The Gameplayers of Zan

Book 2 of the Ler Trilogy

Copyright ©, 1977, by M. A. Foster

BOOK ONE

Instar Cellae Sylvestris

ONE

NOVEMBER 1, 2550

Processes have uses; it is also important to realize that fascination with a process can grow, there being no automatic check against this, until the bemusement obscures the intended results of the original procedure. This is the easiest trait of all to observe in others and the hardest to see and act upon in ourselves. We shall speak of obsessions with results upon another day.

—The Game Texts

One always makes an identification of self in terms of a matrix of otherness, never saying simply "there am I," but always with the implicit definition "there am I in relation to allothers I can know." And so now alone as she could not imagine anyone ever being, there was only herself. She could nolonger measure who she was; only refer to a what-she-hadbeen, which she suspected either was no longer valid, or elsewas now based on distorted memories. There was herself, the memory, the whole of her life and all the things she had seenand done. There was also imagination, projections of fantasies of hopes and fears, the projections of her mind into allthe places and circumstances she could never be in actuality.She balanced delicately between that which was and that which might have been. The impossible now. There was nothing else.

The present is never still, but a moving line between two points; in moving there is direction, source, destination. But with all references removed, by which one can measure mo tion, there was no longer any sense at all of the bridge of motion in time connecting the past with the future. They existed, of course: her memory and imagination reassured her of that; it was that she could no longer imagine quite how she related to those quantities. She was adrift in her own mind.

She could review the circumstances easily enough; in fact,she had already done so a number of times, perhaps severalhundred times, seeking an alternative, a flaw, a slip, some error she could at least feel guilty about, or blame on someoneelse. But it was all as impervious as armor plate, there was nochink anywhere in the fearsome blankness of existentials. Sheimagined she felt like someone who had stepped into an elevator at exactly the moment when all of its safety devices failed: accidents happen which are in fact not the fault of their victim. She had been caught near the scene of the mission for which she had been sent. For which she had volunteered. It now seemed in hindsight that her life had alwaysbeen a series of closing doors, not opening ones, of narrowingpassages and shrinking rooms. And this was the last door andthe last room. There was no passage. It ended here, whereverhere was.

Near the Museum of Ancient Technologies, yes. There wasnothing that could link her to the apparent vandalism that had destroyed beyond repair two obscure instruments left behind from the age of petroleum exploitation. Left behind, likeastrolabes left behind from a rude era of ships powered bythe wind they caught in their sails; left behind as the wavesleft shells, relics of life, on the beach. Artifacts of a vanished art, for there was no oil worth exploring for anymore. Yet ofall those who might have been there, nearby, only she had been ler, deep into human lands beyond the reservation, andshe had not had, even for herself, a convincing explanationfor what she had been doing there. It was natural that theyconnect her with the damaged instruments. Her only remaining defense had been to remain quiet and somewhat passive,giving them nothing, not a name, not a reason.

They had conveyed her to their headquarters; others, intheir turn, had taken her farther, to a large urban area, to abuilding, to a room within the building. Everything seemedunmemorable, bland; there had been no way to memorize directions or landmarks. Everything was featureless, or nearlyso, as much so as could be managed. Then came the interrogators. They had been insistent, but considerate and subtle,masters of their arts. They had been firm, not especially unpleasant, and above all persuasive. She had said nothing.Only repeated in her soft voice that they should notify theShuren Braid—hostel-keepers by the main entry into the reservation, close under the Institute—that they had picked up alost girl. They had agreed to do so immediately, and were very polite. She knew they hadn't No one came for her.

There had been a lack of overt threats, and there had never been any mention of anything like torture. She had notbeen fooled. She was too wise in her own ways not to knowthat people who hold all the cards have all the strengths andnone of the weaknesses, and that they do not need to rant, rave, shout, pace up and down making histrionic gestures, parading about to turn suddenly, shouting bombast and threats.Or interrupting the silences with harangues and hectoring.No. They had no need to intimidate: these are acts that characterize an interrogator who is more interested in fondlingthe power he holds than in digging out the information he ispaid to get.

Her story had been transparently flimsy, but she had repeated it anyway. She had been lost, she said, after a little exploration, and had been trying to get back by dead reckoning.She had never been in the Museum. She was sure they sawthrough that, but she stayed with it, however skillfully theytried to steer her into other areas. She thought that it hadbeen easy to resist the gentle but constant, tidelike pressure,compared with other experiences in which she could draw analogs. But under her own sense of self-confidence, she could see that her visitors were in fact extraordinarily skillfulamong their own kind, others of the humans, the forerunners.One untrained would have broken in hours under them, and all without a single raised angry voice, a single twinge ofpain. She couldn't really determine exactly how long it hadgone on. There had been frosted windows, but the light shining through them was gray and never changed; she never knew if she was seeing filtered light, or some artificial light. Itgrew dark through those windows regularly, and there had been conspicuous clocks in the room with her, but she suspected that in a subtle world the obvious was mutable. Sheknew the rates of things; that had been part of her skill, hertraining, and she could sense subtle fluctuations of rate. But

they had allowed her to sleep when she had been tired, eatwhen she had been hungry, wash when she had felt dirty. Shelearned nothing from those experiences—the noise levels wereprecisely uniform whatever her position.

She maintained her silence and her evasion as long as shecould. After all, there had been some other close calls, and always before she had been able to bluff her way out. Butperhaps those had not been so skillful as these, who seemed to sense the presence of deeper secrets in her silences, a presence that teased them, kept them at it. So despite the easymanners, the almost-pleasant sessions, the easy, relaxed interrogations, they smelled a secret They didn't know if it hadanything to do with the original issue or not—they were not,she could see, not that perceptive. That had ceased to matter. . . . The girl has secrets and will not talk: dig them outand we'll see.

Their closeness to the truth terrified her, their knowledgeof the basic relational needs of people, ler and human alike(after all, they were not all that different), shook her to herfoundations, and their physical presence overpowered her. Toher eyes, no matter how often she had seen them before, humans were harsh, angular, hairy creatures whose tempers were at best uncertain. She herself was almost to her full bodily growth, but they were all larger than she, taller, heavier. She imagined that the larger ones must weigh almosttwostone. They were wild, primitive beings who, in her view,were not yet tamed, although the logical, factual part of hermind knew well enough that most of them thought of themselves as rather effete and overcivilized. And now she was in the very midst of them, completely in their power, separatedfrom her own intricate and carefully structured environment.One step closer to the ancient and unforgiving wild, to theprimal chaos, to the world, left long ago, of tooth and claw,sinew and strength.

Here, in the city, the tooth was covered and the claw wassheathed, but neither had been removed, nor had been the will that had animated them. So, in the end, they had finallytired of her and their little game, and politely, always politely,suggested that she take a little rest, that she refresh herself, inthe box. The box! Everything they did in their world revolvedaround a box, as it was called in the slang of the day. Thebox was a simulator. A training device with a controlled environment. Some were crude and simple. Others were so fearfully complex they were fully capable of denying the

evidence of one's senses. So did one have a job to learn? In thebox! Bad habits and antisocial traits? In the box. Criminals? Eliminate them or put them in the box. And likewise with oddsuspects who are obviously covering up something, who refusefor days to answer the most simple questions. In the box. Behavior changed by the classical methodology of the cult of behaviorism, orthodox as the dawn. They never questioned ends,and why should they when they had a means that worked sowell and so consistently? In the box. They could transform bytheir simulator alchemy a misanthrope into a philanthropist,an artist into a salesman who won prizes, a satyr or nymphomaniac into a celibate philosopher, and an autistic child into afaith healer. Those who had never been able to cope weretransformed into veritable paragons of efficiency. And forthose who held to their silences, there was the remedy of totalisolation.

They shot her from behind with a dart; that alone, in itself,filled her with a sense of evil: they used a weapon that leftthe hand! The dart contained a drug that paralyzed her butleft her conscious. She felt a bee sting at the back of her neck. Then, nothing. She could neither move nor feel. This part of her memory was clear and bright. Then they had gently placed her onto a little wheeled cart and rolled her down a hall into some other room, a larger one, although shecould see little of its details. Her eyes could see only in the direction they were pointed. She had trained peripheralvision, as did the others of her craft, but against the bland background even that could pick up little. She sensed, ratherthan saw, meters, dials, instruments, switchboards. The room possessed a different odor, one that suggested machinery, electricity, not people. Then they had undressed her and looked over her body, which, judging from their expressions,seemed to them to be underdeveloped sexually; smooth and subtle of contour, hairless save some almost-invisible fine down which was all over her, undeniably female. In the eyesof one she saw the distorted longings of the child molester,but the implied assault within their imaginations did not disturb her. She did not object to nudity per se, and as for theirlongings, she had given a bravado mental shrug: she had given away more than all of them could take.

And after that, after they had looked enough, they hadcarefully and tenderly placed her within some enclosure: from its smell she thought it was a machine, but with a human fear-scent veneered over it as well, a dark place that disturbed her. She heard them refer to it as a sensory deprivation unit She heard some more talk as they set the machineup, and fitted her into its bowels, so that she could deduce what the machine was. The unit was a life-support system thatmaintained a constant temperature and controlled all the inputs and outputs of the body. And some extra things: it caused total anesthesia of the sensory and motor systems, andwhat functions it didn't control, it monitored. It could speedor slow her heartbeat It created and maintained a sensory en

vironment of exactly and precisely zero.

Her universe now. Dark, odorless, weightless, sensationless.She felt nothing, was a disembodied mind. If the absence ofdiscomfort could be said to be comfortable, then it was comfortable. There was no sensation whatsoever. She could remember being placed in it, but afterward had come the darkness and the silence. An unknowable span of time hadpassed since then. Sometimes she thought that it had been only minutes since then, or at best perhaps an hour or so. Other times, she felt weary and thought of years, of growingold, of reaching elderhood in the box, or else being prolongedas an adolescent-phase infertile ler forever, as the monitoringsensors either disregarded or suppressed the hormone chemistry of her reproductive system, which she knew to be different from the human. She suspected the machine thought shehad some disorder and was trying to cure her! But the time.Minutes or years. She didn't know the difference anymore.The reality of the now expanded to enormous distances, gulfsshe could not imagine.

So now she could not avoid the realization that in the end it had not mattered how effective or ineffective her passivedefiance had been. She had been confident at first, althoughshe admitted to some fright and self-concern; yet she must face the fact that, to this point, she was losing this one, andthat she was facing a path with only one way to go, no exitand no place in which to turn around.

At first, the box had been easy, almost pleasant. She

couldn't believe this was a threat: after all, all it did was al

low one to be lazy and to daydream, which people wanted to

do anyway, but somehow never found the time. She had a

number of open-ended practices which were primarily cere

bral in nature, and which served admirably here, in the box.

So at first she renewed her sense of defiance; it had served

her well before she had been caught, and so it would serve

her now. After her initial adjustments to the new environment had been made, she started out by spending her wakingtimes playing the Zan, a game of large scope and interestingsubtleties. At first she left all the virtuoso play to herself, herside, but later this seemed too easy, no matter how complexshe made the play, so she began to elaborate and embroiderthe antagonist side as well, carrying both sides simultaneously. This had been some challenge, for she had played beforeprimarily in the protagonist team role; in any event, it kepther occupied.

She also tried her hand at dramatization, making up or recalling tales she had heard before. This was more challenging,as the ler did not produce plays on the stage, but either readthem or listened to a storyteller, the practice of which was considered one of the ler social graces. She admitted to a deficiency at the telling end, but she had always listened well,and now the habit initially served her well. They favoredtragedy, borrowing freely from human sources and presentingthem as they were, or else changing the names of all the characters to ler names and proceeding from there; they alsomade up dramas of their own according to a complicated setof storytelling rules, and these could occur in various culturalmatrices. So it was that she made up and remembered, perfecting her powers of visualization. She recalled great dramaswhose roots were openly acknowledged to be from the forerunners: Trephetas and Casilda, essentially a tale of lustthwarted by rigid social conventions. She liked that one, for itreminded her, at a certain remove, of a situation which applied somewhat to herself. She also recalled Thurso, with its violet-eyed female antagonist, which always made an audience of ler listeners gasp with horror; ler eyes were invariablylightly and subtly colored, definitive colors almost never beingseen, such traits indicating a force of will which could not beborne without tragic consequence to all around the possessor.Tamar Cauldwett and The Women of Point Sur pleased herwith their studied intricacies and soaring flights of emotion.There was a famous ler version of Tamar, changed somewhat in details, called Tamvardir the Insibling, which in some ways was an improvement over the original.

She moved from realistic, if highly emotional tragedies, tomore fantastic dramas, Ericord the Tyrant, the scary Siege of Kark, and the wierdly beautiful The King of Shent. And then the pure ler dramas, some of which had been adapted fromhuman legends and tales: The Revenge of the Hifzer Vlandimlar, Hunsimber the Beast, Schaf Meth Vor, better known perhaps as Science and Revolution, and Damvidhlan, Baethshevban, and Hurthayyan, the last of which she found herself recoiling from somewhat, as she tended now to identify herself with the victim Hurthayyan.

Being ler, she possessed almost total recall; therefore she could also replay at her leisure pleasurable experiences, moments of beauty or sweetness in her past life. She could alsoproject daydreams, imagined and desired scenes about herself,in the future or the past. With the memory, she could remember far back, virtually to infancy, but back of that was a feared region in which the smoothly cycling lines of memorybecame tangled and confused, and further back knotted, and further, blurred. The infant did not remember the womb because it had not been awake. Now, here, in this dark place—this box, this sensory deprivation unit—the lines of time hadonce more become confused and blurred, and she sensed that another womb had been imposed upon her. The lines were uncertain. She slept. She dreamed.

Like the rest of the lermen, her memory had always been aresource to her, a close friend, a reference. She knew that the farther up the evolutionary ladder a creature had climbed, the more it projected itself into the awareness of time. People, the natural humans and the forced ler alike, had beena giant step forward in this dimension. Yet now and here inthe unmeasurable and unknowable time of the box, her memory, from overuse, had come to resemble some ancient recording—full of the noises of boredom and weariness. Scratchy and worn. The fidelity of reproduction was slippingand random noise was gradually swamping coherences. Information theory and the brain. Memorv in living creatures was not a static thing, fixed in specific sites, like some mechanical computer, but a dynamic, living, moving quantity, a flying body of abstraction moving through the billionsof cells and synapses exactly as a bird in the medium of air,dependent on thp motion to define it in its function. Holistic.

But it was also like a recording in this way as well: in replaying the good parts so often, she had allowed herself the habit of skipping to the best scenes. This was fine, but afterso much use, the scenes, extracted more or less from the matrix of reference which had made them meaningful, had become progressively more shallow and, in the end, less good.Some of them had become almost tiresome. She would find herself saving as she reviewed them, "Yes, and so what?"

As for the daydreams, the imaginings, the fantasies, she had found that it had become steadily more dangerous to allow herself to do this. Berlethon, she called them in her own language, paradreams. Her dreams and paradreams were becoming stronger and steadily more clear, all the while her realities were growing weaker. As her memories of the real which had been were slowly sinking into a morass, a quagmire of noise, the projections were becoming more clear andeven reasonable.

At first the projected paradreams had been like dreams; theindividual scenes had been highly detailed, but the scenes hadpermutated one into another with disregard for the laws of causality and consequence. That, after all, was what distinguished them from realities. Now, however, in the box, it wasthe memories of the real which had become the anticausal phantoms with the illogical shifts, while the projections hadbecome the logical ones, vibrant and electric. Reality had become faded and meaningless. In the normal environment, dreams were the mind's algorithm for sorting and placing experiences in an orderly and accessible manner in the flyingholistic patterns of memory. All well and good: but there wasno provision made m the program of a living brain for a zeroenvironment. So the process of filing and sorting went on unimpeded, using that which had alreadv been placed as an arbitrary input, feeding on images which had already beensorted and placed, resorting and refiling. At each transfer theimages lost both fidelity and coherence. At every transfer noise gained on coherent content.

From the first she had encouraged visions which had beenerotic in content; in her own cultural reference as it appliedto her own phase, adolescence, such activities, their recollections, and their projections, were neither considered reprehensible nor undesirable, but rather encouraged by all, part of growing up. Affairs, trysts, meetings, rendezvous of variableduration, and the gatherings, where participation was not limited to a single pair, were all part of an elaborate process thatinstructed one in care for one's fellow creatures, intimacy, consideration. Knowledge came later: it was important to learn to relate with others and to learn to tolerate others, in view of the conditions which would come with parent phase.

So she had naturally thought of these adventures; theywere pleasurable in a direct bodily manner and helped greatlyto pass the time. But now, of course, they had become theworst offenders against the rule of reality. They ran away with her. In these, so great had become the confusion that she had been forced to invent an elaborate mental procedure to segregate the real and the unreal, a complication that added further waves of its own, further elaborations. Just as there was no ultimate end to the definition of meaning, andno final fraction of a transcendental number, so there was no real limit to the process of elaboration. None whatsoever. And so now she was in very deep water, being carried awayfrom the shore by the undertow at an alarming and increasing rate. Had there ever been a shore? Had there ever beensuch a thing as a shore? The very projections that in the beginning of her dark journey had helped save her mind, wherea lesser one would have broken, were now the very elementscontaminating it.

The forerunners who had remanded her to this place andinto the box knew little or nothing. They certainly did notknow who she was, or else she suspected they would not havebeen so polite. They would not then have waited for the boxto work its terrible magic on her. No, more direct methods would have been used. But their questions had reassured herof that; that they knew nothing. They did not know the rightquestions to ask. But they were suspicious, and of more thanjust the incident of the Museum. Somewhere there were otherthings that bothered them; there had been noises in the night,and they knew not the source, nor why. Or had it been justthe settling of the house, the wind in the trees, a natural event? Obviously she had some connection with the vandalism in the Museum; at the least, she appeared to be the onlysuspect they had. And why those particular devices? Butthose questions did not bother her; she expected them. At another point, however, they had pursued other topics. For example, they had asked, quite casually, who were the ler players of the game Zanl What was the significance of the Game?Were the players free of other obligations, save self-support?Apparently they had several lines of inquiry going, and sinceshe had been close to hand, they had tried a few at her. Shehad felt chill dread at these questions, and hoped that her projected ignorance had convinced them. Ah, indeed there was arich area in herself for them to mine. They were closer to itthan they realized; and not to solving little vandalisms, either.It was partially fortune that they did not press her there. But itdisturbed her, even now. The other players needed to knowthis line of inquiry, the Shadow needed to know . . . and therewas no way for her to tell anyone. For once set in motion, theforerunners would not ever come to a complete problem halt

until they had followed every line out. Yes, they were greatcompleters, but after all that was the true meaning of intelligence: following through. She was ler, but she had no contempt for humans. To the contrary.

Her mind wandered. After a fashion, they had been kindenough with her. They did not believe they were causing herparticular harm by placing her in this sensory deprivationunit. Almost casually, yet they had no idea of the effects of iton her. Perhaps among their own kind they were pleasantenough persons. At home, or in some warm tavern, with friends, or lovers. She had heard that they did not have lovers, at least openly. And did they have taverns? She now realized that for all her previous trips outside she knew in actuality very little about how they lived, what their dreams were.

So as the interrogation had continued, she had begun tosee into the basic surface smoothness of her interrogators, just as a glassy surface of water meant deeper channels; therewere things they wanted to know, they had her, and she knew. Indeed did she know. And that, no matter what the cost, not a word of it could be told. The worth of it was simply too high: it was easily worth perzhan*, one hundred and ninety-six, of her lives. It really was not even worth arguingabout, even with herself, even in the box. However it went. She thought, with a certain irony, that the people who talkedthe most about sacrifice were always the ones who knew theywould never have to make that decision. She did not particularly worry about pain, for she knew from the box that theyhad more sophisticated methodology at their disposal, oncethey had an idea who she was. That was more important thanthe business at the Museum. And once put into use, she wassure that these methods would leave more permanent scars onher, figuratively, than flesh would hold: they would be inside.So she kept the silence.

* One times fourteen to the second power. Ler counted with afourteen-base number system.

At times like this, when she had to reaffirm basic quantities to herself, she allowed herself the luxury of recalling the secret, as she had come to call it. It was her only remainingsource of comfort, hut she only allowed herself to recall it infull when her mind felt clear, for she had no way of knowingif she was talking or not. She took great comfort in seeinghow successful it would be, now that it was almost complete,how much it meant for all the people. Just a few more years.

She saw the part she had played in it, more minor than it should have been, but who after all could have foreseen the exact circumstances, ridiculous as they were, and who could argue intelligently against the Great Rule, even though somewhat disadvantaged by it? But what of that? She had used thetraditions herself back against the problem, and aided by a rare stroke of good fortune, had come close to regaining herplace, which should have been hers by right, unquestioned.She had almost made it back . . . and now, in the box in an alien city, it pained her to know, as she had known all along,that she was not to make the contribution she knew she was capable of. They had planned things to a nicety, the elders who had guided it from the Beginning, but reality had slippedthem a cruel twist. But they could not have foreseen this situation, with its ironies of the best and the worst misplaced. She thought bravely, But I have kept the faith where no one else was ever tried. Of course, it wasn't consolation. She re called the drama Damvidhlan, Baethshevban, and Hurthayyan* again. Yes, she was sure of it: the plight and fate of Hurthayyan had indeed analogously applied to her, to includea match for the identity of Hofklandor Damvidhlan. But who or what did Baethshevban equate with? She could not be entirely certain, for it did not match a person, but rather a diffuse something, an emotion from many directed to one. And coveted, now seized. Zakhvathelosi.

* The drama referred to was a ler adaptation of the tale of David and Bathsheba, with the names changed to ler names. Hurthayyanwas Uriah the Hittite. She could from this identification find the equal of David/Damvidhlan, but in her case, Bathsheba was not aperson but rather a sense of regard or admiration.

She could easily recall the image in her memory of the human interrogator, and his superior. The interrogator had beenas bland and featureless as his surroundings, distinctly unremarkable, but the superior had been another matter; he hadbeen tall and rather bony, and his face was angular enoughto deserve the term "hatchet-faced" without further explanation. His ears protruded after the fashion of jug handles andhis jaw was long and equine. His hair was sandy-colored withreddish overtones, cut brushy short and springing out in oddlittle tufts at unexpected places. In her eyes, more accustomed to the smoother and softer lines of the ler face (whichcorrespondingly appeared childish in the human frame of reference), he had been primitive, raw, rough-cut, homely, in fact, as an oak post But she remembered him with dread andfear, homely as he had been, for she knew that when they came back for her, after they judged she had had enough time in the box, he'd come with them and she'd talk to him in the mode of intimacy, just to have contact with someone,some stimulus. Citizen Eykor, they had called him. She wouldstart talking and would not be able to stop. Something wouldslip in her relief and the tale would start, and it would neverend. She suspected she could not survive the box; she knew she couldn't keep the silence if they took her out and startedquestioning her again. A spasm of fear passed through her,gripping her momentarily; perhaps she would love him, justfor talking to her after the box. Yes, that was possible. Hewould reassure her, probably reaching to touch her shoulder,not realizing the overtly sexual connotations of the gesture inher reference . . . and this could not be, must not be; it must not even be allowed to approach the potential to be. Therewas nothing she could share with Citizen Eykor, and less shecould allow herself to say to him.

They must not know, not one word of it, she thought Thewave had felt the first intimations of the bottom underfoot and was beginning to steepen, after a fetch of miles and years. Centuries, really, so long had it been in motion. Yes.Let it happen in its time. Then it won't matter what they know; in fact, we could even drop them off a copy of theHistories; let them try to duplicate it and follow them intothe night Then it won't matter. But now? It would neither befitting nor sufficient for her to return, broken, to the Mountain of Madness, the Holy Place, and say, to the Shadow, "I held out as long as I could, but I broke in the end. Yes, Ispoke of it and they know. They will be coming tomorrow orthe next day, they will take it for themselves, and for us itwill be gone forever." And with our low birth rate and unstable genes we will be the wards of the forerunners forever, tied to old Earth with them. Intolerable.

She stopped that line of thought for it led to hard choices. Choices whose solutions were all too obvious. She returned once more to the present The zero noplace nowhen, auniverse in which she was the sole inhabitant She and her memory. She was quite nude, but she could no longer perceive any sensation whatsoever; what little the box had lefther had quickly disappeared, dropped as recurring items ofno consequence by her own mind, just as one ceased to heara familiar clock, and began to wonder if it still ran. Hard to

catch even in normal circumstances, in the box these reportsfrom oneself simply vanished, leaving no ripples to mark thespot where they had gone under. She returned to her nudity,tried to sense it in some way. She couldn't. There was no body there! She thought in anger, I may not be able to feel it now, but I can remember it. You can't take that away from me. Ifs my body and ifs my mind, you hifzer dranloons*! She returned. Nude, yes, it was pleasant to be clothesless, with someone exciting . . . something more than just pleasant,a thrill. With a body-friend, a lover. Much better a deeplover.As an adolescent ler, she did not perceive a rigid line of distinction between friends and lovers. Sex with friends of the opposite sex was just part of the relationship. However, shedid differentiate between sex and affection. They might complement one another, or reinforce one another, in a relationship, but in the matter of degrees of each they operated independent of one another. Why not? One expressed onequantity, and the other something entirely different. Where aspecific person was involved, one perceived degrees of intimacy, of both personal functions, elaborated by certain cultural reinforcements—for example, as the use of parts of one'sname with persons with whom one had such a relationship. The definitions were both complex and dynamic, possessingmany variables simultaneously, and so one spent much of one's adolescence learning the definitions. Many grew restiveand questioned the elaborate distinctions, the subtlety, the hedging. But she knew very well what the use of it portended.Relationships among elders were highly structured, and so after the Braid years one remembered the definitions of one'syouth, and used an analog of them to enter the elder custom.

* Literally, "illegitimate trash"; loonh is an intensifier.

It was as a spectrum of many colors, each shading into the next, and no line anywhere which could be said to cause a definite distinction. It was, in fact, a smooth continuum which went from childish games in the woods to couples wholived together in emotional entanglements so interpenetratingthat they lay somewhere along the very borders of sanity. I

have been there. Having been to the nlnce. with him. where the real and the unreal are segregated. I have no respect for those who imagine that the distinction is a casual one. Him. Was all; she had long since ceased to think of him-her-last as a name. One simply disregarded it. There had been two presences in the world. Herself and him. She felt a sudden

constriction somewhere undefinable in her chest, gone beforeshe could be sure if she had felt it at all. Whisked away bythe box. She thought she could detect a trace of moisture inher eyes, open in the darkness. But the sensations were gone.Had they ever been?

Nude. Yes, that. She returned to the memory, a compositeof many experiences, from which she could select the specific image she wanted. The sharp thrill of slipping out of her light summer pleth*, pulling it over her head, when their relationship had been new, turning to him smiling. Or awaking softlyin the night, knowing warm breath along her neck, feelingwarmth along her flank, weight . . . a wisp of memory driftedby; they had gone together down to a place they had madedeep in the forests of the northeast reservation, a place wherehe had . . . what? It had slipped away, not forgotten, but mislaid, tangled in a thousand phantom alternatives, real andunreal, thrown up by her mind, running free. She made aneffort of will: yes, down in the woods, far to the northeast, in a part of the reservation where hardly anyone made theirhome. This memory was a recent one, the summer just past,early in the season; the sensations came back, now vividly,now vague and evanescent, threatening to vanish in the nextinstant. She held on to them by a great effort of will. The rich odors of the damp forest earth, vines, and green leaves,the warm air heavy with the scent of flowers; the sunlightplayed in the shadows of the new foliage, the wind was in thecrowns of the trees, and, listening carefully, one could hear the sound of running water. Together they had slipped theirlight summer pleths off over their heads, feeling the sudden rush of body feeling at the touch of cooler air, and the quickflash of goose-pimples which had disappeared as fast as it hadcome. He had looked deeply at her body, and she at his: hewas thin, pale, and smooth, worked all over with a delicate tracery of muscle and sinew. They had laughed, and she hadmade him chase her running through the trees and vines andtangles, the flower scent strong in the air. The memorysteadied, held firm, ran true.

There was a small treehouse, with a sun-warmed platformall around it, and when they had both climbed the rope ladder leading up to the platform, she had let him catch her andwrestle her to the warm wood; touching and kissing each

•An "overshirt." This was an ankle-length garment superficiallyresembling a long shirt, but whose neck opening never extendeddown past the navel. A garment of general use.

other lightly, childishly, like making leafprints in the fall. And then a sudden, hard embrace, and she had relaxed back on the rough wood, melting, heart pounding . . . was it pounding now?

She couldn't be sure, feeling the memory slip a little. Hadthe body-now responded to the memory? Had replaying itcaused even a small sympathetic echo? Had indeed her heartbeat just now sped up, before the box could respond and damp it down again? She lost the image momentarily. Had itever really happened? She went back, straining, and graspedthe thread at the point she had left off, and remembered; justlike it was happening now, she felt the wild surge of runawayloosed emotions, the whispers of skin on skin, the wet shoulder-kisses, the sudden warmths and hot flashes, little peaks of anticipation and the first touch there; then an awkward moment, followed by oneness. In the now she felt herself moving with the memory, flowing, an energy buildingwithin her greater than the box, and then she lost it, the sequence slipped away from her and swirled away quickly inthe currents of her mind, fading into other erotic images, oflovers she had had, and paradreams of lovers she would liketo have had. She did not know if these latter were real or imaginary. Now they were rock-hard and clear, now insubstantial and changeable as smoke, fading into other lineaments. Other images intruded as well; him again, afterward. She had let her mind go blank and had been idly following the motion of a leaf above, seen over his shoulder, and marveling at how the eye could follow and track such random motion, a leaf high in the sunlight, the strong lightmaking it translucent and showing the pattern of veins inside.

It whipped away, pushed and pulled by the press of otherimages, real and unreal. Yes, that one: once in an orchard, awalled garden, the Krudhen's. There had been a rough wall,stone, unmortared, higher than their heads, and they had, after the invitations of each other's eyes, casually steppedaround into the garden, not even bothering to remove their overshirts, but pulling them up about their waists and joiningtheir bodies while leaning against the rough, bumpy surfaceof the wall. Some people had passed meanwhile along thepath outside the wall, but they knew that the passersby didnot care, even if they had noticed anything. It was doubtfulthey did, for they had been subtle and quiet, making a gameof it. That had not been him, but another, earlier, when she had been younger, and more reckless.... That one vanished, replaced by another: this boy dark-haired and dark-skinned as herself. They had been swimming in the river, the muddyHvarrif, the rich summer water leaving a sweet summer scenton their skins as they sat on the banks in the sun and air-dried. He had been so shy and tentative, younger than herself, touching her thigh accidentally, brushing against her.Sudden cool touch of skin, warmth beneath; the moment became expectant, tense, the exterior details of the instant overwhelming in their clarity. Everything registered, the sun, thestill air, the heat, the clangor of the July-flies in the trees, andshe had reached for the younger boy, smiling....

And it vanished, leaving behind the bitter little backlash that revealed its true nature, that particular image; it had been a paradream, a projection, a hope, a fantasy, not real.She didn't know if she had imagined it earlier, or had made itup in the box. It didn't matter. It wasn't real. She savored thememory of an unreal memory and smiled mentally to herself;knowing herself as well as she did, she knew why the last onehad not been real, although the one by the wall in the orchard had been. She had never been so aloof and teasing, norhad her body-friends and lovers been so innocent or shy. That was a refinement she had added herself, internally, tosatisfy some deeper fantasy. Unreal, unreal. She experienceda weird emotion composed of angry chagrin and wistful sadness. There would be no more embraces by the orchard wall, no more treehouses, even no more dreams of quiet seductions along the Hvarrif banks.

That last incident broke the chain of emotional and erotic memories. She felt as if she had been on tiptoe, straining. Shetried to flex her leg. No good. She couldn't feel it. With no distraction, she began to drift back from the sense of sexualanticipation she had been on, aimless, frustrated. Regretfully.She had greatly enjoyed the few moments she had had in herlife, particularly the last ten years, of the adolescent phase.

And there would have been ten more of them, but for this,

she caught herself thinking. There had been fewer such events for her than for most ler girls, for during all the time,she had been busy at many other things, too serious, too bound up in the Great Work. Now, she thought. Now it is time to make that decision. Time to commit oneself, time to end hesitating, time to cease waiting for a rescue that will never come because they will never know where I am. I'm getting lost in my own memory; it is a home no longer, but a labyrinth with neither way out nor way in.

She approached the point she had been dreading; and nowshe was at it Earlier, she had imagined what it would be likewhen she faced it: a mental image of a major forking in thepath, a most remarkable intersection, a singular location at which choice, with all its terrors, was exercised. Perhapssymbolically, within this image, there would also be emblemsof arresting significance: flashing lights, great illuminated signboards. Something resembling the forerunner motorways.But now that she was actually at the place, she saw with herimagination that the reality was nothing like that at all; hermind provided a symbolic image which fit better: not an intersection at all. The image was of a broad smooth road onlevel ground in undifferentiated country. There was not a landmark, not a reference, not even a post along the side ofthe road to mark the point She was, she realized with a wistful sense of resignation, already past it and the choice hadbeen made long ago. The solution was obvious. And in the middle distances, the road and the surrounding country alikeended, not with a change of conditions, but in an undefinedyet total foggy nothingness. She had been on this path a longtime; her life led here.

/ will not speak of it, I will not talk with them, 1 will not even wait for them to come for me again. I am . . . She groped frantically, trying to find the name she had mislaid,burying it under tons of hopelessly tangled data, real and unreal. There were hundreds of names, and she couldn't decide which was hers; an impossible situation. Yes, apples. Something about apples. And this almost-recognition set off another train of memories and associations: apples. She couldfeel vividly the hard firm flesh of an apple, crisp, cool; bitingthe fruit, the juice had been sweet and acid on her lips. Anautumn sunset, smoky orange somewhere, somewhen . . . shehad been the chief player, the Center, and her team had won.And her opponent The opponent had no identity, it was blanked into a dark shadow, a fog, a presence whose outlinesgave no clue to its identity, but at the same time, she knewshe could rip the curtain aside and see her antagonist in fullopen brightness; she could, but she recoiled from it for sheknew her opponent in truth, better than she knew any otherperson, ler or forerunner, on Earth. Here an odd chucklingthought intruded, flashing by almost before she could catchit: On Earth or off it. Why was that significant? But before she could pursue it further, her wildly processing mind threwout another image: And there was metal, wood, artifice, there

was a sense of a construct all around her, a sense of being-inside, a great, powerful machine, a device, a Daimon, perhaps. Yet neither machine nor Daimon, but something greater and different than either, something whose operation closely par

alleled life rather than mechanics or electronics. Vanished, replaced: And once she had made bread at home with her insibling, and the warm air had been filled with the scent of dough and yeast. Another: Her first sexual experience, thefirst clumsy, awkward embraces (her partner had been as ignorant as she); they had felt like younger children trying toassemble some intricate toy, neither knowing where to beginnor imagining the results, but faithfully believing that if theycould somehow accomplish it, they were sure to be astoundedand amazed. Strange, vivid, sharply etched in her mind. Andindeed they had been. We had breathed so hard, so hotlyupon each other's shoulders. A sensation like climbing a steepening hill, ever harder, then over the top by surprise anda swift ballistic ride down, spinning, slowing. The odd, saltytaste of another's mouth, the oily-sharp scent of sun-warmedskin.

Stop\ She shouted into nothing, the furry all-embracingdarkness that surrounded her. She could almost fleetingly feelher lips trying to verbalize the word in her own speech:mudurailel But the half-sensation was gone instantly, as in anightmare when one tries to call for help, or to cry out tobreak the slow-motion spell, and nothing came out but incoherent, clotted throaty sounds. Croaks and gurgles. She returned to the dark. Very well, then. She formed letters of fire in the dark, sending them forth, changing their colors as theyflew away into the night. The letters faded, leaving green afterimages which pervolved into an iridescent violet. She madethe triple negative: Dheni, dheno, dhena. No, more no, most no. Her mind slowly responded to her Herculean efforts tobring it under control, giving in, tossing out one last imageweakly: Metal, a machine, immense shifting fields of power.Metal, plastic, cloth, leather, wood. She almost had it, she could operate it and feel the control and the mastery, it hadalmost been hers, so close . . . and the Game. And the image was gone.

She thought clearly. She had always had, all along, one escape. But it was a drastic, irrevocable one. With total recall,the ler mind had by compensation also gained the ability totrueforget, erase data, remove it. The one balanced the other.It was something rather more than forgetting in the old sense,

as the forerunners referred to it. That, in truth, was merelymislaying data. But autoforgetting was erasure. It was easyand simple to start the process—one knew instinctively howto do that, like knowing how to imagine: it was so easy andnatural that one had to teach the growing child to attend toreality. But that referred only to starting the process of auto-forgetting. Stopping it was only for the experienced and thelearned, enormously difficult. One could master that only after one had reached deep into elder phase, the end of one'sthird span*. Elders, she had heard, could do partials, forgetcertain sections of their memories, condense and resymbolize,making room for more raw experience . . . but she was not anelder; she was didhosi, adolescent, she had just celebrated hertwentieth birthday this past summer. And so for her it couldbe only everything or nothing. She had heard that it was easy, fearless, painless. Like going to sleep. That one simplypicked some point in any valid memory and undid the image,like picking a thread out of a weave: it then unraveled.

* Span is a period of twenty-four years. Spans (age, pure time)and phases (body development) were not synchronized, but theirinterplay determined key events in one's life. Adolescents 24-30were considered "provisional adults," even though yet adolescentin body, infertile.

And then the ego, the persona, would be gone, vanished, asif it had never been, save for the existential traces left behind on the lives of others, on the enduring physical pieces of theworld. Yes, the ego would be gone, but the body would liveon, protected by its autonomic responses. The protection ofsecrets had not been the intent of autoforgetting, but it wasof a fact one of its by-products. An ultimate protection. Andafterward, her human interrogators would return and discover that all they had was an infant in a twenty-year-old'sbody. Hopefully, not knowing what to do with such a one,they would then return her to the people, where she would becared for properly, washed, fed, and carefully raised to a functional persona again in the ten years remaining beforeshe would become fertile, adult. So by then she would be conscious again, functional, a person able to breed, to be woven, to carry on the next generation as was the obligation of

everyone. She felt a small pleasure in tihe midst of fear. Andin the clear knowledge of what she had to do, there was alsoa confusion. She thought hard, bearing down on it. And I will come again in this body, this sweet flesh which has given me and others so much pleasure. . . . I? No, not I, I know that. It will not be me that inhabits this skin. No, another, one who does not exist now and who will not be borne of Tlanh and Srith. She will have another name. Not mine. I take my name with me into whatever place forgetties go. Yes, another. She will be childish and absentminded, but she will function; knowing what she is, the others will love her and help her. By the time the children weave, she will be virtually complete.

She laughed to herself in her mind, wryly, suddenly seeingit clearly, without apprehension. Me, a forgetty. One who has autoforgotten: Lei Ankrenamosi. She had thought in the pastof autoforgetting with dread and fear, feeling something unclean and wretched about being a forgetty. But there was something worse, a whole universe of somethings-worse. Shebalanced her distaste of the condition against what in her weakness she could reveal and therefore cause. Hobson's choice it might have been, but it was still clear: I will be true to my oaths. Now!

Without hesitation, she reached deep in her mind, to thevery keystone of her being, her Klanh role, the pivot point ofall that she knew, had lived. She strained, reaching, seekingthe unraveling-place deep within the complex of mnemonictangles, found it, a knot, a nexus, pulled, felt it loosen, andunhooked it. There was a sharp, piercing pain, an acute spikeof intense energy, unbearable, over before it had really began. She instantly forgot that it had hurt. Stunned and now not knowing why, she reached again for the particularmemory, which had been the time of her initiation. Initiationinto what? She couldn't remember. It was gone. There wereonly odd little pieces left, and they were fading. At the centerof her mind there was an expanding blank void of unknowledge; almost like what they called an image-reversedGame, in which one played absences, not presences. A void, expanding. Already she had to ask, most curiously, What Game? What had been the Game? It had been important toher, once. A puzzle, and something crucial was missing, thepiece which could explain this odd lapse of memory. Whatwas it? She stopped trying to remember and began to workon logic, working from the outside, filling in the center, andthus to recapture what it should have been. She could do it,but she found that as she did, the eradication process seemedto work faster than she could fill it back in; it was erodingher memory faster than she could fill it in at maximum effort.Useless to fight it; hopeless. Her awareness had been like a

sphere, filled from the center, always expanding outward intothe emptiness of ignorance and not-knowing, ordering. Butshe sensed now that she was different from everyone else inthe world: she had an emptiness inside the sphere as well. And the void inside was growing, forcing her awareness firstinto a hollow ball, then a toroidal shape. There's no stopping it now, she thought; I know what is doing this, but I no longer know how to start it. After a moment, she added, wryly, And I damn sure can't stop it.

She had no knowledge concerning how long the processwould require to erase her mind. Nobody knew. Or if theydid, they did not speak. Forgetties did not remember that they had forgotten. She felt tense, internally, and did not know why. Now she relaxed, letting the process play over awareness, like summer sunlight over one's bare body, something from long ago. Now I will remember everything I can; all the sweet moments of my life. She scanned quicklythrough what remained of her memories, noting what was there, the good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant.There was much of both; she had had her moments, but she had also known bitter disappointments, cruel reverses which had not been her fault, but existential, circumstantial. But not accident. She settled for a sample: Name fourteen* of the most wonderful things that had happened to you. That waseasy. Then, one at a time, she began to relive each of themthrough the magic of total recall, reseeing, reknowing, rediscovering. Under them, though, she sensed the presence of something which had not been there before: a growing voidof darkness, part of her, yet not part of her either. She couldnot remember now why this curious condition existed. Shewould have to speak to someone about it.

* This would have the same significance as ten to a decimal user.

Mornings were nicer. She had always loved the morning-time, and of them all, she would always be the first of thechildren to wake up, seeing the firstlight turning the translucent panes of the windows of the yos deep violet. She woulduntangle herself from the others, for in cooler weather theyall slept in a pile for warmth, and would then climb down out of the children's compartment, into the hearthroom. There had been four of them. Two boys, two girls. An idealler Braidschildren. But somehow something was wrong, there;she could no longer recall why. Now the hearthroom wouldbe dim and dark, the hearthfire ashes dead or almost so. In her nightshift she would tiptoe barefooted through the yos,their home, and pass through the double entryway, pushingthe doorflaps aside as she went. She would step gingerly outon the landing. The air would be cool, even in summer, andwould bite at her skin through the thin nightshift, the skin beneath still sleep-warm and child-fragrant. This memory: itwas winter and there was frost on the ground. Crystals offrost-heave at the bare patch by the creek. The creek by thehouse muttered quietly to itself, its sounds clean, precise, andclipped. The speech-of-winter. It always sounded like that inwinter. In summertime its voice was rounder, looser, more flowing. She imagined that it spoke a language. No, someonehad told her that. Recently. Who had it been? But the creekspoke: a running commentary on the nature of things,ground-water state, humus, moles, earthworms, new-fallen leaves of the season releasing their nutrient material to add tothe rich forest soil. A sense of almost-freezing. The thingswater knew. She looked up. Farther down the creek she couldmake out the dim shape of the neighboring yos through the winter-bare brush, briars, and vine-tangles. In summer, it would have been completely hidden. And farther on, visiblethrough a gap in the trees, was the lake, still and cold and deep blue in this early light.

She scanned again, sensing that she was losing groundmore quickly than she had imagined she would. No time for fourteen. Have time for one more replay. So let it be with him. That one will I hold, even to the end. Let it be last, and then nothingness. Even if now it is just a figment of my memory, never to be again. Suddenly, the phantoms were gone.

The process continued inexorably, returning her mind to itsentropic ground state, but as it moved, it caused ripples ofpseudoknowledge to form in the central void, a logiclike action that seemed to her to be sudden flashes of insight. These momentary new forms were diverse as their origins: some were obviously invalid, others incomprehensible and alien. And some had the ring of truth. She did not know how sheknew this. These last she tried to hold on to. One in particular, a towering edifice, permutating wildly. For an instant, she saw: and relief flooded through her, for she had seen the future. No fantasy, no paradream, no pseudoknowledge. Real.And that future was both true and good: There would be sorrows, caused by the very thing she had just done but not herfault, her blame, but another's. And they would succeed in the Great Work. It would be. She saw and was happy, but she did not understand, nor did she know why the thoughthad pleased her. Then it was gone. And also gone was thememory that something had pleased her.

