian Command Node and the Coral experienced Satori, and they went off to live in the mountains.

They let themselves rise a bit, unwilling to cut through the fluid mass of a starling flock, on its way to warmer territory. —I'm glad you noticed it, too. It's going to be a big change, I think. And...I'm glad we'll be together for it.

Her only answer was a river of wordless love flowing out to him, and returned in equal measure. The dark cloud of birds trailed away and they settled groundward, hand in hand.

-#-

"Hey, stop dragging your feet, will you?" scolded Phaedra, tugging at Hal's arm. "You act like you don't wanna meet Mom and Dad."

Hal shrugged and looked up at the intimidating bluffs of the apartment tower at the peak of which Commander Sorel and his wife maintained a suite. "No, it's not that, exactly. More, I suppose, that I'm not so sure they'll want to meet me." He watched her, fascinated and mesmerized as she danced about in the sunbeams of autumn, her little turquoise dress contrasting so beautifully with her pink hair and furled wings. He managed to produce a smile after all. "You sure look a damn sight different from the ragged trooper who stormed the Federation with me."

She wriggled her hips and fluttered the pink fringes of her eyelashes. "Maybe you liked me better as a nurse?"

"I like you any way at all!" he laughed, and held her close to his chest. "But when we talked to Viyuuden this morning at the Temple, he told me that Prime Minister Egan thinks your family is shaping up to be some kind of parallel dynasty. You know, another line of royalty, to supplement—or maybe back up—the original Coralian royal line."

"So what?" Phaedra stood on tiptoes and kissed him.

"So you could end up a duchess, or a baroness, or whatever royal title they eventually come up with. I don't know how your parents are going to feel...about a Federation dropout wanting to marry the Lady Phaedra."

"Is that all?" With a sparkling little laugh, she pulled again at his arm, urging him toward the big bronze door with guards on either side. "Listen, lover, both my parents are Federation dropouts. And if they don't remember that, I'll damn well remind'em. Now, come on!"

-#-

Lark walked in slow silence beside Kazuya. He wondered if he had done the right thing in telling her about...about Galatea. Maybe she thinks I'm just a wimp after all. Maybe she thinks I only like her because of what I lost. Maybe she thinks she'd be competing with a ghost. He watched her, still keeping slightly ahead of him on the marble sidewalk. And maybe I feel guilty about not staying loyal to Galatea. Am I betraying Galatea? It's all such a mess.

The upjutting apartment complex where Commander and Anemone Sorel made their home dominated the sky before them. Even though they'd all been invited to the celebration, still Kazuya could not shake the internal dread of what might lie ahead. Starting over isn't really starting over at all, not from the beginning anyway. Because when you start over, you're a different person from who you were the first time. Am I asking too much of Lark?

"I see," she said, breaking her long silence at last and shaking back her long tawny hair. "So that's what it is. I was wondering, during our journey. Thank you. It must have been hard for you to tell me all those things." Lark stopped and looked at him closely. "I know what it's like to have a past that you don't want to remember. It must have seemed very brave of me to turn down Armand Cadenza's offer to tell me all about who I really was...before I let the Federation brainwash me."

"Well, yes. It did."

Lark laughed a little, half to him, half to herself. "It wasn't. Cloudy as the memories I have left are, none of them are very pretty. I didn't need any more. I think some of them may even shock you, once you hear them."

An IPF light cruiser roared over them, returning to the New Tresor air center after its tour of duty on the InterDominion borders. Others crossing the Park squinted and looked up as it passed. "Maybe they will. And maybe I'll have to be more like Eureka and Renton—and you—and start learning how to put the past behind me. I can try, anyway. If...if you think you might want to, that is."

Lark stood in the brilliant sunlight, radiant in her white blouse and brief white skirt, almost blinding. "You know, Kaz, there are other girls out there like me. Other Swallowtails, I mean. Two of them are still undergoing treatment with the Vodarek therapists. There might be more still be in the Federation, for all anyone knows. I might be the only one who's actually recovered from her Federation conditioning."

"Is that the Will of Vodarek in action?" He grinned and kept his tone light. "You know, because you're the one with the ability to channel the Mist?"

"It may be. But I'm more inclined to think that it's because part of the Will was for me to meet...you." She took his hand, and they continued on their path. Together.