She fixed on his image. Him. Her deepest. Cool and distantat first, there had been something about him which she had not liked . . . or disapproved of. She couldn't remember. It had soon ceased to matter. And then she had discovered that he could do something she did, something . . . that was gone too. No matter. The memory of him as he had been was clear and uncluttered. If anything, the clarity of the image had been increased by the removal of the background in which they had met, and the growth of the emotional tanglewhich had sprung up between them, and soon tied them together. She could see him clearly: slender, wiry, almost delicate; but strong and quick. Precise movements, no wasted motions or mannerisms. A little younger than herself, but byless than a year. His hair, cut in the relaxed bowl cut common to all adolescents, was much lighter in color than hers.In a distant way, he reminded her of . . . whom? A youngerchild, related to her, but she couldn't remember whom. Thin, precise facial lines; tense, but not overbearing. No, not.that.He had been the most tender of creatures. She knew.

She sank deeper into the memory, feeling in it a wholesome refuge from a growing dark emptiness outside it. Everything beyond this memory seemed dim, obscure, fading. Thatwas her spatial orientation. In time, it was no better: it beganwith a blank and ended with one. Now she could not remember anything except the last time they had been together.

They had gone down eastward into the deep woods, in theautumn, recently. To their own secret place they had built, atreehouse. It had grown too intense between them, and they did not want others (or were afraid of them?). It had been their last time, just before she had somehow arrived in this nonplace. They had been lovers, more than that, they had touched and kissed each other's bodies, clasped one another closely with their limbs. She thought she felt a pain in her heart, wetness in her eyes. Were they real? Something oppressive was preventing her from feeling what she knew shemust feel. All gone soon. Was real? Will hold this until it isall gone. So good then. Did it in a beam of sunlight, we did. Thought my heart would burst. She fell utterly into the memory, letting it take her, merging with the recent past,dimly sensing that somewhere she possessed a now-body

which was at last beginning to respond to the then-body, as the difference between the two evaporated to her consciousness, the strength of the impulse now so strong that it was beginning to override whatever it was that had prevented her before. It had not been designed for this. Felt the yearningtake her; she let it flow, unresisting, the undertow of the intense single-mindedness of desire, and the memory took over;in the now, in the box, she responded as one with it, synchronized with the memory, reaching, reaching, one last fractionaleffort and now the focus passed through her and for one single burning instant everything was crystal clear, gestalten,the sum of the universe and all its parts, playing over her, fireand light. She flew. Body centered, her hands wielded power.Then there was no desire, no need. She had one last thoughtin coherent forms, in wordlike concepts, then the words fellaway. She had lost that. There were only pictorial images: She had a vision. As from outside herself, she saw herself floating in space, looking back at her. The figure met her gaze, looking down on her from slightly above; it was wearing her own special pleth, the one to be used only for high ceremonies, with an abstract design embroidered down the front panel, odd little dots arranged in a mysterious but sensible pattern. The figure was barefooted. The sleeves dropped loosely halfway between elbow and wrist. All around outside the figure a bluish space seemed to enclose her, a cruciform shape but with an additional arm to the front and the back, precisely delineated, and everywhere with ninety-degreeangles. Made up of eight cubes. The figure had extended its arms into the cubical spaces by the shoulders. And behind it, dimly in the background, there was something else, a curved screen, a large panel, immense, its true size distorted by perspective. She could not tell how far away it was. Patterns similar to the design on the pleth, but infinitely more involuted and complex, filled the screen, living, moving, changing in a way that wrenched at her mind. The girl was herself, that she knew. And now, the self she watched, who had been gazing sorrowfully back at her, turned her head slowly to the right, as if to look back just once at the design in the background. The face turned away. The pattern stopped moving, and a deadly stillness filled her mind. The vision was now lifeless, fixed forever. It lost contrast, then color, then winked out. There was only darkness absolute.

She let it go, knowing almost nothing now. She had seen, but she had not understood. She felt fatigue, exhaustion, but

completed, satisfied. She was sleepy. She had no more desires,no needs. The darkness was close, but she did not fear it; it was a friend, something she had called for. She had now forgotten a lot, and there were no more confusing images. Onlysome random percolating fragments. She ignored them. She had no interest in those fragments at all. She was sleepierthan she had ever known, heavy, sinking. It was like swimming in a shallow summer pond at night, under an overcastsky. The warmth waited. All she had to do was kick off andflow. It was so easy. There was no longer any time, no moreduration. Now that was gone, too. She was free. The universecollapsed to a point, one point, undimensional. She no longerknew who she had been. There was no past, there was nothing, and what fragments remained seemed to make little dif

ference either way.

Either way.

Either.

Clane Oeschone, medical technician of the fourth grade,abbreviated MT4, had been working his first midnight shift ofthe new cycle in the Nondestructive Evaluation Facility appended to Building 8905; this was a new assignment for him,one which could be regarded as a tentative promotion. But sofar his assigned duties had been absurdly simple: he was merely to attend to certain laboratory equipment, which appeared to be various Instructional Environment Enclosures. His responsibilities were limited and clearly specified, befitting to a technician of the fourth grade, although rather more than what might have been expected of the ordinary fourth.Indeed, as Oeschone thought. There was, after all, somethingto the acceptance of a programmed name. He had casuallyforgotten his old name. That person no longer existed. So oneaccepted, and became a cut above the average earner. It opened the doors to special assignments, and in his own case,out of the Sectional Palliatory.

However it had come to pass, his present task was simplicity itself: all he had to do was monitor the manual override panel, be alert for alarms, and tend the recording instruments, changing the paper as required, adjusting the currentflow to the electrostatic needles as indicated by technical orders, and other related functions. Oeschone had received a thorough briefing on his duties here in 8905 from the evening-shift technician, including a description of patterns to watch for on the multiencephalograph, normal patterns as well as some abnormal ones. He also had, close to hand for reference, an operating manual with hundreds of conditions and responses listed, which he was also at liberty to use. He had glanced through it; it was a heavy tome of several hundred pages. To be absolutely candid, he had not memorized all that he had seen therein; but he had noted the section dealing with emergency procedures, particularly those pages dealing with specific patterns on the graph paper:these conditions called for the standby medtech. Those calledfor the duty medic.

Oeschone glanced idly at the machine. It was the only onein the room he had been assigned to. Before him, needles scratched with a faint but annoyingly repetitious sound, regular as clockwork. The paper was fixed on a huge drum easyof access. It passed under the needles, and thence to an equally bulky collection reel. Oeschone made a gesture of attentiveness to the markings being made on the graph paper,although he was quick to admit privately to himself that of the data they were recording, he could interpret only themost simple and primitive portion. However his limitations, the knowledge of them did not disturb him, for Oeschone wasa modest man, sure now of his career progress to come. He had no burning ambitions which could be vitalized in his day-to-day routines. He also knew that it never counted whatone actually did, but rather how it was perceived. And here,a programmed name was a coin that spent well.

He bent and looked more closely, trying to see if he couldread this one. He looked again; the patterns on the papermoving beneath the needles were by no means standard curves. He estimated that he could at least determine that the subject was conscious, but it appeared to be an extremelyrelaxed state of consciousness, almost an Alpha wave pattern.But not quite. He looked again. Yes, it was clear: he understood. He could read it: it was yet conscious, but there was astrong phi factor. That was one he had learned. It indicatedhallucinations. Momentary, not yet of the obsessive variety.Oeschone felt uneasy, and consulted his operating instructionsjust to be certain. After a time, after reading the text and consulting the graph again, he relaxed. No action was calledfor. Abnormal, but not out of tolerances. He returned to his chair and settled himself comfortably.

So it was hallucinating, was it? Well, that was nothing to

him. He did catch himself wondering briefly, without particular concern, why this one, whoever it was, had been put inthe box, obviously on isolation. But after all, there was simply no telling, no telling at all. Isolation . . . Oeschone looked away from the box. This was an easy shift; nothing to it.

Even hallucinating as it obviously was, that one in the boxcould last for days more, weeks, before the symptoms becameserious, or one of the alarms went off, and the medtech came to break open the box, carefully, of course, taking all the notes, warnings, cautions, and expansions of the operatingmanual in mind. But it was always the same whenever theyopened up an isolation box: they invariably found an emotional beggar who would say anything, reveal any secret, nomatter how trivial, just for an instant of personal contact. Itwas the ultimate fear, the fear of having to face the inescapable evidence of one's unique loneliness, and they had exploited it further than any previous ruling order had exploitedany fear. It was physically painless and left no marks. Outside. And one who had been in the box was completely trustworthy, perhaps more so than the higher grades, if rathermeek. Oeschone had heard tales . . . that after isolation, manywould beg for a little light torture, just for the stimulus. Forreality, however degrading.

Pitiful, such persons. Why did they allow themselves to came to such a sorry pass? Oeschone was certain that he didnot know. Or if he did, he did not want to. It all worked the same in the end. But they knew the rules, they did, the orderand the consequences. And after they had done whatever itwas such people did, it all ended up the same way: in the box. Oeschone looked at the box. A dark gray structure somewhat higher than his height, occupying the end of the room, large enough to be a small jitney bus, almost. Silent, motionless, clean, powerful. Oeschone turned and went to hischair, sat He pulled the narrative scanner on its telescopingmountings toward him, turned it on. He did not look back tothe isolator again for a long time. . . .

Some hours later, when he had become bored with the repetitious events being depicted on the scanner programs,Oeschone looked up, rather sheepishly, wondering what thetime was and thinking about a cup of coffee. He stood up,stretched, looked about the room, more to rest his eyes thananything else. The room was silent, save for the whispering ofair in the circulation vents, and the faint scratching of theneedles on the graph paper. That reminded him of something,after a time. He thought guiltily that he should have been checking the readout every fifteen minutes. But he wasn't particularly disturbed; it was simply a matter of adjusting hisduty logs. He was sure nothing had happened worthy of note;nothing ever did. Oeschone walked over to the recordingdevice, looked cursorily at the graph, straightened, nodding tohimself. Nothing had changed.

He looked again, some subliminal cue tugging at hisdimmed consciousness. He could not, however well he rationalized it, avoid the suspicion that something subtle, but notthe less drastic for all that, had occurred while he had been looking at the entertainment-scanner. Oeschone looked closely, now, at the pattern still unrolling before him. Therewas something there, he was certain. Now he had to find it.

Each of the needles was tracing a unique pattern, and it seemed to be just as before. Just as before he had gone to hischair. Oeschone looked again, feeling that sinking feeling.No, it was not just like before. Now all of the wave-forms were perfectly regular, with no variation whatsoever beingoverlaid on whatever pure frequency they tapped. All of them. Regular wave-forms, as if they were being generated bya computer. He bent over the collection reel and began to unroll it frantically, looking desperately for the section in whichthe regular wave-forms had started. His heart leaped; thensagged again, in disappointment; he couldn't find it. Oeschonereached for the alarm button, the one which would summon the duty medic. He would know what to do.

The unexplained, unmodulated wave-forms continued with

out any change or deviation until the duty medic arrived,

some forty minutes later. A sizable group accompanied the

medic, apparently standby personnel he had called out.

Oeschone tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

Once he had taken stock of the general situation, the

medic took charge of things in a stern manner at variance

with his youthful appearance. That, at the least, did not sur

prise Oeschone; duty medics were a surly lot at best, and he

had not yet heard of one who enjoyed being called out during

his shift. It was widely believed that they napped on their

shifts, and of course if they were awakened too quickly, they

growled like bears. But, growling or not, Oeschone was

secretly glad to have the medic here; the matter and the re

sponsibility was now out of his hands. Perhaps there would

be other circumstances as well to muddy the water and divert

attention from himself.

The medic appeared to ignore Oeschone; an assistant dug into a voluminous carpetbag and extracted a weighty bluetext, from which he read cryptic instructions and rejoinders,to which the medic either nodded assent or performed someaction, such as turning a potentiometer, reading a meter, orflipping a toggle. They performed with an efficiency that bespoke both knowledge of the subject matter and considerabletraining. At several points in the sequence of actions, the medic would consult the multiencephalograph. At these occasions, he would also review Oeschone's duty log, here turningto leer knowingly at Oeschone. But he said nothing. Afterconsiderable time had been spent on the preliminaries, theybegan to disassemble the box, proceeding carefully in accord

ance with instructions so as not to disturb out of sequence thedelicate life-support mechanisms. Having completed most ofhis preparatory actions, the duty medic then climbed up ontothe box, using cleverly concealed hand- and footholds. At thetop, he opened a small inspection plate, and shining a smallpocket flashlamp into the opening, looked inside intently.

Oeschone knew the routine, although he had never personally observed an emergence; the medic would now climb down from the box, take a few more actions, and then stand back, grumbling, while his crew completed disassembly. ButOeschone began to feel uneasy, for it did not proceed afterthat fashion. The medic, instead, remained atop the box, staring intently into the opening for what seemed to be an overlylong time. Then he shifted his position, and looked into the opening from several differing angles. At last, shaking hishead, he climbed down from the box, very deliberately and calmly, and walked slowly over to Oeschone's console. His face looked congested, angry, although controlled.

"You have an outside line?" Indeed there was somethingmore than irritated inconvenience in the tone of the medic's voice.

"Of course, Medic Venle," Oeschone replied, rememberingto read the man's nametag so he could use the name. This always helped to allay hostility: even more so in this circumstance, since the medic was also the holder of a programmed name. Oeschone hoped that the medic would appreciate thegesture and recall that, after all, he and Oeschone alike werefellow-members of a privileged group. Oeschone also added,"Is there some problem?"

"Just get the line," answered the medic impatiently. Oeschone complied with his request. Shortlv afterward, Venle was seated at the console, looking belligerently into the

viewer. The other members of the recovery team looked expectantly at Venle, as if they expected further instructions,but he waved them off, signifying they were to wait for further instructions. At the console, the Operate light flashed on.A voice spoke from a speaker. "Operator PZ. Go ahead."

"I am Journeyman Medic Domar Venle, ranking four step

C. I desire a priority conference be set up, connecting this terminal with those of, respectively, Acumen-Medic Slegeleand Overgrade Eykor, the Chief of Regional Security. Precedence is flash, Authority Section B."

"Medic Venle, I understand and will comply, but the timeis oh-flve-three-oh local. The officials you have enumeratedare, in all probability, yet sleeping. They are, of course, bothdayshifters."

Venle said, calmly and deliberately, "Asleep, are they?Well, then, arouse them." Then he added, maliciously, "Wakethe bastards up." While the operator hesitated, he added further, "I accept responsibility. Indeed, I demand it."

There was a pause while the operator complied withVenle's instructions and rang both mentioned parties. Therewas some further delay while the called parties awoke andtried to assemble some official dignity before coming on theconference call. But finally the screen before Venle dividedand two faces appeared side by side. Venle spoke first. "Operator, record this."

"Recording."

"Noted. First, Acumen-Medic Slegele: Are you aware of the nature of the subject remanded to the sensory deprivationunit located in room seven-thirty-five, Building eight-nine-ohfive?"

Venle knew very well the acumen-medic did not. It was merely an opening question to put the senior man off balance. And it did. Slegele answered, "Of course I don't know at five in the morning. I don't keep rosters in my quarters. Isthis why you get me out of bed at this hour?"

Venle said, "Well, let me be the first to tell you. You havea quote live unquote ler in your magic box, that's what."

The puffy face in the viewer moved, registering severalemotions at once. Slegele said, "But, Venle, that's impossible.I recall the circumstance, and remember seeing the forms oninfo when they went through; you must be making some mistake. That particular unit holds an unknown female subject, Ibelieve a suspect of vandalism or something similar."

"Somebody lied," Venle said sternly, not bothering to conceal his elation at confirming something he had long suspected: that Acumen-Medic Slegele was a mere paper-stamper who knew nothing about what was going on in his departments. "Yes, indeed. The forms were in error. It's a female, true enough; I looked. But not human. With them, I'd have to guess the age . . . she appears to be about middle-adolescence, over fifteen, under twenty-five. Small breasts, well-formed, no pubic hair. Second thumb on the outside of bothhands. That sounds like a ler to me. And you know the termsof the Compact as well as I: No imprisonment or experimentation. All suspects are to be conveyed immediately to the Institute. You and I, well fry for this. How long has she been onisolation?"

Eykor broke in, his composure recovering. He was a horse-faced man with a shock of unkempt reddish hair. Butdespite his rude appearance, he was both suave and controlled. "There is no problem, Venle. We listed that one in that manner on the invoices. All of the extant records were paperwhipped by my people. What's the problem? More specifically, how did you come to be over there?"

"I believe I can state the reason briefly: I was called on a blankout alarm which your cretin watchman sent out six hours late. The subject, as you refer to her, has somehow managed to dismind herself. Zero. You've got a live warm body, Interrogator, but that is all you have. Apply your methodology on that. She has virtually no responses whatsoever. Ishould estimate early newborn, if anything."

Slegele began stammering, "But, but..."

Eykor interrupted Slegele. "This conference will be classified secret under the provisions of Code four-oh-one-five, section B amended, and is hereby confiscated, all recordingthereof to be forwarded to this office, Organization S. Operator?"

"Noted, sir."

"Venle, complete your procedures and await me. I'll be over there immediately."

"Very well."

"And, operator, arrange an appointment for me with Chairman Parleau. Naturally, the discreet person would specify that such a meeting be at his convenience, but as early as possible."

"That is noted. It will be as you say. Shall I inform your office facilities? The Regional Chairman's unit will not be open for an hour or so yet."

"Notify me in person at room seven-thirty-five, Building eight-nine-oh-five. Venle?"

"Present."

"You verge upon insubordination."

"Others have noted that tendency, sir. But I must add thatwhere I err in one regulation, it might be said that your officehas erred in another, perhaps one with more serious consequences. I must stand upon my right to advise of error, freelyand without reprisal, however subtle." Venle was quoting.

"Oh, your rights have been noted in full. Proceed with your function. Break." Eykor's half of the viewer winked outSlegele's puffy face filled the screen. Venle was indeed sorryhe had dragged the acumen-medic into this. The man simplywasn't prepared....

To Slegele he said, "Well recover her, well enough. It wasfortuitous I thought to bring my own crew over here. But Iwill still require some assistance; can you send over the Central Palliatory and have them send me some, ah . . . pediatricsassistants?"

Slegele stammered, "Of course, if you need them. But whypediatrics? I don't understand "

Venle said, patiently, "Apparently the girl, whoever she is,now has nothing but the infant responses she was born with.She breathes, she has a strong heartbeat, all the vital signs. Asfar as I can determine now, her blood chemistry is good, although IH have to refer to some other manuals. But infantresponses! She'll have to be cared for: she's an infant with afull set of teeth. Shell bite her tongue off before she discoverswhat those little pearlies are used for. And what do we tellher people when they come for her, as they surely must?That we're bloody sorry? She's obviously an adolescent. Notbred yet. They'll ransack the place when they find out."Venle mused for a moment, then added, "A shame about all this, too; she's quite attractive, if a bit childish for my tastes. . . ."

Slegele, waking up, interrupted Venle's train of thought."How could they know she was missing? And knowing, howwould they know to come here looking for her?"

"I should imagine someone will find her absence curious.They are close people, you know. And it won't take a geniusto discover Building eight-nine-oh-five. Of course, we can always deny the whole thing, but that means we have to dispose of the body, also. That means that many more who

know something about it You see what I'm trying to hint at?" "Yes . . . I think so. We could always say she did it to herself, couldn't we? We can't be held responsible for that."

"I suppose it's worth trying. But I'll say this: you and I have more to fear from our own people than from them. Getit?"

"You're cynical."

"Realistic is the terminology I prefer . . . I know that people who set events like this one in motion never pay for itThey arrange that someone else foots the bill. I'm not in danger, but you could be. Cover yourself. I'll do what I can foryou."

"Let us both hope it doesn't come to that But at any rate I

appreciate the gesture."

Venle signed off disgustedly and went back to work on the occupant of the box, ignoring Oeschone entirely, save in his private thoughts, which were malevolent ones; Venle tookhis work more seriously than he did his status, and one of hisprivate hates included those who applied for programmednames and then expected to ride free for the rest of their days.Careerists, he grumbled under his breath, inaudibly. Therewere entirely too many of them these days, and no real way toget at them, either.

Not so very long afterward, the girl was carefully lifted outof the box and almost tenderly laid on the waiting stretcher.She was, as Venle had observed earlier, lovely. Out of thebox, in the open light, she was something more than that Her hair was a lustrous dense deep brown, almost black, worn in the fashion affected by ler adolescents, a simple shortstyle resembling a tapered bowl cut, in human eyes boyish.The face was delicate and soft at the same time, oval-triangular, rising from a small but not weak chin to large, deeply seteyes, which were an odd light brown color. She had a smallnose, very straight, and her lips were pursed rather than full.There were no lines on the face whatsoever, but it was a strong face filled with myriad adult determinations, and something else as well: a sadness, something wistful, otherworldly, deeply emotional. From the head, a slender, fine neck led to a taut, athletic body, smoothly curved and completely feminine, whose skin tone was a ripe faded honey-olive. Venle looked at her long, sighing. There was only one thing out of place; she could have been human, save for thehands. The hands were narrow, three-fingered, with an opposable thumb on each side, both thumbs being narrower thanthe human thumb. In addition, her hands were powerful andangular, a bit at variance from the rest of her.

Venle looked back at the face, now relaxed. There was a faint shadow of a smile set along the lines and softened planes of the girl's face, something ineffably subtle, somethingabout the set of the eyes and mouth; save for that, the facewas empty of expression in the present. No one present withVenle could quite place where they had seen a smile like thatbefore, if indeed they ever had before.

TWO

The appearance of the quality of randomness is often the most reliable indication of high and subtle systems of order.

We learn from simple analysis of the Zan (Life Game) that time is asymmetrical, one-way. To try to work time in reverse brings one immediately into the principle of uncertainty. Things may be mysterious, incomprehensible, or ineluctable, but nothing in the universe is uncertain. This is basic to understanding higher-order phenomena.

—The Game Texts

Fellirian* was explaining, "The Four Determinants of a person are these: Aspect, Phase, Class, Position." She addedfastidiously, "Gender is not a determinant. So, then; if one ofus knows all four determinants of another person, we are thereby able to predict, with reasonable accuracy, what thatperson will do in various circumstances."

*Ler names in this story will be given untranslated, except forspecial cases.

Fellirian was an adult female ler of many roles and relationships. In the present case, she was serving as resident

sociologist, Visitors Bureau, at the Institute for Applied Interrelationships, a problem-solving organization which was the primary organ of human and ler interaction. Once a week, Fellirian traveled down to the Institute from her home deepinside the ler reservation, and explained an alien culture to visitors, both humble and distinguished. This particular audience appeared to be of the more humble variety, and it wasclose to the end of the day, and Fellirian was bored.

"Aspect," she continued, "is distantly related to your ownconcept of astrological sign, save that it is much simplified.We use only four: Fire, Air, Earth, Water. These correspondto the four seasons."

It was autumn, on Earth, the year 2550. Fellirian lived partially in two worlds, and in the human world she visited,even the little taste she got of it at the Institute, her presencegenerated paperwork echoes of herself. On various rosters, lists, collations, and assorted personnel summaries, she was listed as "one each Fellirian Deren, female, ler, reservation resident, age 45, married (local custom), three offspring, twomale, one female. Position: Instructor of Customs. Branch: Visitors Bureau. Supervisor: W. Vance, Director. FertilityBoard Index: (not applicable).

She could, had she pondered overly long on the matter, have produced a much longer "full-name" in her own field ofreference, with an even longer list of titles and identities. Herfull-name, in her own environment, was Kanh Srith Fel Liryan Klan'Deren Klandormadh; which translated, more or less, to the following: Earth-Aspect's the Lady Starry Sedge-Field of the Counters Clan, Head-of-Family Foremother. Butshe never translated the name, as was the case with all of them. Names were names, meant to suggest in their meanings, not to describe. To friends, adult relations occasionallyin the formal mode, and humans, she was simply Fellirian. That sufficed. There wasn't another; ler names never repeated that of a living person, and inasmuch as was possible, one who had ever been, although they admitted that this last would become unfeasible with time.

To her fellow Braid-members at home, in the mode of intimacy, she was Eliya, and to the Braidschildren Madheliya.Foremother Eliya. She was never called Fellir anymore, forthat was an adolescent love-name. Morlenden, her insiblingand co-spouse, sometimes called her Fel, the child-name, but more often he called her by an embarrassing pet name, Benon, which meant "freckles." The matter was embarrassing

because the freckles were on her shoulders, which led to con

notations she did not care to recall now at her age and phase.

Fellirian's phase was Kanh, the mode of the power of Earth. Her season was spring. She was saying to her audience, "Now, Phase: this is approximately how old you are. Hazh is a child, up to about ten years. Didh is adolescent: ten to twenty-nine. Rodh is parent, and Starh is elder. We are rodhosi until age sixty, and then we are starosi, although thislast is somewhat arbitrary. Technically, we are only actuallyrodhosi until the end of the fertile period."

Fellirian had children, and yet lived at home, her children not yet being of weavable age; therefore she was Parent Phase. In gender, female, but sexually neuter. So it went withall after last-fertility, the so-called hanh-dhain*.

*Difficult to translate. Hanh means last, and dhain (pronounced "thine") is a word describing the sex act, but utterly without theconnotations of vulgarity or hostility common to such terminology in English. It is purely descriptive. "Fun" might be closer to its real meaning than any other word we might use here.

Fellirian, being of the Earth mode, was a child born in thespring. Without being overtly obvious about it, she did in partlive up to the theoretical attributes of a person of that mode,although none could consider her the prey of erratic aspectual compulsions. Spring was her preferred season as well; like her own manner, it was a direct season, things proceeding toward their due ripening, earthy, direct, practical. Shedid not care so much for the present season of autumn, withits tanh air-aspect moodiness, its constantly shifting weather,off and on again, now looking back into summer, now anticipating winter.

"There are, in theory, four social classes: Servant, Worker,Journeyman, and Grower, from the lowest to the highest; butin practice now we only use the top three, and this is of lessweight than the other determinants."

One of the visitors inquired, "And what class do you belong to?"

"Worker. My Braid is part of the ler government. Myfamily and I are, in the eyes of our peers, rather low-class, although I feel no sense of either pride or envy therefrom. Class, odd as this may sound, is only applicable to persons who are within a Braid, or family. Once you are elder and leave home, you are classless. Elders have no class. Utterly none."

She saw some expressions in the audience she did not carefor. She said, "Lest you mistake me, I must define thingshere, although it is somewhat off the path we go upon. I amnot in the government because my family and I are worker-class. It is the other way around. I derive class and status from my occupation, so to speak." She waited for a rejoinder,but there was none. Good.

She continued, "Last, and perhaps most important, is thedeterminant of position. What we refer to here is what placeyou occupied within the Braid when you were a child." Hereshe gestured to a chart beside her that diagrammed the intricate family relationships of the ler cultural surround. They had used it earlier. "We can be one of five different positions, with some subcategorization, of course. This measure, like class, also runs from low to high, thus: Hifzer, Zerh, Thes, Nerh, Toorh. You would say, Bastard, Extra, Younger Outsibling, Elder Outsibling, and highest, Insibling. These staywith you forever. They are basic identities. I was Toorh, and I shall always be perceived as one, no matter my age. Alsothis is not a smooth scale. A Nerh is almost equal to a Toorh, and a Thes is closer to a Zerh. Families do not, by definition, have Hifzers."

At this last, the group immediately began an argumentamong themselves, one faction in particular taking some exception to the concept of position being more weighty a determinant than social class. Fellirian did not know why theywere arguing over this, for it did not affect them one way oranother; but she did not enter the argument on either side.She felt as if she had somehow espoused a doctrine held orshared by one faction and above all she did not wish to beidentified with one human faction or another. As the sides became more defined and the visitors began to polarize amongthemselves, she withdrew and walked slowly to the side, to the window ledge, where she settled and looked outside, leaning on one hand and half sitting on the broad metal sill.

She looked out the window, through the rain-streaked polarized glass, through the damp and rainy November airs tothe wet land beyond, now taking on a bluish tint with the approach of evening. From her viewpoint, looking somewhatnortheast, she could see in the land itself the clear delineation of the two cultures, human and ler. On the left, the reservation, a 4,200-square-mile forest preserve in which the ler werenow allowed to pursue their own ends, whatever those endswere; and on the right, the end product of several thousand years of human culture. Both were on the same planet, Earth,the same year—2550.

To the left, the land appeared unkempt, empty, overgrownwith trees and brush. To the right, as far as she could see through the light rain and foggy haze, everything was neat, orderly, trimmed, laid out, controlled. Far to the right at theedge of visibility, a manufacturing operation dominated thelandscape: it appeared to be a low, rather featureless buildingof square ground-plan, betraying its inner activity only by theaction of small vents along the roof, some of which emittedpastel clouds of vapor, while others trailed away into the rainy darkening air wisps of smoke which soon vanished. It looked dormant, inactive; but she knew this to be an illusion. Inside, unseen, it was as busy as an anthill, madly producingstill more of the perishable artifacts on which their societyseemed to exist. There was little traffic in or out of it; transit-ways underground handled the material flows, and the employees lived in air-conditioned cubicles in the basement. Bosses and bossed alike; it cost less to totalize their entire environment than it did to provide transportation and housing for them elsewhere.

Farther to the right, the remainder of the view through theInstitute window took in agricultural fields, some smaller buildings and miscellaneous sheds, a light grid of access roadsand hoverways. There was nothing but a sense of neatness and order in all that she saw, a tincture of everything calculated to a nicety; she could not help but admire it to a point.Still, a part of her insisted on another, more chaotic view: that the fine sense of order and regulation concealed something perilous. The higher the degree of apparent order, thefiner the line that divided the arbitrary order from the merciless down-drag of entropy. Nature only appears random to the unobservant, she thought. It was one of the basic ler maxims. In reality, there was a deep and subtle order in the changes of nature, its wavelike progressions, its cycles of time.

Even so, she thought further, eruptions are few and far between. Give them that credit. The forerunners accepted theregimented, managed life forced upon them by overpopulation and had even managed to reduce their increase-rate to aniggling, infinitesimal amount. But they were all conscious decendants of an age, not so very far away in the historic sense of time, which was still vividly recalled by Earth's billions as The Black Hand of Malthus. The Days of the Hand.

They had reduced its visibility, but never its presence: theBlack Hand still awaited the unwary, offstage in the wings.

Facing to the right as she sat in the window, she had to look back over her left shoulder to see what little was visible of her own country, the sole home on Earth, or in the wholeuniverse, for that matter, of the New Humans, Metahomo Novalis. There was a fence around the reservation, an ordinary chain-link barrier about eight feet high. It served no purpose save to mark a boundary, for few there were on either side of it who wished to cross to the other side. Near the fence, the land inside seemed to be empty, abandoned, allowed to be feral, half-wild, scrubby; but farther back, theforest started, here tall dark pines that concealed the inner lands. It looked ancient, a remnant of the great forests whichhad once covered most of the continent; but in reality mostof the forest growth in the reservation was recent in terms ofnature. Second-growth. The eastern sections of the reservation, in particular, where newer growth gradually extended outof the older sections farther west. It had been a forest preserve that few knew about until they had asked for it. Fellirian sighed deeply. She felt a sudden longing to be back inside, back within her own identity, in her natural surround.This room in this overbuilt Institute building was too hot, toodry, and it smelled of plastic, an odor she never found especially unpleasant, but nonetheless one she had never got used to

Chronologically, Fellirian was forty-five. Parent phase. Inappearance, however, she struck most of the human visitors who met with her to be somewhere in a vague adulthood, latetwenties, perhaps early thirties. A smallish, but not petite,slightly built woman with the traditional subtle figure of theler. Somewhere along the way, she had collected an almost invisible network of fine lines along the planes of her face,lines that helped and accented the subtle beauty of the plain,almost elfin face. Fellirian was not a beauty, neither by herstandards nor those of the humans, but her appearance reassured. Being relaxed and at peace with herself, she projecteda reassurance that included others as well.

In her own view, her appearance fit her age, more or less;she did not ponder on the matter overly. She was not vain.She knew how others reacted to her, always had. She was satisfied; she had lived a reasonably full life, in many ways better and more fortunate than some.

Forty-five. Almost through the second span. Then another

of the many transitions they used to mark the stages of theirlives in time. Sexually, she was now, and had been for somefive years, effectively neuter, although she retained her personal sense of gender unchanged. No, not unchanged. If anything, it had increased. She had been one of the minority ofler females to have a third fertile period after the second. Shehad been pleased with their Zerh, the boy Stheflannai. Thirdfertilities and fraternal twins were the only way the ler evergot ahead of the merciless algorithms of population increase.And before that, she mused, it had been Kevlendos, one of our insiblings, who will weave in his season with the child of our others who is called Pentandrun-Toorh. And of course our firstborn Pethmirvin, a slender, fragile girl who resembles none of us. Ages five, ten, fifteen. Twenty years hence, Kevlendos and Pentandrun would weave to become the then-Derens. And for her, Fellirian? They would then be the Derenklan; the name, the work, the family holdings—all wouldbe theirs. She would be just herself, free. Fellirian Srith. LadyFellirian. A new life. She could live by herself, solitary, a lonely mnathman*, or remain with her former Braidmates, although they would have to find another place to live. Theycould not stay in the old Braid holding—that went to the children. Or perhaps she could join one of the lodges, communes into which most elders eventually moved. The ler analog of marriage was like the human model in that it had a beginning; it was utterly unlike it in that it had a predetermined end as well. It was also unlike the human model in that it was neither desirable nor optional, but mandatory....

* Literally, "wise person," but in actuality a hermit

Fellirian rarely delivered her lectures, or occasional harangues, alone. Much of the time the Director of the Institutewas in and out, visiting with the strangers, hobnobbing withthe tourists who had come to be amazed and astounded, and have their suspicions allayed. But for all that he did with the visitors, Walter Vance admitted candidly that his primarypurpose in attending the meetings was to spend a rare moment with Fellirian, who had been his friend, associate, and confidante for the more than twenty years he had been associated with the Institute. Their relationship had, like all closerelationships, probably raised more questions than it answered, but at the least it satisfied a basic orientation shared by both of them in equal measure: they preferred to deal with real, though flawed in various degrees, creatures of flesh

and blood and the moment, rather than a set of lifeless abstractions borrowed from a carelessly written programmed text.

With trust and a genuine fondness for each other, theycould explore aspects of otherness with little fear of giving ortaking offense; this was not a little thing, for the cultural gapbetween ler and human was an order of magnitude greaterthan the genetic differences, and it was growing yearly. WhenVance had persuaded Fellirian to spend a little time with theInstitute they had not one single ler assigned to expound on their values; all was done by humans, mostly well-intentionedbut who had little direct knowledge of their subject material.They spoke skillfully, they adhered to rigorous scholarship,but they missed the feel of their subjects. Conversely, ler labored under much the same system in their view of humans.Painfully aware of their vulnerability of slow populationgrowth, they withdrew into their reservation and further intotheir own identities. Vance and Fellirian could not arrest or greatly change the course of the drift of several centuries, butwhat little they had done they regarded as being of a value considerably above zero.

Vance now sat in a chair to one side, bored with the endless tailspin semantic arguments of the visitors amongthemselves, a process of which he had to endure entirely toomuch within his own organization. Above and below. Whilehe waited for them to return to reality and finish the day, hewatched Fellirian as she sat on the windowsill and looked into the depths of November, overcast and rain-spattered.

His perception of her was subjective, colored by memory,subtly distorted by many emotions, some of which had sources that remained concealed from him, no matter how hard he tried to dig at them. Paradoxically, he had found Fellirianto have more objective perceptions than he had, even whereaccustomed and familiar matters were considered. He had imagined that having total recall would muddy the image ofthe present even more, but, to the contrary, he had found that for them it made the present clearer. The images were distinct.

In the light of the room, and the soft overcast daylightcoming in through the windows, he saw a graceful ler womanof indeterminate age sitting in the windowsill, wearing thetypical general-purpose garment of males and females alike, in its winter variation, the zimpleth. This was, in essenc?, something resembling a loose, informally cut shirt with a very long tail that reached to the ankles. It flowed loosely aroundthe contours of her body, terminating along her arms in widesleeves which did not quite reach to her wrists. There was nothing under the zimpleth save Fellirian, but somehow it managed completely to conceal the shape within its lines. Shewas barefooted, but for the moment little showed, as she had folded her legs beneath her. He saw in her profile that she yethad the visage he knew of old, a tomboy, impudent, mischievous face, with a strong nose just slightly too large for the face, and a wide, generous soft mouth inclined to secret laughters. Her skin was light in color, even so slightlyshadowed by a darker tone. The hair was,a neutral dark brown, very fine and straight, tied at her neck into a singlebraid which fell to the middle of her back.

Vance had met Fellirian when he had come to the Institute; they were approximately the same age in years. Duringthe time he had known her, he had seen many aspects of her;as an adolescent, in his eyes then promiscuous and oversexed.But also as a rodhosi, one of parent phase, serious and practical, and as head-of-clan completely absorbed in the management and continuity of its affairs. Now, on the edge of trueelderness. Ler lifespans reached to one hundred and twenty and beyond; half their lives spent in the first three phases,and the rest in the last phase. They held that one did not become oneself until elderhood, when, as they put it, the distractions fell away, and essences were revealed. In Fellirian, some creature within herself, more individual and uniquethan he cared to imagine, was beginning to emerge.

Twenty years. They had worked well together, learned from each other. They had become close friends and grown to enjoy one another's company as few such pairs had in the history of the Institute. Nothing had passed betweenthem deeper than friendship, nor more intimate than a handshake, which always felt odd and unreal to Vance. One couldconvince oneself that ler were just other humans of small stature and almost childish appearance until one saw and feltthe hand. The inner thumb was smaller and more delicate than the human thumb, and the outer opposable thumb,derived from the little finger, was stronger than its original.This change made the ler hand seem too long and narrow, and it felt wrong. Moreover, they seemed to lack the conceptof "handedness" entirely. Ler wrote with either hand equallywell, holding the writing instrument with either thumb. Still,after twenty years, it disturbed Vance's perceptions to watch Fellirian writing some office memorandum, holding the penwith an outer thumb and pulling it along the direction of writing.

If the hand had become a symbol for the alien quality, theone thing which stood out above the many ambiguities, thenthe reality had been more directly evoked when he had mether insibling and (then) co-parent to be. This bothered Vance, too, in some unconscious manner he could not quite fathom; the insiblings did not have common biological parents, yet they were raised together. They were alwaysclose in age, separations of more than a year being so rare as to be not worth mentioning. In some ways, closer than brother and sister in the human analog. Indeed closer, sincethe ler had no incest-taboo. This circumstance took the ancient argument of nature versus nurture, genetics againstculture, and brought it head-on into direct opposition. The in-siblings were alike, and different, all at the same time.

So Morlenden: rather alike, and totally dissimilar. In somesubtle way beyond Vance's perceptions, he was most like Fellirian, in expressions, turns of speech, gestures. But he did notlook like her at all. Against Fellirian's soft features, Morlenden had crisp, almost chiseled features. There was the tiniestpossible suggestion of an epicanthic fold in the corners of hiseyes, and his glance was direct and disturbingly contemplative. But he was neither dour of disposition nor abrupt of manner, but rather easy and sometimes inclined to elaboratepranks. His skin was darker than Fellirian's, of a tone that suggested American Indian rather than Oriental. Seeing themapart was to see reflections of the other in the one at hand.Vance had come to understand that it was similar with all in-siblings. Vance could not conceive of sleeping with the sameperson for forty-five years, growing up together, occasionallytaking one another after the casual manner of ler adolescents,and then making the transition into dual heads-of-family. Humans for the most part lived in dormitories and kept the sexes separate. Nothing else had worked.

Like all poignant experiences, meeting Morlenden had caused Vance to reassess his perceptions, both of Fellirian and of the female; in both secondary sex characteristics and culture, there was almost no sex differentiation among them.Dressed, the differences almost vanished to the human eye.He thought this quality was what disturbed humans most; aninternal drive. We do not lust for the opposite sex, but for youth and innocence. The thought formed before he had time to cut it off at the source. He refused to follow it, even to prove it false; it led into a whole world, a universe, of heresies and forbidden speculations . . . forbidden, at any rate, toa member of a culture which had been forced to become puritan, not out of religious mania but of necessity. Of all methods of contraception, only abstinence had the combination of one-hundred-percent effectiveness and zero-rate side effects. Zero? Not quite zero. There were obvious consequences, even if they were in the mind and not especially located in the body. Vance shut that one down, too. His mind was wandering in disturbing tangents today; perhaps the moody autumnal tanh weather. . . .

The omnipresent low buzz of conversation among the visitors had become faded and quiet in the last few moments. Vance now noticed it; Fellirian, for all her apparent inattention, had also noted it and climbed down off the windowsill, using a flowing, graceful motion Vance had always noticed inher. She went over to the chair she sometimes used, but now she did not sit in it, but stood, quietly, and nodded to the group to indicate that she was again ready to proceed.

A member of the visitors' group, a nervously aggressive woman of indeterminate middle age, wearing the heavypleated and folded clothing of the day with indifference, andstill retaining rubber covers over her heavy shoes, stood up,clearing her throat.

The woman began, "I am somewhat awkward here. I do not know how I should address you, directly." She had seenthe same data as the others during her tour, and she could visualize the ler family structure as well as any of them present; yet she felt ill at ease in the presence of an active member of such a family organization. The family was now ararity in human society. The voice which had made the tentative overture was heavy with the linguistic woodsmoke of theBalkans.

Fellirian smiled and chuckled, trying to set the woman at some ease. "Well, not Mrs. Deren, whatever you do. I suppose the nearest I could come to that would be to call myselfthe female half of an entity that corresponds to a Mr. Deren.I am an insibling. I retain the Braid surname. But here and for now, 'Fellirian' will be fine. It is the way we would address one another." Her voice was pleasant and clear, altoin intonation, projecting the Modanglic of the day without recognizable regional accent or mannerism. Still, there was some fleeting suggestion in the way she chose her words and enunciated them that Modanglic was a foreign language to her, however well she spoke it. It was.

The woman sighed and said, after an appreciable pause, "Very well then. So. That sounds easy enough, although Ihave never accustomed myself to addressing people by theirfirst names. But I understand. The way you would use it in your own environment, I imagine it would be formal enough."

Fellirian agreed, pleasantly. "Indeed. We have a great dealof formality among ourselves, little distinctions that sometimes reflect kinship groups, or relative social status. Never fear! We make mistakes, too."

"These matters are the cause of much misunderstanding, I agree. So, then, to matters at hand. Fellirian, here you represent your people for us as people, so perhaps this is inappropriate to ask. But in my own Region* we have little contact with your people. Virtually none, as a matter of fact.And of course one hears tales. Our office has to deal with recurring questions relating to this."

* Current political subdivision, equivalent to a large province.Regions might be geographic or ethnic in organizational basis.

Fellirian felt uncomfortable. It was a long preamble. She nodded, saying, "Please continue."

"I am very confused by what I have seen here. Out in theworld, it is common belief that you are somehow superior tous, that you have an . . . ah . . . evolutionary edge on us. In short, you are greatly feared. Yet here I see a tribal, agricultural society, apparently disliking both aggressiveness and technology. Not to mention surrounded and outnumbered. Inshort, you do not appear to be competing with us. No competition, no threat. Can you shed any light on this . . . contradiction?"

Fellirian saw something that made her wary. At the startof her question, the woman had been tentative and embarrassed, projecting the image of a bureaucrat of some rural Region about the tatters of Europe. Yet as she had come tophrase her question, her confidence had risen noticeably, andin fact she had almost answered it herself. Somewhere in the back of Fellirian's mind, a relay clicked. She felt a sudden oppression. There was subtlety here: the woman was bait. Someone was waiting for her reaction. Her answer. She Was not certain, of course. Intuition, only.

She began, tentatively, "If you wish me to take the Aristotelian path and say yes or no, I must, on the balance, say no."

"No? Not superior?"

"I know from my history that such was the aim of thosewho manipulated human genetic material to bring us into being. True. They were after the Superman, sure enough. It isan old dream. We have not been immune to it. But they didnot have then fine control. Not then and not now. They couldnot, for example, read the message of the genetic code and then change exact parts of it to order. They could shock orjuggle or graft larger segments and then screen for viables.As you may know, mutation means only change. I cannotstress that too much. It is not a matter of one set being inferior or superior. Just different. In nature, a highly structured feedback system with the environment and with others,and in higher forms, with culture, tends to stabilize organicforms and fine-tune them. Out of their program of artifice,several forms actually appeared, all of which were equally viable, more or less. They took us because we looked the leastalien. It's that simple. I am afraid that when our firstborn grew into adults, they were more than a little disappointed inus. When they discovered that no offspring results from a human-ler mating, they were double disappointed."

"None whatsoever? I had not known that."

"We are different, that's a fact. Conception occurs, but thefemale aborts within forty-eight hours. Either way you try it.We are, in a sense, a door into another possibility; but it is a door that is not open to you. Or to us. But in many ways wecomplement one another, so we endure. We are strong in theintuitive patterns of thought, but you outclass us in deduction. I might point out that you are physically stronger andable to endure a wider range of climatic conditions. Whereaswe seem to take crowding a little better. Did you know that?Much of human aggression arises not from any genetic predisposition, but from simple overcrowding. Not recently, Imean to say. You reached that point early in your prehistory.Ten thousand years ago."

"You appear to be very knowledgeable about our history."

Fellirian answered, diplomatically, "We hoped to learn from your experiences. You are the forerunners. We have noother example to hand."

Without evoking confrontation, Fellirian had boxed thewoman in, if indeed she were a provocateur for someone else.

She could not rebuff her answer without making the back

ground obvious.

"There are other differences?"

"People make much of our memory. It is a total-recall sys

tem. It sounds like an advance, I agree, but it has drawbacks.

For example, we do not have a structure like your subcon

scious. In you, that serves as a buffer for contradictory ex

periences. We have to deal with the same events directly.

There is a high degree of skill required, since we are now dis

cussing basic sanity. All do not, of course, attain the pre

ferred skill level. People envy us now for our low rate of

reproduction, but it cannot be other than a serious disad

vantage. And not only short, but an estrous periodic cycle as

well. Twice, rarely three times, and it's over*. That basically

gives us a one-to-one ratio, which is zero population growth

from the beginning."

*Ler Braids ideally produced four children. Fifth children occurredin one Braid in five or six, from third-fertilities (80% ) or fraternal-twinning (20%). Identical twins (clones) do not occur.

"May I ask your rate now?"

"One-to-one-point-oh-five or one-to-one-point-oh-six. Dou

bling every six hundred years. It was held artificially higher

at first, but in the last two centuries it has been stable near

that figure. Our marriage custom tends to diffuse exception

ally fertile types, so the increase is well-spread."

Fellirian paused. There was no comment. She continued: 'This now means, on the average, that one Braid in six hasan extra child. We cut the rate down to that. Our society iscomplex and delicate, and at a rate of one-to-one-point-twofive every Braid has one extra. You cannot imagine the dislocations such breeding causes. I admit that much of the problem comes from our own ordering of things. For if youhave four children of the right ages, pairs five years apart,then they must go into a Braid to mate. If one does not exist,then one must be made for them. Braids have traditional basic occupations, and once set, cannot be changed, within the lifeof the Braid. It imposes a rate of social change upon us greater than our society has mechanism to adjust to it. We could stand an even lower rate, in my opinion."

"You said earlier that you were parent phase. You have procreated?" Fellirian winced, internally, she hoped, at the phrasing ofthe question. Still, she understood it. Not many humans these days "procreated," as the woman had put it. And the stric tures of the Fertility Board were by far the most exasperating regulations of all. She replied, "Yes. My Braid is one of the one-in-six five-child Braids. I had a third fertility. I have had three children, all normal and live. Their ages are fifteen, ten, and five. A girl and two boys in that order. Their names are Pethmirvin, Kevlendos, and Stheflannai, in the same order.

But rest assured. My days in brood are over."

She now paused to allow the idea to sink in. It was one thing to discuss such concepts in the abstract, quite anotherto accept such a thing personally, or in the sense of a personal interaction taking place now in the time of the real. Shewaited. Fellirian was patient. She knew humans well from herlong association with them, and looked at none with contempt. They were always full of surprises, the inner person not always matching the outer. Still, she mused, we are not so different in that, either She also knew very well that thewords of a single-channel language were also great illusions;not matching the realities they symbolized, and varying considerably in degree of variance, words tended to persuade theslow that they were one with the swift, and equally, the swiftslowed to a crawl.

The woman pondered, drifted, hesitated, took another tack."You told us about the ler family earlier, but not so muchwhy such a structure. Is there some genetic reason for it?"

"Antigenetic, if anything. We have a small population anda high mutation rate; therefore we want a homogeneous population. We also noted that across time the family tends to become longer, more structured, more important. What we have now mixes us reasonably well, provides social stabilityand makes change controllable, and is the best compromise so far with our peculiar assets and liabilities. I might addhere that an unforeseen consequence of the timing criteria ofBraids also tends to bring, over the years, one Braid into resonance with another, and after that such groups form whatwe call 'partial superfamilies,' until terminated by the endingof one of the Braids involved, or the insertion of a vendetta into affairs. My own Braid is so resonant with Klanh Moren:The Thes of one becomes the afterparent of the other."

"You do not use human terminology to describe your relationships in a family?"

"No. Nor the concepts."

'Then the effect of resonance must be to reduce variability.

It increases order, rather than continuing the randomizingyou seem to value."

"This is true. We are aware of the problem. In fact, therehas been consideration of declaring such a pattern to be notdesirable, and prohibiting it. It is not at this time. One of the reasons why the practice continues is that with such a small population as we have we are all rather close relations anyway. In your terms, we are all not less than sixth-cousins orsomething very close to that. Right now, superfamily resonance with a Braid-pair has no appreciable effect. A triplet, of course, maintained over several generations, would,and is not permitted. Now, later, when our numbers are much greater, hundreds of thousands, I think resonance of any sort will be prohibited. It is, as you say, a producer ofmore order. But you have to realize that our oldest Braids arejust now only at generation fourteen in the adults-to-be, whoare now yet adolescent."

The woman seemed to be at a loss. She hesitated, as if waiting for something, moving her weight from one foot to another, a motion which produced transient heavy wrinkles toappear and fade in her garments, which were made of someheavy, stiff dark material, somewhat shiny or lustrous, whichseemed more intended to use in furniture or draperies than inclothing. Additionally, the style was full of pleats, folds, tucks, darts, and gave the impression of adding bulk. Thewomen wore skirts that fell gracelessly below the knees, whilethe men wore in their place heavy oversized pantaloons. Theupper garments, composed of several layers of undershirts, shirts, vests, jackets, and various accessories, were similar to one another and continued the style. Fellirian watched thewoman closely, sensing the others out of the corners of her eyes. The woman seemed to be waiting for some cue, to go on.

A man not far from the woman cleared his throat and asked, politely, "Fourteen? Is that all?"

The woman resumed her seat, seemingly in great relief.Fellirian answered, "Just so, fourteen. My own generation ofthe Derens is only generation eleven. Of the old families, weare relative newcomers."

"Let me think," the man mused, half to himself. "That would, at thirty-five years per generation, put the firstborn ofthe oldest generation back to, say, about 2050 or 2060. Butdidn't Braid family structure date from a later date, in the twenty-second century?"

Fellirian's sense of oppression increased. "True. But thetwo items are not contradictory. Braids were tried first on alimited scale by those who believed in them. They were adopted somewhat later by the whole of the people."

"Are those Braids still in existence now?"

"Yes. The two Player Braids, the Perklarens and the Terklarens. They were not, at the time, Players, you understand,but in fact members of a peculiar religious order, if I havemy history straight. Now, I believe, the Perklarens are at Gheit Disosi, generation fourteen. The Terklarens are at thirteen, although due to disresonance between them individualmembers of equivalent ages are about ten years older."

"And fourteen has much of the same nonnumerical symbolic significance to you that ten would have, say, to us."

"Yes . . . there is a similarity, an equivalence."

"Odd, that. I have heard of a book, called The Wisdom of the Prophets, in which mention is made to 'marvels and wonders in the house of the last single generation.'"

Fellirian let herself drift from affirmation into ambiguity."I have heard also of the work you mention. However, youmust bear in mind that its origin has been questioned. It hasnot ever been accepted as cult dogma by any theosophical society of our people in my knowledge. And, of course, prophecy is always somewhat equivocal."

"You do not agree with the content of Wisdom?"

"I read a copy here at the Institute when I was adolescent.I found the concepts therein rather repugnant. It heavilystresses the concept of serial evolution, which is erroneous,and it injects a competitive aspect into affairs between the inhabitants of Earth which does not ring true." Fellirian feltthreatened by the circumstances of the questions. Never hadshe faced such a situation. All her intuitions warned her; she could not resist, however, letting go one last sally, just tomake matters clear. "You are, sir, doubtless familiar with a similar work, I believe called Protocols of the Elders of Ziont I personally place Wisdom in the same category. Indeed, in Wisdom I felt an alien mind at work, one not compatible with myself."

"You don't think Wisdom is of ler origin?"

"I know not the number of thumbs on the hand of he who wrote. I speak of the ideals of the author, which is of the domain of the mind. And, at any rate, I know of no marvels.The Player Braids are both rather withdrawn and uncommunicative. They keep to their own affairs, which I imagine is Gameplaying. And also I am not a follower of the Game, sothey could very well perform a marvel and I would be unaware of it." Now let this one make something out of that, she thought.

He said, "Excellent, excellent You have clarified the matter beyond any possible doubt for me. I am doubly reassured. I do have some more questions, but they are inconsequential."

"Not at all. I am here to answer them."

"In many ways, to us, you maintain a primitive style of living. I mean no judgment of relativity here, but merelydescribe. You have no method of temperature control in yourhouses save the family hearth, and that is useful only in thewinter, for example. You virtually ignore vehicular transport,when a number of sophisticated mechanisms are located onlyno more than fifty miles from the heart of the reservation. Tothe observer, if I may put it politely, you assume primitivemodes by choice. May I ask why? It is a curious matter."

Fellirian paused, then began: "The first lived among youand shared your manners and styles. But they soon came tobelieve two things: that your culture reflects your needs, notthe needs of all creatures, hence us also. And that in manyinstances, you had inserted the widespread use of artifacts without considering the consequences of such introductions. The classic study in this area, concerning the automobile, concentrates not on what it did to your previous value system, but in the measurable increase it caused in the size of your cities, an increase and a lowering of density which had profound, unseen effects on your society for years. Thesethings, by the way, most conclusively did not result from increases in population. Indeed, we still feel echoes of the period in this century. It was apparent, then, that artifacts had enormous influence on culture, having the power to change many parts of it. The prediction of such effects is anarcane discipline, and in some cases not greatly more reliablethan the reading of tea leaves. Therefore we had seen and were wary. We are accused of conservatism. Not so. We aremerely cautious. We desire change and improvement, but wealso desire that we, the objects of such change, have some willed control over the rate of change. Is this not reasonable?Therefore we moved into the woods and eschewed central heating. And vehicles. They expand the requirement for spacegreatly. Now we have the space to live and breathe. Whytrade it for momentary and selfish conveniences?"

"You sound critical."

"Not so. You were not aware of the principle of consequence. We would not have been either, had we not seen your example and been warned. But there is more, of course.We wish to see things develop to reflect us, not a copy ofyou. We had to go far back, into primitiveness, if you will, tofind it."

"Have you found it?'
"It is not expected for many spans."
"How long?"
"Not in my lifetime, nor that of my children's children."
The man nodded, as if he understood, and sat back in his

seat. Another took his place. The latest one was rather younger than the first two, and more polished, almost offhand. Fellirian felt as if the focus of a terrible, concentrated attention suddenly had been removed from her. Not withdrawn, but no longer weighing and measuring her. Yes, thatwas the word. Weighing. What was the source? She glancedabout the room covertly. There was no indication of anythingamiss.

Vance breathed deeply, relieved also. Although the two visitors had not exceeded the lines of general propriety, theyhad overplayed it, he thought. Now this next fellow: probably was a regular fellow. He certainly appeared to be, although it was not out of the realm of possibility that he toowas part of the act of the previous two. Two to provoke, andone to lend controlled and measured relaxation phase. It was,after all, one of the techniques of the men of history. Thisone seemed to be some very minor careerist out on a boondoggle. traveling around. Vance privately knew such trips tobe a waste; he had seen so much even in his limited travels. Earth, at least about ninety-five percent of it, was as homogeneous as variations in climate allowed. What had been Bulgaria did not now differ appreciably from what had once been New Jersey; Vance caught himself wondering if it everhad. Surely places differed? The light was different, the odors,the constituents of the soil? Vance thought further: few nowever saw the open sky, and when they did they disregarded itto the extent possible. The rest of objective experience was

similarly shifted from the natural. Vance thought of Fellirianand what he knew of her; her perceptions were honed so finethat she could claim her nearest neighbors, the resonant-intime Morens, actually lived in another country, one whose strangeness always amazed her. The Morens lived slightly more than a mile away. Such microprovincialization was common among them; in fact, it was a minor art form and diligently pursued, although with recognition that one of its limitations was that the "provinces" tended to grow rapidlythe farther they were away from the viewer. The object of the art form was ultimately to bring everybody's perceptionsinto agreement and divide their whole world up into micro-provinces, purely as an exercise in perception.

Vance glanced at the roster of the visitors, to see if he could catch a hint of where the questioners had originated.He looked in vain; the whole list was comprised of programmed names, which of course gave no hint whatsoever ofnational or ethnic origin. Vance also felt some irritation. Hewas the only human in the room not having a programmedname. The visitors probably secretly regarded him as one ofthe obstructionists.

The most recent questioner seemed friendly, even apologetic for taking their time. He asked, "You must excuse mycuriosity, but I have found today's tour fascinating. There isonly one question I cannot lay to rest: what do you do forentertainment? I can imagine sleeping out of doors now andagain, but after a time I should imagine becoming stifled bynothing to see but woods and nothing to do but survive."

It was tactlessly put and poorly phrased, but Fellirian thought she understood what the young man was getting at. She looked away for a moment, through the window into thedeepening evening. She felt a wave of fatigue pass over herand wished to be on her way home. She turned back, her voice on the edge of a companionable chuckle: "You wouldbe astounded to learn how much time is spent in the processof being primitive." She laughed her laugh again. "The children have to be instructed, there is the Klanh profession, thework of supporting the household, cleaning, washing, tendingthe garden and the stock. Our individual competences.Hauling water. This last is the reason for the tradition of building each yos close to running water. Entertainment? Bythe time I reach home tonight I won't need any." She becamemore serious. "Please don't take us for an assemblage of dourwork-lovers, drudges of yard and kitchen. We have our ownhumors and games and pastimes, some of them subtle and intricate. And there are many other things; we tell tales to oneanother, sing, dance. Cultivate friendships, and enemyhoods,too. There is a whole cycle in itself on that last alone. I comehere often, so I feel more at home in your house, but even

so, I find myself bewildered by the entertainments you have. I

would fall asleep trying to sample even a few of them."

"You don't sound bored."

"No. We have tried to order things so that ennui is at least

one enemy we do not have to face. Boredom leads to revolu

tionary desires, not oppression, there. And change-of-bore

dom never improves. It gets worse. No, speaking for myself

and those I know, I want no change. Only my own life."

Fellirian intended to say more, but something checked her,and she stopped. As it was, she felt naggingly that perhapsshe had said more than she had intended to. Well, too late. The words were now birds in flight. But she thought she knewthe source of the oppressive feelings during the meeting: yes,she was certain, although she could not prove it. She had been monitored. The questioners had been bait for someone else, offstage, listening, recording. She nodded to the last questioner, the young man, as if to indicate she was finished.Expressing his gratitude, he resumed his seat. Fellirian lookedover the rest. They had lost interest in today's matters, and inthe ler and the Institute. Now they were anxious to depart. It was an emotion she could appreciate, even share. She was anxious to leave as well. So now they had seen the famous New Humans. Well, they weren't so special after all, were they? The only thing they had really been interested in, although they went to some pains to conceal it, had been in adolescent sexual behavior and mores, which, to their minds, seemed indistinguishable from simple promiscuity. And of course that which they wanted most to see, Fellirian was unable to deliver for them.

Vance, watching the clock, was noticing that it had arrivedat the proper time for the visitors to leave; in fact, several ofthem had also been watching the clock, as Vance had observed. They noticed him in turn, and began to busy themselves with preparations for departure, scraping chairs, arranging their coats and overcoats, retrieving rubber overshoes to put on. After a few perfunctory good-byes and appreciatoryremarks, some awkward, the members of the visitors' partyone by one put themselves together and filed out of the room.The last one out made some polite comment to Director Vance, and closed the door behind him as he left. The meetingroom returned to silence.

Fellirian stood by her chair, Vance by the door, doing nothing, Vance remembered, turned, and turned down and then out the overhead lights. This was in deference to Fellirian who always felt uncomfortable in varying degree in anyillumination other than natural light or the yellow glow of oillamps and candles. Now she appreciated this little gallantry.The soft blue light of late November replaced the hard-emission spectrum of the overheads, flowed into the meetingroom, softening it with its bluish rainy light. Outside, distantlamps began to come on, getting a headstart on piercing thedarkness. Fellirian moved her chair over closer to the windows, sat.

By the door, Vance hesitated for a moment, uncertain. Then, abruptly, he called down to the canteen through the intercom for two mugs of hot tea. That done, he turned back to Fellirian, who was now rummaging through her belt pouch, retrieved from where she had laid her other things. From it, she removed a small, shallow smoking pipe, which she packed with a light brown tobacco. Vance approached,produced a lighter, held it for her, stood back to watch herget the fire up in the bowl. Started to her satisfaction, she satback, rested an arm along the windowsill, and blew a large,roiling cloud of blue smoke at the ceiling.

"I know, I know," she said. "It will dirty up your ventilator system."

"No, no, go ahead. I don't care. Let them get dirty. Mostof the visitors were dying to smoke as well but they were tooshy to ask."

"Not too shy to press me closely." She paused. "But nevermind." She turned to the window for a moment, looking atnothing in particular out there in the deepening blue of evening, now approaching a violet in tone. After a time, she turned back. Vance had pulled a chair over to her place, andwas waiting.

Fellirian sighed deeply, as if still phrasing the words she wished to say. She began, "Walter, you have contacts there, in the real world. I mean, at Region Central. What are the changes? There is something odd in our visitors, somethingorchestrated that has not been there before; the last few parties of visitors and trainees have been a spooky lot, more nervous than the usual lot of sightseers we get. They seem full ofodd sets of contradictions, repressed things, all under the surface, nothing out in the open. As if they suspect something,but are afraid to even inquire into it. I could feel the hostility of this last group, the looks, the attention they gave my remarks, the questions they asked. There was purpose there;someone was feeling me out. But for what? They know, those repulsive Security people, that they could ask directly and I would speak freely. I am no plotter, no member of secret covens."

Vance noted her indignation, but did not comment on it. Instead, he said, "There have been some changes recently, atRegion, but I have not been able to gauge the full impact ordirection of them all yet." He paused. "And of course you already know the feelings of the mass of the people. Thosefeelings range from outright paranoia through envy to exasperation. They say most often that you are 'a gang of oversexed mutantswho refuse to save the world..."

Fellirian interrupted. "Oh, oversexed! Would that it wereso, now! But it's gone . . . we were fortunate with the third child, but . . . Well, it's just gone, the way it is for all of us.Surely they know that side of us as well."

"It is your infertile adolescence that nags at them. At us,"he added. "We don't have anything like it. And in this century, bastardy is a capital crime, you know. More than that, it's two for one. "

"Both parents depersonified. I know. But we are no less severe with those who would outbraid mate and conceive, in our terms. But the rest is just as much nonsense. They should see me chopping wood, or Morlenden walking through the woods to the remotest districts to keep up with things. Or Kaldherman and Cannialin and Pethmirvin up to all hours out in the shed, bringing in another batch of paper for ourwritten records; or writing entries, cross-referencing. I don'tfeel like Ubermensch; I feel like an overworked bureaucrat in one of your own vast civil service hierarchies."

The tea arrived, carried upward to the conference room byan automatic dumbwaiter set in an alcove in the wall. Vance went over, collected the cups. They were still steaming. Returning, he said, "Yes, I sense some of the change that youhave. I know of others . . . but so far I have not been able to tie any of it to anything concrete, like a change of policy. I write it off as just a periodic mood-shift. Thrills and adventure, something to get excited about. It's the pressure, youknow. We need relief. We grind away, knowing that all our best efforts are just something temporary to keep us afloat untill next month, or next year. One crisis succeeds another, one shortage another. You can keep it going, but it wears hard. Even here, secluded as we are, I feel that every day."

Fellirian looked toward the window, as if looking for somehint in the darkened sky, the rain, the night-fading vistas of lights and shiny streets. She turned back, asking, "And you have heard nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing. As you know, I used to have goodcontacts at Region Central. Old Vaymonde, they say, wasn't much of a chairman; no charisma. But he kept the infrastructure up, he did. Always talked with the Division heads. He was liked, not tolerated."

"I remember him well. One of the few to die in office."

"Right. At his post to the end. You know, there is a vulgarstory to the effect that . . . Never mind. But when Denver installed this new chairman, this Parleau, my sources dried up,one by one. Retired, replaced, shifted, reassigned. All gone.Nothing sinister; he just wants his own people. But I keep aclose eye on him, this Parleau. They say that he's one of theirfavorites, from somewhere out west, Mojave Region, or Sonora, or even Baja. One of those desert places—solar powerand mining. He's a no-nonsense type: action, long hours, clean desk, business before pleasure, the needs of society, all that. And they say at Central these days that a new broom ..."

"... Sweeps clean. Ugh. Tell me no more tales of brooms.That one is worn to death." She sipped her tea, nodded. "Yes. I can see that. And I also know that it has been gettingharder to get off the reservation, too. More papers, forms,registrations, passports. All amply justified, of course: that's the very soul of a bureaucracy—everything has its reasons. Of course, I could say that the real reasons are never stated,and sometimes even unknown to the official; many would beoffended to know them. But even so, enough. I am overlysensitive to these things because of my own role—the permitting of weavings, the allowance of names, the registrationof children. Nearness breeds suspicions."

She stopped for a moment, sipped at her tea, turned andgazed once more into the distance through the windows. Sheturned back, saying, "Besides, it's hardly worth the trouble.We have little enough outside the reservation. And I've heardtales I'd not care to test firsthand. We've had some disappearances. ..."

Vance looked sharply at the head of Braid Deren. "You hadn't mentioned that before. ..."

"No."

"Who were they?"

"Not so many. No one I know personally. Elders, by thetalk of it. And all very vague, you know. It's all fourth-hand stuff. So far it has apparently been only elders, who could disappear for any number of reasons. The Final Cure Cult believes in natural death, alone in the woods. No one sees them again. Now, if something like this were to involve someone of brood phase, or adolescent, people would be more interested."

"How interested?"

"I couldn't say, right now. If it were deliberate, and some human agency were involved, I'm sure there would be some reaction. What, is the question. I cannot imagine how we could threaten you; we have neither the power nor the weapons, and if we had them, I don't know the way of theiruse. You know the Command of Demirel—not to use that as weapon which leaves the hand. No guns, no numbers."

"But you have butter, which could be withdrawn."

'The input, through the Institute? Oh, it would have to bevery serious, then. I do not wish such a confrontation."

"Nor I, Fellirian. We have learned much from you."

"Not enough, if you don't put it into practice."

"Give us time. Institutions die hard."

"You've had time: four hundred years with your backs tothe wall. Twenty billion humans! I don't know what I'd do with so many bodies. The very idea gives me nightmares;we'd run out of allowable names!"

"That's your worry?"

"That's the Deren part of me speaking. The county clerk,the registrar. Just think of the awful names people wouldhave to use: we'd use up the good ones right away. Then there would be a girl named Gallflanger and a boy named H'wilvsordwekh."

"Only one Fellirian at a time."

"Only one. As long as I live no one may have that name,no matter what aspect. But one Braid couldn't cope with thatlevel of work, nor would the people; instead, there would beFirst-derens, Second-derens, Third-derens . . . not for me, such multiples. I like being unique, even if what we do is notthe most desirable role in the community."

Vance returned to an older topic: "So then, you sense some hostility?"

"We always sense some. It's not a matter of none and some; it's some, and then some more. Always greater than zero."

"Do you know anything on your side that might be fuelingthe present feedback you are getting?"

"No. That is what makes this time so troublesome. Mind, I do not say that nothing is going on; just that I know of nothing. But I know a lot. And we can look again. Morlenden isdue back late tonight or tomorrow. I'll ask him. He moves about and hears more than the rest of us. He has the bad job,you know. And you. You must have a snoop planted aroundCenter as well. Why don't we compare notes next time I seeyou?"

"Probably nothing going on that some sunshine wouldn't cure."

"Indeed, it could be the season. I am moody in the rainyautumn as well. It is not my season." Fellirian finished, and sipped once more at her tea. It was gone. She returned to herpipe. It had gone out. She looked up. It was time to leave.

Vance saw the cue, and said, "Well, let it be. Don't worryabout it. I know of no reason either, right now. Will you becoming next week?"

"I would like to miss next week if I can. If it's just the same with you. Why don't you see if you can get someone else to fill in for me here with the visitors. For instance, that Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren. Or the Shuren girl, Linbelleth. . . . They're both young, but they have done this before. I am far behind in Braid work, and I wish to getcaught up a bit. That is also why Morlenden has been out somuch lately in the field; we all have been catching up witheverything that happened this summer. There is more to therole than you realize. And we were irresponsible this summer,we lazed around and played with the children, worked the garden. We got behind. So Morlenden has been out weeks ata time. I have actually begun to miss him."

"Didn't you before? I thought you were always close...

"So we have been. But you also know"—and here she slipped into her own speech, Singlespeech—"Toli Ion Tooron Mamnatheno Kurgandrozhas: Only the insiblings know the way of incest. We are too close. We take each other for granted. It's the way. We always fought a lot when we were little; we competed. But under that, we always knew what was coming for us, so after the fights we always buried thehatchet. We never had the luxury of being able to say, 'Well,fly off, Turkey-wattle, that's the last I'll see of you.' No. Wealways knew that whatever happened, what had been with friends and lovers, in the end the fertility would be ours, the.K/an/i-holding ours . . . and so it's been forty-five years forus, sleeping in a pile together most of the time. A little while out for the inweaving of the afterparents. So we always tookthe future for granted, too; when the time came, we'd go along our own paths, as we'd waited for so long. But afterKaldherman and Cannialin, and my own third fertility . . . it changed. We found that we actually felt more right together,somehow. So now we have been talking of remaining together when the Braid unravels. This causes another problem:where do we go?"

"Of all the things you can't make up your mind about..."

"Morlenden wants to join an elder lodge that, as he says, has some 'rigor' to it. One which does what you would call speculating into the nature of things. Or even Beech wood Lodge, the geneticists. For myself, I'd be pleased to go off somewhere, tend a garden, eat and drink, and tell made-up adventure stories by the fire in the communal hearthroom. But he's Fire, and I'm Earth. Aspect conflict. But also I thinkperhaps Olede-Kadh is just kidding. When all's said and done, he's no where as rigorous as he'd like people to think."

"I'm sure you'll make up your minds by the time—afterall, you've got twenty years. It isn't like it was tomorrow. Atany rate, your future is either decided or decidable. As for my own . . ."

"The Fertility Board has not answered your request yet?"

"Not yet."

"What can I offer but my regrets. I should like to see youwith a family as you have seen me these years."

"So should I. But time is passing."

"That it is. I have heard they only approve the best...."

"Were it so there I choose to believe I should have children older than your Pethmirvin, but they choose the visible. It works out to the worst sort, by and large, of toadies and arsekissers. My records and achievements are second to none. Butthis job at the Institute never has had much favor . . . and there's the matter of my turning down a programmed name back when I was a trainee. It's been no secret, but I knew then I was taking my chances. . . ."

"You know, Walter, if you had taken one of those awful random-generated tags, no better than a number, you'd not have stayed here, and that's been worth something to many of us. Many of us now work willingly here, where before wedid it only out of a sense of obligation, a debt. There is a difference in the input and a measurable one in the output. Thev should mark that one for you."

"You'd be surprised what they dig up to hold against you, when the time comes. You know what they say over in Inspection Directorate, and in Standardization? That no matter who it is, no matter how good they look, they can always finda wav to Unsat* them. It's just how far they want to go."

* Unsat: To give someone an unsatisfactory rating.

Fellirian looked away from Vance for a moment, something flickering across her plain, open face, too quick to beseen, something, an emotion, close to annoyance. Vance's remarks were in themselves not wrong, so much as was the emphasis he put upon them, here, now. A wave of uneasiness moved in the back of her mind, then subsided. They all knewabout bureaucratic systems, and they both knew that any system applied to classifying people which advertised objectivitydrifted toward the worst and most crass forms of subjectivity.They? It was common knowledge along both sides of the fence.

She commented, as neutrally as she could, "I still hope forthe best for you, nevertheless." After she spoke, she turned again to the window, now rising from her chair. She lookedpensively outside for a long time, and then turned and went to a recessed alcove by the door, retrieving her outer clothing. Drawing the winter overcloak about her shoulders, she stepped into her winter boots, soft, supple leather, lined witha fiber material.

"It's time to go. The mono is in and waiting for latecomerssuch as 1.”

"Of course, Fellirian. I understand about the other two, the ones you mentioned. No problem. I'll see you in a few weeks,then. Come again, and we'll visit some more over some tea."

"Oh, I'll be back. I like to study the visitors as much as thev like to study me." Here she paused, as if phrasing somedifficult thought into bearable language. "But you know I need to refresh myself in my own surround. You and I, we are old friends. But because of that we overlook the fact that we are really very alien to one another, that we have differentperceptions. Even so. I. . . but never mind. Next time, then?"

"Next time. I shall wait."

Fellirian turned and passed throueh the sliding doorway, which closed behind her, leaving Director Walter Vance alone in the meeting room. For considerable time, he sat quietly alone in the dimming evening light, now close to darkness, thinking of nothing in particular, forcing no specific pattern of coherent thoughts. He walked over to the window and looked out into the same evening landscape Fellirian hadbeen watching not long before. The light was now a deepsourceless violet-blue, the end of another rainy Novemberday, deep in what as a child he had thought of as the bottomof the year. Bare, dripping branches. Shiny pavements, reflecting a silvery light. Shallow puddles ruffled by a light, variable wind, their reflections broken into shards by fitful gusts ofraindrops. The monorail which ran into the far reaches of thereservation was yet standing in the station, waiting. Vancewatched as a hooded and cloaked figure, rather more slight instature than a human would appear at this distance, walked over to the mono along the platform, unhurriedly. The figureslid a door back, entered a coach, and vanished from his line of sight. The pale, pastel coaches sat immobile, breathingtremulous, tentative wisps of steam from the heaters into thedamp and chilly air.

Then he noticed that the mono was moving, had been moving, and it had started so subtly he had missed it. Its speed increased, and it glided effortlessly along its single, flattened concrete track, silently. It curved away to the northwest. passing through a grove of pine trees. For a time he could follow its motion behind the trees, watching the lights,but at last it vanished from view entirely, fading behind theshoulder of a low rise. Vance looked away from the window,walked back to the dumbwaiter panel, and ordered more tea.Then he returned to his seat and waited. He knew what would come.

The room was almost dark. It grew fractionally more dim, almost night-dark, and the night advanced still another increment. Vance waited. He did not wait because he was a patient man. or because he had learned the fine art of time-watching from Fellirian. Or because he was placid of disposition: rather he waited because he expected a certain specific event to occur. For a time there was no indication of anyevent to come. But at last a tiny sound broke the after-hoursstillness of the building. It was a small noise from the ceiling, an indeterminate click whose precise location could not bepinpointed. Vance heard it. He did not look up.

He said, seemingly into empty air, in a tired voice, 'To whom do I speak today?"

The voice replied with perfect fidelity, just as if it were issuing from the mouth and throat of a person physicallypresent in the room here with him, the mechanisms transmitting even the most subtle inflections of personal mannerismwhich reproducers usually missed. The voice was a breathyone, a little scratchy, a voice with a bubble of confidence init. A smug voice. A voice belonging to someone having all the high cards.

It said, "Very sly, there. As if you had known before, andso I should follow the habit. Smooth, Director. But you knowthat the identity is never given; against the rules, so it is. Andafter all, what does it matter? We all say the same things."

Vance replied, "As usual you are right. I just wondered if Iwould draw an inexperienced one of you, just once."

The voice chuckled, genuine humor which it deigned to share. "Hardly that, sir. We don't work that way. You wouldn't believe the training we get, the evaluations we mustpass. Rigorous is simply not the proper word! We even have a simulator to reproduce this kind of environment, to prepare us for fielding these little questions, these sly feints.But, Director, I assure you, we deal with some real masters;sly indeed they are, sneakier than an agency head in budget-cutting time. But enough of the poor Controller's job, yes? We want to get to business. So I must congratulate you on anexceptionally fine performance tonight and this evening, yes,all of it. The remarks about the new staff at Region Central,the new chairman. He'll be pleased, he will, and if I may reveal a confidence, he's pleased as a rule with little enough.No nonsense, him. Why, with a bit of training I believe you could make an agent provocateur. A provoc. Or were yousincere? Impossible. But yes, indeed, they'll like all this. Thechairman likes a little hostility, controlled, of course. He saysthat it gives his directors that cutting edge."

"I'm sure."
"So I must regretfully inform you that we shall probably

stop this circuit now.""And so you have agreed with what I first told you.""Yes, yes, of course. This was not doubt of your word,

Director Vance, just routine verification. What we derived today has already gone upchannel to Timely Analysis Branch.Real-time forwarding, or almost so, at any rate. TTiey concur,but their concurrence returns when they send it; they have tomull things over up there, not like us front-liners down hereon the killing floor, so to speak. So they agree, as did we, youand I, if I may use the pronoun loosely. There's no ore in thisFellirian for processing, neither a dram nor a scruple. Herstress index appears rather high today, but it was steady; no jumps when special tagged subject matter is introduced. We

quite agree with her that she knows of no conspiracy."

"So much for what she and I know. Is there one?"

"Aha! Questions from the answerer! You'll be a Controller

yet. But conspiracies? I couldn't say at this point in time.

There are anomalies, peculiarities. You have no need to know

them now."

"Oh."

"So this circuit will be terminated. Deactivated. If you care

to forward an evaluation of the proceedings as they have oc

curred, please utilize form eight-four-four-A, address atten

tion F-six-three-two. I can use index points as well as you, as

everyone in this competitive world."

"Speaking of points, when do mine get registered?"

"They have already been credited with the Bonus Section.

You'll get a come-back copy soon. Congratulations on your

sixer."

"Six? I was told it would be twenty!"

"Who was it told you that? I . . . well, you almost never seemuch over a deuce for this kind of work. After all, one can demonstrate negatives all day, can't one?"

Vance had no answer* The voice paused, then added, "Do you have any final comments before I break the circuit? It'smy break time now."

Vance felt, almost like a pain, a sudden surge of pure rage,of frustration, of anger, growing rapidly, a spike of cleanemotion, now; but it passed, and his system of internal modulations took over without too conscious a thought, leavingbehind only a bitter aftertaste. Vance, like everyone else ofthe day, was expert at controlling his own emotions. He haddone so for years, with the system, and with individuals, such as Fellirian. He said to the bodiless voice, "Perhaps this might be considered overly bold, but I must say that spyingupon one's oldest friends is a degrading act requiring great compensation. I hope you have no more of these cooperations."

"Freely said, freely taken." There was a pause. Then the voice began again, "Analysis says you get one bonus point for honesty, minus two for too great an attachment to an imaginary peer-group value." The voice hardened. "And you're too soft in that area, you know. We do. Still, you endup with a fiver for today's work. Over average. Keep workingat it."

"Thank you, I will."

"I have a last word of advice. Guidelines, if you will. Thefirst is this: if one will sell, his price can be driven down toits true value. We could have run this operation without yourcooperation, entirely. But then you would have got nothing.Perhaps a minus, who knows. Consider yourself lucky that we asked first. You know the rules; we don't have to. The second thing is this: you believed the ler lady's innocence ofconspiracy. So it has turned out to be no little thing to assistControl in a little surveillance when one's friends are indeed innocent. What harm does it do? We work by eliminations,by isolation of most-improbables. So now, by a little work, your friend has been eliminated as an active suspect. So statesthe report. That should relieve you. And then this third thing: you are director of Interface Institute, and the New People, the ler as they call themselves, are most interesting.But to us who must manage the dangerous world, theyrepresent a greater danger than the Cro-Magnon men did to the poor Neanderthals. We never found the aliens in deep space, Director; we made them here at home—and those people are stranger than anything we could expect to find outin the stars. Fins, fur, hands, paws, flippers; air-breathers,water-filterers, ammonia processors. Those kinds of aliens wecould handle. These we can't. And these we take no chances with."

"They are much like us. Almost the same, really. Could itbe that we don't really understand ourselves?""One problem area at a time. Control doesn't work Research."

"Certainly, but..."

"Good evening, Director."

"Good evening." Vance never heard any audible indicationthat the circuit had indeed been broken. After the last partingremarks by the unnamed. Controller, there passed onlysilence. Vance could not be sure at what moment they turnedit off. If they turned it off. He got up from his chair and walked tiredly to the dumbwaiter. The tea was cold.

They were disembodied voices in the night; where theywere didn't matter, couldn't matter. They could be anywhere;they were everywhere, seemingly. In the place where theywere, it was always night, the lighting artificial. There wereno windows. Shift relieved shift. Incoming members reviewedinstructions, read notices, signed forms. Outgoing membersalso signed forms. Shift relieved shift. And the voices had passed and echoed through the circuits so many times thatwhen repairmen went into the cable tunnels, they sometimesfound unexplained traffic still going on what were supposedto be deactivated lines. They called these fading voices "copper ghosts," the imprints of gone and forgotten Controllers still wandering through the circuits. Voices in an eternal night.

"Sector Ten. Go ahead, there."

"Two-Alpha Control. A hard copy record format follows my voice report. Going now, there, depress your acknowledge."

"Got it there, Two-Alpha."

There was a pause, but the line remained open and live.

"And Ten here."

"Two-Alpha. Go ahead."

"Re your hard copy, noted and concur. Eval says Vance to be reassigned to a more innocuous position at the first discreet opportunity. Negative haste. Promotion categoryDelta. He's getting unreliable. Too specialized. Needs more generalist work. We also recommend that there be no more passives like this, permissive, you know, for not less than thirty days, as per Schedule twenty-nine, column twenty, linefifteen."

"Charlie your instructions. Have it right here. Well set upthe involuntaries, and forward tell the take to your house."

"Right that. According to schedule, there. Ten out, break."

And for a time, along a certain channel of communications, along wires, over laser beams in evacuated pipes, alongwave-guides in which nothing passed save microwaves, therewas silence. The line was dead. But there was not, at the ends of such channels, inaction.

THREE

The teacher instructs the student; just so the master with the novice. It is the final measure of both instructorship and masterhood how much the instructor learns from the student. We can further state that the greater the distance-of

relationship between the two, the more apparent

this becomes, so that with a very young child, the

best teacher actually learns more than the child

in the process of instruction.

—The Game Texts

The Reservation Monorail was their sole concession to modernity; for the rest of the space enclosed by the boundaryfence, the only modes of travel available were walking, ridinga pony, or driving a cart pulled either by oxen or the heavy,solid horses the ler preferred. Its track plan covered most ofthe reservation in a skewed figure eight, the north loop leanedsharply over into the northwest corner, and the south loop broadened and spread out to the southeast. There were two trains, which ran in the same direction twelve hours apart,each drifting around the whole of the route more or less inthe course of a day.

On the days when Fellirian worked at the Institute, she had to spend almost all of the previous day traveling, spendingthe night at the Institute hostel (operated by Braid Shuren).Then, the next day, she would board the mono for the ride back. But where before the way of motion had been againsther, so that she had to ride all the way around to get to thesoutheast where the Institute was located, the way back, to thecontrary, was short and almost direct, straight into the centerof the reservation, where lay her Braid holding.

It would be late when she arrived at last, after a long ride,a long day, and a long walk as well; and in the cold and damp season of the year. Still, for her, it was better than spending another night out. It would be near midnight whenshe finally got home, but that was fine enough—they would save some supper for her, and some would stay up late toshare some talk. She did not care so much for travel, as did her insibling and co-9pouse Morlenden, who did most of theBraid's field work. That was the drudgery, the visits, the ceremonies. But Morlenden never complained, aside from some grousing which they all knew was not serious. Her work down at the Institute was tiresome; but it was a window on the outside, one of the few maintained of which she was aware. Her evaluations of that narrow view were all part of agrist constantly being fed to the lineal ruling Braid, the Revens. Pellandrey Reven, Insibling and Klandorh . . . the feelings and the thoughts which went with them trailed off.

Boarding the mono, which was operated by the Gruzen Braid, she could see yet, even in the deep evening light, themodest monument the people had erected for the enlightenment of the visitors; it reassured her. An inlaid woodcarvingwith an overlay of subtle color wash, it was supposed to be avisual image of the central doctrine of ler self-image.

Circular in outline, the bas-relief of the Emblem was divided internally into four quarters, as aligned with the four points of the compass; within each was depicted a person,highly suggestive in symbolism. The upper quarter showed aler elder, with the long double braids characteristic of theclass, wreathed in clouds bordered with lightning in the skyand flame along the base. The heraldic figure was reachingout of the clouds with its right hand toward the center of theEmblem, while its left hand, upraised, held some of the lightnings. The expression along the planes of the face appearedstern, judicial, abstract, emotionless. It was, so far as the human visitors could determine, utterly undifferentiated by sexual characteristics.

The figure depicted in the right-hand panel seemed to be amilitary figure, drawn with great subtlety and respect. Thisfigure seemed mature, rather than elder; the single braid of hair falling to the middle of the back reinforced this impression. And where the elder in the upper panel had beenclothed in a simple pleth, a utility garment, this one was depicted wearing a kiltlike garment about the hips and thighs,while the upper torso was covered by a light sleeveless vest orjacket. The kilt or skirt seemed to suggest leather, the vest acoarse weave, or perhaps chain mail. On the head was a lightleather helmet with a stiffened ridge along the top. The Warrior, as it was known, held a short, leaf-bladed sword in its left hand, the one nearest the viewer. The point was held down, deliberately, not simply drooping. And with its righthand, it reached also for the center of the Emblem.

On the opposing left side, the figure depicted appeared to

be similar in age and class to the military figure on the right,

but it was dressed in a long, flowing gown, with a hood at

tached to the garment, but folded back. This one was shown

in the act of emerging from a garden through a simple

arched masonry gate, carrying a basket filled with various

fruits and vegetables, some recognizable, others enigmatic. It

carried the basket in the right hand, toward the viewer, and

reached into the center with its left. This figure suggested a

feminine nature, to the same degree that the figure to the right suggested masculinity. Subtly. One imagined, but was not quite sure.

The figure in the bottom quarter panel seemed the most striking of all: unlike the others, which were colored in a direct and naturalistic manner, she was almost completely painted in tones of blue, as were her surroundings in the panel. She: the image was of a young girl dressed in a filmyhomespun shift that suggested almost every detail of the supple body beneath; and she was shown reaching upward,yearning, with both arms and hands upraised, her young andinnocently lovely face also turned upward, filled with an expression of rapture. She was shown emerging from a pool ofwater around which water plants grew profusely....

Riding along the track of the mono, Fellirian now saw fullnight through the windows of the coach she was riding; andlittle else. The mono made its deliberate and unhurried way through the nighted country of the reservation. She looked through the windows more closely; while she could not makeout much of the passing unlit details, she could make out theforest silhouette of the treetops, outlined against the weak sky-glow which was always present, no matter what part of the reservation one happened to be in. There were no lightswithin the reservation to cause this; rather, they were all outside its borders, the signs of the industrial civilization whichsurrounded it on all sides. It was stronger in the west and north, but the glow was never invisible, not even in the center.

There was hardly a place on the entire planet, on the waters as well as along the lands, where it was not possible toread a newsgram from the public information agency by available light in the hours of darkness. Human societyworked around the clock, in total disregard of local time. Ontheir calendar, they still sfiowed the ancient days of the week,but the number of people who actually used them for theirschedules was very small, almost nonexistent. For the rest, the vast mass of twenty billion, they oriented themselves totheir particular shift cycle. There were four of these shifts, interlaced so that each person within a shift worked, in succession, five evenings, one off, five midnights, one off, five days,followed by five days off. Four shifts, each with an identity ofits own.

Fellirian continued to meditate, relaxing, letting the thoughts lead where they would. Shifter Society, they called it;

its emblem was a cube with a staring brown eye upon each ofits visible faces. Fellirian thought it peculiar, unnecessary.They didn't need to put the whole planet on shifts for a warfooting against some invader, not for production reasons, forit took as much to sustain a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation as they gained from it. But she thought she knew. There seemed to be two main reasons; one was that by having shiftsone could use space more efficiently, and hedge against thepanic brought by overcrowding. It also gave the millions idled by arbitrary changes something to do while they werebeing reoriented.

As each man's work had become steadily more piecemealand meaningless, so had establishments interlocked into one another and pressed into private lives. One by one, the nations had grown into one another; governments did not protect their people, but protected themselves. Some radicals hoped and strove for the day when people would wake up.But if they ever had, there had been no sign of it; the conscious decisions were no improvement over the half-asleepones. Of course, at the very end of the old period, pre-shift,there had been some frictions, bickerings, adjustments. Thathad been the days of the Attitude Patrols, volunteers who didnot monitor performance, but intangibles such as feelings andmotivations. The end of the first population crisis had seen Shift Society emerge triumphant. And so afterward publicbuildings were multipurpose, used full-time, all year, everyday. There was no wasted space. Every square foot which did not contain working space, contained the minuscle livingquarters allotted to all. Everything left over was either powerproduction or agriculture.