-#-

The moment Hal and Phaedra passed through the Sorels' front door, Hal saw Anemone rushing toward Lark with open arms, and readied himself to break up a fight. Lark flinched, but did not turn away.

"Hey, Lark!" shouted Anemone, flinging her arms around her. "Listen, kid, you don't know how many times I've told myself what a one hundred per cent jerk I was, over the past week. Phaedra told me everything and I'm sorry, honest I am. The only excuse I can give is that...well, there's been a lot of crap in my past. And I've maybe taken way too long to get over it."

Lark returned her embrace, with smiles and gratitude. "I know just what you mean. Maybe you and I should have a good long talk one of these days, to compare notes. Don't you think?"

"You bet I do. Hey, there's somebody else here who wants to talk to you, too." Anemone pushed back her gold lamé cape and waved to someone just outside the door to the next room. Tommy emerged, tugging a hesitant Yuki by one arm.

"What's with Yuki?" whispered Hal to Phaedra. "Since when is she so shy?"

"Give her a chance," said Phaedra.

Yuki's little boy, Junior, wandered away to the table piled high with pastries while his mother approached Lark and Anemone with wobbling little steps. "Hi, Lark," she began. "Haven't seen you since we got back."

Lark nodded, no longer impassive but open and inviting. "It was a long, hard trip. Thanks for saving Kaz and me when Jimmy Emerson came to rescue us."

"Aw... Hell, it was the least I could do after I tried to—" she looked around at the others, and her cheeks grew red "—after I tried to kill you. Listen, if you can...I mean...I've got to say this again... I mean, forgive me, will you?"

With a laugh, Lark threw both arms around her. "Of course I will. But only if you'll forgive me for all the times I tried to kill you in the old days. Does this even the score?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it..." She said no more, too full of emotion to speak. Hal caught the mood of the moment and began to clap, picked up immediately by Phaedra and spreading at once to the rest, until the room was filled with cheers and the patter of applause.

Maurice and Ariadne appeared, hurrying down a spiral staircase that Hal assumed led to the roof. "Hey!" called Maurice, "Are we too late for the party?"

Anemone bowed. "No, just for the sloppy sentimental part. But now it's my turn, and I've got something to show all of you. My daughter wasn't the only one who had t'change her wardrobe this week." She struck a flamboyant posture in the center of the room and threw off her gaudy golden cloak, spreading her Coralian wings like a sunburst behind her. "Ta-daaaaaa!"

Phaedra had already let Hal in on the secret, but he clapped as loud as any of the others anyway.

"Good job!" said Ariadne. "You look good in them! When did it happen? Was it when you were making one of the Polar Nodes with Dominic?"

"Yeah. And was I ever surprised when I woke up in Hap's ship! They look pretty good, don't they? And maybe as soon as I can learn to use'em, I can really knock'em dead at the National Theater with my next performance, don'tcha think?"

Maurice laughed and opened his own wings. "Well, if you want any beginner's advice, you can sure come to me!" He left off for a few seconds, looking about the room. "Where is Dominic, anyway? Me and Ariadne wanted to thank both of you for what you did. I haven't seen him since we came back home."

"He's been kinda...secluded for a while." Anemone looked sidelong with lidded eyes, then called out to another part of the suite: "Dominic? Come on out, will you?"

"Not now!" came his unseen reply. Hal swallowed hard. The Commander was obviously not in the best possible mood.

An IPF officer, whom Hal recognized as Hap Fukoda, grinned expectantly in one corner, and raised a glass on high. "You heard'er, Dominic! Don't be so bashful!"

Anemone stamped away and out of sight while the others looked to each other, exchanging shrugs and muttering among themselves. "Dammit, you can't stay in there forever." In only a moment, she returned to them, half-dragging her husband into the arch above the entry to the other parts of their suite. And the chattering fell silent at once.

Dominic stood before them in a pair of reffing shorts, sullen and brooding, his hair wild.

His brilliant pink hair.

It was Maurice who recovered his voice first. "The Transformation. When you and Anemone were Joined at the South Pole..."

"Yeah, that's right!" He glared about them, daring anyone to object. "Yeah, my hair's pink, now. Who the hell's going to laugh first?"

"It doesn't look bad on you," said Ariadne.

Yuki chimed in at once. "Kind of stands out, I guess. But look, Dom, in six months, you'll be setting a new fashion. Guys all over the Heart of the World are gonna be heading for the stores to buy pink hair dye."