But they forgot, by will, design, or accident, that once buildings had been made to serve men, whatever perverseuses they had put them to, however seldom. The more logicaland reasonable life came to be ordered, the more illogicaland confusing it became: now people existed to fill buildingsto maximum efficiency, just as customers in a queue existedto give the bored clerk something to do. Once buildings hadbeen inspirational; now they were four sides and a top, functional, and reusable. Each one lasted, on the average, lessthan a person's lifetime. As with the buildings, so it was witheverything else. If one quarter of Earth's population was at work at a given minute, so it was also true that almost another quarter were deep in their cups, drunk as lords. And ifthere were no more armies, there were vast numbers of police In their place so that the actual number of armed men was greater by percentage than in the worst of previous periods ofworld war.

Over the shifts were the members of the hierarchy, most ofwhose numbers were stabilized on permanent day-shifts, although certain of their order worked other fixed shifts: midnights, eves. Recruited from the upward-striving shifters whohad already demonstrated their allegiance, few had other thanprogrammed names, and fewer still had any recognizable family ties. The organization was all.

They called this system civilization, and considered it thebest of all possible circumstances; considering the chaos which it obviously held at bay, perhaps it was an excellent compromise. But to Fellirian, it suggested nature at its rawest. And the ancient dynamics of nature, the uncontrolledfears out of the past, had not been eliminated at all, but painted over with a set of new colors. There were strains andtensions everywhere, growing slowly and insidiously daily,monthlv. yearly. Man's runaway population growth had beenslowlv braked to an agonized halt, but the price had been thecomplete loss of everything else. And the sad thing to her wasthat the people of today knew no better life, remembered nowildlife, no freedom, no open-ended self-checked ecology;thev thought the ler quaint and eccentric, impractical and superstitious. . . .

The darkened coach moved on through the night. She feltat last the letdown after a full day of work, on her feet, tensewith fielding question after question. The motion lulled her,and she became first relaxed, then drowsy. She began to driftin and out of a light half-sleep; there were others in the coach with her, seated away from her, in the far end, and they seemed to be absorbed in their own affairs, or perhaps also just drowsing .. . she thought she saw one of the seatedfigures rising, surrealistically slow, as if under water, or it might have been a dream, a daydream. She felt her head nod,and her eyelids felt heavy. Was someone now taking the seatbeside her?

"Fellirian?"

She came awake instantly and the fog cleared out of her mind. She turned to her left and looked at the person whohad joined her. The voice had been male, but the person washooded. She thought that odd, for the coach was not cold. Infact, the coach was almost too warm. "Yes," she said. "I am

Fellirian Deren. And who is it who speaks from within a hooded pleth in the overheated mono coach?"The low voice from within the hood said, almost inaudibly,"One whom you once knew well."

She leaned forward to peer into the hood, caught a quickglimpse of a face, one she indeed knew well. Had known well. It had been some time since they had spoken. Her mouth started to form syllables of a name, but a finger wasplaced across her mouth. Within the hood was motion, a negation.

He leaned closer, saying, "And so it was, just as now. Bythe love I have had for you and your house, have I come thisway to bring a warning to you."

She shook her head, as if unbelieving. He noted it, and continued, "One will come to your yos, asking a service which only your house can provide. You must neither delay,nor refuse it. Negotiate as you will, but let it not be in doubtbetween us now."

She answered, without hesitation, "It will be according to that you have spoken. But..."

"Ask no questions. They will all be answered in time. Andnot all the answers will be satisfying to you. Indeed, they willtrouble you in your heart. I would not have had it so, but events press us, and they belong to one among the Powers. The Air element lies heavy upon us, and only Will countersit. But with this I also warn you to take care in all things relating to yourself from henceforth, and most especially to what you will do for this task, for there will be danger. It isfor these reasons that I wear a hood, and ask that you not speak my name aloud. The mono is no place for such dialogue; I have risked much to come as far as I have."

"You could have met me elsewhere."

"Not so much as you imagine. I am watched. So are you,although not so much now. But do you not feel a change inthe Institute, a shifting of balances?"

"Yes. Yes, I have, this last time. I was disturbed, but there was nothing I could see. What is it?"

"Times change always. There is nothing fixed; only varyingdegrees of the skill by which the riders ride the wave of the present. We enter different waters now, and the waveschange. An accident, perhaps more malice than we anticipated, and perhaps something more—these things have madeturbulence at a critical time when we do not need it. And now questions are being asked, sensors are being activated,

old thoughts being rethought." He gestured at the outside, at

the sky-glow visible beyond the treetops. "There, they are stir

ring again. Something bad has happened. We cannot make it

as it was, but we can find out of it what we must, so that we

may know how much has befallen us."

"What has happened?"

"I will not speak of it; to tell what I know, and to add

what I suspect, is to describe something which may not be

spoken of openly here, even between such as you and me.

Not even hints will I give; you do not know it now: you will

have to unravel it as you go along. I want no preconceptions.

But you must do it, when you are asked, and you must be

careful." The last word was emphasized so strongly it came

out almost a hiss. Fellirian drew back.

She paused, and said, "You speak in riddles."

"I speak as only I may, now. I fear in the end of it you

will know what I do. I would have spared you the weight of

it." Now the hooded shape moved, as if looking away from

her, to the front of the coach. "Your stop will be soon; how

say you of this?"

"It will be as you have said. We shall, we Derens. I only

ask why there was haste."

"Because the one who will ask of you is either approaching your yos now as we speak, or is already there." He added ina suppressed half-chuckle which spoke much of some privatejoke, "I came to use my influence and ensure your response."

Fellirian looked to the front, and glimpsed familiar landmarks passing by. She felt the mono slowing for the halt. Shestood, and the hooded figure moved to allow her to pass intothe aisle. She turned to him and said, "So it will be as youhave asked. I wish only that we might have met more openly.We parted so."

"We will meet again, I think. And after that, who mayknow the future? But however the past was, we know that itis only shadows in our minds now. Pleasurable they were, butnot to be repeated. We have lived other lives. And hard decisions lie ahead for me. For you. I will not trouble your heartwith them now; when the time comes you will face them better with an innocent heart."

The mono stopped, fairly smoothly, but fast enough to cause Fellirian to sway slightly. He said, "And now, yourstop."

"You will come with me along the long path?"

"I cannot. There are others yet to see this night, along thisway, and in the north where lies my yos."

The coach doors opened. Outside it was so quiet the dripping of rainwater could be heard. Fellirian said quietly, "I have kept the tradition of the vayyon."

"As have I. But in time all secrets may have to go overboard. But think not of the past, and prepare to wrestle the future." ^v

She nodded. "Just so . . . it was good to see you again.""And you. I do not forget. And may it be with your Toorh as with you.""And so with yours as well." She turned to depart the coach.

The doors opened, and Fellirian focused on the immediatenow, where she was. Her memory had distracted her, disoriented her, reinforced by the voice of the man who had spoken. She stepped down out of the coach into the cold dampness. There was fog now; the rain had stopped, yet onlyrecently, for all things dripped. It was almost noisy after themuffled quiet of the coach, her attention single-mindedlyriveted. It was an elevated platform made of wood, shingled,charmingly rustic. To her left was the waiting-shed, open onthe side facing the track; a sign, weather-beaten and stained,displayed the name of the stop: Wolgurdur, it said in the plain shapes of the Singlespeech alphabet. Flint Mountain Halt. The cold air touched her, and she shivered, adjustingfrom the warmth of the coach. Then she took a deep breath,clearing her head, and started slowly for the stairway which wound down to the forest floor.

At the head of the stairs she turned back to see if she could still see inside the coach. The doorway was open, and within it was the same figure, his face obscured in the shadows of his hood. She raised her voice and called to him, in a clear but still quiet voice, "Never fear! I will do it for you."

The figure answered, "Not for me, but for us all. You will see." Then he looked to his left, into the shed, back to her. "Is someone waiting there, in the shed?"

Fellirian turned back. She could not see around the corner, so she walked over to the edge of the shed, looked within. Sure enough, there was a person there, wrapped against thenight damp, huddled over, apparently asleep. Fellirian shookher head, chuckling to herself. Here was some night-wandererwho had come the long walk down to Flint Mountain to await the mono, and, tired from the exertion, had taken a catnap in the corner; now not even awakened by the arrivalof the train, nor their talking across the platform. The monowas waiting. Fellirian approached, and gently shook the traveler's shoulder, an adolescent by the feel of it. The personawoke, and looked up with the blankness of one awakened suddenly, undoing the hood of her overcloak.

Fellirian smiled, then laughed aloud. She said, half to herself, "Well, well, well! Whoever should I happen upon in themono halt waiting-shed, but my own Nerh, Peth-child." She turned and waved to the train, that they should depart, and turned back again to Pethmirvin. "Whatever are you doing down here in the very bowels of the night?"

While Pethmirvin collected her wits, the mono began tomove. The coach in which Fellirian had been riding movedpast, slowly accelerating. In a moment, it was gone. Pethmirvin, the elder outsibling of the Derens, Fellirian's firstborn and her secret favorite, looked up at her foremother blanklyfor a long moment, and then away, averting her eyes, deeplyembarrassed to have been caught thus dozing in the shelter. Fellirian's child and favorite she might have been, but the girlresembled neither her mother nor her forefather, Morlenden. Peth was another quality. She was slender, thin as a reed, awkward, self-conscious. Her hair was a pale, washed-out light brown. She was tall alreadv for a ler, and very pale incolor. But in the summer, her hair bloomed into a warm, rich golden color, and her skin turned the color of lightlybrowned toast. In her face, there were faint reminders of Fellirian, in the large, expressive eyes and the broad, generousmouth; yet there was a crispness there, too, something whichsubtly echoed Morlenden: the long face, with its suggestionsof boniness, the hard chin. Pethmirvin was variable as quicksilver: lovely one moment, homely the next.

The girl tried to speak, but since she was not yet completely awake, the words came all tumbling out, like a badlywrapped parcel suddenly coming undone, then falling completely apart. But one way or another, it somehow all got out."Madheliya, here. I was supposed to meet you here. Am supposed. Here I am. When did you come?"

"Just now, sleepyhead."

"Oh, I'm sorry, really I am."

Fellirian reached into the hood, ruffling the girl's hair gently. "No sorries, Peth. Although you would have felt funny had you missed me, and waited all night down here."Fellirian laughed warmly. "But why have you come all the way down here, and in the cold, too? Was it to fetch me home? It's not as if I didn't know the way. Nor am I afraid of the dark. And, inasmuch as time has treated me somewhat cruelly, no lovers to make rendezvous with along the way."

Pethmirvin stood up, a little stiffly, and stretched, shivering in the damp night air, even though she was dressed quitewarmly, as if she had been out for some time, and knew shewas going to be. When she stretched, she was taller than Fellirian.

Fellirian watched her, thinking to herself. Fifteen and already she's taller than me. Prettier, too, in her own way. And cast into the outsibling's lot. I worry about her, poor thing; she hasn't the temper for it.

Pethmirvin continued, "Kadh'olede* is supposed to be at the yos by now; he had not yet come when I left, but he wasexpected at any moment. One of the Morens had seen him ina tavern by the old ferry crossing on the Hvar. They sent medown to tell you to hurry along, and not to stop along theway for tea at the Morens, nor visit with Berlargir and Darbendrathf, because we have guests, important guests, andthey won't talk until all the parent phase Derens are present."

* Short form—"Forefather Morlenden." t Insiblings of the previous generation of Derens. Specifically,Forefather and Foremother of both Morlenden and Fellirian.

Fellirian had been half listening. Morlenden seen in a tavern! Of course they saw him in a tavern! She had been hearing that kind of tale for many years now. But the words about important guests brought her to full attention, remembering what he in the mono had said. She interrupted Pethmirvin. "Kel'lca Arnefl Who was it?"

Pethmirvin replied, "An elder, the Perwathwiy Srith, accompanied by a didh-Srith, a bit older than me. SanjirmilSrith Terklaren."

Fellirian leaned back. "The Perwathwiy, indeed! At our yos. I wonder what would bring her there."

"Madheliya, neither she nor Sanjirmil would speak of it.And you know elders; wouldn't set a foot in the yos. But that Sanjirmil thing did, though. Came right in and helped herselfto my supper she did."

"Peth, you know the way of the hospitable. We must sharewith the stranger. Sanjirmil would expect supper. And as for the Perwathwiy, I'd expect the full rigor of discipline from her."

"Do you know her?"

"Only by repute. Not personally. She was a Terklaren her

self, first born insibling and Klandormadh in her day . . . many

years ago, of course; she is the foremother of Sanjirmil's fore-

mother. If she's a day, she's perh meth sen-dis* years."

* Literally, one and seven fourteens of years, in the fourteen-basenumber system. In decimals, ninety-nine.

"Yes, that's her. She's all gray. She stood outside in the rain until Kaldherman went out and unlocked the shed." Pethmirvin giggled. "He said, so Sanjirmil wouldn't hear, that if she wouldn't come in, the old bat could stand all night inrain for all he cared."

"Pethmirvin Srith Deren!"

"That's what he said, Madheliya, not me! But Cannialin told him that the old woman would put a curse on him if hedidn't give her some shelter. And that if she did, that she, Cannialin, would probably help her."

"Peth, you know an elder's not supposed to enter a yos;that's one of the Basic Arbitrations. When one's insibling children complete the weaving ceremony and the initiation, thenone leaves the yos forever. Not just your own, anyone's!"

"I know. But a lot of them do it anyway, on the sly. And besides, it was cold and rainy."

"Doesn't matter. She would stand there anyway. But goodfor Ayali. So now, my sleepy girl-child; come along then. Wewon't get home standing here in the mono shelter and talkingthe night away." Fellirian put her arm around the younger girl's slender shoulders, giving her a quick hug; and so together they descended the worn, unpainted staircase to the ground, wet and quaking from the rain which had ended. They said no more, but set out directly under the bare dripping trees, northward, into the central provinces. Fellirian reflected as they began the walk homeward that in most circumstances she would have been irritated to find Peth out so late at night; yet this night she felt comforted by the girl'spresence. Perhaps it was just the cold and dampness. Or morelikely disturbing impressions, augmented by the cryptic rejoinder she had received riding the mono. No doubt about it:the future had become a troubled and uncertain one, and it was measurably easier to face such an uncertain future whenyour future could walk along for a time with you.

And her thoughts insisted, The Perwathwiy Srith is then shb of whom he spoke; she would ask something of us. Perwathwiy and her own Toorh's Toorh, Sanjirmil. Her mind raced, seeking data: Perwathwiy was hetman of Dragonfly Lodge, the elder commune reserved for the GameplayerBraids. And Sanjirmil? Fellirian had no knowledge of the girldirectly. She recalled images of Braid Linebooks, reference logs, registered births, deaths, weaving ceremonies. There: shehad it. Sanjirmil Srith Terklaren. Eldest Toorh and Klandorh-to-be of the Secondplayer Braid. Age, one and two fourteens, almost mature. Was there a connection? And was there a connection with the events in the Institute? She could see none. But that failed to comfort her, for she could see no reason why the Perwathwiy should come to her yos, and that what she would ask be agreed to beforehand. Fellirian shivered, and not entirely from the cold.

The path soon narrowed as they walked upward out of thevalley in which the mono ran; had it been dry, it would havebeen wide enough for the two of them to walk abreast, butwith the rain, the worn path was too slippery along the edges,so they walked single file, silently, Pethmirvin leading withher long-legged stride. Apparently the girl was taking her instructions seriously, for she wasted no time and set a steadypace. Fellirian, used to walking many miles, found that sheneeded her breath for the walk.

The path wound gently upward, meandering here and there, following lines of passage through the old forest that had been made long before Fellirian and Pethmirvin; indeed,before the ler had assembled and moved to this place. Gametrails, the trails of humans who had lived here long ago, remnants of old logging roads. It crossed others, some broader, some equally broad, others hardly visible, mere pressed-downplaces that trailed off to either side. The path they followedled northward from the mono line into the heart of the reservation, the Wolguron, the Flint Mountains. The name was somewhat of a misnomer, for the range consisted of low hillsof no great elevation, and no particular distinction, save thatthey were higher and steeper than the rolling country whichsurrounded them. But it was an old range, and it once had been high and proud, although no person had seen it so; nowit was the gnawed and eroded wrinkle-remnants of the creases and folds made aeons ago in the collision of two greatcontinents, North America and Africa. It had been eroded many times. Some argued that the range had never been highand great; but to the ler who now lived under its shadow this was no great matter. The Flint Mountains endured. Theysurvived.

The rain had stopped, but under the many bare branches of November the icy water still dripped, and the creeks and streams were busy with the newly fallen water. The night wasfilled with water-sounds, drips, gurgles, rushing blurred sounds deeper in the woods. It was pleasant to hear, and it drowned out the distant sounds one heard when the woods were silent: the muted rumble of the civilization behind the lights. They found as they walked that they could see the path well enough, even with the overcast darkness and the weakness of the ler eye at night*, because of this very sky-glow. But they also had something more, for the night is neverdark to those who allow their eyes time to adjust to it.

* The ler retina was more sensitive to color than the human, but it was deficient in rod cells. Their night-vision was poor.

From time to time, they could sense they were passing either near some solitary yos, far off deep in the trees, or by some small elder lodge. Both of them knew the way well enough, so much of their knowledge was what they called unbidden memory. But there were other hints: woodsmoke, odors of cut wood; barnyard odors, stables, compost piles.Someone lived nearby. In this area there were few elder lodges, and all of the ones that were hereabouts were small, hardly larger than family Braid groups. Members of such lodges felt more like a contained Braid than a commune, where the Braid identities were quickly submerged. Indeed,Fellirian's own forefather and foremother lived in such a lodge; she saw them seldom now, but tried to drop in and visit from time to time on her way back from the Institute. From these visits, extended by Fellirian's talkative forefatherBerlargir until nearly dawn, had come the phrase, "visiting atBerlargir's," which meant being away for an indefinite periodof time.

The path passed close by one of the elder lodges, not thelodge of the former Derens, close enough that they wouldhave been able to see it had it been daylight. Tonight theycould not make out the buildings deeper down in a hollow, but before the entryway they could see flickering the ghostlyblue of a spirit-lamp, a small paper lamp illuminated from within by a single tiny candle. It was a sign of mourning forthe dead.

They passed by no other dwellings. Ler did not build theirhomes, whatever phase they were, close to path or roadway,but always at the end of dead-end paths which terminated at running water. Custom and ritual, just as there was only onedoorway into a yos. They saw no other lights. The hour waslate, now near midnight, and all the folk who lived along thiscreek, Thendirmon's Rivulet, had long since tumbled into sleep. Ler retired early.

"A rainy night," they would say, "and good for sleepingand dreaming under the rounded roofs while the raindropsfall from the branches overhead." And acorns would also drop in the autumn, shaken loose by a sudden gust of wind,resounding hollowly as they struck. Fellirian found herselfthinking just these thoughts as she and her nerhsrith walked silently as ghosts through the dark, damp woods. And afterthey arrived? To come into the hearthroom, eat and talk a while, and then climb into the broodroom, removing clothing and wriggling a cold, tired body into a warm down-filled comforter, close to someone and the kind of warmth only awell-known, long-time close body can provide. Yes. She remembered: back when they all had been in their fertile period, the second for herself and Morlenden, first for Cannialin and Kaldherman, as they had paired off with their twonew co-spouses; at night they had hung a light print curtainacross their common sleeping compartment, dividing it. Not for prudery, nor for jealousy, but for politeness and privacy.A rare privacy. They had all as a matter of course lived adolescences of active sexuality, with little hidden. But that waswhat one wanted to do. Fertility was different; compulsive,driven, almost a kind of desperate madness. The intensity ofdesire was of a different order entirely. Then they wanted seclusion, aloneness. It was as if children who had playedgames of war had suddenly found themselves in the manic violence, confusion, and panic of real war in all its horror.The playing and the fun were over: the real thing had begun.Thus, the curtain. Now it was down, packed away for the next generation. Fertility and desire had come and gone. Nottheir regard for one another. "Only a Braid after fertility," went the proverb, and indeed it was true.

She let her memory dig deeper into itself as they walked. Far back in their past, Morlenden—Olede whom Fellirian-Eliya could not remember not-knowing—had himself suspected that after the birth of Pethmirvin, Fellirian would bring tohim for second-weaving the girl Cannialin, the Thes, youngeroutsibling of the Morens, the next Braid down the rivulet. Their ages were right, five years apart, and the Morens and the Derens always, rules permitting, exchanged younger out-siblings. Their own Kaentarier Srith had already so gone tothe Morens. No surprise there, and indeed they had dallied offand on for years. But Fellirian had no idea who Morlenden would bring to her second-weaving. She had expected to be surprised, but not as astounded as she had been; she had never let the image of that day slip from the forefront of her memory.

. . . She had been feeling the first twinges of returning fertility, and this aspect of herself had begun to elicit subtle responses from Morlenden and Cannialin, although at this particular time the Moren girl had not yet moved in with them. But it had been a day late in the spring, with heavy,wet, sagging dark clouds presaging a storm, and she had beenhoeing in the garden, all the while playing with Peth. AndMorlenden had come strolling up the path from the yos, with a stranger in tow, and Fellirian, deeply embarrassed by thedust and sweat that streaked her, taught first sight of her cospouse-to-be. Her immediate impression had been one of a truculent roughneck with a hard, severe face, rusty hair withmore than a hint of curl in it, and almost a swagger to hiswalk. No doubt a bargeman from the River Yadh terraces.

Now at this time Fellirian had just started going down to the Institute regularly, although she had been making sporadic visits since she had been about twenty. And as a result of her travels, she had gained a spattering of romantic ideals somewhat at variance with traditional ler visions of practicality. So in her imaginings she had wished Morlenden to bring her a poet, a dreamer, a gentle charmer. She had received, to Morlenden's apparent vast mirth, what appeared to be a hewer of timbers and a piler of stones, showing along his limbs the visible corded muscles of a wrestler. She learned later that indeed he did hold a local championship for just that. But his home was far to the northwest, and she did not know him. More, as she found out later, he was Nerh in his own Braid, and much accustomed to having his own way among his contemporaries. And to add insult to injury, he was already full fertile. As they were introduced, and Fellirian made the ritual responses, she could already feel her

own body responding to the exaggerated maleness of him.Deep in his time, as they would say.

Later, she had abused Morlenden as she never had before, and then run away into the forest, in tears and complete exasperation. But Olede had followed, patient as he always was,and after a time explained that his choice—undeniable for her as hers had been for him, except for narrowly specifiedreasons which almost no one used—had been intended as a rare and subtle gift, a most high token of the regard in whichhe held his insibling, as she would find out, if she just would.As she did. Alone in the woods, she had stopped by a quietpool of water, and had looked long at herself, seeing more therein than the outline and shaping of a face; and she had begun to see. And as usual, Morlenden-Olede had been right. The hints were there; for Kaldherman, Adhema she now called him, was a rare gift, indeed; for he had been as tenderand giving in the reality as his apparent roughness had repulsed her at the first. Fellirian also knew herself to be no notable beauty, like, for example, the heartless flirt Cannialin; she was instead simple, direct, plain, and straightforward. Butto Kaldherman, she had cast a dazzling light, Fellirian-thewise, who walked among humans without fear, in their vastcities, levels of organization to which the ler possessed no parallel. He seemed to consider himself among the most fortunateof all outsibling Tlanhmanon; he had woven into a Braid containing Fellirian, a prize beyond words, and in addition the urbane Morlenden and the exotic Cannialin. And already withPethmirvin, then a child of five, it also seemed that he would be thfc best of all four of them with the children.

And so it had been all these years, she thought, returningto the present. Fellirian realized with a start that she had been daydreaming, and that they had come far while her mindhad been elsewhere; they had been trudging steadily throughthe nighted, rain-wet forest. For an instant she felt disoriented, vertiginous, lost. She looked about for a landmark, somesubtle reminder; she sensed they were near home. Yes. Theywere already past the forking in the path which led to the yosof the Morens, almost at the one that led to their own, far down the steep, root-strewn path. They rounded a curve in the main path, and Pethmirvin lengthened her stride, anticipating.

They came to the place where the path divided along a slight rise; from here, in daylight, one could catch a quick glimpse of the entire holding, the yos by the rivulet under a feathery canopy of ironwood, the sheds and outbuildings, thegarden, the animal pens and yards, stone walls carefully laid.Now it was night and ahead of them were only suggestions ofshapes, some dim lights showing in the translucent windowsof the yos. The memory filled in what the eye did not actually see, and they felt a release, a happiness; they had arrived.

Fellirian paused for a moment at the foot of the stairs tothe entryway—the hearthroom section of the yos loomingabove them like the high stern of some strange ship, its elliptical shape distorted by perspective—not climbing the narrowwooden stairs, but instead turning, reluctantly, to the wash-trough to her right, closer to the rivulet. She looked long intothe dark water gurgling into the trough from a large clay pipe communicating with the rivulet, in her mind alreadyfeeling the bite of the water on her skin.

Pethmirvin did not enter either, but remained, waiting justby the foot of the stairs. Fellirian turned, not looking at thegirl, and said, "Peth, dear, you don't, have to wait for m?; goon in and tell the rest that we've come at last."

The girl hesitated, cleared her throat. "Can't right now, Madheliya. I must take the ritual washing, too, much as I would wish not to." Already Pethmirvin's voice seemed to have the chatter of her teeth in it.

For a long moment, they stood silently in the dark and looked at one another. They both knew the rituals and traditions and obeyed them with little hesitation. Indeed, Felliriansometimes stressed orthodoxy, as she felt she had an exampleto set. Morlenden avoided the trough as much as possible, although he was fastidious and would soak for hours in a hugewashtub out back while Pentandrun and Kevlendos ran relaysof hot water from the hearth. But there was the wash-custom, even in winter when it was a feat of daring to address oneselfto the water. Fellirian knew that she would need to wet herself with the cold creekwater before she could properly enterher own house; she had been outside. Here the purpose wasnot cleanliness, for any excuse would do for a bath; rather, here was ritual, magic. Fellirian had been exposed to strangeness, alien values, and the wash invoked the cleansingpower of the Water elemental to remove the dross of the outside. The pollen of the strange.

Now as for Pethmirvin, she could have incurred the water obligation for any number of reasons; but Fellirian also remembered her own adolescence, and the occasions when she herself had stood before this very trough, trembling withfear of the cold water. She thought she knew the reason, although she was mildly surprised by the season and time of occurrence. Night and winter?

Fellirian addressed Peth with mock severity, "Nerh'Emivi,by some accident did you meet a dhainman* along the way to the mono?"

* In this context, a casual lover, emotional relationship not speci
fied. Child-name plus body-name is an address of endearment.

The girl answered shyly, looking at the ground as she did."In the shed by the mono line, Madheliya. Farlendur TlanhDalen. He walked with me when I came down to fetch you."For a moment Pethmirvin looked up and held Fellirian's eyesin her own gaze, unflinching. Then she looked down at the ground, shy again.

Fellirian threw back the hood of her overcloak, and opening the upper part of her outer garment, retrieved the longsingle braid of her hair from behind her and began studiouslyto unfasten it. She smiled at Peth.

"Well enough, for the didhosi. Nevertheless, I see you at least know your custom: a wash before the yos for each flower-fight outside it. Careful, Peth-Emivif, that you don'tgrow gills from all your dunkings!"

Pethmirvin giggled, hiding her face, which was now blushing furiously. "Well enough, indeed. But now you must go first. You are Klandorh and Madh. You have the right of age, and besides, you've been outside."

"And warm the water for you? Certainly not! I waive myprecedences and rights: into the trough with you! And by theway, was your tussling fun? This was never my season, although I never stinted in the warmer days...."

Peth shifted her stance from one foot to another, sayingbreathlessly, "Oh, yes, except that it was too cold and we hadto . .."

Fellirian broke into the beginnings of what promised to be a long story whose purpose was to delay entry into the trough. "Never mind the details, please. If you must relate the entire circumstances, tell them to your toorhsrith Pentandrun. She has seemed a bit slow catching on. And for now, into the trough!"

"Oh, Madh."

"Oh, Madh, nothing. You can go to bed and sleep. I will have to stay up, probably all night, and talk nonsense with the Perwathwiy. Go on, hurry up! Waiting won't make the water any warmer."

Pethmirvin removed her outer overcloak reluctantly, stepping out of her boots and wincing at the cold touch of the wet wooden platform against her bare feet. She took a deepbreath and quickly flipped off her overshift, undershift, and allwith it, over her head, ruffling up the short, adolescent-cuthair, and stepped resolutely up to the trough, getting her courage up. The water in the wash-trough was nothing less thanicy. Fellirian looked at the bare pale body before her. Pethmirvin was slender, graceful as a young sapling, sleek as a young squirrel. She had been well-named: Willowwand Wind-swaying was the sense of it, in the aspect of the Water elemental. Fellirian appreciated the young girl's grace, her small breasts, hardly more than buds, her delicate pale ribs, flatbelly, lean, strong thighs. Her skin was goose-pimpled with thecold.

With no warning, Pethmirvin suddenly leaped into the wash-trough and began splashing madly, scattering water everywhere. Underneath the noise she made, Fellirian could hear the quick hissing of the girl's breath. While Peth splashed about, spilling much of the water, Fellirian beganremoving her own clothing; Outercloak, overshirt, winter undershift. And then she stood nude, feeling the bite of the coldnow in earnest, looking down at her own bare body, almost as pale and spare as Peth's, but more compact, shorter in stature, and accented with the riper curvings and lines of a longer life, of bearing children. Three, no less. Pethmirvin, Kevlendos, Stheflannai. Not bad, she mused. And so I still have most of the shape of my body left to me. Not that it does me any good, as it once did, except to know that there's a lot of endurance remaining in it, a long life. But once I met lovers in the night, just as she does now, and Pentandrun will soon. Once, in the spring of my life, twenty years gone and more, boys chased me through the woods and called "Fellir" after me, as they now call "Pethmir" after her.

Peth finished her splashing and thrashing and ran gaspingfrom the trough, gathering her clothes hurriedly as she ran.

Fellirian, startled from her recollection, said, "Tell them I'll be along...." She stopped. Pethmirvin had already ran up the stairs and disppeared into the yos.

Fellirian shook her head, resigned. Peth could do this in haste, for what she rinses away is nothing more than a little sly fun. The water reminds her that fun is fun, a little thrill, but that tonight, she must leave this one, this Farlendur, at the door. The mystery of the stranger. Our ties in Braid are closer than blood and genetics. But what I wash away is something more subtle, a corrosive worry about which I have seen, after all, only the tiniest part. That Vance, as long as we have known each other and been associated, could allow himself and me with him to be recorded, investigated, observed, and, well, spied upon, without a protest, a word of warning! Yes, I know. He imagined to conceal it, when his body-language shouted truth. But an obscenity. To invade the awareness is no different than to invade the home, the body.

Fellirian took a deep breath, releasing it in a long, controlledsigh, listening to the gurgling of the water in the wash-trough,allowing the random noise, the pleasant sound, to blank hermind of everything except the now, the razor-thin present, theedge between eternities. A last turbulent wave roiled the calming surface of her thought. We live in many ways an idyllic, slow-paced life, insulated from pressure. I who see the outside know these things that I cannot tell to the others. We have pursued the silence too long, set ourselves against one temptation, one pressure, for too many summers. I sense a shift of balances, different forces. We are not now an agile people to move with them; indeed, having sought the primitive. we have attained it in all its fragility; and the world alwavs changes. 1 know fear.

When at last she felt the stillness inside, when she could hear the silences within herself, she repeated subvocallv theinvocation to Water, her lips moving silentlv. almost invisibly.Then it was time. She stepped calmlv into the water, feelingthe bite of its cold on her legs and feet, then her thighs as shekneeled, and then the full shock of it as she slowly, deliberately immersed herself into the water, coming to rest facedown, completely covered. A deep fear, a corrosive worry, a mindless anger; take it all, trough-water, take it to the sea. From the first it was painful, an assault upon the entire body, all at once, a sensory explosion blanking her mind.There was an urge to panic. She resisted, and lay still, gentlythinking nonthoughts, letting the cold grip her in its teeth ofiron, clamping her firmly in its clammy jaws. When she couldstand it no longer, she got to her feet slowly, carefully, standing, releasing the pent breath she had been holding. Then sheswiftly rubbed herself down with her hands, using the backscrubber hanging on a peg nearby to reach her back. The airnow felt warm.

She was finished with the rite of Water. Still, despite thenumbing cold, Fellirian forced herself to be slow, measured, deliberate. Nothing is any good in a hurry, and rituals least of all. I must wait for the water to become still before I leave it. That is respect for what it is. She waited, wrung out herhair, and stepped out of the trough. Then she gathered up herclothes, picked up her boots, and Pethmirvin's as well, for inher haste to get into the yos and warmth, Peth had left hers behind. That scatterbrain, Fellirian thought warmly. Onlywhen she was completely finished did she look back to the water. It was still again, rippling only from the fresh water falling into it from the pipe. Fellirian turned away, her skingoose-pimpling violently, climbing with measured steps up thestairs to the entryway.

She brushed aside the heavy outer winter-curtain and stepped inside over the sill. As she put her old clothes down,she saw in the half-light spilling through the inner curtain that someone had left out her favorite autumn kif, a loose wraparound with wide, deep sleeves. By the light she could make out its pattern, a plain brownish hue with a pattern ofcherry leaves ticked subtlv throughout it. Wrapping her hairin a soft cloth, she took the kif up, putting her arms into thesleeves, wrapping it around her body, luxuriating in the feel along her skin of the smooth inner lining, already feeling itwarm her. Then the wide sash belt to fasten it together, and she brushed the inner curtain aside, entering.

Inside the hearth, the others awaited her, Morlenden, Cannialin, Kaldherman. Not the children; they had all gone tobed, even Sanjirmil. Fellirian suddenly felt as if she had beengone for years, instead of the two days it had been in reality,and she looked long at them, and around the hearth, as if shewanted to reassure herself with its familiar contours. She saw its spacious roundness, the dome of the ceiling, its outlet ventblackened around the lip by the hearth-smoke of generationsof Derens. To her left was the hearth proper and table, and to the other hand a cushioned shelf for sitting, all the way around the compartment. In the back, three curtained crawlways led off to other compartments, left for adults, center to the workrooms and recordium, right to the children'ssleeper. Tapestries arranged behind the sitting-shelf illustratedthe Salt-pilgrimage and stages along the Way. Every yos except the very poorest thus displayed some symbolic reminderof something great the Braid had done. Theirs was old and somewhat faded. Still, it was theirs, and this was home. It smelled of woodsmoke, clean, familiar bodies, onions.

They had kept a fire on the raised hearth, and there was apot of stew still on it, steaming away. Nearby was the ever-present teapot. Fellirian went to her place* and sat. Morlenden ladled out a bowl of the stew, Kaldherman cut some bread from a loaf, and Cannialin stood behind her and beganto braid her hair.

* Adults always sat around the hearth in a specific order.

Fellirian, realizing how hungry she was, began to eat immediately, blowing on the spoonfuls of hot stew to cool it down. Kaldherman replaced the loaf on its shelf, sat back in his place, and leaned back expansively.

"No need to hurry, Eliya. We've bedded them all down forthe night: the starsrith in the shed, and the little fox with the rest of the children."

"Did the Perwathwiy not wish to talk, then? Peth said shehad come to talk this very night." Fellirian spoke between mouthfuls.

Cannialin answered from behind her, a soft, pleasantlyhoarse throaty voice in her ear. "Oh. no. She wanted to talk, sure enough, but we convinced her it would be better to waitfor daylight. One could not know when our Klandorh was coming home, and she did insist that you be there. I do admitwe used the argument of her convenience, although it mostlyis ours. But since she had to wait for morning light, she couldwait to drop her secret then."

"Did she drop any hint of what it was that she wanted?"Fellirian paused, almost saying something else, then changingit. "I cannot imagine what would bring her all the way downhere at night."

"And in the rain, no less," Kaldherman said. "But she never said. Although she's in a hurry, whatever, it is, and anelder in a hurry is a remarkable thing—especially out of Dragonfly Zlos."

"Indeed, so it is." Fellirian turned to Morlenden. "When did you arrive, Olede?"

"Not so very long before you."

"Are you tired?"

"Tired isn't the wori for it. Mind. T don't mind walking inthe rain all day; I'm used to that. What inconveniences one is that last evening I had to attend a weaving-party, and wokeup this morn not in the best of humors." Fellirian chuckled. "Serves you right. You're supposed toofficiate at those parties, not join in them."

"Ah, who can say no to a host in his cups?" Morlenden smiled back at her. Morlenden was somewhat heavier in build than Fellirian, indeed, than any of them, and his hair was fractionally darker, now beginning to show some hints of gray. His face was more sharply drawn, full of planes, defined lines, demarcations. It was a harsh face in certain lights,but for the most part it was also a face animated beneath bypoise, confidence, general good humor. He continued, "Well,I suppose it would have been nice enough, except for the fact, denied with vehemence and zeal by all parties concerned, that the Toorh were already full-fertile and obviously had no use for anybody besides themselves. Had them dressed up all in white, they did, when I, a stranger, could tellthey'd been doing it a month at least. I think the girl was pregnant already, carrying the Nerh. And of course the potables were the vilest sort of stuff you can imagine. Home-brew! Peach brandy, they had the nerve to call it. May as well call a squeal the whole hog to be consistent. It was, so Idiscovered, raw corn whiskey, not even cooled decently, withsome peach-pits in the bottom of the crock, or I'm a human."

Here Kaldherman interjected, "Nothing wrong with thatJust good, honest folk. Why put on airs?"

Morlenden leered askance at Kaldherman. "Even up yourway they don't go so far. But this was really remote. And youknow how it goes in the most distant districts; too much agri-cul-ture." He drawled the last word out bawdily, making alewd face to go with it, suggesting some yokel gaping in astonishment after the barnyard antics of bull and cow.

Fellirian laughed, waving her empty bowl. "Where was this?"

"Beshmazen's."

"You walked all the way from there?"

"Oh, indeed, all the way from the far side of the Hvar. Cleared my head, it did." "And then you waited up for me, well knowing that the Perwathwiy would wait for the morrow?"

All of them nodded agreement.

Fellirian said, "Well, then, I am grateful to you all." She turned the teacup up, draining it "Now you can all come to

the sleeper with me and warm my body to sleep. I'm freezing!"

Fellirian arose from the hearth, placing her bowl with theothers in the soak-tub by the fire, and went directly to thesleeper, pushing aside the curtain and climbing in. Morlenden and Cannialin followed her, while Kaldherman remained behind momentarily, banking the hearthfire and blowing out lamps. One by one, they all climbed into the adult sleeper compartment, at a higher level than the rest of the yos,reached by a short ladder. Inside, they carefully removedtheir kifs and overshirts, folded them up, and placed them onshelves that ran all around the circular wall of the compartment. Here, they did not make lights; it was a smaller compartment than the main hearth, and they all knew every inchof it, especially Morlenden and Fellirian. She reached upward to a shelf for something she knew would be there: a largedouble comforter, which she retrieved and with Morlenden's help spread out and buttoned the edges together. Finished,they spread it out, just so, and slid into it, moving close together for warmth, feeling the familiar bumps, angles, and contours of each other as they moved, making tiny adjustments in position until the fit was exactly right, just as theyhad been doing on winter nights for the greatest part of theirlives. Across the compartment they could hear Cannialin andKaldherman doing exactly likewise, rustling the comforter, arranging themselves, seeking out the most comfortable and warm position; for while the material of which the yos was traditionally built was a good insulator, it was also unheatedinside except for what warmth from the hearth took the edgeoff the chill.

Fellirian moved closer to Morlenden; she was still chilled thoroughly, more than she had thought, from the long walkup from the mono line and the Water Rite as well. She feltthe body next to her own; the skin was cool, but underneathhe was warm. She stretched, tensing and releasing everymuscle, feeling Morlenden curl around her. Across the sleeper, Cannialin whispered good night in her quiet shyvoice into the darkness and the quiet, broken only by an occasional drip on the roof, and then by deep, even breathing.Kaldherman, like an animal, fell asleep instantly.

When she was sure that the others were asleep, she nudgedher insibling. Morlenden nudged back. She whispered, underthe covers, barely audibly, "Do you have any idea what is going on? Why the Perwathwiy, and Sanjirmil?"

"I know no more than you, Eliya. They told me naughtsave that it was a Braidish thing—that all of us would haveto hear and judge, and agree. Sanjirmil said nothing. At anyrate, when I came home she was too busy eating Peth's supper to say anything."

"Did she really?"

"Thus she did. But Peth did all well enough, I think. Shewanted to go out anyway—I suspect a young buck hiddenaway in the brush outside."

"She had one, so it was." "Might have known; comes from her foremother. You used to do that."

"Never mind the things I used to do. You used to bringthem home, you rooster. Where you ever found such bedraggled things I'll never know. Did you scour the whole reservation looking for the poorest girls?"

"Well, as I have often averred, the wealthy give luxury, butfrom the destitute comes speed."

"Speed, was it? It was never'speed that kept the rest of usawake half the night with your whispers and giggles under the window. And after I had spent most of the eveningrecord-keeping so at least one of us would do it right after weaving."

"Ah, Fel, you always were too serious for your own good.""Serious or not, what do you think of the Perwathwiywalking down here from Garkaeszlos in the rain?""I like it not. Nor the fact she wouldn't talk, either. It can't be a good thing, can it?"

"I see no way it could go thus."

"And you are tense, too. Something else? You spent toolong in the water for things to be normal, even for a zealotlike you. Have a bad time of it down there among the Hauthpir*

* "Ancestral Primates." A derogatory epithet. Morlenden had little contact with the human world, and distrusted it greatly.

"No, not that way. No different from other times. The same, more or less, and the same tired old provocs in the crowd. But I realized something I'd been stupid enough tooverlook for some time. I really can't be sure how long it'sbeen going on, but Vance has been having me monitored during the meetings, and after the visitors leave, when we sit andchat a bit He hasn't been pushy, just a little more leadingand curious than normal. At first I thought it was just him— he is a little erratic in behavior. But when I saw it, it was clear. I tell you, something's afoot, something's going to happen, something bad. Maybe already. But I don't know to whom, or why."

"Maybe it's already happened."

"No. If it has, that's not what we're looking for."

"That's not like Vance. He's an old friend."

"So he has been. He's been a good channel for us—working both ways. Keeps the worst of them away from us, andlets us have a freer hand than we might have had. And I know him well enough, or so I thought.... He wouldn't without good reason."

"Perhaps. But we don't know those reasons, even assumingwhat you say is true.""Mor, I think there's some connection between this visit and the change at the Institute.""Nothing we can do tonight. Unless you wish to walk outto the shed and wake the Perwathwiy.""No. I want to sleep. By the way, did Sanjirmil say anything at all?"Morlenden was silent for a time. Fellirian could hear onlyhis regular breathing. She prodded him. "Morlenden?"

"Hm? Sanjirmil? No, she said nothing. Nothing at all. She was here when I arrived, but she kept her own counsel. A few pleasantries, politeness . . . no, nothing."

"Were you not as much past the Change as I, I'd suspect you of distraction."

"Distraction? Hmph. Hardly. Although you have to admitthat Sanjirmil certainly possesses more erotic quality than theaverage girl."

"Bah. A primitive, that's all."

"Just so, just so...." He mused. "And a waste too, for onehears along the road that she's a bit of a zealot, a Zan fanatic."

"All those players are odd, you know? Well, so be it. I leave them to their Zan Game, however they will. Good night."

"And you, Eliya. On the morrow."

FOUR

The more dimensions in a Game, the more complex become the factors in the surround that influence the state of a given cell. This becomes significant when we recall that only two things determine what a cell's state will be: what it was in the last temporal frame, and what the surround is. Now if we imagine that our familiar universe of three dimensions is instead a three-dimensional projection of an n-dimensional Game, then the task before us of first importance is to determine the dimensional matrix. Is this not obvious?

—The Game Texts

Fellirian seemed to drop into sleep instantly, as soon as shehad moved a Jittle, finding just the right position she wanted.Her breathing became deep, slow, and regular. Morlenden did not fall asleep. No less tired than Fellirian, somethingdeep in his mind itched, something basically wrong. Wrong?That was not quite the proper word. Un-right might havebeen better. He could not place the source of these feelings.For a time, he probed at it, but he could not find the unraveling-place, so gradually he left it. He reflected on his past,keyed by the events of this night, and the visitors who had come to their holding. Perwathwiy. Sanjirmil. Yes, Sanjirmil.Morlenden reflected on his past. His, and Sanjirmil's.

It had been long ago. Two and a fourteen years ago. In2534, in the human calendar. In the early autumn. He had been one and two fourteens, twenty-nine, and she thirteen. Atthis time had occurred the interplay of two separate customs,or traditions, in a most curious way he had never put away inhis mind.

The first had been the Canon of Permissibility: the rules governing sexual activity among ler adolescents were few, and of those that existed fewer still were the ones restrictingit. Thus, it was said that among persons of adolescent phase age of itself would be no bar, provided that all acted according to their own desires and wills. In practice, one most usually paired off with partners near one's own age, but exceptions did occur, and one was neither praised nor defamed,either way.

The other tradition was more restrictive, for it pertained only to insiblings. Normally avoiding one another somewhat as they grew up through adolescence, as fertility drew near,insiblings gradually spent more time with each other. But atthe same time, the rivalries and tensions accumulated duringtheir long childhood and adolescence began to simmer and come to the surface. Knowing how tense this period could be,and was, and knowing how important it was that the insiblings remain together, the ler had inserted a period of relief into the very last part of adolescence, so that a hostile relationship would not unravel Braid lines carefully nurtured over hundreds of years. It was custom, then, that sometime inthe last year of adolescence, the insibling was allowed a vayyon, a walkabout, an idle wandering-off, a last adventure,a great affair. It went without saying that these walkaboutswere undertaken more or less specifically for the purpose ofhaving one last fling, something to remember and cherish forthe rest of one's life.

Autumn, 2534. Fellirian had already had her adventure, her vayyon; in the spring of that year, in accordance with the custom, she had simply wandered off one rainy day. Threemonths later, in summer, she had returned, saying nothing toanyone, dropping no hints, revealing no confidences. She hadbeen tense before, uncharacteristically sharp-tongued and acrid of remark. Now she seemed settled, placid, relaxed, athome again within herself, most of the earlier late-adolescentfidgets gone, her perplexities resolved. Or were they? Morlenden did not know. He had never known. She had never spoken of it, what she had done or with whom, if indeed anyone.That, too, was the custom: what one did on the vayyon was forever a secret. And so Fellirian had returned, calm as still water, silent, enigmatic.

All this time Morlenden had felt the urge to the unknownbuilding in him, and had found the environs of the Deren Braid holding increasingly bland, unsatisfying. Fellirian hadbeen not only Klandorh-to-be, but she was also eldest insibling, so it was her right to go first. But within a few days ofher return, Morlenden gathered a few things and also left, assilently as had his insibling. On the way out to Main Path, they had passed, wordless. There was nothing she could say to him. One found one's own truth, and no other's words could tell it.

At first, in the first days, it had been tremendously exciting;he had never known such a sense of freedom, such a feelingof total irresponsibility. Morlenden wandered first northward,then northwestward, sleeping in the open, feeling the chill ofnight which was now in the air, doing an occasional odd jobin exchange for a meal and a bath, or perhaps some small change, at someone's yos, or again, sometimes an elder lodge,where the silent inhabitants gave him knowing leers, but saidnothing, made no disparagements. Those who had been in-siblings in a former life had known the vayyon. They knew.

The great affair had not materialized. Morlenden could notput into words exactly what it was he was looking for, butwhatever it had been, there seemed to be an ever-recedingchance of finding it. It was not that there were no girls; therewere girls in plenty, and his days and nights were not, by andlarge, totally devoid of dalliance, teasings, flower-fights. Butsomehow the connection he wanted seemed to be absent. This one was busy, house-bound, and would not wander off, though she had possibilities. One who would readily go off with him was less than hopeless; Fellirian at her worst appeared preferable, even as a companion. Others he only caught glimpses of. In earlier days, Morlenden had delightedin the busy interplay of eye and gesture, of suggestive word.Now that he was free, really free, that whole universe seemed to have dropped away and vanished; what irony—now that he was available, no one was interested. Prospectswere few, and he always seemed to be arriving at the wrongplace at the wrong time, too early, too late. He began driftingfrom place to place, becoming bored and dissatisfied, frustrated and full of an ambience he could not put a name to. More than once he had caught himself doubting that this wasreally the great adventure. Was it all to be summed up in theend as nothing more than the value of a long walk? An unfulfilled expectation? Was it the surrounding matrices of routine life which made momentary exceptions to it exciting?Indeed, was it rarity that gave value? And was the lesson ofthe vayyon that the adventure wasn't there, had never been, never could be, but was entangled in the slower growths andprocedures of the ordinary life of managing one's holding,raising the children? To be sure, he sensed that these were basic testings of reality which all have had to learn, individu

ally, over and over again, human and ler alike, but like everyone else he was surprised at the pain of losing many of hisfavorite illusions.

For a time, Morlenden grew uncaring, diffident, even a little hostile; his sight seemed to grow crystal-clear, piercing,powerful, solvent. He saw things from a distance, but in hismind the distance grew greater; he saw those ler of parent phase, rodhosi, at their works, in field and shop; younger adolescents, didhosi, learning, pursuing their affairs. And after allthat, the elders, retired to their secretive lodges, deep in their own matters. He had waited all his life to be free of that endless cycle, but now free, he found little enough to stayfor. The real life was there, not here.

These were bitter thoughts; Morlenden spent more time along the empty paths of the forest, lost interest in eating, lethis weight drop. He became, over the weeks, rather gauntand hungry-looking; his sharp and somewhat chiseled featuresbecame honed and sharper. At one time he tried fasting for avision, a practice he had heard of. But there was no result there either; he grew tired of it. Either he lacked some innatesense of awe requisite to the religious experience, or perhapshe lacked some basic competence of discipline necessary tomake the vision work. At any rate, one never came. He simply grew fractionally thinner, and a lot hungrier.

He returned to his old ways and returned, tentatively, tothe routines of working and eating. His weight began to return. And he thought ruefully to himself that he had indeedlearned the last lesson. And it was then that he turned back to the south and began his journey homeward. He tried to imagine how it would be, when he did return: Fellirian would wonder what he had done, and he would smile knowingly at her and let her draw her own conclusions, make upher own imaginings. Perhaps he could drop a cryptic remarkfrom time to time, faintly suggesting, never saying directly,never declaiming forthrightly. It would serve her right. Shehad probably seen herself the same emptiness he had discovered, whose core was within himself, the basic loneliness that lies at the heart of all sapient creatures in the universe. He knew now that all of them who had been privileged to the vayyon were sharers of this secret.

He returned slowly. There was no hurry now. He had covered much of the distance, leaving only a few more days ofleisurely travel and work, when he happened to pass close bya place called Lamkleth, meaning "resin-scented," which was

a combination of many things: faded resort, hostel, elder lodge for a lodge organization which seemed to have been forgotten by most elders. It carried the name of a settled place, or town, but it seemed to be no more than a randomcollection of cabins, rambling wooden apartments built to a high-gabled, eccentric style, rambling worksheds, and seedypavilions along the lake, all half hidden and subtly blended into and among the conifers of the forest. The site was a gloomy defile, a rocky, narrow valley which opened up suddenly into a wide lowland. At the mouth of the valley was a still, enigmatic lake, bordered by a mixed sand and rock beach on the east, the valley side, and on the west by a watery, tree-choked swamp. The area all around the defile and the lake was dense with pine and cedar, swamp fir andarborvitae, deodar and chamaephyte, ground yew and retinispora. A pungent, resinous odor hung in the air, and the smoke of the fires was rich and fragrant. A moody place, which was doubtless much of the reason why it had never been popular.

Nevertheless, Lamkleth was known for one thing; adolescents gathered there, with the force of tradition behind them, to meet like-minded others, to seduce and be seduced, to dance in the night under the colored party lanterns, to singand listen to the last heart-songs of yearning before the halterwas finally put on them. Personally, Morlenden had never cared very much for the place, and as a fact, although he hadpassed it often, had never stopped or visited before. But thistime—passing Lamkleth on the ridgeline above the valley andthe lake, the dark water, the deep shadows, and the bright lanterns—he thought once again of last flings, of last opportunities. . . . He wandered slowly down into the settlement. He caught in himself the last shreds of anticipation, that hereat last he would find the one, her, an insibling like himself, also in the last of the vayyon and likewise illuminated. He imagined. He projected images.

With the money he had accumulated, Morlenden secured for himself a small but comfortable little cabin with an attached bath and woodstove. A pile of faggots had been conveniently deposited outside by the door. The cabin was not close to the lakefront but was situated farther away, far up the valley, under the ridge, half invisible under the trees, buried in a grove of ancient arborvitae, their feathery frondshanging over the mossy roof. The odor of resin was in everything. The elder who accompanied him to the cabin said little, noting only that the season was apparently over, and that most had already left. Remaining were only a scatteredfew latecomers and hangers-on. The nights were quite coolnow, and this had apparently dissuaded most of the late summer visitors. Morlenden, thinking how gay and festive the lanterns and their reflections along the water had been, listened to this news with sinking heart.

Nonetheless, he was tired of walking, and a good rest herein a comfortable little cabin was an improvement over sleeping in the forest under a tree. So he bathed and dressed in thelast dress-overshirt remaining to him, carefully removing itfrom his rucksack and pressing it out with his hands. Tt washis favorite, tastefully patterned with the heraldic emblem ofhis aspectual sign—Fire, the Salamander. It had been dusk when he had wandered down from the heights; it was fullydark when Morlenden left the cabin and wandered down the hill to the lakeshore. The path was smooth and well-tended,swept free of twig and pebble, groomed of roots and knots.

From a distance, it seemed as if the summer season were still in full swing: the lanterns still swung above the pavilions,sending brightly colored reflections dancing along the water.There was music in the air as well, floating from an unseen source, lending a further anticipation. But all these thingswere faded reflections and shadows; most of the painted tables were empty, the pergolas and gazebos abandoned, and the music, upon closer listening, seemed to be slow and reflectiveof mood rather than exciting and gay. Emerging from the pines and entering the pavilion along the shore, Morlenden was able to confirm his worst suspicions: the place was almostemptv. Within sight, in an area which could easily hold a crowd of terzhan* young adventurous bodies, there seemed tobe only a handful, most of whom had already paired off forthe night, or who sat quietlv and rather disinterestedly lookingout over the water into the darkness.

* Two times fourteen to the second power—196.

He also noted as he looked out over the whole of the pavilion that the ages of the remaining celebrants appeared to bewildly varied, as if the low density had made it more noticeable. Some were late-adolescents like himself, of comparable age. Others were obviously younger, still deep in their first span, country bumpkins down from the farm in the periodbetween the end of the growing season and the beginning ofthe harvests. A scattered few were much younger, veritable urchins, playing rowdy chase-and-tumble games among theold whitewashed stands and under the trees; some of these were barely adolescent, while a few were yet little children.These he ignored.

For a time, Morlenden wandered up and down along thepavilion, looking over the prospects, as it were, hoping thatcertain among those he was looking at were harboring similarthoughts. If they were, none of it showed. Everyone he sawseemed to be immersed deeply in his own thoughts, his own projections of the subtle manifestations of reality,emerging from the end of summer about the precincts of afaded resort. Failure and the ambience of second thoughts layin the lamplight like a tincture.

Morlenden, while savoring this air, was not daunted and attempted to make the acquaintance of a pair of girls who were diffidently lounging at one of the pavilion tables over glasses of mulled wine. The first was convincingly uninterested, and the second hardly less so, although she did give hername, Meydhellin. She also mentioned a certain young manwith whom she would conduct a rendezvous presently. Morlenden excused himself, after a tactful and strategic pause, and wandered some distance away to a table of his own, where he seated himself and brooded, watching the scantycrowd evaporate into even lower densities as individual members of the vacationers and pleasure-seekers drifted away oneby one. The noise of the urchins behind him faded. After atime, he observed that at the least the girl Meydhellin had heen truthful; a boy appeared and joined her at the table. The other girl uttered something rendered enigmatic by thedistance, and departed. Meydhellin and her friend greeted one another with a reluctant formality. Morlenden grewdisinterested.

From the cookhouse nearby and behind him, an elder approached Morlenden, informing him discreetly that the cookhouse was on the verge of closing for the night, and thatperhaps the discerning young gentleman would like to ordersome of the remainders, at reduced stipend. Morlenden nodded enthusiastically, for he was suddenly aware that he hadn't eaten all day and was ravenously hungry. He inquiredinto the bill of fare; unfortunately, nothing remained butsome dner, a preparation made by arranging paper-thin slicesof various meats along a vertical skewer, roasting it along theoutside by rotating it past the grates of a vertical charcoal burner, and then slicing off slivers of it. It was a heavy, over

rich dinner, and Morlenden ordered it without great enthusiasm, selecting to wash it down a small jug of the local wine,Shrav Bel-lamosi, tart and resinous. Presently, with no greatceremony, the meal arrived, along with a tray of local wildgreens. Morlenden ate, because he was still hungry, but it waswith no great sense of culinary relish. He thought, Indeed, this is the very end of it. Tomorrow I'll go home.

Gradually, the wine and his somber musings led him to disregard his immediate surroundings and he ignored the comings and goings of the few patrons and proprietors remaining. They all receded into a common background. He nolonger heard the noises of the urchins.

As Morlenden ate, thinking random and somewhat moodythoughts, he slowly came to suspect that he was being observed closely by someone, someone nearby; in fact, someonewho was standing by his own table, cautiously positioned tohis right and just out of his field of vision to the rear. Morlenden stopped, fork halfway between plate and mouth, and looked.

It appeared to be one of the children he had noted earlier, one of the nondescript gaggle of noisy urchins playing tagand grab-'ems along the shadow line under the trees beyond.This one, he thought, seemed to be female*, and perhaps even adolescent, dressed in little more than a ragged plethwhich had seen better and cleaner days. He looked at the girlagain; there was immediately apparent a certain dashingquality about her, a piquancy of expression, an adventurous quality, a recklessness. Morlenden thought that she would have made a very good approximation of a bandit, but a bandit constantly poor from careless expenses. Indeed, almost a desperate look about her. A brat for sure. An urchin of dark skin, large eyes, sharp, predatory features.

* Secondary sexual characteristics in the ler were subtle where theyexisted at all. Sometimes it could be difficult even for a ler to determine the apparent gender of another.

Her eyes caught his glance immediately: they did not moveabout, looking at this or that, but seemed to stare glassily, unfocused yet intent at the same time. The set of her face showed that she missed nothing. Morlenden looked more closely at the startling expression in her eyes. He saw movement in the spaces framed by the angular face. She seemed not to regard directly, but to scan in a regular pattern, using her peripheral vision. This lent her expression a dualistic quality, glassy yet deeply animated as well.

Morlenden had quite forgotten his fork. The girl observedMorlenden's notice. She said, in a flat tone with a hint of nasality, "Enjoying yourself?"

Morlenden thought the question boorish. He recalled the

fork, thoughtfully took a mouthful of dner, and answered,

equally boorishly, "As a fact, no."

"How does one call you?"

"I have responded in my time to endearments and curses,anonymous hoots and hoarse whispers. I have been known toreply to 'you, there,' although I deplore the practice. I am called Morlenden Tlanh Deren."

"I am Sanjirmil Srith Terklaren. I, too, respond to otheraddresses." Morlenden thought, hearing the form of her name, Aha! An adolescent after all, however scruffy and abrasive.

She added, "What do you here in Lamkleth?"

"Going home," he said, trying to ignore her, hoping she would receive his intent and depart. A brat"Can I have some of that Bel-lamosi?" "Are you old enough to drink fermented pirits?" he asked, aggressively."Fourteen less one and didhosil Of course! Old enough for other didhosi things, too."

"I can imagine . . . well, here. Drink the wine." He offered her the jug, which she took, shyly for all her previous belligerence, and turned up, drinking deeply. He looked closely atthe girl, Sanjirmil. On a second inspection, perhaps she didn'tappear quite so childish as he first thought. Her shape, underthe ill-fitting overshirt she wore, was already full and ripe; no,not childish at all. She was dark of complexion, an olive skin and coarse black tousled hair which fell carelessly about a face of planes and angles, a face that could be harsh and peremptory, yet a face of a certain beauty as well. The strangeeyes were of an indeterminate color, dark and brooding, andher nose was delicate and fine. The mouth was thin-lippedand determined, the chin set, but there was also an intriguingpouty set to her lips as well. In the poor lighting of the pavilion, her skin seemed dark enough so that there was little contrast between lips and face; it gave her face an odd expressiveness. You had to watch the shadows. This Sanjirmilcould very well be just the unwashed and underage brat she

seemed. But there was also about her an unknown quantity ofsomething more.He asked, as she set the jug back on the table, "Have youeaten?"

"No." .

"The cookhouse is closed now."

"I know."

"My serving was overlarge. They were cleaning up for thenight. You may have what you wish of it. And what would one be doing out adventuring without money, begging for asupper? Or do you sing as well?"

Sanjirmil took the proffered food shyly, but she could notconceal her hunger and ate quickly in swift, catlike bites. Inbetween mouthfuls, she haltingly said, "No sing, no dance. Had some money, but it ran out. Was going to go home tomorrow . . . maybe tonight, if I had felt like it You know ofthe Terklarens?"

"The Second-players? Of course I know of them. But I hadnever met one."

"Northwest. Day and a half."

"A long walk. You're a young one to be so far out in theforest." "No, not us. We're adventurous . . . besides, we never take

the vayyon as you are doing."

"How would you know what I might be doing?"

"Watched you, I did. Mavayyonamoni, they're always thesame, looking for something and not finding it. I guessed; andI was right. I come here a lot, at least this year."

"Meet a lot of friends?"

"Some. Not always the ones I want. When do you weave?"

"Soon, this year. I think sometime around the winter solsticeday. My own Toorh has already done hers and returned.We have felt the tension at home."

"Hra. And I am free for a time yet . . as little good as it will do me. So: if you are on-vayyon, then you are Toorh also."

"Just so; Fire aspect And you, Sanjirmil?"

"I also—both, just as you. That is very good."

"Not so necessarily for you. You're too young."

"Indeed? For what? What did you have in mind?"

Morlenden looked away from the intense, eager face for amoment. All the time he had been on his pilgrimage, he hadturned every possibility, looking for the flow, the current, theonrush of the one single magic meeting. Now he felt the un

dertow, the pull of a powerful current indeed; and both of them of Fire aspect, strong in will. He could interpret this drift and flow only one way: that they both were workingpowerfully for what was to come, whether they would admitit to themselves or not. He glanced at her again, out of thecorner of his eye, seeing the warm honey color of her skin,the streaks and shadows where her muscles ran under it. She was thin, but wiry, angular and strong; he could not deny herbeauty, her sense of earthy, pungent sexuality; there was something wild in her, something desperate. The rumpled, unrepaired overshirt. Contrary to this, he also thought that thisSanjirmil was not exactly what he had walked all over half the reservation for. He wryly added to himself that if it hadcome to molesting thirteen-year-olds, there were several muchcloser to home he perhaps would have preferred. Those weresecond-thoughts. There were third-thoughts as well. Morlenden told himself that she wasn't really his type, that he preferred amorous adventures with girls who wove flowers in their hair for their meetings, who were softer and rounderand he didn't really know how he could tactfully disengagehimself from the piquant, earnest face before him.

"No," he said, "I didn't have anything in particular in mind; except going home tomorrow myself. As you have doubtless guessed, the vayyon leads us to few of the great adventures it seems to promise. You may see that later; or perhaps you are precocious there as well."

Now she looked away, sadly, he thought, as if she were reviewing some painful interior knowledge. Then she turned back to him, fixing him once again with that odd, sightlessyet penetrating gaze. She said, "No .. . it's not precocious. But I do know it. That's why we don't go on it; none of thePlayers. There are things we have to give up. The vayyon is one of them. So we get our little dash of freedom earlier, Morlenden."

"And later?"

"We are the Players of the Great Life Game; we do thingsthat others do not even dream of . . . even now, I can alreadydo some of them. ..." She trailed off, making odd fingeringmotions with her hands. She grew self-conscious, rubbing herhands nervously, almost as if she were on the verge of sayingtoo much.

Morlenden knew well enough that there were two Braids of the famous Gameplayers in the ler world, and that their line had been maintained from the beginning with a focused sense of purpose which defied all reason, for the Players didnothing to integrate themselves into the elaborate structuredrelationships of ler society, except barter some occasional garden produce. All they did was play the Game with their rival Braid. They were curious and secretive, and did not answer questions. Most put them out of their minds, for the Game was cerebral and difficult and had few partisans. Suddenly he felt very much out of his depth.

Sanjirmil continued, "Yes, and we ..." She stopped, bitingher lower lip. "Yes, just so. Indeed we do. But I may not speak of them with you. Please understand, it is not youyourself: you are not one of the elect, and you are not of theShadow. I may not speak of it with you. But personally . . . I think I like you. For instance," she added cheerfully and matter-of-factly, with disarming candor, "I should rather sleepwith you tonight than spend the darkness in the freehouse."

Morlenden looked at the harsh, determined face, the thin mouth with the faintest trembling hint of a smile trying to form on it. After a time, he said, "I hadn't really thought sofar ahead...."

"I know."

"Very well, then. As you have seen, I am free and withoutcommitment. I shall invite you to repair to my cabin, which Ihave taken yonder in the grove." Having taken the step, he suddenly felt awkward, uncertain as to how brash he could be. He added, "I hardly know you, no more than just now,and I wouldn't have you take offense."

"I saw, before, and I knew it would be so. I watched you; that is why I came to you."Morlenden pushed his chair back. "You will come with me, then?" "I will, later. I have to go wash first. I have been running alot and should not come to you as I am."

"Never mind that. I took a special place, one with a fine bath. You can wash there." He paused, and then added impulsively, now swimming full in the current he had releasedhimself into, "As a fact, if you will. Ill wash you myself."

"Oh, very good! What girl could resist such an invitation inthe least. Indeed so I will come."

"Do you need to gather your things?"

She gestured at herself. She said. "These are mv things." The gesture took in a rather bedraggled, ramnled girl hare-footed, whose sole visible possession seemed to be a smallishwaist-pouch slung carelessly over one hip.

All the time they had been talking, the girl had remained standing; now Morlenden arose from his chair uncertainly.He hesitated, then offerred his hand to her shyly. She took itinto hers with an exaggerated gesture of gallantry, almost asif she were playacting. Morlenden looked about to see if anyone might be watching. But there was no one; the pavilionwas now deserted. Far down the lakefront, one of the elders was blowing lamps out, carefully tending the colored paperlanterns that hung along the beach and cast their reflectionsout into the lake surface and the night. One by one, the lanterns were going out, and the dying sense of summer gaietyas well. Soon there would be nothing save some boarded-upsheds and cabins, and the winter darkness. He listened, and heard a wind rising back in the pines and arborvitae, rushingalong the sharp needles and sprays of delicately scaled branchlets. There was a sudden spatter of cold rain, gone in an instant. He turned and set out in the direction of the cabin, jthe girl following, grasping his hand tightly.

Along the way, they kept silent, saying nothing more to each other. Morlenden listened to the wind, now alive all around them up in the trees; there was a chill in pungent,resinous air. Impulsively, he placed his arm about Sanjirmil'sshoulders. She was shivering, ever so slightly.

Once inside the rented cabin, Morlenden set about gettinga fire started in both fireplace and water-heater, while Sanjirmil brought in armfuls of wood. They did not talk, waiting forthe water to heat, but sat quietly looking into the fire. Once,perhaps twice, Sanjirmil looked at him shyly from under hereyebrows, a faint, tentative smile forming in her face in themoving, dancing firelight. This touched Morlenden; for he hadexpected once that his great adventure would be with a brilliant conversationalist, one who would engage him completely,as they savored the last fling to the very end; but here they sat,and said nothing, save what their eyes said in quick littleglances. That was everything. Yes. He was beginning to enjoythe idea.

The water began to groan in its tank, and testing it, Morlenden pronounced it hot enough and began filling the tub, ahuge round wooden tub on a low stand. Sanjirmil stood, stretched, removed her waist-pouch and carefully laid it on the rough platform where the sleeping-bags were. Then she slipped her pleth upward, over her shoulders: her motion wasgraceful, but fatigued as well. She tossed it into the water, andfeeling as she went, followed it into the tub.

The only light in the cabin came from the fire in the stove,and in this weak light, even weaker to his eyes, Morlenden looked at the body of the girl who was going to spend thenight with him. Her body was muscular and hard, but thin, alittle paler than the sun-browned face, but still a deep olive color, streaked and shadowed in the firelight, where the muscles and tendons showed; Sanjirmil was thin and wiry, yetshe was also smooth and supple and utterly feminine. She satslowly, gingerly into the hot water, wincing from the heat ofit. As she finally settled completely into the water, Morlendenpushed his sleeves back, soaped his hands, and began scrubbing her back. Sanjirmil leaned back against the pressure ofhis hands and turned her face to the dark ceiling, her eyesclosed.

And after a longer time, and many scrubbings, when her skin had become rosy, she finally said, very softly, "You should know that I told you a little lie back there at the pavilion; I did not want you to think I was such a little beggar.The truth is that my little bit of adventuring-money ran outseveral days ago. But I kept on staying, as long as I could,longer, grubbing, borrowing, stealing a little . . . because . . . because when I go back there, there will be no more holidaysfor me, no more adventuring. I'm almost fourteen, and that is when the insiblings of the Terklarens are initiated. This autumn. I know some things already; you can imagine it if you watch closely . .. there really isn't any other way it could be,or so I think. But after initiation, the real work starts and one must learn, learn, learn, master it, control it, impose oneselfupon it. One fourteen and two years to become a master ofthe Game, and a fourteen more before the next crop of brats.And then you teach and guide and end up in the Shadow, aPast Master. People think we are idle, that we do nothing,but it isn't like that. It is the hardest Braid-role of all. Already I can feel it drawing me to it. And so our time for adventuring is very short and we usually do not get so verymuch of it. And I want it all, both the Game and the Life; yes, the power but also the lovers and the dreams that all theothers I see have. I hoped you would want me."

"I didn't, at first. I thought you were just another of the urchins; but there is a likeness between us now, and I see through the years that separate us."

"Say no more of separating; I would have you speak of joinings and meetings."

"So then I will: ours now-tonight." He stood up from hisplace by the washtub and offered Sanjirmil his hand.

She stood, wet and dripping, now soft and flowing curvesand firelight shining along planes of wet skin. She said, almost in a whisper, "You are more loving-kind and givingthan you know; I hope that you have fortified yourself for a long night."

"Indeed I have done marvels in the way of abstinence inthe last few weeks." While he searched for a towel, Sanjirmilretrieved the much-abused overshirt, and wrung it out. Morlenden brought her the towel, and she dabbled absentmindedly at her body with it. She swayed a little, balancing on onefoot, and Morlenden reached to steady her.

Sanjirmil laughed, turning to him. "you should remove thatfine heirloom of the Derens that you wear, for I shall surelydampen it if you leave it on."

He slipped his overshirt off over his head and laid it aside,and stood bare in the firelight and resin-scented air just as shehad before; she looked at him as he had looked at her. Morlenden felt a curious distortion of time from the intensity oftheir upwelling emotions, as if the whole of his past, or mostof it, had occurred within this cabin, the water and the tub and Sanjirmil's bare, wiry body before him, and his future only extended as far as the next few moments. This sense ofdistortion was not static, fixed, but a growing, dynamic process, happening now, still working its alchemy upon hisperception; there was a tense silence in which he could hearhis own heartbeats. He reached forward, palms out. and stroked Sanjirmil's shoulders softly, following along the angular line of her collarbone to her neck, following with his eyesthe soft shine of her skin in the dim light. She stepped out ofthe tub unsteadily and to him, touching him all at once, lips,limbs, body. Morlenden felt the bath-hot, strong, vital bodytouching him, the smooth skin, and knew madness in his

heart, wildfire, and time collapsed into a dimensionless present moving forward at the speed of light. The salty tasteof her mouth, the childlike, musky scent of her person closeabout him. She moved her body, pressing hard against him.Her legs moved.

Her mouth moved to his ear, and she said, almost so softlythat he missed it under the roaring in his ears, "Now."

"Yes, Sanjir, now," he said, brushing his face in her coarse,dark hair, moving, half carrying the girl to the sleeping-bag,half falling to the platform, never quite disengaging themselves enough to retrieve the covers, while they performed that which made one where two had been before. The fire sank and the air in the little cabin cooled before they becameaware of it....

And some time later, with the fire now diminished to a bed of glowing coals, they moved under the covers for warmth, side by side, yet engaged still, touching their noses. Morlenden felt completed, perfected, arrived at last; but in this completion and ending he sensed beginnings, too. Many beginnings. He sensed above all that he and Sanjirmil were not finished with each other, and would not be when their time in the now ran out. By him, she breathed deeply, evenly, seemingly relaxed, yet he also knew that she was not asleep.

He said, "Truly, you are Sanjir to me now."

She answered, "Would that we were Ajimi and Olede, ifyou will. We are something more than casual lovers couplingon the path."

Morlenden lay quietly, feeling their legs rub together, a distant warmth, a rustling sound in the quiet dimness, a hardfoot. He tested the feel of the girl's body-name in his mind,projecting, wondering if it had gone that far. He could not say; at once, he felt that they had not come to that, and thatthey had gone far beyond it. Yes, that was the great secrethere—they had gone beyond it and were in a region of desirewhere there were no guides and no landmarks save those monuments they chose to erect.

"Ajimi.. ." he mused aloud, "and yet we have known eachother but hours, and we are being taken away by currents intime that cannot be denied."

"And gathered by the same," Sanjirmil added. "I know.And consider—are we not both Fire aspect? Were we not here for the same thing? And are we both not soon to change?"

"My life passes through its progressions more or less in thetraditional manner, prescribed by the rote of orthodox ways.My individual variations are my own, but no one else will dothem, I think . . . you know that well enough, well enough toknow me. But I know nothing of what you will do."

"It is simple enough, as much as I can say here to you: wegot to the Magic Mountain and master the subtleties of the Game, expand its scope, delve deeper into it. It has no end, no limits, you know."

"No. I know nothing of it."

"It is something I would have us share besides what we already have, but even what little I know I cannot give you,

even though I shall call you Olede and always think of you

so. At initiation, I know that I will not be able to face the

foremother of my foremother if I do, when she will ask me if

I have spoken of the Game to others who are not of the

Shadow."

Morlenden chuckled at her sudden seriousness. "You could

lie."

She put her fingers over his lips, abruptly. "No, no, we must not even talk about such a thing! She will be able to read that in my face, my every move. She is the great PastMaster: she reads truth from the traces and ripples that actsleave behind them. You and I, even such as we, we can read the guilty face immediately after the sin, the worry after thecrime, can we not? But she can read faces and see—literallysee, with the eye of projection, things as they happened longago. And so tonight by love I shall tell you what I know tokeep you, and sixteen years hence I will stand before her inthe smoky lodge of the elders of the Game and hear her denounce me and describe how we lay together."

"What would be so vile about that, Ajimi? This is sweetbeyond my wildest dreams."

"You do not understand. There are others there, too, who have power over the non-Game parts of our lives. Not onlydo I lose the Game; I lose place, Braid. As strangers are made honorary insiblings, shartoorh, by arbitration, so are made sharhifzeron, 'those to be designated out-Braid bastards.' I could, if so judged, lose my life. We Players knowwell the saying, 'and Tarneysmith spoke aloud of the Game in the market, and what person now remembers Tarneysmith?It* did that which caused its* name to be stricken from the lineages and records and totems. Where one smile was of opened knowledge, now there are two."

* Singlespeech also uses an asexual, genderless personal pronoun "Singlespeech" itself.

"Ajimi, you lose me. I don't understand."

Sanjirmil took a deep breath, and shuddered. "In plain perdeskrisi, so I am led to believe, one called Tarneysmith, whom no one knows now as Tlanh or Srith, spoke of the Game openly, or carelessly perhaps, or displayed knowledge to impress others—who knows? They cut its throat. Then they expunged all the records and made everyone forget.

There is left only the name as a reminder. To die is bad, but

to be erased is a horror."

"And your fear is real."

"My fear is real."

"Then I am endangered as well. I have bedded down "

She interrupted him. "No, say it not! Not true! For I havenot told you secrets. The danger is to me and all the others of the Players. What we have is a thing to be desired over allthings, even love. But we see others as yourself and envy your lives, you who have all your didhosi years to have loversand dreams, to make liaisons, to absorb the ordinary thingsof life. But for us the fun ends at fourteen. And I want something sweet to remember."

Morlenden felt a warm arm laid over his, pressing his back. He searched for Sanjirmil's thin mouth, kissed her lightly. "Yes, and I, too."

Sanjirmil moved her body, her limbs, pressing herself closer still. Muscles moved invisibly beneath warm skin. Morlenden, who had been lazing in post-love contentment, suddenly felt something awaken in him, deep down, illogical,apersonal, animal. And she felt it as well. He felt sharp whiteteeth along his neck, shoulders, and heard her whisper,"Again, yes?"

They moved slowly, deliberately, again knowing the rushing surge of anticipation. He whispered back, "Slowly, slowly.We have time. And what we have not we can make, for a little."

She replied, distantly, as if from miles away: "You do not know how much we have to make in what little time." "But we do not have to go our ways tomorrow, either, Ajimi."

And Sanjirmil did not answer him immediately, but movedcloser to Morlenden, if that were possible, embracing him yetmore tightly. And she said, "No, Olede. But someday soon."

"And until then..."

Then their senses were fully awake, and for that night atleast they talked no more. At any rate, they said little moreof explanations and histories and legend.

They stayed on at Lamkleth a few days, sleeping, eating,dashing into the cooling lake water for quick wild splashingdips, and making love when the mood fell upon them, sometimes lazily and contemplatively, students of an art each would shortly lose in one fashion or another; at other times they would suddenly fall upon one another in wild bursts ofpassion and desire, as if each moment were to be their last. Until the little store of money which Morlenden had laboriously built up during his travels had begun to come to its end.

In the meantime, Morlenden, one not given over to fits ofbrooding self-inspection, mused over the odd circumstances of his meeting with the younger girl. He had soon lost sightof their differences, as had she, and both of them had begunto see each other as contemporaries, at least in the days oftheir futures to come. True to her age, Sanjirmil was somewhat abrupt, erratic, and irresponsible; but she also carried inher head a whole cargo of insights far in advance of her years, and he learned to feel at ease with her peculiarites. It even came to seem as if most of her odd behavior came not from her youth, relative to him, but from an innate nature common to all the Players. At any rate, there was less a gulfbetween them than the years might have suggested, for afterall they were both still adolescents, and in the highly structured environment they lived in their behavior was more similar than different.

They decided to remain together for a time longer, and leftLamkleth, to wander fom one Braid holding to another, fromvillage to village, from elder lodge to elder lodge, helpingwith odd jobs and the harvest, which was just now beginning.They walked along paths in the forest, along the edges offields, cultivated and fallow alike; and when the weather permitted, slept outside, wrapped tightly together for warmth. After the first night together in the cabin, they talked little,and when they did, their words were only of little things, insignificant things, things which they could see immediately infront of them. As long as it was possible for them to do so,they set aside time and lived in the present, from moment tomoment, making love when they found the time and placeand ambience right, sitting quietly together when they did not.

But all things end which have a beginning, some sooner than others; and after some time, Morlenden and Sanjirmil became aware, as if they had been bemused, of the passage of weeks into months. The nights grew steadily cooler, andthen cold, and then some days did not really warm up, evenin the sun. The canopies of the forest began to open up, andwashes of bright color flowed over the face of the mornings.They spent fewer nights in the open. And gradually they began to admit time between them once again; they spoke ofthe lives behind them and before them, of changes; Morlenden of the role coming to him of parent, of holdingsman.Sanjirmil spoke of the Players and their insular, abstracted yetpassionate lives. She spoke no more of the Game itself. Hedid not ask. They did not really listen to the words, though they listened close enough, for it wasn't what they said in words, in Singlespeech or Multispeech, but rather what the unspoken words under the spoken words said of their inner uneasiness, and their knowledge of ends. For now Morlenden was beginning to feel change stirring within himself, an odd set of unfamiliar new sensations, as if the prolonged liaison with Sanjirmil had stimulated the onset of hisfertility. He knew it was not yet. But it would be soon. Verysoon. The ancient, cultured pair-bond of the Braid between himself and Fellirian began to reassert itself, driving his orientation toward the odd, wiry hoydenish Sanjirmil away fromthe flesh and more into the heart.

And she, in her turn, began to grow apprehensive abouther return, which was now long overdue. The Players, so itseemed, did not care so much for long visits out of their ownenvironment. Certain elders, whom she would not name, would be angry with her for staying so long. There were punishments, of which she would not speak.

They allowed their wanderings to carry them around, drifting to the northwest again, more in the direction of Sanjirmil's home territories, by unspoken agreement. And theyspent their last night together in the ruins of an ancient, pre-ler water-powered gristmill somewhere deep in the upperwaters of the River Hvar, in a place where the old stone and brick buildings were overgrown with creepervine,trumpetflower, and kudzu, and where enormous aged beechtrees hung over the mirrored surface of the millpond behindthe piled-stone dam and shed their yellow leaves into the muddy water. It was rainy and miserable on the night theyfound the mill, but the morning was bright and clear, cold and windy.

A variable, willful breeze played in the leaves and ruffledwavelets over the shallow pond. They did not speak of it, ofends and departures, but stood by the dam for a long time,standing close together, hands interlocked. Sanjirmil looked atMorlenden once, with the disturbing blind, fixed gaze of hers,the scanning motion of her eyes readily apparent from so close. And after that, she turned abruptly and walked swiftly away across the dam, deftly skipping over driftwood whichhad piled up over the years along the upstream side of it. It was only when she was completely across, off the stonework dam, on the far side under the trees, that she looked back. Morlenden watched her for a moment, seeing the wind teasing her short, coarse black hair, ruffling her overshirt, the same much-mended one she had met him in, and he waved, as casually as possible. Sanjirmil waved back. Morlenden looked away; and when he could look back, Sanjirmil was gone. The woods on the farther shore were empty.

He returned homeward directly, seeking no further adventures or idle wanderings, taking shortcuts, wasting no time. Ittook all of that day until far after dark, but he made it all inone day. And when he had at last come into his own yos, the old, homey, weather-stained ellipsoids of the Derens, after along, thoughtful soak in the icy water of the wash-trough outside, he found Fellirian waiting for him in the hearthroom.

She looked questioningly at him for a moment, but said nothing beyond an offhand greeting, as if he had just nowstepped outside to fetch a pail of water from the creek. Andalthough he found that he was actually deeply happy to seehis insibling again, he said no more than as if he actually haddone just that: gone outside for water an instant ago. Hefound that his earlier desire to make a clever allusion to his great adventure had vanished completely; what had happenedto him could not be told. And he knew a deeper secret aboutthe vayyon: that below the level of the first revelation, that there was no great adventure, was a second, more crypticlevel of the heart—that it was perhaps better not to find thatfor which one searched. He wondered if she had seen that as well.

They did not speak of such things. But that night, sitting

together, sharing a bowl of stew, they made the small talk of

members of the family, neighborhood gossip. Who had done

what, with which, and to whom. Births. Deaths. It was only

as they were banking the hearthfire for the night and blowing

out the lamps that Fellirian told him that she had become

fertile in the last few days.

'Tm not suprised, Eliya," Morlenden answered from

across the hearthroom, not looking at her. "I've felt some

twinges myself. I don't think I am right now, but it will be

soon, now that you've come in."

"Kadh'Elagi and Madh'Abedra have set a date for the weaving."

"When?"

"Winter Solsticeday. And they've already made arrangements with a lodge.""So soon?" "Yes. We wondered what had become of you, if you wouldbe back in time...."

"I was unavoidably detained, ah, by the harvest."

"Indeed. They do say that it has been a good one this year.Did you work hard?""Yes. It was good for me.""So it appears . . . you look somewhat the better for it.

And more, too: from the look of you, you'll be fertile yourself by Solsticeday."

"Such are my suspicions as well." Morlenden and Fellirianpaused by the curtained port into the children's sleeper, sharing anodd conspiratorial look. "Well, Eliya, after you."

"All right, I'll go first. But we won't be in here much longer, you know."

Fellirian climbed into the sleeper. As she disappeared behind the curtain, Morlenden reached up and patted her rumpaffectionately. When he had himself pushed the curtain aside,Fellirian met him, whispering fiercely "You randy hifzer buck! You know you shouldn't touch me now. You don't know what it's like yet." She quieted a little. "Really, it's no fun. Not like wanting dhainaz at all. I fear it. And I fear even more going long without doing what we must"

"I'll stay away, if you want.""No, I don't want that either. . . . Did you have a good time, Olede?" "I learned a great deal—the last few weeks, months . . . hasit been months? Someday I'll tell you some of it."

Fellirian was spreading out one large double comforter onthe soft floor of the sleeper. Morlenden was folding his kif,feeling around for the proper shelf. He asked, "And where'smine?"

Fellirian slid her kif off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She gestured to the comforter she had spread. Morlenden nodded. She was fertile, and nothing mattered now. Hecould not refuse her, even had he wanted to refuse.

She said softly, "It has to be us now . . . I have laid aside all mine of the past. You must do likewise, and comfort me."The light in the sleeper was dim, but there was enough to

make out the smooth shape across the comforter from him.Familiar, as everyday as an arm or a leg. Fellirian . . . she was smooth and subtle of shape, inviting. He bent over her,touched her face, lightly. Her scent had changed, was no longer the tart, flowery, slightly pungent scent of an adolescentgirl, but something warmer, richer, riper. It had an odd andimmediate effect on him, and the speed of it surprised Morlenden greatly. He began to learn about the compulsions offertility.

At last the sequence ended and Morlenden returned to the present, now sleepy. Beside him, he heard Fellirian's deep, even breathing, felt the familiar warmth of her body. All those years, he thought. And us with a girl-child a year ormore older than Sanjir was then ... amazing!

He had not spoken to Fellirian about his adventure, just asshe had never spoken of hers. And in the intervening years,he had not been able to follow Sanjirmil very well; the Der-ens had led a busy life, and Morlenden had been doing mostof the field work, and of course all the Players, of both Braids, kept very much to themselves. Rarely, he and Sanjirmil had passed on some errand, but they had said nothing.He had once heard a distant tale, distortedly repeated by thetenth bearer of the tale, that something had happened to her, some drastic accident which she had survived somehow . . . here the tale had been unclear. And at any rate, he had seenher at a distance not long after that, a few weeks, and she hadlooked no different. There had been no injuries, no disfigurements.

But the disturbing tales continued, and they told that Sanjirmil had been changed in a way no bearer of tales couldtell. But here again, he had never seen any evidence of change.

So now he lay awake in the dark, remembering, reliving itall again, his inner mind returning with abrasive insistence tothe same questions he had asked before and found no answer to. Why was it that the Perwathwiy Srith, an elder, should walk in haste to the holding of the Derens; and why bringwith her Sanjirmil, her own insibling descendant, two generations removed? And the Perwathwiy had been, of course, aTerklaren herself, the Klandorh of the Terklarens, just aswould be Sanjirmil in her turn. Next year. Maybe sooner.

Sanjirmil. Morlenden had enjoyed recalling the affair theyhad shared, with its strong sense of poignant emotions and extravagant eroticism; indeed, a piece of him was tied into that time forever, even though he had grown used to the knowledge over the years that their liaison was doomed fromthe start, made hopeless by the years that separated them. Soone went one way, one another. A little ripple passed throughhim, something not quite laughter; soon she would look uponher own children with the same sense of astonishment that he did. It seemed to be forever coming, and then it was over. Yes, there were some regrets. But now . . . he did not care somuch for the speculations, unanswered, that the visit suggested.

FIVE

The Game visually generates certain patterns which remain in one location and pervolve;others move over the playing field at various speeds, retaining various degrees of internal identity and coherence. Here, we have no difficultywhatsoever understanding that it is the Game and the parameters of a specific Game set which make such figures move. In the physical universe, however, we see similar motions and various conditions of identity and stability; and have thereon erected an incredible and erroneous set of "laws" to explain such conditions. When the laws fail to predict, add complications and subtleties, precisely as the Ptolemaic astronomers added epicycle after epicycle to their basically wrong model of planetary motion. So a better theory was devised. We speak of Copernicus, of Newton, of Kepler, of conic sections and conservations of angular momentum. Seen from the perspective of the Game, these things are hardly less wrong than Ptolemaics. We shall now discuss these thingsunder their true names, understanding, of course, that they are expressions of a much better model.

—The Game Texts

In the earliest societies, the symbol of force replaces theforce itself, and then symbols replace symbols, each becomingprogessively more subtle: club, spear, knife, sword, pistol.They evolve to bearers of such things, mere suggestions to besure, but not less in the importance put upon them by theobserver. Or the owner. In the settled, civilized, mostly nonviolent bureaucratic state, these symbols become even more abstract: counters, desks, offices. The more massive the desk and the more empty the office, the greater the authority. The more insulated and invisible the office, the greater still. Klaneth Parleau, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Seaboard South Region, had such a desk, such an office. Theoffice was excessively large, and would have been in anyage, but in an age in which volume and space were at a premium and all buildings were designed with function and efficiency first in mind, it was particularly impressive. There were no windows; windows were conducive to distraction and daydreaming, and there was little time for that. Parleau, for one, could not imagine an age when there could have been time for it.