"Oh, yeah? And where are they going to buy a pair of these?" Tightening his arms and chest like a bodybuilder, Dominic spread his own wings, pink-tinged and even wider than his wife's.

"They look cool, Dad!" shouted Phaedra.

Instantly, Hal wished she hadn't drawn her father's attention. Commander Sorel caught sight of the two of them and stamped his way to their corner, his beach sandals slapping on the carpet. "You!"

"Uh, yes, Commander?" Hal could not resist the reflex to hold himself at attention.

"You're Farnsworth, right? The guy who's been fooling around with Phaedra?"

He saw nothing to be gained by lying. "I...yes, sir."

Dominic stalked slowly around the couple, his wings twitching this way and that like an angry wasp's. "Uh-huh. Well, Phaedra's told us all about you. And I mean everything."

Hal's heart sank through his feet. Hoping for moral support, he glanced down to Phaedra, who only stood at his side, beaming proudly. "Yes, sir."

"Then listen to me, Farnsworth..." The entire room held its collective breath. "You'd better get used to this damn hair color. Because you're going to be wearing it next."

His mind spinning in circles, Hal stammered out the first coherent reply he could manage. "Does that mean...'yes,' Commander?"

"It does." And Dominic's face creased in the widest of smiles. "Welcome to this family, Hal Farnsworth." He pumped Hal's limp hand like a jack handle. "You did a damn fine job over there in the Federation. We'll arrange the wedding as soon as possible. Oh, and one more thing that you'd better remember—"

"Yes, sir?"

"When that spot between your eyebrows starts to itch too badly, go straight to Dr. Mischa Egan at the University Medical Center. She can save you one hell of a lot of suffering."

"My... How'd you know...? Dr. Mischa...?" While Hal floundered and Phaedra took him in her arms, the rest of them made a fresh round of applause and cheering.

Yuki poured a glass of something blue and fizzy and thrust it into his hand, raising a toast all around. "Hooray, for the happy couple!" she cried, and no one disagreed.

Dominic let it go on for a few moments before he held up his hands for silence. "All right, everyone! I still don't know how I'm going to explain the hair and wings to the Parliamentary Senate Security Committee, but that can wait. Right now, I have a sort of special guest to introduce to all of you."

"Eureka or Renton?" asked Tommy.

"No, they're still closeted with Holland and Dr. Egan. But it was Dr. Egan's own suggestion that I arrange this meeting. And Viyuuden's of course."

Yuki rolled her eyes. "Is there anything that happens without that guy's finger in the pie?"

"At any rate, Ariadne and Maurice are the only two who've met her already, and I gather the circumstances weren't the best." He beckoned to someone beyond the arch. "Mrs. Wesselényi, please come out, would you?"

Slowly, but with head held high, Magda Wesselényi stepped out into the room. Though her iron-colored hair now hung free and long, and she wore a simple dress of dark-blue print, Maurice and Ariadne went to her at once, as if greeting an old friend. "Sofia!" said Maurice. "Er, no, I guess your real name is 'Magda,' isn't it? Hey, it's good to see that you made it!"

Magda bowed deeply to them both. "Your Highnesses. I'd like to apologize, deeply and sincerely, for having tried to murder you."

The room whispered with a collective intake of breath. Hal looked to Phaedra for an explanation, but found none.

The woman stayed in the bow, not facing any of them, until Ariadne came forward and took her hand. "We know all about that, Magda. Viyuuden and Dr. Egan explained it to us. We were just glad to know that you and your team were all right."

As Magda straightened at last, they all could see the tears shimmering at the corners of her eyes. "Your forgiveness is more than I've earned. But...is it really you, the Prince and Princess? I seem to remember you as so much smaller. Almost as children..."

"We all did a lotta growing up during that trip," said Yuki. "Look, Holland told me about you and your team. Welcome to the side of the good guys. What'll you do now? You going to apply for citizenship?"

Dominic shook his pink-frosted head. "Yes, they are. But first, they're going on a little errand. You see, Senator Fuillión has been cleared. He's confessed everything, and named plenty of names. It's been valuable. Our Security Services have been quietly feeding phony information to a Federation spy ring all over the City. But since the Senator did everything under threat of harm to his wife and children back in the Federation, the Prime Minister and I agreed that punishing him wouldn't have served justice in any way."