One who came into Parleau's office would first have to traverse the apparent vastness of the length of the room, andthen face Parleau's desk, which was a massive cruciform shape made of a single casting of titanium, brushed and anodized to a dull, almost black finish. To increase the illusion of distance, the base of the T-shape of the desk was slightlynarrower than the part nearest its occupant, which had thedual effect of making the occupant seem both farther awayand at the same time larger than life. This neck of the T wasused occasionally as a conference desk, and chairs were storedunder it. They, too, were part of the effect, for as they increased their distance from the head of the desk, they grewsmaller and more uncomfortable to sit in. And the occupantof the head of the desk could select, from a console blended into the working surface, which chair would be slid out for thevisitor, varying status with circumstance. There wasn't a weapon within miles of this office, and it was doubtful if thechairman himself could have done violence to a starving orphan; yet within his office full in the powers of his position, hecould reduce grown men to worms and they themselves would admit it first.

Seaboard South was not particularly more powerful thanother, similar administrative units into which the whole habitable Earth was divided, save in one area: it possessed the Charter of Overmanagement for both the Institute, which wasthe interface between the humans of Earth and their artificially mutated step-cousins, the ler, and the reservation in which the ler lived. This made it, in effect, the broker for the vast amounts of data which flowed into and out of the Institute, detailing every art and science of the planet.

In similar fashion, Chairman Parleau was not especiallydifferent from his theoretical equals, the chairmen of otherregions near and far, except for this one area, and the Regional Chairman's consciousness of that fact. Parleau personally had as yet done very little in the way of direct manipulation of those powers. Yet. But the very idea that hecould, should he choose, kept chairmen of the neighboringRegions closely attentive to events in Seaboard South.

Parleau himself was a large and heavy-boned but generallytrim, balding individual of apparent early middle age: mature, securely settled in high office. No single facet of Klaneth Parleau would have distinguished him from a thousand other career administrative executives—other than a rather aggresive manner and a more closely cropped than normal hair-style (of what hair remained to him). When hemoved he exhibited a crispness and a dynamism which somehow most of the others lacked.

In fact, Parleau was somewhat younger in years than hisappearance suggested, and far from reaching a pinnacle, hewas in fact being groomed carefully for higher advancementstill; some thought to Co-directorate Staff, an anonymouscoordination position. Others, no less well-informed, felt thatit would be at the least to a post on Continental Secretariat,with a leg up to the Planetary Presidium somewhat later. Seaboard South had been his first regional chairmanship, and with its long association with the ler and the Institute, it wasa key posting, selected by his peers. Historically, it had alwaysbeen a make-or-break assignment, and the odds had been against most past chairmen. The majority, upon completion or replacement, had elected to move to positions of lesser ranking. But a few had made it into the rarefied upper levels,where they generally prospered.

The problem, as Parleau formulated it, was not that the New People were troublesome or unruly, but to the contrary.In fact, they were generally better behaved than their humanneighbors. It was a fact that they seemed to react with lessstress to crowding and personal restriction, but, he thoughtwryly, with the population density they had, they could hardly complain about a behavioral sink, however restricted they were to their reservation. More, the reservation did not impose a drain upon the resources of Seaboard South, as sucha project might have been expected to do. No; together, the reservation and the Institute were both self-supporting, andtheir gross output net was larger than any conceivable alternate use to which the land could have been put.

No. The problem underlying everything seemed to be thathumans knew no better now than in the beginning how dodeal with the New People. In developing them out of their own mixed stock, the men of 2000 had been reaching for thegoal long dreamed of—controlled mutation, and the transformation of man into superman. This would be the last victory of the flower of the old science, actually greater in significance then the as-yet-undiscovered faster-than-lightdrive. For they had cast aside the old myths about a mere physical specimen, a superman of body; they were reachingfor the mind. And then they would have planned programmed men who would, under careful supervision, carry them to heights unreachable in the random, recursive, agonizingly slowprocesses of nature. They would, in short, not wait to growinto the garden of Earthly delights, nor would they countenance stumbling into it by accident, but would storm it byforce, the force of the mind. But the program, starting innocently enough with experiments with lower life-forms, hadprogressed steadily through ever more complex forms; and when at last they had performed the final, half-magical reading and attempted programming of human DNA, they foundthat they had not constructed an avenue into the future but instead constructed a strange and mysterious door into an unknown and unknowable future. A door which only worked one way, and one that only the key of DNA would unlock.After a hundred years of "production," the door was finallysealed; and then destroyed.

Nothing was ever forgotten; it was rather that the whole discipline became discredited, then unprofitable, then unfunded. One thing technology never solved: it was frightfully expensive to alter DNA under controlled conditions in which results could be expected. And, paradoxically, unlike everyother essentially technological process, the cost did not godown as it was repeated. The last ler brought into being artificially cost virtually the same as the first. In a time when athousand projects were worthy of more attention, they beggared the planet to make something they couldn't use for themselves. Mankind wisely concluded, reinforcing the judgments of the theologians, that however thrilling it might havebeen to play God, it was also damned expensive. To do as well as the original might well be feasible, but it could not bepaid for.

Physiologically, humans knew the ler easily enough, although the number who made such an area their interest steadily declined with time. But physiognomy was only the smallest part of reality, and the cultural gap widened yearly.Man opted for efficiency, the ler for harmony. Everyone had,rich and educated, ignorant and poor alike, anticipated thesupermen: they would be large in size, strong, dominant ofdisposition, possessed of keen analytical minds, masters of technology at last, knowing all consequences in advance. There would be no haven for superstition and vanity.

But the New People—or ler as they decided to call themselves in their own developed language, meaning "new" butalso "innocent"—were determinedly unherioc. On the average, they were smaller in overall size, lighter in weight, andslimmer in build than the average human. Moreover, they retained into adulthood what seemed to humans as an excess of human adolescent features. That this was the natural result of forced evolution, a process called neoteny, in which youthfulstages were expanded at the expense of older mature stages,did not reassure those who insisted upon viewing them as children, something their adult members were not. And by the time a truly ler culture had begun to develop and takeroot, the specimens were increasingly wrapped in impenetrable veils of language, ritual, mysticism, and an eclectic, bucolic philosophy that seemed to deny every common-sensenotion of progress. "How quaint," cried the harsh voices ofthe cult of expediency, entirely missing sight of the fact thatethic and ritual protect us from one another . . . .

And so Parleau spent each day in his office, hoping over the distraction of the other sides of Seaboard South, that there would never be a problem, which his contemporaries and peers might have referred to as "an opportunity to excel." And after dayshifter hours, which were his permanentlyby virtue of his high position, he would return to his set ofcubicles alone* and hope, all the more fervently, that the next day would be quiet as well.

* Members of the high executive class did not have families.

' The quiet had come to an end. Parleau knew and faced itmatter-of-factly. It had been coming, of course. He could seeas well as the next with hindsight, but he could also see, evenwithout the Situational Analysis training the controllers got,that this situation could not remain stable and peaceful forever. Why should it? Nothing else in the known universe did.So at some point, the hostility would have to take an overt form. Then what? It appeared that the humans still held all the cards. But that was the weakness. It was a dependent andvulnerable command position. The Old People were in fact completely vulnerable to the output of the Institute, so much so that now, in this century, continued stability (they hadlong since ceased calling it progress) was tied directly into itssteadily increasing output. There was no way out of it: the Institute tinkered with basic efficiencies, the very stuff of whicha million lives a day hung in the balance, hung upon five hundredths of a percentage point of difference. Yes. Things werethat tight. Had it been something so simple as some materialshortage, Parleau felt that they could have coped, some way.Done without, maybe. Invented substitutes. But all those avenues had been explored already. The time had passed, severalhundred years ago, when they could deal with simple shortages. The very idea. It was the hardest problem civilized man had ever faced, and Parleau did not expect to solve ithimself in the course of an afternoon.

Consider mathematics and the classical three-body problem: even with computers to speed up the process of computation a millionfold, they still couldn't conceptualize it as it was, three-simultaneously, but ran it as a series of twos. Nowblow that up, enlarge it, complicate it to a billion-body problem, crank in several theories of economics, five majorschools of politics, including anarchy, add the now-semicontrolled ecology of the entire planet, and muddy it with an uncorrected human population which had continued unreduced, if slowed to virtual zero growth, at the unimaginable level of twenty billion. Yet, in a limited way, this was just what the Institute attempted to do, one question at a time. The human members posed narrow and specific questions,and the researchers disigned alternatives they called parametered solutions, series of iffy courses of actions whose basic trade-offs were known or strongly suspected. The questionersdebated and made the value judgments.

It was painfully clear from this that the ler and their Institute had become indispensable, which was the utter horror of every leader and bureaucrat since Hammurabi. Indispensableman has a handle on you. Only when you can make all menand indeed all creatures immanently dispensable and interchangeable can this threat to the superstition of executiveomnipotence be made to fade into insignificance. And the solution that came most often to mind—simply eliminate themand rationalize it afterward for the muddy thinkers—was inthis case both ethically repugnant and obviously disastrous.They had long since assumed that to go it alone now withoutthe ler partnership was possible, but all things considered, itwasn't desirable at all. There was a most delicate balance of tomorrows.

Now this thing, Parleau thought, suddenly too agitated tosit still behind his desk, the symbol for which he had workedso hard, and made so many resentful enemies along the way to it. A girl about whom almost nothing was known, save that she appeared to be circumstantially connected with someminor and unimportant vandalism. A simple incident, surely,but somehow along the way she managed to lose her bloodymind. Then responsible parties discovered that she was a leradolescent. That they could see for themselves. Parleau stoodby the corner of his desk, shuffling through the morning reports from the previous eve and mid-shifts; the quality control data, the indexes, the graphs. He was not interested in them, but only in the answer to the question, Why me?

The administrator in the outer office signaled that the visitors Parleau had called earlier were now assembled and waiting there. The time had come. Parleau cleared his throat, sighed deeply, and recomposed his expression from one of worry and concern to one of stern action. And they would not have to worry about interruptions, either. All other business save natural disasters and civil unrests had been tabled for the day. They had to know, here, now; that wasfor sure. This could prove to be either a nothing incident,forgettable and forgotten, or an invitation to conspicuous failure.

He depressed a button on the desk, signaling assent, andsoon his visitors began to enter. They were all well-known figures, key personnel of the local regional upper administration, but at the same time Parleau recognized that he knew none of them well. They were all either holdovers from theprevious regime or imports like himself, brought in fromother parts of the world.

Edner Eykor entered first. He was one of those who had come from somewhere else. Parleau had looked in the records, but had not assigned the facts any importance, and had consequently forgotten them. Like the other users of programmed names, Eykor's surname lent no clue as to place ororigin. Where had it been? Europe, somewhere, Parleau thought. Eykor was a thin, nervous man who always seemedto be in a hurry, always on the verge of missing some item,at least in appearance. A bad sign, Parleau had thought morethan once. Nervousness in an intelligence man. Not good atall. His opinion was that an intelligence man at the staff levelshould be as impassive as an idol. Eykor had sandy, nondescript thinning hair and a long, horselike countenance, upon which a set of rubbery lips ruminated aimlessly.

The second was Mandor Klyten, the Regional ler Expert.He was a curious one, for his post was almost totally unconnected with the Institute. Until Klyten had filled it, it had been little more than an academic post, a sinecure. Give Klyten credit: at least he had done much of his own field work, a notion unheard of for years, indeed if not generations. He studied and worked hard, and his advice regardingler matters, while curiously unspecific, was always worth listening to. Outside the reservation, he was as well-informed asit was possible to be. Klyten was a short, plump, rather disorganized man of middle age; Parleau was not confused by theabsentminded appearance. Under that thinning gray hair lurked a formidable and keen intelligence. Parleau did wonder at the turn of preferences that led such a one to scholasticism.

Aseph Plattsman was the last to enter. The analyst and

Controller. In an earlier day, Plattsman might, from his gen

eral appearance, have been a musician, an artist. Today, a

Controller. One who watched and monitored, who supervised,

who managed. Who controlled. Odd, that, but again, not so

odd. Parleau had heard more than once that the discipline of

the Controllers, Situational Analysis, had become the last art

form. And equally often, Parleau had also heard that the ma

jority of Regional Chairmen were former Controllers. Not

vast majority. Just majority. Plattsman was long and aes

thetic, dark of complexion, having black, unruly hair and

deep chocolate eyes that expressed little but observed every

thing. He moved without obvious gesture or mannerism, but

with an effortless exactitude, as if every motion were exactly

what he had intended it to be. Youngest by far on the staff,

Plattsman could easily move to some Region as chairman someday. Slow and deliberate, when the pressure was on he could change into one of the most serious and stern of taskmasters. Parleau felt no particular threat from Plattsman, knowing it would be years yet; Plattsman had not been sent to replace him, but to learn. Parleau understood these things, and the loneliness of this path; after a time, nothing was worth any effort but the work and the power.Still, he felt the most empathy here, to Plattsman, and wishedhim continued success.

The three visitors waited by their accustomed places untilParleau gestured to them that they should be seated, loweringhimself into his own chair as he did. He waved at them impatiently. "Good day, good day, daymen. Shall we leave the pleasantries and go to the matter at hand?"

They nodded, and began unpacking briefcases and untidyportfolios. Eykor, so it appeared, had the smallest pile, so bycommon consent he would be the first to speak.

He began "Why we are here relates to security, so I propose that we ..."Parleau interrupted. "Wait. I have read the r6sumes. Whoreported the information and how far upchannel did it go?"

Plattsman answered, CenRegCon did, Chairman. The original B-twenty-seven report was on late mids. I have the pertinent duty logs. The first, capture, was routine and normal, so it went, eventually, all the way up. ConSec. No further, though. Not to my knowledge. The second one, of lastnight, was stopped here for comment or amendment beforegoing on." i

Parleau breathed deeply. Shorted out by the wily Controllers, just on suspicion, until it could be checked against thefiles. And it matched. And they held it. They could have let it go, and who could have taken clear reprisals against them? The Controllers were notoriously independent-minded; so they were saving him, but for what reasons? He would haveto run that one later.

Plattsman produced several sheets of electroprint and read,from the forms; "Thirty-one Tenmonth two-three-four-five local hour . . . Item forty-six incident of suspected terrorism,Regional Museum of Technology and applications. Watchman reports certain instruments in the Petro section dismantled, destroyed by acid. . . . The next entry is . . . yes, Itemsixty-two. A member, female, reported apprehended withoutpapers or reasonable explanation near Museum, attempting to cross River Five on a methane pipeline from the compostingdumps. Remanded to Interrogation."

He paused, shuffling the papers some more. "Then here's afollow-up. 'subject member refused to give name of number.Remanded back to Interrogation.'"

"And here . . . the last report, a follow-up, which we stopped. It looked wrong. By this time there's a case numberon it. We were going to have a look into it anyway, but thenthis Medic Venle reports that Interro had somehow put a livefemale ler into a sensory deprivation chamber. While inside,something so far undetermined occurred to the subject, whowe may now refer to as 'Item forty-six,' and Item forty-six upon recovery was observed to have no measurable mental processes beyond infant state; some kind of regression had taken place. One of the things that stood out was that this report was made in B format, but of course a B is not appropriate because as a ler, she never had an A submitted onher. It was kicked out of process control. When we cross checked, we found the references. That's all, Chairman."

Parleau said, "We will have to follow it up and finalize, because at Continental there's an open case file. Understand? But careful, now. Nothing on this goes out without my initials." He turned to Eykor. "Now. What's gone on there?"

"Chairman, it's all pretty much as in the reports. I was present part of the time, because the interrogators said that they could not crack her. We tried, but nothing. It was minor, of course, but the more we said, the tighter she became.We did not try drugs or stimuli, but total isolation seemed tobe a good idea. At the time—we had no idea...."

Klyten asked, "And what was her age?"

"She never said. We took tissue samples, along with theother routine identification procedures, but they read out tooyoung using human data base. We didn't have the ler data anddidn't want to ask for it, you understand, but fifteen certainlyseemed too low."

Klyten commented, "You're right, there. It is too low. Imight say a better guess would put her, say, about twenty.Yes, twenty, plus or minus a year. How long did you give herin the box?"

"Well, at the time she was taken out, about twenty-five days." 'Twenty-five days? I've heard that hard human cases breakin ten!"

"Well, now, Klyten, that's more or less true, but we just assumed she'd react similarly."

"Judging from events, a poor assumption, something even a student adviser would have advised against. Or did youknow then that they have the ability to autoforget, dump allthe mnemonic data they have collected since birth?"

"No, we . . . well, hell, so we made an error. But all the same, we had enough evidence to connect her to the Museumjob, and terrorism is a capital offense anyway, so ..."

Parleau interrupted Eykor again. "Wait. Terrorism, is it? You must have a live victim to have terrorism."

"Chairman, we interpreted the destruction of valuable instruments and artifacts as a distinct crime against society,harming the people in general. After all, there were personson duty about the Museum also."

Parleau looked off into space for a moment, then turnedback to Eykor. "Eykor, all sorts of deeds, good and bad, havebeen done in human history, and they all carry the same reason: that they were done for the good of the people. Now I'm no moralist or ethicist, nor squeamish when it comes down to what must be done. Let it roll! But whatever we do here, please let us all use more rigor in our definitions that

'it's for the people.' That's just bullshit, and you and I alikeknow it. Now what were these valuable instruments?" "Some ancient devices used in geodesy and petroleum exploration, to search out likely sites."

"Specifically, what?"

"A highly miniaturized Magnetic Anomaly Detector, apparently originally towed behind an aircraft. The other was aGravity Field Sensor, likewise miniature. That was why theacid. This last measured the local field strength of gravity. The custodian informed us that both instruments were reputed to be very sensitive and capable of precise resolutions,say, on the order of a handsbreadth across."

Parleau said, "Curious, curious. What could possibly havebeen her motive?"

Eykor answered, "We have no idea."

Parleau looked at Klyten, who shrugged. Then at Plattsman. At first he shook his head, but began tapping on the metal desk surface with his long fingers. After a time, he said, hesitating, " . . . The instruments were used to find subsurface oil sites, you say?"

Parleau saw immediately. He exclaimed, 'To prevent the

discovery of something, some mineral or petroleum on Reservation land!" Plattsman stood. "Perhaps, Chairman. But I want to use your assistant's terminal. I need access to the Archives."

"Go ahead." Plattsman left, briskly. Parleau turned to Eykor. "Only one thing wrong, there. Oil has been out of usefor several centuries. There's still some of it around, but justsmall pools, not exploited. Not worth it. Residuals, curiosities. Besides. I don't think the reservation area ever had a reputation for natural oils anyway."

"I could not comment on that one, Chairman." Klyten asked, "Has anyone inquired why no mention wasmade that Item forty-six was a New People adolescent?"Eykor replied, "No. It was unimportant Is. We were interested in the crime itself."

"Unimportant? By Darwin's organs, that's the central factof it not what she wrecked. Why she wrecked it. If we worryabout what she did, and forget who she was, or why she wasthere, we're chasing the bird with the broken wing. It's who she is, what she is. I agree with the medic, what's his name. This is serious. We are dealing here with large unknowns, perhaps dangerous for our welfare. We need to solve it."

Eykor, rebuked once again and told his own business, opened his mouth to put Klyten in his place, but at that moment, Plattsman chose to make his return.

Parleau asked, "Well?"

"There is no evidence of either oil or ore deposits aboutthe whole region on either side of River Nine. In or near thereservation. No inquiries were underway, nor were any beingconsidered. I also queried the use of instruments, the Magnetic Anomaly Detector was used in several ways, militarily,to detect undersea craft, and mines, and also, later, to locate high-density ferrous bodies, mascons. Meteorites, buried in the drift. ITie other was used to determine the exact shape ofthe Earth, and also in the search for mascons. But the recorded data indicates that there were no such anomalies in the reservation area."

"So we're no better off than before. Unless they were tohide something they found themselves...."

Klyten observed, "We should not be so hasty there. We arereasonably sure that they are not, except in very specific andlimited fields, technologists. So what could they discover andhide that our finest instruments could not perceive? I add tocounter my own argument that we also know that their area was never exploited. It was given to them because of that—there seemed to be nothing worth while in the area."

Parleau mused aloud, "But even if they had oil, what would they use it for? We have better and cheaper fuel andthe material stuff we get from synthetics the same. They haveno need for it, and they couldn't give it to us...."

Eykor asked, "What about metals?"Klyten said, "A better case, there, perhaps, but still tentative."

Eykor asked further, "But if so, why hide it? They knowthe reservation's sovereign ground. There hasn't been a human actually inside it on the ground for a good two hundredyears, and I don't know of any case ..."

Plattsman commented, "The previous government had inits time also displaced aboriginal tribes and set aside inviolatereservations. But for a long time, as soon as anything of value was found or suspected on such lands, ways weredevised to circumvent or disregard such pacts. The ler are aware of these facts, perhaps better than we. All they wouldhave to do would be to compare their own population densityagainst anywhere outside it. There, are, for example, more humans living in Tierra Del Fuego. There is pressure fromthat alone, and only by surplus production do they buy thatappetite off. Never mind any resource."

Eykor shrugged. "I know that as well. And I, for one, would have to assign a lower probability to some resource. But there are other possibilities; something hidden, something made or built. TTie first thing to mind would be a weapon of some sort."

Parleau exclaimed, "It's my turn to assign probabilities, andthat one is low indeed. Why, if they had a weapon to hidethat would do them any good, why haven't they used it?"

Klyten shook his head, agitatedly. "No, no, no. Anythingthey could use would have to be powerful or of widespreadimpact, which starts by violating their most cherished beliefs.And it would have to be an artifact, probably quite large.There are delivery systems to consider, aim, use, range."

"Wait, there," Parleau said thoughtfully. "Mind, I don't actually think it might be that, but... Eykor, did you run anycross checks on this Item forty-six? Does she have a record?"

"No, we didn't. She seemed such an amateur...."

Plattsman asked, "Can we rim one now? I mean, not a full scan, which would take days, but just a quick collation from

the Comparator. That will give us a quick glance over the continent. The matches, if any, should be along shortly."

"I have no objection."

Plattsman left, and returned shortly. "I referred to the record holos you took off her in Security Records. The Comparator will review all the Current Operations records of thestress checkpoints and see if there's a match."

Parleau asked Eykor, skeptically. "Are you sure you havegathered any evidence at all on this case?"

"Chairman, we had just started when this last event occurred. We were moving discreetly because of the sensitivityof the issue. There is another aspect to this, and we were trying to integrate the two. From our overflight series . . ."

"Overflights? Were they not prohibited?"

"We have been using gliders, launched across the reservation. Battery powered, inertial guided. Flown at night in the proper weather conditions, they are undetectable. Theycouldn't see one if they had radar."

"Go on."

"It's an old program. I didn't initiate it. And who will complain, when they can't see it, don't know it's there? At least,we assume they have never seen it, for there have been no complaints."

Parleau said, "Poor assumption. The one does not necessarily follow."

"Do you want it stopped?"

"Stopped . .. ? No. Continue it, of course, but supervise itclosely. I realize many of us are new to these people, if theyare that"

"Of course, and also we can . . ." And here Eykorlaunched into a detailed account of delaying, frustrating, obfuscative and annoying practices and examples of the same,which the Regional Government might have occasion to use.He continued at some length, until stopped by a signal fromthe outer office. Plattsman excused himself and left.

The group waited, expectantly. Plattsman was gone for longer than they thought and they all began to grow restive.Presently he returned, animated.

"Incredible, actually incredible. Why we overlooked it is beyond me—more of these assumptions, in my branch as wellas the next There is simply no substitute for thoroughness, isthere?"

Parleau said, "Well, on with it"

"The tentative match list was too large, and had to be narrowed. I had to cross-refer it with the chemosensors. When

I did, I got this list." And Plattsman read: "Orlando, New

Orleans, Huntsville; five discrete locations in Seaboard South;

three more in the Oak Ridge area; once, Dayton; and twice

on the West Coast, once in Sur and once in Bay are a. I re

quested pictures. And this is only in the last year!"

Klyten was first to speak. "She can't have walked to all those places clambering along methane pipes!"

Parleau said, "No, indeed not. She has moved freely among us, and for what purposes? I was not aware theycould do this."

Eykor said. "They're not supposed to be able to "

Plattsman laughed. "And now it gets interesting. Not a vandal, but a spy. A real one! We haven't had one for centuries!"

And Parleau said, "Yes, very funny; one who risks her lifeto destroy instruments, and who faces the box and oblivion toconceal why. Plattsman! Have your people see if they canfind some more of these instruments, somewhere, in workingcondition. And continue your check of the Comparator network. I want to know exactly where she's been, when. Stayout of the Institute until I say—she's probably left a dozenspider webs to trip over. Check her identity discreetly, opensource stuff, for the present. We must know more. You, too,Eykor. And you were saying something about overflights .. . r

"Yes, I was, and this fits perfectly. There seems to be apattern of activity that defies analysis, almost as if it were being purposely randomized, but we can draw conclusions from its growth and spread. We had made these tentativeguesses—that there is a secret somewhere in the reservation,apparently unknown by most of the inhabitants, and that Game theory suggests a definite break with past patterns, inthe near-future time-frame."

"What kind of time-frame?"

"Five to ten years."

"That's no better than an entrail-reader of ancient Rome could do. I could do as much with common sense."

Plattsman interjected, "Chairman, begging your pardon,but reading entrails is precisely what we do. We've substituted Data Terminal Printouts for the original bloody guts,but otherwise it's all the same—a little guessing, a little larceny, a little luck, and damn good obversation of the present"

Parleau smiled. "And so, Eykor, that was why your peoplewere so anxious to get something out of her?"

"That is correct, Chairman. We needed a key, a tool to getat the larger problem. She offered a perfect chance. Unfortunately, we got nothing out of her directly."

"But the second chance, man! Now we can."

Klyten said mildly, "Maybe not. I must advise you that shewould not do these things—if indeed it is her and not the error of an overzealous machine or that of a careless programmer somewhere along the line—completely on her own. Theyare a communal people and act together in all things and enterprises. The few who live alone become sedentary, fixed inplace."

Eykor exclaimed, "As I suspected all along! A plot!"

"Yes," Kltyen continued. "And they are most fond of subtle ones. There are many possibilities here, and not the least of them is that she may have been dragged under ournoses to prevent us from smelling something else, as the saying goes. I don't think they would sacrifice her willingly,that's not their way, but her capture could have been accidental. Or she could have been designed to cause us to precipitate certain events. I have long suspected forms of this typeof manipulation—control by negative aversion. You see obvious forms of this in some of our own less sophisticated child-rearing practices, but as a management technique, it is capable of great refinement and control. There is the well-knownstudy by Klei that shows grounds for suspecting that they encouraged and fomented the immanent racialism which suddenly terminated with their move into the reservation and their consolidation."

Eykor observed, "I see. Had they gathered themselves together of their own accord, it would have generated great suspicion, even in an environment of basically neutral feelings, but with a slight degree of encouraged race-fear, andproper stimuli . . . but that's social control on a very large scale. Do they have that kind of control, and what are the margins for error?"

Klyten had their attention. He continued, "There is wherewe have not been able to reach the bottom of it. After all, as Controller Plattsman will doubtless agree, we have some fairly subtle methods ourselves, but there are operations weprefer to stay away from. So much so that there isn't enoughdata even to estimate how much control they have. We donote with relief that this sort of thing seems to have died out after the consolidation. I know this is rather far afield, but it supports the idea that we must consider this in our range ofpossibilities."

Parleau remained silent still, thinking hard, letting the others do the talking. But he knew Klyten's argument to be a valid one, and that they had many more options than simplythe first one that had occurred to them. One simply could notknow, now. There was need for more data, more caution. He had always figured in fudge factors throughout his career, and with the instinct of the careerist, he sensed the need for them now—large ones, in fact. To be caught off guard bythem would be unfortunate, but not fatal. However, to make the wrong interpretation and then take the wrong course ofaction and precipitate undesirable events . . . unthinkable. More was at stake here than his own merit report file at Continental.

He said, "Klyten, is part of our difficulty here the result ofthe way we perceive them? Or, I should ask, the way we respond?"

"I think so. The whole culture goes to great length to rationalize their apparent voluntary primitivism . . . I think that many of them themselves are not aware of the dichotomy. I mean, you look at some of the solutions coming outof the Institute, and there's evidence of fine, educated technological minds at work, and then around seventeen-hundred oreighteen-hundred hours, the owners of these fine minds gohome and chop wood, or draw water from a stream. We alsosee evidence in other ways that they are in fact not primitive at all . . . their houses reflect chemical engineering and knowledge of geodesies, blended together, a field so far aheadof us that even with a sample of the material in front of us,we can't describe how it sets up and works. This branch ofspecialized technology is the monopoly of a single Braid, which cooks over a charcoal fire and bathes in an unheated stream. If this were occurring in the wilder sections of NewGuinea or Borneo I could cite rapid change and incomplete assimilations, but here this is not the case; they turn awayfrom the technology of personal convenience and then manage to master highly subtle alternates of essentially the same basic areas of knowledge."

Plattsman said, "Not necessarily suspicious in itself. Manyof our people would do likewise if they had a reservation tolive in and the low population density to get away with it."

Klyten concurred amiably, "True enough, I suppose. Still, we must consider all possibilities, and in the light of otherknowns, weigh it."

Parleau asked, "Then what is our best course here? Continue the investigation and try to get a vector downstream?"His use of the jargon of the Controllers and their pet discipline caused a faint smile to flow across Plattsman's face.

Plattsman provided the answer. "Yes, certainly. We do nothave enough data even to identify the problem, much less work on alternates for solving it."

"Eykor, if we did actopt*, what kind of options do we have?"

* Bureaucratic jargon: means "to decide upon an active course."

"There's the graduated response system. For this, I shouldimagine Conops-two-twelve** would elaborate on the theme oftrade-off and provide great flexibility. At the ultimate expression, where they were completely uncooperative and immovable, we could occupy the reservation complex, amiex it,and remove the denizens to someplace like Sonora Region. Perhaps Low Baja, Mojave Inner. And we could segregate fertile populations."

**More jargon: Conops means "Concept of Operations. An

arbitrary definition of projected reality in which to act."

"How far does that go?""As far as we have to, to get the idea across. I imaginethat if two-twelve was implemented, it would come to that."

"It would." commented Klyten. "They have been knownto take a drop in population in order to segregate obvious defectives. But there are serious objections to that, ethically.We are really dealing in unknowns, there. They would, ofcourse, have become overtly hostile long before that, if wefollowed two-twelve to the letter."

Parleau said, "No worry about that. We haven't yet reachedthe point of two-twelve and as far as I'm concerned, it may not be used."

Eykor agreed, "Completely. More investigation is in order." Plattsman offered, "You can have complete cooperation from Control." Parleau now asked, "Will someone come for her? Or should we dispose the item . . . ?"

Klyten responded immediately. "No. Assume that someone will eventually come for her." He tried to ignore the knowing looks Eykor was displaying to all. "Somebody wants to know

what has happened to their favorite, and eventually they willcome looking. Even though they will get nothing out of her,now, she is still worth saving, because with loving care andpatience, a new personality can be grafted onto what is left.The end result is very similiar to severe retardation, but it isfunctional."

"Very good! We will dig further. Route everything through me and keep Denver off distribution for the time being.Stall."

Parleau stopped for a minute, thinking private thoughts andapprehensions. He said, "And, Eykor, send me up a copy oftwo-twelve. I'll want to be looking over it, just for information, you understand."

Eykor agreed. "And anything else, Chairman?"

"Yes. Find out, working with Control, who that girl is. Or

as Klyten might have us put it, was."

Parleau stood, indicating to the others that, at least for thetime, a solution had been started. That was something; still,he had to admit that there were far too many unresolved factors here. He had left out the issue of the propriety of Eykor's actions deliberately, and instead let random remarks carry the meaning of his displeasure. He wanted to see howfar Eykor would go, and in which direction.

The members of this meeting departed without ceremony.Parleau watched them go, trying to resettle his mind to theother matters at hand, the thousand things he needed to look at. That long-overdue Letter of Agreement with AppalachianRegion, for instance. He had hoped this latest proposal wouldkeep them quiet for a while, but apparently the letter hadn'tyet come up through channels. He sighed. Just impossible. Heran his hand through the thinning stubble of his hair, a gesture of impatience left over from the old days, when he hadbeen a junior executive in Sonora Region. He was just gettinginto position to resume his seat behind the desk when the door to the office opened. It was Plattsman.

Parleau looked up, curious. "Yes?"

"Chairman, I was on my way over to Eykor's with something new and interesting. It occurred to me that you mightalso like to see it. It's just a suspicion, but . . ."

Parleau looked closely at the younger man. He could not beabsolutely certain, but the Controller seemed a little worried,concerned. "Yes, I would be. Continue."

Plattsman came to the edge of the desk, producing from aportfolio a sheaf of photoprints. One he set aside, and the others he carefully held, indicating that Parleau should lookfor himself. Parleau bent closer.

Indicating the single print, Plattsman said, "Observe thisprint: this is the file image of the girl, as she appears now."He paused to let the image set in the chairman's mind. "Nowthis one," he said, adding one more from the pile, "was takenbefore she was put in the box. Standard surveillance stuff through one-way glass. Can you recognize her?"

Parleau nodded. "Yes. There are more differences than I would have imagined."

"Correct. This apparently is an effect of her regression.I should imagine from these alone that whatever happened toher, she lost everything, even the little quirks of personalitythat really lend us all identity. But the point is that you, not atrained observer, could still recognize her. Now let me show you these." With that, Plattsman spread out the remainingprints over the dull surface of the desk. He stood back.

Parleau looked at the prints, then to Plattsman. Plattsmanpointed to the prints. Parleau looked again.

And again. He saw typical point-surveillance crowd images, much enlarged to center and to expand upon singlepersons, the pictures somewhat fuzzy along the edges fromenlargement. At first he failed to see what Plattsman was obviously leading him to. He saw pictures of a girl, mostlydressed after the styles of the day, more rarely in ler clothing,the overshirt, short hair, dark complexion, although not as swarthy as Plattsman, intent expression which could have meant anything . . . in some of the images, he could make outthe shape of clean, strong limbs impressing their shape on thegarments. He looked again. He had almost given up when something nagged at his mind's eye, caught it. And again. And then Parleau saw what had captured Plattsman's attention. The chairman made a choice, reached for two of the prints, removed them and set them aside.

He turned to the Controller and said, "Those two are not our girl, Item forty-six."

"No, Chairman, they are not. You and I have a greaterdepth of discrimination than the machine, no matter how sophisticated it gets. Especially where faces are concerned. Faces are more complex than retina patterns or fingerprints,but we are tuned to them by our own heritage of natural programming. You are correct. There are a couple more in question. We are analyzing the events."

"You didn't come back here to tell me your machine madea mistake."

Right, What we can tentatively project from the data wehave—sensors, time of day matching, and the like—is that the second girl, whose face we can't make out so well, wasinvolved in some way with the first one, Item forty-six. Sameplace, virtually same time, with the second passing the sensorafter the first."

"Shadowing?"

"Seems so, although why is a mystery. Also, from the chemonitors, we know that both are ler, female, contemporary inage, more or less, and that the stress level of the second wasalways lower than the first, Moreover, Physiology informsme, again tentatively, that the kind of stress is different in thetwo. The first, Item forty-six, always has a fear-component. Itmay be with other emotional sets, or pure, but it is always one or another variety of fear."

"The second?"

"The second's emotions equate to nothing we can identifyby analogy with humans. But whatever internal state it reveals in her, it is always seen pure, absolutely alone."

"I've heard something about the way you use those tracers.Something about mixed and pure sets . . . refresh my flaggingmemory."

"A pure chemtrace in a human almost invariably indicatesa psychotic condition, usually a psychopath, I believe the lersystem is similar enough for us to draw the same conclusion.I am presently having the idea verified."

"But think of it! Two of them! What is the connection?" "We're going after it, Chairman. But it looks like nothingsimple, that's a fact.""Well, by all means pass that stuff on to Eykor. It will notmake him feel any better, but he needs it all the same."

Plattsman nodded, gathered the prints, and left And Parleau sat back in his chair and stared at a blank, random spoton the wall opposite him. He did not pick up his routine paperwork for a long time.

SIX

What, they ask, is the Game? Most simplyput, it is a recursive sequence of changes in state, which are varied by the Players according to rules. It can be as simple as a sequence of digital data, or numbers; it can take more complex forms in arrays of repeating cells deployed over a two-dimensional surface; it can occur in three-dimensional matrices, yea and more. It can be played with blocks, on a checkerboard, inside frameworks; it can be played on paper, or with a computer, or, best of all, totally inside the mind. Now they ask, what good is it? And we say that through it we learn to understand consequences and the recursive patterns of Life and the Universe. And through it we learn how much we do not know.

—The Game Texts

Morlenden awoke, making the transition from dead sleep to awareness with no apparent symptom of change. Beside him, he felt the warmth of Fellirian's body, and along hisneck the contrast of the night-chilled air of the yos in winter. There was light showing on the translucent ground-rockpanes of the narrow windows, a soft dawn peach light, butalso a light with a hard steel-blue undertone to it, a sense ofthe clean air of winter, morning and clear sky. He moved slowly, cautiously and experimentally feeling the air, testingit, as it were, before committing himself to it. He stretched,hearing soft creaks and pops, slowly and gently disentanglinghimself from Fellirian without waking her. She moved, shifting position, but the rhythm of her breathing never varied.

Morlenden slid free of the comforter, listened: all he could hear were the sounds of the forest in the .beginning of winter.Outside, the animals were already up and about in their pensand barns, complaining, as usual, that no one had come out

to see them. On the other side of the yos, beyond the children's sleeper, the creek gurgled and bubbled contentedly . . . there was no rain-sound, not even a hint of a rain-drip fromthe trees overhead.

Now he was beginning to feel the bite of the cold; he took

a deep breath, shivered violently, stood and began rummag

ing along the wall shelf for a fresh winter overshirt, estimat

ing the cold. Not so bad, today, he thought, selecting a pleth

of medium weight, slipping it over his head, and then retriev

ing his long single braid out of the back of it.

Rubbing his eyes, Morlenden climbed down out of the sleeper into the hearthroom, listening carefully to see if anyone besides himself was awake yet. There was no sound, saveKaldherman's light snoring from the sleeper. He must havemoved, he thought. He wanted to knock over a pan, or something, so someone would wake up. He restrained himself: he did not wish to awaken Sanjirmil... but as much as he hatedbad news, he wanted to get on with it and speak with thePerwathwiy. But no, there was no one up besides himself, noteven the youngest, their little addition, Stheflannai, who wasalways the first to hear anything. Morlenden shrugged, andbegan rekindling the cookfire in the hearth; after a time, when he could see that something was coming back to lifefrom the ashes and coals of the night before, he continued hisway to the entryway to collect his boots, noting as he pulledthem on that they were stiff and cold.

Stepping out on the platform, he paused to test the air, reading the morning, as they said. The sky was indeed clear,an astonishing clear, deep blue; in the east, the sun was risingout of the remnants of a shredded fogbank, shining throughthe spidery network of bare trunks and branches, starting to put some life back in the cold. It would be crisp, all day.Very fresh, as he was fond of saying, a phrase Fellirian always twitted him about when the weather was behaving at itsworst. He went down the stairs, feeling better already, takingthe turn in the paths across the yard leading toward the outhouse, reflecting upon the things that needed doing, as healways did. First would be the recording and cross-referenceof all the material he had gathered on his last field trip; thenproperly entering it in the record ledgers, indexing, tagging.They would need to start a new batch of paper, too. Stockhad been getting somewhat low, he recalled, and that was oneof their Braid obligations—the paper concession. What a pain! Probably would need at least two weights unless Kal had done up a batch of Number Three ordinary while he had been out in the field. And, of course, meeting with the Perwathwiy, whatever it was she wanted. Perhaps that wouldn'ttake so long, and they could get on with matters at hand.

He remembered to watch for the root, which he had tripped over for several years on the way to the outhouse, climbing the ridgelet behind the yos. He was barely in time;he saw it, on the verge of tripping over it once more.

Damned thing! I've tripped over that one root since I was five years old, and, total recall or not, I still trip over it! And every time, I threaten to cut it off, root and branch, the whole damned tree. But I never have, he thought reflectively. It's a sourwood, and they're rare . . . and what is it that Perwathwiy wants? Damn elders anyway! She could have sent Sanjir down anyway, by herself; probably wants us to start keeping all the records of membership of the lodges as well. They've been after us for years to do it for them, as if we weren't busy enough just keeping up with the Braids. Now he'd have to repeat the whole tiresome argument all over again from the very beginnings. Yes, the whole argument. Perwathwiy wouldn't sit still for a simple negative. And even if it was only her own lodge, Dragonfly, that wouldn't change it: start keeping their records, and all of them would want the same thing. Service. Balls on a goose! Let them keep theirown records! He reached the outhouse, a rustic little shantycarefully hidden in the midst of overage Lilac bushes. . . .

Walking slowly back to the yos, coming over the ridgeline,Morlenden could see now that a fine plume of smoke was rising from the largest ellipsoid, the one of the hearthroom. Nobody was visible, but the smoke was evidence enough; someone was up and about now; he guessed one of the children had got up and was tending the fire, putting on a pot for aninfusion of root-tea, a pan of meal to boil, a couple of thefine sausages from the locker that he and Kal had put up earlier this fall.

Higher up the hollow, toward the watershed, he saw the elder, Perwathwiy, approaching him on the path, negotiatingthe way in a measured, careful manner, but at the same timenot betraying any hinderance arising from her age. He hadnot seen her the night before, or in years, nor ever well. Buthe knew Perwathwiy well enough; she never changed. He couldn't recall ever seeing her any different than she was now, a stern, agile ancient with iron-gray hair and the sourestdisposition this side of the Green Sea, at the least. She was known never to smile, and little children repeated the doggerel that she had been born just as she was now.

The starsrith approached, stopped, nodded politely. Morlenden returned the gesture, acknowledging her respect for the holding. So this was the Perwathwiy, "First Spirit ofthe Eagle-cry," as the name went in Fire aspect. Morlendenknew the data without having consciously to recall it. A lifetime of recordkeeping, ordinary full-memory (or was it the elder's overbearing sense of presence? A Fire trait to be sure),but there had always been something more than simply aspect to the Perwathwiy. Sanjirmil also seemed to have thattrait. Perwathwiy was and had been for years the electedchief hetman of Dragonfly Lodge, certainly the most powerful of the elder lodges. There were rumors, too, of secret influences, but Morlenden had never given such theories muchthought; Dragonfly was quite powerful enough in his mind without the additional reinforcements of sinister conspiraciesconducted in stealth. But they were secretive, and also the most conscious of themselves: powerful, sure, almost arrogantpeople who veiled their comings and goings in mystery andarcane mannerisms.

The Perwathwiy was small in stature, thin, her skin wrinkled and darkened from decades of exposure and weathering. As befitted an elder, her hair was arrayed in twolong braids that hung down neatly in front. The hair was absolutely gray, not a hint of color in it. Gray, not white. He could not recall ever hearing what color her hair had been. There were deep crow's-feet around the eyes, but the eyesthemselves were bright, clear, birdlike, and of no particularcolor. Save perhaps rain-wet rock. Morlenden knew her age,and was surprised that the old woman was still in such goodshape.

She spoke first, "I have been at my meditations. The lettersare always clearer at dawn, as they say, but one must arise tosee them, eh? You do not know the letters? The Godwrite of the ancient Hebrews, the cabalists: Hm. It is a defect youshould remedy. I should have preferred to speak with all ofyou last night, Morlenden Deren, but savoring as I do the subtle essence of second-thoughts, I think the better of themorning. I might have said more than I intended. Yes. I wasin haste, tired. One makes mistakes then, and in this matter there must be no more."

"The matter is . . . ?"

"To be revealed to you all. It is no light thing, but something all the adults among you must decide. It will seem likenothing at first, but I fear it will become a burden beyondbearing before you are done with it, if you agree to it. There are unsuspected depths in it, and once committed, yoursilence must be absolute. But for the now, let us return to the yos of the Derens and gather a good meal. I am hungry, andcan lay to rest the horrid legend that elders subsist upon nothing more than a diet of boiled clabber, lentils, groats, and spurge."

Morlenden redundantly indicated the way she should go, and they went down the path to the yos. As they neared the stairwell on the downhill side of it, Kaldherman emerged, rubbing his eyes.

He looked at them sleepily and said, between yawns, "I seethat you two are the early birds. The girls are, however, yetabed. Ayali is now snoring in a most girlish manner, but youdon't have to say that I was the one who told you. They proved impossible to awaken. Peth and Sanjirmil have temporarily buried the knife and are busy at the hearth: I imagine we shall prove the poorer for it, but at the least we shallbe well-fed."

From within the yos, they could hear a voice floating bodilessly, saying, "I'm coming, I'm coming, just this minute!"

Morlenden asked the Perwathwiy, "Where will you take yours?"

"You require an answer? On the stairs, here, of course. Finish yours and join me here, in the yard, without the children. Only Sanjirmil will witness for the Zanklaron*."

* "Players of the Life Game," the manner in which both PlayerBraids were referred to collectively.

Morlenden reflected a moment, then asked, Then you didn't come all the way down here to remonstrate with me about the Derens keeping elder records of enlistments and transitions."

"Hardly. On that I should approach Fellirian anyway. She is Klandorh, is she not? But on that subject, yes, I know Ihave hectored you for years, and I will doubtless continue.All of you Derens are stubborn, whether born to the role orwoven to it. It is a most important matter, ever on our minds,but rest assured that I would not walk leagues in the rain tohector you some more. This, in fact, may change the requirements . . . but never mind. Go and see that all are fed. I have far yet to go, and one among you may indeed have to go farther."

And not long afterward, with everyone up and about andfed (as Kaldherman had predicted, with a stock of the sausages he and Morlenden had put up), the four Deren adultsjoined the elder Perwathwiy and Sanjirmil, who were waitingsilently by the creek a little below the yos, out of earshot, so they hoped, of the curious adolescents required to stay behind.

As the Derens approached, the Perwathwiy continued tokeep her silence, appearing to listen to the creek, as if meditating, choosing her words. The sound of the rushing waterfilled the cool air. Then Perwathwiy turned and stared at them pointedly, finally speaking.

"Dragonfly Lodge, with the cooperation and encouragement of Braids Reven, Perklaren, and Terklaren, has empowered me to request of our community registrars the finding ofa person. This is to be regarded as a most important thaydh*for which Klanderen will be compensated. Mielhaltalon** to determine the whereabouts, fate thereof, or confirmation of transition of this person, restoring aforementioned person tous, specifically Dragonfly Lodge, if alive. I may say no morethan this. We are on very dangerous ground here, and sincewe have no police as such, decision was made and implemented to come to you. You know everyone, you trace relationships, and in addition are known to be adventurous and resourceful."

* Literally, a quest.
** Fourteen to the third power grams of gold. Approximately 2.75 kilos. Considering that most transactions were valued in fourteenths of a tal, such a sum was beyond counting.

At this last remark, a fine description to be sure, everyone save Cannialin raised their eyebrows. Yes, save Cannialin.She lived entirely in the present, never anticipating, and thus was almost never surprised, neither at the things people said,nor what they did. It was all one.

Perwathwiy paused. Then she said, "Upon your concurrence, you will receive from myself a packet containing a name on a slip of paper. What say you?"

They did not answer. The hint of danger, the secrecy, allput them off; but the amount offered for the service was evenmore astounding than all of these, for nothing any of them could imagine could cost hardly more than a tal of gold, andhere were offered, in decimals, 2,744 of them. Of the Derens, Fellirian was the most shocked, for she was accustomed in part to the standing-wave inflation of the human world and its corresponding devaluation of currency. In 2550, with such an amount in pure gold, Fellirian could have bought outright title to every building in Seaboard South Region.Even having so much to offer was unimaginable.

But she was first to find her voice. "And why us? Or perhaps I should ask, why not you yourself or the parties yourepresent?"

The Perwathwiy answered forthrightly: "Eventually, someone will have to trace these things out You have all the records and, moreover, you are all used to meeting people, going among them, ferreting out relationships. You are known everywhere, trusted, and hence will be able to make discreet inquiries. Most importantly, you are now and initiallyignorant of certain aspects of this affair, aspects which may well turn out to be matters of survival. Our survival. We think that eventually you will have to go outside, which Fellirian does weekly, and it will arouse no particular suspicion.And why not one of us? We do not wish it known that it iswe who are interested in this person. We suspect foul play."

Kaldherman said, "Dangerous then, is it? To you, but notso to us?"

The Perwathwiy looked away, to the sun, now clearing thebranches of the trees and casting a golden morning light intothe yard below the yos. Then she looked back. "Of course there can be danger to you. Possible. But certain if, for example, I walk through the Institute gate into the outside. Butthen, there is danger in all things; even an innocent trip tothe outhouse can be full of perils: witness the uncut root inthe pathway of the Derens."

Fellirian said, "Come now. We ask specifics, and in returnreceive the parables of a hermetic philosopher, which in thiscase we all know as well as you. Especially the famous root,which is not the peril of the Derens so much as a pet of Morlenden's. Speak straightly or not at all: danger or not?"

She answered, "Yes." But her answer was framed in a quiet and suddenly respectful voice. Fellirian was a personof regard even in the circles in which the Perwathwiy moved,both for reasons widely known and for some not so well-known, and she well knew them both. "Yes, it is so. Verylikely. The one whom you will seek was an adept, one of us.

You will have to be discreet . . . indeed, secretive would not be the wrong wordings-way of it. And of what you uncover,you will speak of it to none, save in whispers among yourselves. And you will make your report to the Reven, who willcorrect you if you have gone astray too far. And you muststart soon, for yesterday is almost too late. We have tarried overlong, and I admit the responsibility."

Morlenden sensed a sudden weakness, but he did not let her off, but pursued her, his hard, angular face becomingharsh, his voice keen and peremptory. "We are not armoredknights as the humans of old, to set out on fearsome horsesto the ends of the Earth. We know this little reservation to be a large place when one must cover it on foot, and look underevery sparkleberry bush. And the outside?"

"Say I that the ends of the Earth may well not be limit enough. If we are too late, it could be to the ends of the universe. . . . But say it so now: will you do this thing? Theprice alone should convince you of our seriousness. It is thelargest sum in our history ever paid for anything."

Fellirian asked shrewdly, "Will we be here to collect it? And having collected it, can we survive it?"The Perwathwiy looked at her directly. "To the first, yes.To the second . . . only you know the answer to that."

She said no more, and to emphasize the point, withdrew alittle from the group, and turned away to contemplate thewaters of the creek. Sanjirmil also turned away. The messageof these gestures was not lost on them. As poor as the data was, now they had to decide based upon it. They moved back, instinctively, closer to the yos, and spoke in whispers among themselves.

At first, they defined basic positions each of them held, tobegin the discussion. Cannialin was against it, calmly butopenly apprehensive. Kaldherman was mocking and skeptical,openly hostile. They could refuse it, and he knew it. His votewas for sending the old woman back with a head ringing withvulgar instructions, most of which would be impossible for herto assume anyway. Fellirian was suspicious, but also carryingthe reverse of the coin of suspicion, the obverse of curiosity.She sensed what difficulty it had been for one of the proudand distant Dragonfly Lodge to walk in humility halfwayacross the reservation, and start a sequence in motion whichwould certainly lead to the Derens being included in one ofthe arcane secrets of the Gameplayers. She did not know ifshe really wanted to know. But there was no denying the old woman's desperation. Nor the importance of the matter. Onecould not imagine what would bring them to offer so much—for the finding of a person. What had this person done? What had happened?

Morlenden, at first against it, shifted to favoring the proposal, and even argued for it. But he remained almost as hostile as Kaldherman, mentioning many reservations, so that they could all evaluate and decide cleanly. While they talked,he glanced in the direction of Sanjirmil and the Perwathwiy,trying to read something in their faces, derive some little hintof it. But the faces were blank and empty. Once Morlendenhad seen pictures in a book, statues carved by humans on some empty and faraway isle. Easter Island. Their faces looked like that. Empty, fixed on the level horizon of the endless sea, terrifying in their impassivity. Rather, Perwathwiy's. Sanjirmil showed the same, but it was only a veneer,and underneath there was too much. Panic, desperation, fear?He could not guess. She would not meet his eyes, would giveno sign, not even of recognition.

He knew that they knew. The Derens could refuse this, even though the Revens were involved, because in the language of the proposal, the word had been thaydh . . . a quest,not a mission. A hope, not a command. But even if they hadcommanded, they had little enough power to enforce it without the support of the Derens, for outside pure physical punishments, the main penalty was disenfranchisement, and onecould not disenfranchise the franchisers themselves. . . . He looked back to Sanjirmil. He saw only the haughty, arrogantface, with its sharp angles and thin lines. Strong and predatory. The dark olive of her skin, her deep eyes, framed indeep black hair, long for an adolescent, now considerably below ear level, with its bluish highlights in the sun. He turnedhis attention back to the group, where the tide had turned infavor of the proposal of Perwathwiy. They did not accept itgladly, or enthusiastically. But they agreed in the end to do it.

Fellirian left the group and walked to where the Perwathwiy was standing, apart, by the creek, formally, as befitted the head of Braid, speaking for the Braid. She said, "We will do it. Rathaydhoya. We will go questing." She had deliberately configured her assent as a verb of motion, transformingthe noun thaydh thus so there would be no mistaking what she thought of it. Perwathwiy nodded, agreeing with Fellirian's selection of words. Verb of motion, indeed, it would be, before they were through with it

There were no formalities, no speeches, and there was noparticular change in the face of the elder. Indeed, if anything,there seemed to be regrets on the face of the Perwathwiy.Upon Sanjirmil's face, there appeared most briefly somethingtoo swift, a grimace, a shiver of revulsion, perhaps, but it wastoo swift to be sure. It was gone before any of them could read it. Morlenden, who had seen that face better and closer than any of them, saw nothing familiar in it, but somethingalien for a moment, then taken away.

Perwathwiy spoke. "Then, good, although it pains me. Youwill be paid in full upon completion. Delivery or report. NowI must return to Dragonfly and report to the Gathering, theDark Council. Here is the^acket. Good hunting."

She turned and began walking briskly toward the shed where she had left her meager parcel of worldly traveling goods. Sanjirmil broke and ran, suddenly, like a frightened animal, to the yos to gather her own things, racing up the stairs. Almost immediately she reappeared, ran breathlesslydown the stairs, and took off after the Perwathwiy, who hadalready started out along the path upward. Catching up withthe elder, the younger girl turned back only once, and fixedMorlenden with another odd expression on her face, an intentstare, blended with the odd scanning visage of her eyes, whichthe older Players seemed to lose. But whether it was an expression of sorrow, regret, or perhaps anger, he could not tell.They walked over the top of the path and behind the ridge,and then they were gone. . . .

Fellirian held the packet—containing what? She said thoughtfully, "You know, I got the idea they personally didnot want us to take this. Especially that Sanjirmil."

Morlenden agreed. "I as well. All the more reason why weshould take it," he added gruffly.

Fellirian said, "I think Mor and I should look at this and decide some things now, at least start the work. Do you allagree?"

Kaldherman said, "Fine with me." Cannialin nodded assent. And added mischievously, "Call me when Perwathwiy'sdanger shows up. I'll bring my chicken-splitting knife." This was not completely in jest, for she was fearsomely handywith the narrow blade with which she dispatched the Braid fowls. The two of them climbed the stairs and went into the

yos.

Fellirian exhaled deeply, and opened the packet. Inside there was a slip of paper, bearing one word. A name; in childish, almost rude capital letters: MAELLENKLETH. That was all. Nothing else. No honorific, to determine sex; noBraid name to determine family line. Fellirian muttered toherself and handed the slip to Morlenden.

He took the slip from her and squinted at it owlishly for amoment, as if expecting it to talk to him. He looked at Fellirian, then said, "Female, insibling, Braid Perklaren. Right,Klandorh?" She nodded. "We'll check, of course. I want to review everything about this one, but I believe that's the one.Adolescent, as I recall."

Fellirian agreed. "About twenty. I know her, but not well.She spent some time at the Institute, same as I. Somewhere down in Research. I have no idea what she did. But we should look up all the facts, make sure. I want to see if we can . . . see what we're getting into."

"Agreed. Shall we start today?"

"You heard the Perwathwiy even as I. Are you up to it?"

"You bet. She was agitated enough. Let's see what we have

here."

The recordium was in a third sleeper built into the yos of the Derens, being added on between the children's sleeperand the one of the parent generation. It was not on a higherlevel than the hearthroom, as were the real sleepers, but lower, in fact mostly underground, reached by a short companionway delving downward. It was also the only place inthe yos where there was a door. A locked one. Inside, there were standing shelves of small and large ledgers, roll-racks containing various scrolls, charts of Braidholds, flowery familytrees, all recorded more or less alike, according to what wasbeing recorded, but embellished by the individualisms of threehundred years and more of Derens, each with different talentand desires to apply to the problem. There Morlenden rummaged absentmindedly among the shelves and racks, humming an aimlesss song to himself, while Fellirian held the lantern. There was a musty odor of old paper and dust in the air.

"Hm ... dum de dum de dum . . . m-hm!Yes. Here it is! I think," he said, pulling out a large, rather new volume,opening it, and leafing through the pages, stopping at last, following down the page with his middle finger, still half talking to himself, which was a habit of his that infuriated Fellirian. He ruminated. "... May, Maen . . . yes, Mael. Mael Len-Kleth, 'Apple-skin scent,' aspect Sanh, Water. Born in the summer, yes, here it is, Human Calendar, 2530, My fifth.Let's see, the generation-totem is . . . right, here it is, way over here." He looked aside at Fellirian. "Who did this record? Everything's out of place, all strewn over the page.Never mind, I can find it. Generation-totem is Muth, Condor. They all use birds for totems, eh? That is the last one shown."

Fellirian said, "Yes, that's the last one. And what's to prevent them from using birds for generation-totems? We use thenames of the trees for the Derens and no one questions it."

"Nothing, nothing. But it just seems odd, that's all, especially since they stick to it so rigidly. Does that go all theway back?"

"I believe it does. The Terklarens, too. There is a letter of agreement in there somewhere, where they agree to use different sequences, so they won't have the same totem in use atthe same time in both Braids."

"What I mean is why the symbolism of birds? We use thesymbolism of trees because that's where we get paper from,from the plantation back over the hill. But what the hell dobirds have to do with Gameplaying?"

"Well, how should I know, Morlenden? We don't have anysay in it. They choose what they wish.""I was just asking, was all. You said, 'last one.' What wasthat?"

"I remember now, there was something out of sorts with that generation. Like two female insiblings. The other one's name was Mev-something. It will be in the Braidbook. MevLarnan, perhaps. I'm not sure. I didn't make the entry. Iheard Kadh'Elagi talking about it once, but I really wasn'tlistening to him."

Morenden replaced the ledger on its shelf, carefully. Thenhe turned to another shelf, bearing others, rummaged againfor a time, but now not absentminded, instead rather more intent. He found the volume quickly. On the spine, the namePERKLAREN was labelled neatly. Per Klarh (Gh)en. Earth aspect, he assumed—thinking of the popular association of the name: the Gameplayers.

Of course, any root word in Singlespeech had at least fourmeanings, mostly according to aspect, and many had more than that. Something tugged at Morlenden's mind, the totem of birds that had bothered him a moment ago. The rootklarh- was no different. "Play," as with some game, was only one of its meanings. Earth aspect. In Fire aspect, the root meant "Fly," whence the association of birds.... Nothingconnected. Insects also flew, and bats as well, and, for the matter, airships and the like, and they could have used thoseas well. Odd people, those Players, all of them. Secretive andeccentric. He let the speculation go. There was certainly moreto the Player Braids than wordplay on the meaning of names,which few took seriously anymore, even those professionallyinterested in it. And what did they, do, anyway? They alone had no functional relationship with anybody else—just witheach other, although they did some barter for various things.All they had to do was play their Game in public, severaltimes a year, and contribute to an elaborate discipline calledGamethink, which no one outside their environment knew or cared anything about

Morlenden supposed some took an interest in it but he never had. It was interesting enough, the Game, if somewhat too abstract for Morlenden's tastes, and Fellirian's as well. Cannialin he knew to be totally ignorant of it; on the otherhand, Kaldherman had been known to cast wagers uponGame outcomes. But since weaving into the Deren household, he had kept his vice at bay, or concealed. And he wassure that Kal knew no more about it than he did, however well he had followed it in the past. That was just it—eventhose who followed it knew little about it. They saw patternsdeveloping, upon a screen, controlled by some, while otherstried to disrupt the emerging pattern and its stable afterimages.

It was also generally known that at most times the Perklarens were favored to win, save in unusually bad years, butthe Terklarens seemed to collect the most spectator support.They drew their strengths from the crowd, as it were, while the Perklarens played from some unknown interior elan. Humans from outside sometimes attended the major tourneys,but Morlenden suspected that they followed it no better thanthe ler spectators.

He returned to the ledger he held in his hands. In the Perklaren Braidbook, he quickly located the most recent generation page, the last entries. The position of Nerh, elder outsibling, of the adolescent generation, was filled by a Klervondaf, Tlanh. The Thes was also Tlanh, listed as one Taskellan. The insiblings were both Srith, so listed as Maellenkleth Srith and Mevlannen Srith. A large asterisk was scrawled alongside their names in the margins, along with anote, apparently in Berlargir's hand, to the effect that special attention should be paid here, as if nothing intervened, thesegirls would be the last bearers of the Perklaren name.

Morlenden looked at the entry again, then turned and showed it to Fellirian. He said, "Now wait. This Maellenkleth we have to locate: She is a First-player insibling, but herBraid is terminating. And she also goes down to the Institute?How much of this does Vance know?"

"Hardly anything, I imagine. She only substituted for meonce or twice. He would know that she worked in Research, when she came at all. She was never a regular. Remember, Vance is one of their pure management types: prefers not to get involved with the technicians, as they say. Now, Morlenden, don't look at me like I wasn't all here; that's the way they do things down there."

Morlenden's mind suddenly went off along another tangent,the manner of human management theory suddenly laid aside. "What was it she did in Research?"

"Its full name is Research and Development. Something todo with space flight, I think."

"What interest could she have in that? Unless it's all more of this traditional Player eccentricity. Or terminal generationlunacy. Now there is truly erratic behavior."

He placed the Perklaren ledger back on its shelf, abstracted and thoughtful. For a long time he remained in that position, one hand on the shelf, the other reflectively scratchinghis chin, his eyes focused off somewhere in empty space.

Finally he said, "I don't think we're going to find much ofher inside. She's got to be outside somewhere. It makes it alot harder: that's a big world out there if we have to do thelooking. Do those folk have some sort of tracing system?"

"Well, yes, they do. A fearsome great thing, too. But it can be beaten, if one if willing to go to some trouble, and do without. I could beat it easily."

"You know it well. But how much could she know?"

"Why do you think outside?"

"If she was an everyday sort of a person, very much likeyou and I, she would remain inside, like the rest of us. What reason do we have? But she's missing, and for some time. Remember the Perwathwiy—'Yesterday may have been too late to start.' And they can't find her—which means they'velooked inside, themselves, in the places where she might be expected to be. And they wasted a lot of time doing it, too, yes?But she's missing, and obviously important for such a price."

"Very well, I follow and agree so far. But someone still hasto start inside." "Oh, yes. If for nothing else than to find out somethingabout her. I don't even know what she looks like."

"I can give you a Multispeech image of her, but it's not agood one, because as you know I am npt that good at Multi-speech, and also because I never saw her closely, or paidmuch attention to her. You have to get a good image. I suppose what I could transmit to you wouldn't distinguish her from Sanjirmil."

"Why Sanjirmil?"

"They don't really resemble one another, but there are enough basic similarities that in a vague-image it would confuse them in your mind."

"Hm. No, thank you, Fel, no Multispeech, if you please.If I have to put up with that, I want something good for theindignity. Well want a good one, from someone who knew her well. Recently. We should start, I suppose, with the Perklarens, and then go on to her friends, lovers, and the like.. . . Fellir, I really do smell something unsavory here, and Iwant to talk to some of them first, to see if I can feel out what we are getting into. Danger, the Perwathwiy said, andhedged when it was referred to us."

"Indeed. I feel similarly. This could be a sticky business,one you and I really have no business in. And ..."

"And?"

"I don't know why it should all be so mysterious. I mean,from Perwathwiy. And why not her own Braid, Morlenden?" "Yes, go on." "It's . . . deceptive. We haven't been told everything." "We've been told damn near nothing." "What's the word I'm looking for? It's something that draws attention, but it's not the real thing."

"Decoys," he said, after a pause. "So how do you call it?"

"I say start inside, soon, today, if you feel up to it. Tomorrow, for certain, no later. I'll await you and return to the Institute and see what I can find." Morlenden groaned aloud. "Back on the road! What a beast you've become!" "Don't complain so. I've got to go back, too, and but for the walking, you have the easy part." "You always say that, Fel, but the mono never seems to go to the places I have to visit At the least, you get to ride."

"You wouldn't like the environment. I've been outside, and I know. / don't like it."

"All right, then, settled." He paused for a moment, motioning to her to start leaving the recordium. As she turned andopened the door, he said, half to himself, "And if I get started, I can get there tonight."

Fellirian turned around. "Where?"

"The Perklarens, of course."

The two of them left the recordium and closed the door securely. Then, with the help of Kaldherman and Cannialin, they began to assemble the things Morlenden would need fora short-notice trip upcountry. Some food, extra clothing, an undershift for winter. His worn rucksack. Kaldherman accompanied him out into the yard, where the morning was wearing on into midday.

"You sure you don't need some help?"

"Not now, anyway. This shouldn't be anything but a briskwalk, some talk, some more walking. But never fear, Kal. Later on, this may require all of us."

"Strokes and blows, perhaps?"

"Eyes and ears and sharp wits, which you've as much of asfists and truncheons. Be readyl and I'll be back in a day orso."

"It will be as you say . . . keep your eyes open, yourself,Mor. It would appear there's something afoot. There may bethose who don't care for your questions."

"I'll do that." He waved at Kaldherman and set off.

SEVEN

The Game requires for definition five parameters that describe any conceivable individually specified game. These are: Dimension, Tesselation, States, Surround, and Transition-processes. There are two more supplementaryparameters, nondefining, which are necessary to operate a given game. These two are Symbolism and Analysis.

Dimension sets the dimensional matrix in which a Game occurs—within a linear sequence, upon a surface, throughout a solid, in and about an n-dimensional matrix. Tesselation defines how the dimension is subdivided. Linear sequences subdivide into bauds, which are the cellular units. Surfaces subdivide into familiar plane geometric figures, such as triangles, tetragons, pentagons, (never regular) and hexagons; but one should bear in mind that there can be many surfaces that are still two-dimensional. There are Euclidean surfaces, and also hyperbolic, parabolic, ellipsoidal, and spherical. Similar breakdowns also occur in volumes and n-dimensional matrices.

We have spoken of things that have either theoretical or practical limits. Now come parameters that have no limits of either kind. State refers to the number of conditions possible to a cell; it can be the most simple—as binary, on and off—or each cell can assume more states. In certain Games, different cells mayeven have differing states. Surround is that number of surrounding cells that influence and cause changes of state in a given reference cell. A Surround might be immediately adjacent to the reference cell; likewise, it also might be deployed some distance from the reference cell. It could also be asymmetrical, or changing.

Transition-processes are the rules that determine change. They may be as simple or as complex as one desires: simple summations with distributions of actions determined by decision-points on a probability curve of distributions. Or they might be instructional programs withhundreds of steps and subprocesses. Interweaving both summation of conditions in the surrounding cells With consideration of the position of these conditions.

Symbolism pertains to the system by which one orders one's perception of these parameters. Analysis is the study, comprehension, and prediction of whole-conditions within a Game. Symbolism and Analysis, considered in the abstract, define nothing; but without them, nothing

can become, in our minds, which is the only theater of action. —Elementary Definitions

Morlenden set out walking in the ground-covering stride heused for distance walks to the more remote portions of the reservation, reviewing in his mind as he went the things hewanted to determine or, at the least, build a handle on. When he had a complex problem to consider, he could become quite oblivious to his surroundings, and this time was such anoccasion; he disregarded, and then ignored, all of the things he usually looked for along his trips in the field: certain angles of view across fields, patterns of sunlight into grovesof trees, hills and knolls of unique shape whose aspect had not been noticed before. This was a common diversion among the ler of all ages, and indeed, an elaborately structured art form was built upon this Aspectualism, as theysometimes referred to it. Morlenden was no dedicated savant of the art, nor of its near relative, the Practice of Subtle Bowering; nevertheless he was fond of dabbling in Aspectualism, and always recalled especially fine places he had discovered along his many travels within the reservation.

He became so absorbed in the problem at hand that hequite forgot in what direction he was heading, and the rate ofhis progression, and before he could notice it, he had progressed quite far northward and westward along the MainCentral Longitudinal Path, and had, in fact, began to angledownward into the valley of the Hvar. Long, open vistas across open fields began to replace the hill-and-dale views that had been passing by him unnoticed. While this progresspleased him greatly, as it was cutting down the time he would have to be on the road, he recalled with a jerk, stopping suddenly in the middle of the path, that the Perwathwiyand Sanjirmil had also departed northward along the same pathway, and had only about two hours' start on him. Perwathwiy was a hardy old goat, he thought, but not all thatfast on the road. And he did not wish to meet either of them again today, especially Sanjirmil. True, many years had passed,and little contact had occurred between them, yet Morlenden also remembered vividly. And just as vividly rememberedthe Sanjirmil of the last twenty-four hours, with her dour, pinched, unreadable expression, and her brooding, withdrawnsilences . . . not the best of circumstances in which to sit to

gether in a sunny glade along the path and reminisce about the sweaty pleasures of the past, the soaring flights of emotionthey had known for the short time allotted to them, the dreams and fantasies they had whiled away the days with. He had always wanted to see her again; but today did notseem appropriate. There had fallen an opaque screen betweenthem, and through it he could glimpse her shadow onlydimly. She had seemed to have the same problem seeing him....

Morlenden looked ahead, and across the lower country immediately to the west, falling away to the line of trees that hid the watercourse of the Hvar. Today, now, everythingseemed empty and peaceful, devoid of throngs, bands, and solitaries. The only sign of life he could see was some faintsmoke far to the west, a bluish, smudgy haze, as if someonehad a late smokehouse going. He reflected, looking about forcues from the landscape. Yes, he thought, orienting himself effortlessly out of the detailed mnemonic landscape built upon total recall of thousands of trips. This would be the country of Velsozlun, where conjoined the Hvar and the Garvey. Just ahead. And the smoke would be most likely of the forge of Braid Sidhen, the ironworkers, or the Kvemen, the charcoaleers. Fine people, salt of the Earth. Ought to drop in on the way back, just to say hello.

But not today. He had a long way to go yet. Morlendenstarted off, resuming his long stride, picking up speed slowly,feeling the right pace set in, at last swiftly moving down toward the joining of the rivers.

For a time some new-growth trees and the turnings of thepathway obscured his distant view, but it was no matter; theair was fine and crisp, the sky was clear, and the afternoonslants of sunlight across the valley of the Hvar lent a subtle,old-gold patina across the aspects of bare trunks and branches, drifts of fallen leaves, quick flashes of hints of openness, and a deepening of tone in the shadows and tree-crowded forest, as if the whole were under water of the most crystalline clarity. He began to feel expansive and energetic, and confidently strode forward.

Ahead, the path lowered, curved, straightened for its plungeacross the Terbruz, the double bridges across the Hvar and the Garvey, just above their confluence. Beyond, the pathwayturned to the left, changing its direction more to the west. Morlenden stopped abruptly, peering ahead, all enjoymentsuddenly set aside. On the point between the rivers a figure was standing, as if in contemplation, the recognition patternsof its stance and clothing broken up by a spattering of shadows from the liriodendrons across the Hvar, and the leaves on the ground, dropped by the winds. The person was not turned so that he or she could see. him. Morlenden walked very slowly, as silently as he could, letting his drifttake him toward cover as he moved closer to the Terbruz. Time began to slow, and his sense of progress with it. Sun, so still and fixed, began to crawl across the sky. The shadows lengthened. Morlenden crept as close as he dared. The still figure remained as if carved from an old deodar stump.

The afternoon wore on fractionally. Without anticipation,the person ahead suddenly moved, as if unfreezing, flexed itself, and looked about. Perwathwiy! The old woman lookedabout, as if reassuring herself that she had not been observed. What had she been doing? Meditating? Morlenden did not know. She set out confidently, if somewhat slowly and carefully, not across the bridges, but northward along a barely visible pathlet running between the rivers. Morlenden remained where he was, sure that she had not seen him, for her glancehad been cursory, a quick scan across the directions, nothing more. He felt embarrassed, hiding fron an old woman. He watched the Perwathwiy fading into the distant jumble of undergrowth and tangled hillside, finally disappearing. He straightened. Not once had she looked back. He began moving forward, watching cautiously, listening. No. She was gone, out of sight. He resumed his walk, his gestalt perceptions shouting a fact at him. Sanjirmil had not been with theold woman.

Something about this nagged at his mind. He dismissed it.Why should she remain with the Perwathwiy? Her business was done—she had witnessed for the active Players, Perklaren and Terklaren alike, although Morlenden felt uncomfortable with that as well. Why should a rival witness foranother Braid? For the moment, he dismissed this as another odd quirk of the eccentric Player Braids, and continued alonghis way into the golden light of the late afternoon west, passing under the great, tall boles of the riverside liriodendrons.True, this dismissal, he realized, was but provisional, but sowas so much else in life, and he had miles yet to walk. Heemerged into the open and increased his pace.

Perhaps, he thought, with a sly little chuckle, Sanjir has found someone else who will whisper "Ajimi" softly in her caramel-colored ear.

The sun drifted, settled, waddled along the horizon bristling with tree branches, reddened in the industrial haze outof the far west, and faded as one looked at it. Morlenden did not stop for supper, preferring to continue and go as far as he could. Twilight lingered, deepened. Night came and the stars came out. All vestiges of afterglow vanished from thewest and north. It grew colder. The air, mostly calm all day,grew utterly still. Morlenden's hearing expanded in the crystalline darkness, reaching out into the passing country, evolving from fields and alternating forests to a country even more sparsely habited and partially returned to the wild. Hethought he could glimpse, under the stars and the sky-glowalong the horizon, the bulking of the ridgeline that terminated in the fabled Mountain of Madness, Grozgor. Morlenden shivered, not entirely from the cold, for he was walkingalong at a hard, driving pace, now. No, not the cold. They didn't venture along the slopes of Grozgor, none of them. There were tales, superstitions, legends. The whole reservationwas riddled with ancient ghost stories learned from the last ofthe humans who had lived in the area, and passed on unforgotten and embellished for several hundred years. Of coursehe did not believe all of them. But neither did he care to cross Grozgor at night. It was reputed to be the haunt of Players taken by strange and fey moods—they came at nightto restore their vision, whatever one could make of that.

The yos of the Braid Perklaren was located in the northwest of the reservation, close under the southern slope ofGrozgor. Across the mountain, the ridgeline, lay the holdingof the Terklarens. Not far away, north and east somewhere, was Dragonfly Lodge. More to the east was the holding of the Reven, the ruling Braid. Morlenden had never been to any of them before. This was called the lake country, although the arm of the lake that had once extended eastwardfrom the Yadh to the west had long since silted up and beenallowed to lower and dry out, forming a rich, though narrowplain, interrupted by ponds. Here the country was given overto pine cover, much of it of a variety of pine that formed, atmaturity, dense, umbrellalike canopies high up at the top ofthe trunks. This cover lent the land a hushed, covered quality,deep in shade, the dense canopy overhead seldom permittingmuch light to enter. At night, the high fronds shut out all light, making a dense and impenetrable darkness in whichMorlenden found some difficulty navigating.

Here, as in the rest of the reservation, they did not formtowns, for at the heart of the ler way of life lay the canons ofagricultural self-sufficiency. No matter what their role in theextended, low-density city that encompassed the entire society, each Braid and elder commune was expected to be in part a farmer, The solitaries became hunters and gatherers.Nevertheless, in certain areas, increases of density did occur.The lake country was one such area, as was Morlenden's ownneighborhood, the Flint Mountain area.

Under the trees, then, he could catch an occasional flash of light, broken up by the habit of the locals of situating theirdwellings in the middle of the densest groves of the oldest pines. But no more than those narrow, fleeting glimpses. Earlier, he had stopped and inquired of the location of the Perklarens, but now, in the dark, with landmarks gone, he wasn'tso sure. And the still air was getting noticeably colder; therewould be frost-heaves in the ground tomorrow. He passed a junction of the innumerable subtle pathways under the trees,an odd angle that seemed familiar, turned in the recommended direction. After an interminable stumbling walk, at last he arrived in the dooryard of someone's yos; whose, it would remain to be seen.

Morlenden stared ahead in the gloom under the trees; herethe meshed umbrellalike canopy overhead was so dense he could see virtually nothing, save the rounded shapes of the yos directly ahead. According to his directions, the Perklarenshad cultivated a privet-ligustrum as their ornamental yard-tree. If he could find that . . . yes, there was the pot. Hemoved closer, trying to make out the shape of it, looking forclues. And yes, sure enough, that was what it was, an ancientprivet-ligustrum so large it could not be taken in at a glance,its semievergreen canopy spreading overhead and blending invisibly with the dark canopy. He turned toward the yossomewhat more confidently. Dark or not, he would go up andbang on the door-gong. Dense under here, he thought. Morlenden was as fond of his shade as the next during the hot,bright days of summer, but he also liked to have a window open on the sky; he sensed something oppressive and closed in, dark and brooding, here under the pines. He also reflectedthat the wind would sound much differently here. And in the yos? There were lights in the back, not so many in the frontMissing was that sense of suppertime business, coming andgoing, the sounds of voices; the yos seemed enveloped in an air of half-abandonment, despite the lights. In fact, it seemed almost as if no one were at home.

Morlenden climbed the stairs to the entryway and pulledupon the thong of the guest-bell, this one being a weighty andimpressive terra-cotta affair suspended from a bracket that could have held up the whole yos. The bell rang with a deep,hollow, plangent reverberation that seemed to spread and dieaway, a soft, yet penetrating pulse of sound. The after-vibrations in the bell could not be heard, but they could be felt,and they continued, long after the original sound had fadedaway. He was about to ring it again, receiving no answer tothe first, when at last a face appeared at the door-flap. It wasa plain, very pale, rather awkwardly square face, framed intousled, curly brown hair. The face peeped out farther. It wasa girl, he thought.

"Yes?" she asked.

''Is this the yos of Klanh Perklaren?"

"Yes, it is," she admitted blandly. No more information was offered. The girl seemed to be slightly irritated with himfor being there. In a similar fashion, Morlenden likewise began to feel a slight irritation beginning to rise in himself. Here, of all places, what should he meet but the most blandand literal-minded of evasiveness. This infuriating oblique girlcould keep him standing outside in the night forever while heasked question after question.

He observed, "It is chilly tonight, is it not?"

"Oh, indeed it is."

"The traveler looks upon the house of a friend after a longjourney as his own, and dreams of food, beds, and talk among those who would share experiences."

The girl nodded, agreeing most pleasantly.

"So now. Were you a Perklaren, I would ask to be admitted within."

At this, the girl seemed to lose the air of bland bemusement, and brightened a little. It was, Morlenden thought, an excellent transformation, for once animated, the girl's plain face became extraordinarily pretty. She exclaimed. "Me? A Perklaren? Oh, no. Not by a long way and a half. Did youthink I was Mael? No? She doesn't live here anymore, I mean,she doesn't stay around here much...." She stopped, as, if she had perhaps said more than she had intended to. She continued, "But do come in. I think it would be all right." With that last remark, she vanished back into the yos, behind the door-flap.

Morlenden could hear her moving back into the other partsof the yos, calling to someone she named "Kler." Yes. This was the right place. That would be the Nerh, Klervondaf Tlanh Perklaren.

Morlenden pushed the door-flap aside and entered, pausingin the entryway to remove his boots. By the time he had finished taking off his outer walking clothes and entered the hearthroom proper, another person was climbing out of the children's compartment to meet him. Out of the children's compartment, that is, if they followed the same notions of left and right as did the Derens. The girl was peering aroundthe edge of the compartment entryway, looking at him withundisguised curiosity.

Morlenden imagined the newcomer to be Klervondaf, thePerklaren elder outsibling; Klervondaf was a late adolescent of slender build, rather dark complexion, and a long, mobileface that suggested considerable flexibility of expression.Morlenden knew him to be approximately twenty-five or so,but in some ways he looked much older. He carried himselfwith a weary diffidence that suggested many things. This one,he thought, knows much, or has had to do much, a long waybeyond what he expected. Klervondaf turned to face Morlenden, rearranging the front of his overshirt, looking at the visitor out of muddy brown eyes, a rarity among the ler.

He said, in a measured, careful manner, "I am Klervondaf Tlanh Perkleran, Nerh, and, for the moment, within the yos,responsible for Braid affairs. What was the matter you wished to discuss? If you are looking for the public house,you missed the turn back down on the main pathway; it is back down by the old dock."

Morlenden answered, "I am Morlenden Deren, Kadh and

Toorh."

"Aha! Of the Derens! I know of your Braid, sir. Have youcome," Klervondaf asked saturninely, "with weaving offersfor what remains of us?" In itself, the question was a curiousone, certainly made not less so by the trace of sarcasm underlying the boy's voice.

Morlenden answered diplomatically, "No, it is hardly that. At any rate, we are not weaving-brokers, but rather registrars. I am aware, though, in general, of the plight of your in-siblings, and have been on the lookout for suitable young menwho are to be available. But for the moment, let us disregardthat problem, for it is not for that I have come. I have something more immediate: Maellenkleth and Mevlannen."

"Mael and Mev? Oh?" His guard, invisible before, immediately became apparent. The boy added, "And what is it thata registrar would wish to know?"

Morlenden decided to proceed honestly. "In a word, everything you can offer me that would assist me in locating them,in particular Maellenkleth. She is now believed to be missing,and we Derens have been given a commission to find her. Ido not think it possible unless I have some idea of her life."

For some reason, this seemed to allay Klervondafs suspicions, and he relaxed somewhat. But not completely. "Thatwill take some time, yes, some time. Maellenkleth ..." He stopped abruptly and made a nervous little motion. "You must excuse my impoliteness. You must be tired, if you walked all the way up here, and hungry as well. Please sit,make this dwelling your own, to enjoy at your pleasure. I willfix some things."

The boy turned from Morlenden and said, over his shoulder, "Plindes, I hate to ask, but can you leave for a little while? I need someone to go down to the Rhalens and tell them to send Tas home."

A voice, belonging to the girl, answered from deeper withinthe yos. "Oh I suppose so." After a time, the pale-faced girlMorlenden had seen earlier behind the door-flap reappeared,dressed now in an outer overshirt as well. What he could sense of the concealed body beneath the heavy winter garment would have been pale-skinned and slender, somewhat like Peth, but older and a little more rounded, fractionally closer to adulthood. Her hair was indeed a muddy, rich brown, still tousled, full of undisciplined curls. She hurried by, unspeaking, pausing only briefly by Klervondaf to brushhis hand with hers. He returned the gesture shyly, and the girl departed the yos, pulling up the hood of her overshirt asshe slipped through the inner curtain of the entryway. Foranother few moments, Morlenden could hear her rummagingabout in the dark, finding her cloak and boots, but finally heheard her clatter down the stairs, and there was silence.

The boy waited, listening. Then he walked quietly to the entryway inner flap, looked sidelong through it, and then alsooutside, peering carefully through the outer flap. He returnedmomentarily and explained, "Plindestier and I are close enough, as doubltess you may see for yourself. But she is amost curious one and in this yos we do not speak overly loudof the doings of the Perklaren insiblings. I would not put itpast her to eavesdrop."

Morlenden asked, to pass some small talk and set the boymore at ease, "Have you been lovers long?"

"Off and on," he said, noncommittally, and busied himselfwith the task of adding some more wood to the hearth fire. After a bit, he added, almost disarmingly and candidly, "Plindestier is excessively shy and I effectively have no Braid. Weconsole one another." He checked the teapot to ensure there was enough water within to prepare an infusion, then turnedback to Morlenden, who was sitting on a hassock, idly lookingabout the hearthroom.

Hearthrooms were, as a rule, laid out in much the same fashion no matter whose yos. But as Morlenden looked about this one, he could not escape the impression that there was something about this one that set it off. For instance, the decorations around the walls. It was considered traditional to clothe the bare walls of the hearthroom with antique geometric patterns, or at the least deviation from this, simple woventapestries illustrating stereotyped religious images. Where thisone differed was in two striking aspects. The first was that thewalls displayed several excellent photographs, startlingly clearand beautifully mounted, of objects in the night sky. Morlenden knew that they were images of stars or starlike objects,but he recognized none of them; they were obviously greatlymagnified. One appeared to depict a violent explosion somewhere in deep space, the tangled streamers of its detonationwrithing outward into space, glowing with blues and violets. Others seemed to be large and small groups of stars, some ofthe assemblies globular in shape, others of loose, random associations, with tantalizing suggestions of an order that was, or might be yet to come.

The other difference was more subtle, for after all these were indeed woven wall-hangings. But unlike all others he had seen, these seemed to be representations of Game patterns. They were, one and all, strikingly suggestive, but Morlenden couldn't quite see through the symbolism into exactlywhat it was they suggested. Some were of a single color; others showed wild variation of hue and texture.

Klervondaf waited politely for Morlenden to finish looking.Finally, sensing an appropriate moment, he asked, "You wished to become knowledgeable about Maellenkleth and Mevlannen?"

"Yes, I did. Excuse my inattention. I was admiring the finepictures." "The photographs are the work of Mevlannen; she is a

photographer of some note as well as other things. On theother hand, the Game tapestries are Maellenkleth's.""It is in both cases admirable work, I agree. But with the girls, where is it that we begin?"

"Best at the beginning, less some minor things you wouldnot wish to burden yourself with. So, then. As you know aswell as I, at the vrentoordesh*, both insiblings turned out to be female. Had conditions been as in the expected norm, of course the insiblings would have commenced instruction inearnest at fifteen and would by now be deep in the Game, playing at least in the novice class in exhibitions and tournaments. But for many reasons, it was decided not to go this way with Mael and Mev."

* Literally, "Season of Insibling-birth." A time of great stress.

"Curious, that. I am no enthusiast, I confess, but I have seen Games in which both centers were female. They couldhave played .,."

"True, but only until weaving-time. And consider," he added with a minatory gesture of the hand, waving it didactically, "it surely would have done no one any good to becometournament level Players and then find themselves in, say,Braid Susen."

"I understand that a hog-farmer would probably have littleuse for the esoterica of Game enigmas."

"Exactly. And concurrently, decision was made to allow future Games to be conducted under the aegis of Klanh Terklaren, which will be renamed simply Klaren, as soon as Taskellan can be woven. After that, the Game is intended to come to an end, which will necessitate the reorientation of the Terklaren-Klarens. But that will be later; there are some final actions to be taken before termination of the program."

"Ended? Just like that?"

"The utility of it has, I understand, come to an end; perhaps more properly, I should say, will come to an end." Klervondaf stopped momentarily. "Understand, I am not the originator of these plans, nor was I included in any discussionof them. I relate to you such as I have been told."

Morlenden mused, "Since this will involve considerable manipulations of Braid-lines and -roles, I would imagine at that the Revens are deeply involved and fully knowledgeable."

After some hesitation, Klervondaf concurred. "Yes, of course. So in our case, the Perklarens, the parents picked up certain terminal commitments, and began spending most of their time with the Past Masters, developing the Game further. So they seldom sojourn here, but are busy with affairs.As you can imagine, as the carriers of the Perklaren traditions, they possess considerable lore, most of it carried solelyin the minds of insiblings, to be passed on verbally and secretly in the initiation and weaving ceremonies. Much of this must be recorded, transcribed, analyzed, recorded for posterity."

"Strategy and tactics ...""That which enabled us to keep the Terklarens in theirplace during most of the history of the Game."

"They are zealous and dedicated indeed, to so cleave to a dying Game and leave the four of you children to fend foryourselves."

"Zeal and dedication? Indeed. So are we all." He added the last vigorously, as if now expressing his own feelings. "Andspeaking for myself and Mael, I should wish it no other way,given what has been. Considering circumstances and plans, the configuration of eventing, what we have done has beengenerally for the best. Of course, they spent much more timewith us all when we were younger; we were not abandoned, nor are we hifzer waifs, by any means. For the past several years, I have been in charge of Braid affairs outside-Game, and nominally over the two girls. And I have raised Taskellan."

"You said, 'nominally.'"

"Yes . . . Mevlannen is perhaps the easiest to explain. Andif you require, easiest to find. Now let me explain: the Gameis a game, true enough, but it is rather intricate and multiplex, and capable of truly bottomless subtleties. Therefore each who enters it comes to see different things in it. Some seemusic; others, language. Still others, life processes; and others,chemistry and the like. Mevlannen saw science and technology. And gradually, she drifted that way, into the life of a researcher, a technician, an engineer. We ler do not developthose modes save in certain elder lodges, so for fulfillment she would have had a long wait, and Mevlannen is not, may Isay, particularly patient of nature. She made contacts throughthe Institute, entered, became knowledgeable in astrophysicsand optics; other things, too. Two years ago she joined the human Trojan Project in those capacities, and so went to space. We hear from her still, occasionally, but ever more rarely. I do not know her intentions for weaving, which would occur in ten years, more or less; she has lived in the

human world for some time and has naturally acquired some

of their values."