"I guess not. But what about his family, then? Won't the High Council have'em all murdered, once they hear Fuillión's under custody?"

"But they won't hear it." He lifted one hand, and his left wing twitched up with it. "All of you have Security clearance, so I can tell you this: the Senator's arrest is still a complete secret. As far as the Federation knows, we've murdered him on the sly, and probably tortured him to get information out of him first. His family is of no further use as a blackmail token."

"Those scum would murder them anyway," said Lark.

"Possibly." Dominic shaded his Coralian eyes with one hand. "You're Lark, the telemedium, aren't you? Welcome. I expect we'll be hearing more from you in the future. But our sources tell us Fuillión's family is still alive. And that's where Magda and her team come in. They've all volunteered to be part of a covert ops unit to enter the Federation and bring the woman and her daughters out intact."

Magda lowered her head briefly. "We all agreed it was the very least we could do to atone for our horrible mistake. Besides—" and her face took on a steely cast "—we're still determined that the guilty parties must pay for what they did to our own loved ones. It's just that now...well, we know who the guilty parties really are."

"Hear, hear!" shouted Tommy, and lifted another glass. The others joined her in the salute, and the party atmosphere returned, with a great deal of chatting and drinking.

Maurice and Anemone continued talking with Magda. Hal, curious, edged across the room to hear more of this remarkable woman.

"...interrogated by your own Security forces," she was saying to Maurice. "They were very surprised, I thought, to learn how easily we were infiltrated by those Federation kidnappers."

"I can imagine," said Ariadne. "But Magda... There's something that Maurice and I have been wondering about since that night at Neuchatel."

"You have only to ask, Princess, and all I know is yours."

"Thank you. It's this: when you came upon us, out on the meadow...how did you find us? You parasailed from the Great Barrier Cliff, you tramped across hundreds of kilometers of open ground. How did you know we'd be there, out in the open, on an expedition that we hadn't even heard of till the day before?"

Magda stared for a moment, and Hal had the idea she'd been taken aback by the question. "How? But Princess, didn't anyone tell you?"

"Not yet," said Maurice. "We've been in debriefing so long that we haven't had a chance to ask half the questions we want. So how did you find us?"

"Why, Your Highnesses...we didn't. We didn't find you at all. We were expecting to have to march all the way to the Heart of the World to...to assassinate you."

Curiosity overpowering his good manners, Hal interrupted. "Excuse me, Madame, but I was there, and you did find them. How did you know they were there?"

She spread both hands wide. "But I tell you, we didn't. There was a huge flock of sky-fish that night—you know, those strange unicellular flying creatures—and we went in its direction, just out of curiosity. And we stumbled upon Their Highnesses' encampment. Why, you'd almost think the creatures were leading us there, wouldn't you?"

A second question died on Hal's lips as he saw the stricken—almost frightened—expression on Maurice and Ariadne's faces. Uh-oh, better talk this one over with Phaedra. "I see. Well, that's interesting. Thank you, Mrs. Wesselényi. Best of luck in the Federation; it's no place for a vacation, I can tell you."

She smiled, but Ariadne and Maurice did not. Hal made his way back to Phaedra's side, and they discussed the matter, long into the night.

-#-

"Alan!" Maeter hurried down the Temple hallway waving her hands."Alan, wait!"

Alan Wyngarde turned and smiled, to see her again. "Maeter. Where've you been? I've been searching the whole building for you."

"Oh, first I was welcoming back Ariadne and Maurice. Y'know, it's really amazing how much I like her, now. I'm starting to think that she's a pretty good match for Maurice after all."

Alan admired the way she looked in the green satin dress against which her bright blonde hair stood out so brilliantly. "Good. It's time for Twilight Chant, down in the Amphitheater. Shall we go together?"

She fell in beside him, matching his steps easily. "Of course. Then I talked to Mother and Father, after they finally came out of that long meeting with Dr. Egan and Holland and Viyuuden."

"I suppose they all had a lot to talk about. You were quite a hero here on the home front, you know."

"Yes, I do. But that's not what I wanted to tell you. You see, I've decided on something. I'm going to write a book."

He saw the determination in her blue eyes and knew she was utterly serious. "That can be a tough job."

"I know; it's going to take quite some time. It's going to be a biography."

Out of long habit, he started for the elevator, then changed his mind and went with her to the stairs instead. "Of who?"

"Of Mother and Father. They've had an amazing life, you know. And it's time someone set it all down, before the people who were involved start to scatter."

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that." He held the door for her and they set off down the long stairwell together. "What are you going to call it?"

"It's going to be their complete story, from the time Mother crashed into Father's house and met him, right up to today. I'm going to call it Eureka Seven and the Psalms of the Planets. What do you think?"

He considered it. "I think it's a great title, very dramatic. But you know, there's going to be a huge amount of research and work involved in a project that ambitious. Are you sure you can handle it alone?"

"Oh, I won't be alone." Maeter came to a stop on the first landing. "You're going to be helping me."

Alan hesitated, not entirely certain of where this conversation might be tending. "Well, look... You know I like nothing better than being with you, but... But I've got my duties as a Guardian, too. I'll only be able to help out in the evenings and..."

"That's all fixed. I've told Mother and Father all about you. They talked it over, very seriously, and they agreed to have Viyuuden give you a special reassignment. To work with me."

"A reassignment...? Tell me you're kidding!" He held tightly to the brass railing that surrounded the landing.

"Don't you think they can do it?"

"Your parents? They can do anything they want, everyone knows that. It's just that...Maeter, are they sure? Are you sure?"

Her impish grin faded, replaced by a sincere face of such gravity that Alan had the dizzying sensation of seeing her now as he would always see her, down a long and wonderful journey through the years. "Yes, Alan. I'm sure. Are you?"

The calm and dispassionate Plateau of Serenity he should have been able to achieve would not come. "Yeah," he told her, finally. "Yes, I am sure. Maybe it's Vodarek's Will or maybe it's just you. I'm sure, all right."

Alan pushed open the landing doorway and motioned her through it, toward the elevator.

"I thought you wanted to take the stairs," she said.

"Another time, Maeter. Right now...I'd kind of like to come down as gently as possible."

-#-

"I thought that meeting was going to go on forever," sighed Eureka. "I don't see how you and I can ever persuade them that the InterDominion is in danger of turning down a path that it shouldn't. Dr. Egan's mind is already made up, I think, and Holland admires him so much that he'll follow along."

"Yeah." The Temple hallway was quiet and cool, so unlike the subtle pyrotechnics of the meeting itself. "I can't read Viyuuden, though. Sometimes he seems on their side, but other times I think he understands what we're worried about. I'm not sure exactly what I expected when you and I came out of the forest five years ago. But I'm starting to worry that this isn't it." He checked his chronometer. "Anemone and Dominic's party is probably still going pretty strong. You want to go?"

"I'm exhausted. I really don't feel up to being jolly right now."

"Me neither." Renton yawned and stretched. "Let's go back to our quarters. I can't handle any more politics tonight. We can get something to eat later. And listen...do you think we did the right thing? About Maeter, I mean."

"Of course. She made the choice herself, really. It's not as if we forced her into it. She's an intelligent girl, and wise beyond her years—the way you and I had to become. And now Maurice and Ariadne. And soon it will be Linck's turn, won't it? Oh, Renton, it's all going so fast."

He took her hand and led her away from the passage to their rooms, out to a small observation balcony on the east side of the Temple pyramid. Dominic's Security group had never approved of the little overlooks, but when he and Eureka had insisted, they gave way.

A dark violet shaded the eastern horizon, and the very first of the new stars sparkled low and innocent. "I wonder if I'll ever think of the stars the same way again," said Eureka. "Not now that we know there's a strange creature of fog and trapar out among them, looking for something we might not really want it to find. Are we just the tools of bigger and older minds than ours?"

Renton held her waist, reassured as always by her softness and warmth. "Are you ready to start saying 'Why don't they just let us alone?' yet?"

She laughed, then, and fanned her wings. "No. Not yet. Night may be coming, but after that there'll be a sunrise, and a new day will start again. There was a time when I thought the darkness would never end, Renton. But then I met you."

"And then I met you." He threw off his jacket, trousers and boots, and stood with wings outspread. "Been an awful long day, hasn't it? What d'you say we stretch our wings? If you don't tell Dominic, I won't either."

Eureka grinned, and wriggled free of her gown, as hand in hand, they leaped off into the twilight, trailing a river of light across the face of the distant stars.

The End