"What is the Trojan Project?"

"As I understand it, the humans are building a large tele

scope system, multiband, in the trailing Trojan position,

equidistant from Earth and the moon. They are not finished

with it yet. It is, just the telescope proper, so large that it had

to be sent up piecemeal and assembled in place. Mev was in

charge of the optical systems . . . in fact she developed the

mirror material that would make such a large structure pos

sible in the first place."

Morlenden expressed astonishment. "Mevlannen? An as

tronaut? Working in space?" He was truly incredulous.

"Indeed just so. Rest assured, we are not less astounded. She spends little enough time on the ground anymore . . . her base is on the West Coast somewhere, close by the launch siteand the fabricating works, and of course she spends most ofher time there now."

"And what about Maellenkleth? Did she go also to the humans to learn the mongering of strange metals?"

"Into space? No, unless you could call where she went akind of inner space, a truly unexplored region. Here I am facetious, for which I apologize. Mael, as a fact, despite all,stayed with the Game. She showed an unusual affinity for it atan early age, and was, well, something of a prodigy. We triedto discourage her, but of course she was never expressly forbidden, for we hated to lose such talent, you understand. Wehad hoped that when she was old enough to understand whathad happened to us, she would abandon it on her own resolve as a lost cause. This was not the case. Maellenkleth is intensely competitive; she does not, in her own words, acknowledge the existence of odds. Her idea, which became over the years something of an obsession, was to become sogood at the Game on her own that the Revens would be forced to weave her in-Game to retain the lore."

Morlenden interrupted Klervondaf here, saying, "Weave in-Game, you say? But since you and the Terklarens are outof phase in time, that could only mean that an outsider would have had to be brought into it. Or am I astray?"

"No. Distasteful as is this to speak of, that is exactly howmatters were going. In the Game, she was considerably aheadof her plan, and had already won back much influence in support of her larger plan. But the choice she made for outsider.

Many spoke openly against her, saying they'd rather have a

human than whom she wanted to bring."

Morlenden laughed aloud. "Now there's a one, for sure.

Sounds just like my own Toorh, Fellirian. Really, I intend no

offense; but I would have supposed that if he was acceptable

to her, it wouldn't matter what his Braid."

Klervondaf spoke back proudly. "Had he but a Braid! But

alas, he did not, but was a half-wild hifzer from the East-

woods, scion of a defunct Braid line that went astray. Oh, it

was a scandal, never fear. The shame of it stung us all to the

core. They were deeply emotionally involved as well. Just

imagine—Dirklarens, whose shartoorh was a hifzer."

Morlenden said mildly, "Well, I understand the objection,but of course we all were just such in the beginnings. All theoriginal Braids had members whom now would be called

hifzer."

Klervondaf obviously found the subject distasteful, and Morlenden's bland acceptance of it even more so. But he held whatever comments were in his mind, and proceeded with his story. "It was considered hopeless, and most wrote Mael offas simply gone mad. But things began to change; there wererumors, whisperings, shocked expressions. And I myself, as far from the Game as I am, have heard that there were some in the Council of the Past Masters who were now supportingher. And that the Reven, too ..."

"Pellandrey Reven, himself?"

"Indeed. He implied he was like the rest, but took no action to stop it. And he had never approved it, either, but when the Terklarens formally petitioned him, neither wouldhe forbid it, either. Perwathwiy examined Mael for truth andtestified that Mael had not revealed the Inner Game to the

hifzer."

Morlenden thought a moment, then said, "It would seem that she was slowly succeeding, against the odds, just as shefelt she could. It would seem, then, to ignore odds would bethe good course."

"You can ignore odds only if you are supremely good at what you do. I would not dream of doing such a thing. Evenif I could stifle my repugnance at touching a hifzer."

"So, then, she was successful?"

"Who can measure success? But she had now made the possibility of Third-players real. And I do know that Maellenkleth was immeasurably better in the Game than Sanjirmilof the Terklarens, our rivals. But Sanjir is older—she and her Toorh are within a year of weaving, something very close to

that. I have heard some of the old Past Masters say that as a

mature Player, Mael would have been the best in the history

of the Game. Without question. Not even close to anyone of

the Greats. I am not deep in the Game myself—no outsibling

can be. But I have heard Mael explain aspects of it with in

sights I have not heard elsewhere, and of the living Greats,

even Perwathwiy deigned to ask her opinion from time to

time."

"Tell me more about this hifzer. Who is he?"

"He styles himself Krisshantem. He is a bit younger thanMael, but well within the tolerances. And recently, she neverstayed here at home, but away with him. They were togetherall the time. They had built themselves a place to live together and work. A treehouse, not a yos. It is far east of here, in the forest. And besides the practical aspects of such aventure, them using one another to mutual advantage, they-were deeplovers, and since meeting him, Mael did becomesomewhat more restrained. He is reputed to be something ofa mystic; fey, strange, full of all sorts of knowledge of wildthings."

"Did Maellenkleth sojourn here much before Krisshantem?"

Klervondaf paused before answering. He looked into the hearth fire for a long, reflective moment, and then back to Morlenden. "Maellenkleth was beautiful of face, graceful anddesirable of body, passionate of disposition. She was one notgreatly given over to excessive self-restraint. She was of theWater aspect, Sanh: she had in her life many lovers, many friends, many in-betweens . . . here, she was in and out, more or less, according to the Season. But until she moved in with Krisshantem, she remained here."

"She was gone a lot."

"Yes, that. Gone. Rather more often than not, even before Krisshantem, and not always in the expected places, either. Iknow, because I had to go look for her. Then she'd show up.No one seemed to mind. Where was she? She would say, withso-and-so, or with the Past Masters. And other times she said nothing."

Klervondaf stopped now, as if he had said what must be said. He would offer no more for the time. Morlenden now reflected upon what he had heard; there was, concealed within the easy answers, almost glibly given, almost a kind ofdistraction from something else. There was something deeper here. This Klervondaf spoke, but he knew more, and suspected even more yet. But the answers helped to conceal, mislead,trap. Nevertheless there was truth in it, Morlenden could see.It hung together well enough, in loose fashion. He felt likethe fox watching the bird with the obvious broken wing.

But it could have been just like that; the unweavable insiblings because of the same-sex rule, and then one of the girls turns out to be a prodigy for exactly the Game. One misfortune after another—it would disorient anyone. In a societythat made the family more than a genetic unit, strengthenedby the resonant occupation and interrelational ties to the rest,this ending of the Braid line would be catastrophic, especiallyto the younger members, within any Braid. But here, in theintense competitive atmosphere between the Player Braids,and in the elitism ©f their social status, it would have been more. Yet they acted strangely—rationally in one way, inexplicably in the other. They just give up and get irritated withthe errant insibling who wants to keep going. The parents give up and apparently move out early, turning everything over to, of all people, the outsibling. Morlenden never credited himself with the penetrating powers of a mnathman, but he could see that here were many contradictions, manymysteries; whole areas opened up to question. But he was equally sure that they would not be answered here.

He could not let the whole of the idea go: considering thatone would expect them all to be close and submissive. But notso—to the contrary. One even goes out and competes withthe humans in their own pet project, and gets herself made aminor chief of it. And the other insibling, now missing, takeson the whole of ler society and its ostensible rulers, and her own Ktanh chiefs, and with a hifzer, starts building a new Braid from scratch, counting on her verve and aggressivenessto carry it over. And seemed to be getting away with it. And the outsiblings cope. The enemies Maellenkleth must have made! Think of it—Sanjirmil's Braid petitioned! And were denied, what's the more.

His musings were interrupted by a noise in the entryway;Morlenden suspected that it would be the Thes, Taskellan. And it was; in a moment, a barely adolescent lad brushedaside the door curtain and entered. This one was small, full of swift, sharp movements, possessed of a deft, foxy face. Wary as a young squirrel; not gone bad yet, but definitely one to watch, Morlenden thought. So were they all, these Perklarens.

The younger boy glanced sidelong at Morlenden, a piercing, knife-stroke look, then said to his elder outsibling, "Kler,Plin said that you wanted me to come home. What do youwant?"

klervondaf looked up from his silence by the hearth, where he had been fiddling with the meal, and answered, "Iwanted you home that you could get to bed and get an earlystart tomorrow morning. You will need to take this Ser Morlenden Deren down to the place where Kris and Mael builtthe treehouse."

Morlenden interjected, "Why can't we go tonight?"

Klervondaf answered, as if explaining to a child younger than Taskellan, "For one, it's a long walk, and so I hear, hard to find in the best daylight. But Tas knows the area—not so well he could find it in the dark, mind—and he can take you there. I hardly think you have such haste you wouldbe willing to wander all over the old forest through most of awinter night."

Taskellan added, "Is that all? I could do it blind. We were just getting started down there. Let me go back!"

"Will you promise to be home early?"

"No later than the sun, Kler," said the boy, smirking.

Klervondaf ignored the provocation. "Oh, go ahead, go ahead. But be here and ready to go."

"Right!" he cried, and was halfway through the curtain.

"Hey!" Klervondaf called after him.

Taskellan stopped. A small, nagging voice said around thecurtain, "Yes?"

"Where did Plindestier go?"

"She went home. Said she'd be along tomorrow."

"Very well, go!"

The younger boy clattered about the entryway and was

gone. For a time they could hear his footfalls in the clear, cold air outside. Then it was silent. Klervondaf retrieved the pot from the fire, poured off a mug of tea, and handed it toMorlenden. He shook his head slowly.

"It's been a job, I will tell you that; raising Tas has been a piece of work for an elder outsibling . . . mostly it has been just myself and Plindestier, although Maellenkleth helped.And it was easier when she was around; she had a way withTas. He looked up to, her. Then, too, when she was here, there seemed to be more people around, in and out, then. Tasis half wild, I don't know what will become of him."

"How many years has he? Fifteen? One and a fourteen?"

"Yes, that." "How long ago did the older Perklarens leave . . . or begin staying away most of the time? A year, two?"

"Ah, long before that . . . although leaving is perhaps notthe most proper word. They were just absent more and more.Tt was about the time Tas was born that things changed, Ithink. Yes, it's been a long time like this."

"It wasn't when Mevlannen and Maellenkleth were born?"

"Well, now that you mention it, I don't think so, no." Theboy's voice faltered, as if he agreed with Morlenden, but atthe same time he realized he had admitted the fact that the absence of the parent Perklarens—their strange, intermittent,almost permanent absence—had nothing to do with the same-sexing of the insiblings. And also, their absence couldhave little or nothing to do with Taskellan. That simplywouldn't fit. No. Something had happened about fifteen yearsago, something out-Braid, perhaps even unrelated to it. Morlenden suddenly felt the boy's resistance go weak and soft; hethrust.

"Then there was an exterior event, eh?" The expression onKlervondafs face told Morlenden that he had indeed got inside the boy's guard and was closing on it rapidly. He couldsense it, something concealed, something hidden, coming into shape, almost tangible He reached, blindly, gambling."And when Maellenkleth was known, known, I say, to be missing, why didn't her own Braid go looking for her—or atthe least come direct to us, the Derens—instead of it beingdone by the Perwathwiy, a former Terklaren?"

It was the wrong stroke, and the missed target and the delay allowed Klervondaf to recover his composure by a supreme act of will. He breathed deeply, and answered, "So how should we know she was missing? She came and went asshe pleased, and since she's been living off in the woods withthis hifzer, she's hardly been home at all. Is that all so strange? All of us run off for a while, if nowhere but insideour heads! You, you are now Ser and Kadh so you had to beinsibling when you were adolescent. Did you not walk awayand have an adventure as well?"

Morlenden reflected an instant, and the earnest, strong,hard-defined face of Sanjirmil flashed across the window ofhis mind. He said, "I must admit that things have been muchas you describe them." He felt the surety of the moment agoslipping away. And now again it was truce. Standoff. The twoof them looked at one another, slightly belligerently, for a moment. Morlenden added, "You haven't been completelyopen with me, have you?"

"No," said Klervondaf, directing his glance downward tothe floor. "No, not completely, even though I believe you andknow you to be just what you say you are. And as much ofwhat I've said, that's truth. There are just some things of which I am not permitted to speak, things that no nonplayermay have the enlightenment of. No matter what." At last, he looked up again directly into Morlenden's face with an expression of tentative, if unmistakable, defiance.

Morlenden tested his resolve. "What, then, was Maellenkleth really doing?"

"She was living with an adolescent hifzer calling himself Krisshantem and planning to reconstitute another PlayerBraid with the connivance of the hifzer."

"That's all you'll say?"

"That's all I can say. Maellenkleth herself would tell you no more. And besides what I won't tell you, there is much that I would be unable to, if for no other reason than that I only suspect, I do not know. I have been admitted to a level of secrets appropriate to my position as Nerh. Of a matter of course, Mael was much deeper in, parent-level or perhapsdeeper. She spent much time with Kris, and much time at theHoly Mountain, or with the Past Masters "

"The Holy Mountain?"

"That which the nonplayers call Grozgor, the Mountain ofMadness. . . . But I also know that sometimes she was not in any of those places. Where was she? No one has told me."

Morlenden slanted off, leaving the boy with his perilous integrity intact. He said, "I would know Maellenkleth's appearance, her vidh. My Toorh Fellirian said that she had seen her and could do me a Multispeech visual, but I wanted a goodone, one from those who knew her well. Her own Braid."

Klervondaf smiled. "You should have taken it when it was offered. I am unschooled in Multispeech, other than the purespeech modes. I can't do visuals. Only in words, in perdeskris."

"Tell me."

"She is small, but not tiny. A little under average, but more muscular than most girls, most adolescents. Humans, they'd say 'athletic.' She is dark-skinned, like myself, but notso streaky-swarthy as Sanjirmil. Do you know that one?"

"Yes, I know her. Tell me more."

"Maellenkleth has heavy eyebrows, a triangular-oval face, a little cheekbone show, hardly at all, a delicate and slender neck. Her lips are pursed full, as if she were on the verge ofthinking of kissing someone. But her mouth is small. She's quite pretty, gentle-looking, abstracted, elsewhere: do youknow? You don't see the determination and the fierceness until you get to know her better. She has dark eyes, deep-set,shaded. Intense. She and I share a Madh, but really, we don'tlook much alike, as much as Tas and Mevlannen. Tomorrow, ask the hifzer. Krisshantem can give you a visual. He's reputed to be good at it."

"What might a hifzer know about visual modes of Multi-speech?"

"I know not, but as a hifzer did he learn it. And Maellenkleth taught much more of it to him, the whole range, all modes, even Command. That was part of the training she was giving him. She could handle all modes, easily. EspeciallyCommand. All the Inner Game Players have to know it."

"Anything else?"

"She's very lean and spare. There's no extra on her—it's allmuscle. Lean, but not thin. Her hands give her away; they'revery long. And if she's not doing anything with them, they almost seem clumsy, bony, awkward. But when she uses them,they are strong and perfect."

Morlenden was going to follow some more of the intangibleleads and half-starts about the person of Maellenkleth, whenhe was interrupted by another rustling at the door curtain. Both Morlenden and Klervondaf looked up, not expectinganyone. The entryway curtain parted before either of themcould rise to meet it, to reveal Taskellan and the girl, Plindestier. Both were ruddy-faced and rosy-cheeked from the coldoutside, which was, at this late hour, growing intense.

The girl said, "Klervon, by the time Tas got back to theRhalens, they had all turned in for the night, so he came over to my yos and got me. I brought him back here, for he shouldn't be out and wandering in the cold."

The younger boy came into the hearthroom shyly, headingfor the children's sleeper, but as he passed his elder outsibling, the older boy cuffed him affectionately across the backof his shoulders. Taskellan rolled with the mock punchand continued on toward the children's sleeper, slyly diggingout of his overshirt part of a fresh loaf of bread.

Klervondaf said, "Well, Tas, you little thief, don't eat it all! Give some of it to Ser Morlenden. He's a guest, you littlePig-"

Taskellan turned back and began carefully dividing the loaf. The girl had remained by the entryway curtain. Klervondaf asked her, after Taskellan had shared the loaf and climbed into the sleeper, "Can you stay, Plindes?" His voice was hesitant, tentative.

She removed her heavy winter outercloak, sighing withvisible relief. "I can always stay here, you know that." Sheturned to Morlenden. "Here, Ser and Kadh," she said, and handed him a small wedge of cheese. "I brought this from home. You may have part of it."

Morlenden took the cheese, broke off a piece, very informally, and passed the remainder to Klervondaf. The girlcontinued, as if musing aloud to herself, "I don't know what these two would do if I didn't look in on them every few days. Two outsiblings with a whole yos to themselves."

Morlenden watched Plindestier for a moment, until she grew self-conscious under his scrutiny. He thought that herewas a fine situation indeed. More than a simple love affairwas passing between these two adolescents; from her secureposition in her own Braid, she was supporting these two. Andwhy not? We make no provisions for orphans; everyone has a Braid. Except Klervondaf and Taskellan. He turned his attention back to the older boy.

"You are to weave in about five years; what will happen toTaskellan then? Is there a place for him around here?"

"I'll keep him with me until time comes to weave him."

"That's a hard job, maybe harder a one than the raising ofhim. You're talking about ten years yet after your weaving.And now, apparently, there's little enough you can offer in the way of weaving-price to an insibling, even if Taskellan were to become civilized enough to become interesting to one. I know the way of these things. You need influence. Nowlisten: would he come with me, come and live with the Der-ens? I have a srithnerh, his own age, and with the contacts we have it wouldn't be difficult at all for us to see he gets agood Braid to weave into somewhere. He needs the environment, the sense of Braidness, and we have room enough."

Klervondaf paused. "What would I do with the yos?"

"Close it up and turn it over to the Revens for transferral.Take what you wish and move in with someone else. You need it, too. Five years with someone is better than going italone. You seem to have had to be too much the parentahead of your time. I assume that wherever your elder Per

klarens are, they won't come back for any length of time " "... They can't. You don't understand. I can reach themif I need, but they feel they cannot. We agreed."

"Surely someone in the community here . . . "

Plindestier offered, "Why not, Klervon? You could move inwith us; we have the room, and it wouldn't make any difference to the rest. You and I are about the same age, and the Toorh are going to weave soon, so the elders of us will be gone." She added, turning to Morlenden, "I'm Thessrith."

The boy replied hesitantly, "I don't know, I'd have to talk to Taskellan, think it over, get permission from Kreszerdar...."

Morlenden said, "Not to hurry it. Take your time. If and When you are ready, send him along downcountry to myplace. We are easy enough to find; people come to us. I knownot why this has gone on as it has, but I could not meet itand not make this offer, for it needs fixing. Your people havetheir reasons; even so think upon what I have said."

Morlenden finished and returned to his bread and cheese, withdrawing from the two adolescents, allowing them space to settle whatever uneasinesses lay between them. He refrained from asking any more questions about Maellenkleth,for the time being. He knew more now than he had when hehad started out this morning, but he also realized that what hehad learned was not yet to the degree at which he could begin to solve anything . . . perhaps even frame an intelligentquestion. He felt confusion, subtle, complex disorientations;the basic assumptions about his own people were that they hadchosen simplicity, directness, orthodox transitions, and left subtlety and multiplexity to religion, language, philosophy,and art form. People themselves, so the proverb went, were plain as planks. Not so, not so . . . multiplex beyond belief. This Maellenkleth . . . A weak smile flickered across his face, as he recalled some inner vision. And so are we all, in our own dirty little ways.

Later, alone in the parent sleeper, settled in the heavy winter comforters, with an additional blanket wrapped around himself for double warmth, Morlenden lay, isolated in the silent yos, listening into the spare density of the night soundsof winter, which were even fewer here: somewhere off in the distance, he thought he could hear a dog barking, rather disinterestedly. The nearby creek whispered, almost silently, below the threshold. One had to listen hard for it, and even then, one could not be sure. Was it really the creek, or wasthat sound simply what one wished to hear? And ths trees were silent—there was no wind to move among those overhanging pines and make the susurrous whispering. Whispering? Yes. There was whispering, and it was originating frominside the yos, not outside it, where there was no wind.

It was coming from the other sleeper, and judging fromtheir timbre, the voices belonged to Plindestier and Klervondaf. He could not make out the words. It sounded like an argument, but with no words to hang the thread of it on, hecould be wrong. He was not, suddenly, sleepy, even after thelong walk upcountry; something would not settle. He begantrying to relax himself, finding sets of tense muscles and loosening them, one at a time, He had never known this method to fail to put him to sleep. It always worked beforeyou could finish. And while doing so, he tried to review thesuspicions he had gained in the yos of the Perklarens.

Not very much, he had to conclude. A lot wrong, but theyaccepted it as right and due, some obligation.... And hethought again. Anomalies and enigmas casually strewn aboutas if their very multiplicity were intended to confuse, ensnarethe mind, waylay. You could become so absorbed in figuring out what was wrong that you could walk right by the why of it. First there was this hifzer Krisshantem, influencing her ashe was being influenced. And an insibling off working with the humans, a telescope builder, an astronaut, a photographer. Parents gone more or less for fifteen years. But at theleast, he had the poor words of a verbal description to go on,although he could project several possible images of girls whocould fit that description. And with Kris, at least he'd get a real image.

He was relaxing now. It would be soon. But his musings were interrupted by a soft whisper from the curtain leading down into the hearthroom. There was a movement. He looked, but could not distinguish who was there.

"Whoever is there, come along, if you've a mind."

A softer voice answered him. "It is I, Plindestier." The girl climbed into the compartment with Morlenden. He watchedthe shadow-on-shadow shape as it climbed in, bent, stooped,settled smoothly on its haunches. He could tell by the flowingof the motions and a soft, insistent fragrance of girl in thecompartment, that Plindestier was quite naked. She bent closeby his ear, to whisper.

"Klervon and I talked. We decided that you should knowas well."

"Know what?"

"When I left, the first time, I felt as if someone were watching me, from nearby. He or she followed a little, thenleft me. Nothing I could see. That was why I hurried home; Iwas afraid. And when Tas and I came back, we were veryquiet, like a couple of little sneaks, and we came back a different way. Tas has good wood-sense. And we saw someoneby the entryway, someone who sensed us, and slipped away before we could get closer."

"Who was it?"

"Who? What as well, for I know neither. Not Tas, not I. It was formless and quick. It faded into the shadows. . . . We looked all about before we came in, but there were no traces."

"Then someone was outside listening to us...."

"It must be so. I know that you were talking of Maellenkleth. Klervondaf will not discuss her around me; he saysthat we will all know about Mael someday, that she will begreat among us, but he does not say how this will be. And around here, near the mountain, it's always a little wilderthan in other places. There are lights, sometimes, and funnynoises. Tremblings in the air. There are tales . . . well, peoplejust don't stay out so much at night. But I had never seen anything until tonight. We agreed that I should tell you to bevery careful and watch your backtrail as you go with Tas andfrom there."

"Be careful? Am I in danger?"

"Just take care, he said. Be alert. He will tell you no morethan he already has, and that is too much. But despite that,he wishes you well on your quest. He thinks that somethingbad has happened to Maellenkleth, and that it could affect allour lives, if it has gone too far. Does that mean anything toyou?"

"No. But I will keep my eyes open."

The girl rose from her haunches and flowed ghostlike outof the sleeper. For a moment, Morlenden could hear her moving through the yos, but then it became quiet. Her scentremained in the sleeper also for a time, about as long as thefaint rustlings far off in the yos, and then it, too, faded, leaving behind it bittersweet afterimages in Morlenden's mind ofthings that had been once, long ago, now irretrievable forever. He felt a curious light-headedness; someone hiding under the curve of the yos, listening to their conversation in the middle of the night! What a thing to happen! But he now knew the questions: Who was Maellenkleth? What was Maellenkleth? They were the things in his mind that made himlight-headed, for simple as they were, they demanded answersfilled with voids and shifting, indeterminate vistas. Morlendenrecalled his primary schooling, sitting in the yard at the feet6f his own Kadh, Berlargir, and hearing about the human philosopher, Godel, and Godel's stunning discovery—that, ultimately, nothing was provable. Nothing was knowable.

Morlenden recalled that vividly and chuckled to himself in the darkness and silence of the yos of the Perklarens: Godel, indeed! And, Godel or not, he set it firmly in the innermost part of his resolve that he'd get to the bottom of itall and root it all up. That if he could even make an approximate answer to the two questions, the slippery tervathon, then he'd know where she was and what happened to her. And more yet, most likely. She would be illuminated, as would he. He was sure. He sighed, and fell into sleep withoutfurther thought.

BOOK TWO

Vicus Lusorum

EIGHT

DECEMBER 1, 2550

You need some square-ruled graph paper,some tracing paper, a pencil. Make a Surround-template by cutting out a three-by-three square from a strip of the graph paper, and set it aside.

Now memorize these symbols: each square on the graph paper is a cell. An empty cell is symbolized by nothing inscribed in the cell,while a full cell is symbolized by an inscribed circle. These are the only conditions that exist. Just two. Binary. Now there are two operations: empty-becoming-full and full-becoming-empty.The first is symbolized by a dot in the center of the cell. The second becoming is symbolized by an X over the cell.

Lay out a pattern of filled cells of yourchoice on the graph paper, leaving plenty of empty cells around the outside of the pattern. Anything you want; but for beginners, keep it simple: you'll see why. Now you have a playing field. There are within it filled and empty cells.

Apply your Surround-template to every cell in your pattern, ensuring you work all the way to the outside of it on all sides, according to these rules:

• If the center cell (of the three-by-three) is empty-state, and exactly three of its eight adjacent cells are filled-state, mark this center cell with a dot. This cell will be filled-state upon the next move. Any other number of filled-state neighbor cells will cause this cell to remain empty. Mark this condition with an X across the cell.

• If the center cell is filled-state, and two or three of its eight adjacent cells are filled-state, mark this cell with a dot inside the circle. This cell will remain filled on the next move. Anyother number zero, one, four, or more, will cause this cell to become an empty on the next move. Mark this condition by crossing out the cell.

Copy the pattern of dots and transfer the pattern to a fresh section of grid paper. Move one is over and repeat over again for move two, the neighbor rules. You should continue this procedure until your playing field either becomes empty of filled cells or attains a stable or cycling condition.

The first thing you will notice is that your initial pattern will immediately undergo startling transformations. No doubt some of you will see your pattern vanish without a trace. Others will learn secrets.

Oh, yes. Don't use a computer. You miss the

best parts of it. You are now a Gameplayer. Apologies of the Author to Martin Gardner

There are simple games and complex ones, but the only ones worth playing are the multiplex ones in which all parameters are in a constant state of flux and change.

—The Game Texts

Vance sat back in his office chair, picking a sheaf of papers from the desk as he settled; he wasn't interested in their contents. It was simply and purely a gesture of defense. Vance wanted to put some distance between himself and the visitor his administrative assistant had announced. This Errat, whoever he was. A Controller. Vance did not wish this morning to talk to a Controller about anything, face to face, or via any alternate mode of communication one would care to imagine. He pretended to be vastly absorbed in the papers before his face, squinting owlishly at them and frowning. When he looked up again, he hoped that he would see this alleged Nightsider* just coming through the door. It was not to be so:Vance was surprised to see the man already in the room, standing before his desk in a posture suggesting painstakingneutrality. He had come into the office unnoticed in absolutesilence.

* In Shifter jargon, one who worked straight midnight shifts.

Vance saw before himself a man of about his own age, lateforties, perhaps early fifties, dressed in Nightsider navy blue pants and tunic and wearing on his right breast a Master Controller's Badge. Vance also observed that the badge wasan old one, with decorative fringes and flourishes done in thestyle of roundels and curlettes in vogue some thirty years ago.Vance nudged his estimate of his visitor's age upward. Afteranother reflection, he recalled that even a Nightsider was ofhigher status than any shiftworker, and that the badge was soobviously dated. Vance thought that in the condition Errat appeared to be, he must have been on gerries** for the past twenty years at least.

** Geriatric treatments, primarily but not exclusively drugs.

Now this Errat. Who was he? Vance had never heard of him. He may very well have been a Controller once, but hecertainly had to be more than that now. Staff? Vance doubtedthat as far as Region Central went, even considering the newcomers who had come in with the investiture of Parleau. Continental Secretariat? Who could tell? Those people never went out in the field. In appearance, the visitor was tall, loose-limbed, erect, and alert; he managed to cast an impression of both great dignity and sinister decisiveness. Erratwas dark enough of skin and curly enough of hair to have had more than a trace of black ancestry, although considering the intermingling that had gone on over the years, Vanceknew instinctively that Errat was as far from a hypotheticalancestral African as Vance was from an equally hypotheticalancestral northeastern European. There were no more puretypes left. Errat had a peppering of gray in his hair, and hadover the years overlain the full, sensual mouth with a hard,compressed line of determination.

Vance also considered the name: Hando Errat. Programmed name. Those had arrived with the establishment of Shifter Society, and were simply no more than pattern-generated assemblies of phonemes and vocables, internationallyacceptable to all, with all traditional or meaningful or even suggestive contracts deleted from the list. The original intentof programmed names had been to offer persons an opportunity to style themselves without reference to anyknown national, ethnic, linguistic, or religious point of origin.One had to have a name, but the name didn't have to mean anything, other than a simple personal label. Name-changingwas nothing new; waves of it had often swept through newmovements, signaling new allegiances and new bindings. Butprogrammed names had come, and not gone. They had endured. And even now, if anything at all, they signaledallegiance only to cold efficiency, expediency, and the unifyingpower of IPG, the Ideal of Planetary Government, which wassought daily, but, according to releases, never quite attained.Vance knew better. It may have been patchwork; but of onepiece it was now.

But now? For a long time, the bearers of programmed names had seemed to have an edge on those who retained their old names, with their taint of residues of older loyalties,and virtually all of the key positions were held by such persons. But some decay had entered the system as well, for Vance was sure that there were many careerist coat-riderswho took them merely to gain points in the Shifter Societyestablishment.

Vance acknowledged his visitor. "Yes, Citizen Errat"

Errat responded politely.' "Citizen Vance; I see that youare at your work early in the day. Or is it late, as in my owntime-reference?" Errat's voice was deep and resonant, but carefully neutral in tonation. And highly controlled; nothingshowing save that which Errat wished to be seen. Vance feltsome apprehensions—this one would be to no good for someone.

Vance replied, "It is early. As you see, I'm a Daysider."Vance hoped his voice had come off as level as Errat's. Erratwas obviously playing with him, because he knew damn wellthat Vance was a Daysider, from Vance's tan clothing. It wasnothing more than a status-game. Vance chose to ignore thebait and engage in emotional arm-wrestling with Errat, to demonstrate that even with a career going nowhere in particular, a traditionalist name, he was yet somebody to be reckoned with in the affairs of Seaboard South. A provocateur,this Errat. That would have been exactly the reaction Erratwanted, to provide the key into whatever he wished of Vance.

Vance knew field Controllers well enough. They were the same breed who had run the surveillance program against Fellirian. Or had that been a decoy for a target program upon himself? He would never know.

"Aha! Well, we Nightsiders are a misunderstood lot. HereI am finishing my duty day, just as you commence yours."

"Do you really like Nightsiding?"

"Never knew anything else; it would now be difficult forme to change. Circadian rhythms, you know. But regretfully,as I must say, to the matter at hand." Errat reached within the front of his tunic and extracted a thin, pliable envelope,from which in turn he produced a single, flexible transparency. He handed this across the desk to Vance. Vance took the proffered document, and looked at it.

While Vance was studying the flex, Errat commented, "Theperson in the flex is a New Human. She had been detainedoutside for questioning under, ah, I believe the word would be 'suspicious circumstances.'There has been some justification for the belief that some sort of shabby plot is afoot,within the reservation, possibly here at the Institute as well. The subject you see in the flex appeared to be useful forthese inquiries, but she was . . . uncooperative. Now we poorControllers must not only pursue our normal onerous investigations and establish vectors of probability and consequence,but we must also turn aside and determine why she has beenso reticent. I wish to ask your assistance in this, to help us toidentify her and tie her to something."

"She looks familiar, like someone I've seen here. Why notask the ler about the Institute?"

"We would not have them alerted. After all, the girl wasoutside, and seemed to know her way well. She had, we reasoned, to have left some traces in our world. Those are the threads we must pick up first."

"I have heard talk from others about suspicions about a plot. Is there anything to it?"

"The situation is by no means clear, and at the present it is a matter I would rather not comment upon, lest I expresspoints which may prove to be wrong. We are also interestedin any New Human attention to this girl, attempts to locateher, and the like. Naturally one observing such an interest would be motivated to report such persons."

Vance nodded. "Of course . . . it will be as you say. Complete cooperation.""You mentioned a familiarity... do you know her?"

Vance glanced at the flex again. He looked back at Errat,levelly, wondering what he was giving away. He said, "Well,yes, I do know her face, now that I look at it closely, but notvery well at all. Her name slips me right now. I had used her once to do the visitors' information-releases, as a replacement. I can tell you no more at this moment than the fact that I remember her as cooperative and competent."

"I see. Could you recall more after some refreshing of your memory?"

"Yes. It will be a moment. Can you wait?"

"It should not be required. . . . Take your time. We wouldlike to know everything you can find out about her, her activities. You will be contacted later. You may retain the flex."

"Thank you."

"Should you wish to make a report prior to contact, you can reach me via ASTRA line, code BD, extension eight-four-eight. Any time." Vance listened closely. There was absolutely no clue. An ASTRA line could be anywhere.

Vance asked, "I shall do so." He noted the reference on his pad. "What's she done?"

"All in all, rather a small matter. But there live those who wish to know why such a small offense should warrant such astrong defense, or as much fear as there reportedly was in thesubject. We wish to know more about this curious person andthe even more curious circumstances surrounding her . . . transition into her present status."

"Will you stay for some coffee?"

"No, no, I must be off, now; there are many minor affairsto be concluded before shift-end. So, then, good day."

Errat turned and departed in the same silent and fluid manner with which he had come.

Vance placed a call for Doctor Harkle to call him when she came in, and sat back again, reflecting. What had beenthe name of the girl in the flex? He couldn't remember. Hadit been Malverdedh? No, it wasn't that. But they wanted more than a name, they wanted to see who came for her. That sounded simple and effective, but erroneous as well. Suppose the real conspirators sent someone who knew nothing. Send innocents after the girl. They could lose nothing.Vance found himself wishing that Fellirian was here; she would be able to make more sense out of this . . . or perhapsnot, for he could hardly tell her everything. But if there wasa trap here, she could spot it, he felt sure. But who was the trap for? With Controllers you never could be sure. Was thisanother setup for Parleau's house-cleaning, setting himself,Vance, up for the emeritus executive treatment? Damn.

Vance would have worried more about it, but at that moment Doctor Harkle arrived, as usual, without announcement She habitually forbade the clerks to say she was coming. She simply would not allow them to put her off. She was a severely dressed, somewhat portly woman of definite middleage, who retained, for those who in her estimation deservedit, great humor and warmth. With her she had brought twogreat steaming mugs of coffee.

She began, "Here, have some of this, Walter. We brew itup down in my shop, and it's a damn sight better than thestuff you have served up here, or in the buttery. That stuff isindustrial strength cheese-dip."

Vance accepted the mug gratefully, for there was more than a grain of truth in the statement. He said, "I will take it;please take a chair, if you will. I asked them outside to callyou because I needed my mind jogged." He handed her theflex.

Doctor Harkle looked at it momentarily, then back to Vance. He asked, "Isn't that one of the girls who works downin your place?"

"Yes. I remember her well, although my recollection of heris not the same as this image. What's the matter with her?She looks lifeless in this; perhaps catto, except that you canbe sure that a catto is hiding something, and this one seems tohave nothing to hide. Relaxed. Wait, I know a better word.Uninhibited. As if there's no personality here, not even a distorted one."

"I do not know the circumstances. What is her name?" "Maellenkleth, I recall. Yes, Maellenkleth. Srith Perklaren." "That's right! I remember. A First-player. What does shedo for your people?"

"Primarily math, tensors, astrogation. She's quite gifted inthe area, the whole thing, when you can get her attention. She goes at mathematics in an unorthodox way, but one can'targue with the results she obtains . . . she seems to run everything through an odd sort of iterative internal program; Ishould call it a topology filter, the best I can visualize."

"Get her attention? Was she absentminded? I have never seen one of them so."

"Well, yes, in a way, I would say absentminded. Or preoccupied. I have no idea what her people would call it, if theyeven noticed it. This, by the way, had been on the increase inthe last year. She appeared to be working under some kind ofpressure. When she worked, that is. Toward the last, her visitsbegan dropping off. As a fact, I don't think I've seen her butonce since we took the new kids up to the Museum on the field trip."

"Museum? Field trip? What is this?"

"Every so often I round up the newcomers, the ados whoare drifting into the Insitute, and take them on several side trips out into the big, wide world. Actually, hardly fartherthan Region Central."

"Oh, a routine sort of thing."

"Well, not exactly routine, you know, but certainly recurring. I mean, when they do come down here to work steady,they will be dealing with essentially human problems, and Ilike them to get a look at the people they intend to go problem-solving for. . . . It was last spring. I had taken a groupup to see the old Tech Museum at the old Research Triangle.They were all very excited, you know. I'm sure you recall theplace—it's where they keep all those old worthless artifacts,in the old Tech Center. There was a university there in theold days. But they see so little of a genuine technological civilization that these old things are wonders to them—real eye-openers. Puts things in proper perspective. But this girl, Maellenkleth, reacted oddly. She was skeptical or contemptuous tobegin with—-I could not say which. But when we returned, she was morose and moody, much more than usual. As if something she'd seen had really shaken her somehow. I thought it might have been more of the usual stuff, intrinsically hers, but the more I thought on it, the more I was surethat it was something she saw or realized in the Museum. Then she got fidgety, couldn't wait to be gone. After that, Isaw her only once, and then she wasn't working, but was visiting some friends down here."

"It certainly sounds odd, not at all like the usual ado weget down here." Vance was remembering Fellirian when hethought of the stereotype ler adolescent.

"Definitely, Director. No doubt of it at all. Now let me ask you one or two: why the sudden interest in Maellenkleth?"

"It would seem she's got into some kind of trouble and hasbeen detained. One of these Controllers was here this morning asking about her. And of course, there are some other

things, too, that I know. They seem to think there's some kind of plotting, conspiracy.""Who suspects? Continental? Or Region? There's a difference in methodology you can measure."

"There's nothing I could pick that would tie him to Denver; on the other hand, he didn't resemble any of the Regional I've dealt with in the past, either. There was definitelysomething high-level about him."

"Hm." Harkle snorted. Then she said, more reflectively,"You hardly ever see the Continentals stir themselves aboutanything, but just the same they seem to catch it all sooner orlater. One thing for sure: if they're on to something, it couldwell get brisk. Very brisk."

"That's the trouble. I have no idea who he is after, beyondthe girl herself."

"Worried? . . . Oh, I understand. Well, if the fellow who came to you is a Continental, you needn't worry about double-blind setups and entrapments. They work direct. Theysuspect you, they call you in, ask you a few questions, and post you off to Rehab." Here Harkle looked about, conspiratorially. "Or they Adminterm*, They don't have to justifythings the way the Regions do. They just do it."

* "Terminate via administrative procedures." In 2550, there was nolegal death penalty. Nevertheless, certain people did disappear fromtime to time. Nobody asked where they went.

"As a fact, Hark, now that you mention it, I would have tosay he didn't seem like the Regionals at all.""Fine, then, You have nothing to worry about. We can tellthem what we know. It's little enough.""Yes. Well, thank you for the information and the coffee.They were both welcome."

"And to you, Director. Call me any time. Now," and hereshe arose, straightened her clothing, "back to the cobalt mines."

Vance nodded absentmindedly, reaching again for his paperwork. Doctor Harkle left the office, leaving Vance alonefor his next appointments. Eventually, he did get back to work, but it was not immediately. For a long time after theconversation with the Chief of Research and Development,Vance did exactly what she had told him he had no need ofdoing—worrying. Because even if what she had said were true, he couldn't avoid the feeling that a trap was closingslowly .. . and that its jaws were going to close on innocents as well. He knew from Fellirian and his conversation with the Regional Controller that essentially there was no plot, no conspiracy. Then he thought again: or was there?

Simultaneously, some distance away, a person who hadbeen passive up to this point moved from reflection into thedomain of action, exemplifying, as the ler might have said,had they been aware of his presence or functions, the trait ofFire. He had been sitting in a smallish darkened room filledalmost to the exclusion of everything else with racks of electronic devices, instruments, rows and banks of switches, indicator light panels, illuminated and darkened buttons (marked"press to test"). The only noticeable sound in the room wasthe whisper of cooling fluids through miles of heat sinks andthe quiet movement of air through the ventilators. There were others in the room as well, seated in reclining chairs before the racks, all seriously intent upon matters at hand, oblivious to all the others.

The person arose from his position at one of the consoles,stood up attentively, and paused. He seemed to be listening toa headset he was wearing, a light arc of silver metal terminating in a tiny plastic earpiece. Then he removed the appliance.After consulting some notes he had made on a plain ruled pad at the console, he walked a short distance to another panel, set high up in one of the racks. Thereon were two matrices, one 3x3, the other 5 x 5 . One contained numbers, the other letters. A set of zeros of various denominations bridgedthe two. Machine functions were displayed to the sides. Theperson played over the numbers and letters, both matrices, with one hand, deftly, occasionally manipulating the machinefunctions with his free hand. Almost instantly, dim letters began forming on an electroluminescent panel directly abovethe buttons. The letters said:

#330-12239 ANSWREP TO SUBKWERTASK A10/BTGINIA SENDS/BTSUB APPEL MAELLENKLETH SRITH PERKLAREN RMK 1 ARRANG NAMEWAY INDIC ADOLESCENT RMK 2 SURNAME NAMEWAY INDIC NH FAM GP & OCCUPT/VOCAT EXHIB OF RITUAL GAME& CF SUBJ/ACAD MATHEMATICS& HUMAN REF FOLLOW:

1. VON NEUMANN

1 CONWAY, J. H.

2 GARDNER, M. ! 1950-2550 PERIOD/BT/BT

The person read the message, then depressed a button marked "INT-CL," and returned to his position at the consoles. He replaced his headset, adjusted his larynx pickup,and began speaking quietly as if musing aloud into thin air.The persons at the other consoles paid no attention to him.They never did.

He said, "For Plattsman, Ginia sends. Vance uncovered the name for us. Got a little more from Archives. Awaitingfurther query instructions. Taping relevants and forwarding. Acknowledge, now!"

He depressed a small extended button on his own console.Above it a small light lit red, changed to green, flashed redagain and went out. He smiled. He waited a moment.

He pushed some more buttons, paused, said, "Operator,there was a break during the last transmission. Can you rebroadcast while I manual address?"

The operator apparently answered yes, for the person then set some switches on his panel. He also depressed someadditional buttons, apparently another address group. Thesewere not the same letters as the first. The acknowledge-lightwent red, then green, then a quick flicker of red again, and out. The person said, "Thank you. Seems to be workingproperly now. There will not be a requirement for further service or write-up of discrepancy."

Then, and only then, did the person settle back deeply inhis chair, releasing a long, controlled sigh. He looked aboutquietly, but nobody was observing him. He sighed again. Andafter a moment he returned to his work, consulting someother logs. These were routine matters, for he went at theiraccomplishment with none of the vigor or decisiveness he haddisplayed earlier.

Plattsman was not in his office to receive this message. Hewas instead in the office of the chairman, Klaneth Parleau. Several subjects of general interest had already been discussed, and after those Parleau asked, "Well, what about those Comparator studies? Did they ever lead anywhere?"

"I have been waiting for you to ask! Indeed they did—to

more of the same. Finally we were able to program the damn machine to discriminate, but the chemtrace of the emotion-sets still have us baffled. According to the medicos, that second girl shouldn't be able to walk about rationally, much lessorganize herself enough to carry out any program, but Klytensays to disregard that. Apparently they have an internal system for overriding chemical insanity, whatever the originalcause. Very little is known about it, except that some selectedhigher functions of discrimination are temporarily lost, whilethe subject experiences the effect of heightened perceptions. Iam told it is rather like alcohol intoxication minus the visual effects and the loss of motor coordination. Klyten is researching it now, and at our next meeting hopes to explorethis further. This stuff is all buried, lost, mislaid. We know the original data exists, but it's hard to find."

"The second one is insane, then?"

"From the readings we have, yes. No other condition is possible. It's just too far out of balance with the rest. But wehave to understand that ler insanity is unlike human . . . youknow that it's said that if you think you're going crazy, it'sthe surest sign you aren't."

"I don't get it."

"Chairman, it's this way: if humans go crazy, they don'tknow it. Crazy people think they are sane. And contrarily, ifyou're sure you're going over the edge, that's the peak of your rationality. But with ler, it's the other way around: theyknow when they're insane, and they can compensate for it until someone else can effect a cure."

"In other words, functionally, insanity doesn't exist."

"Correct."

"So why is this one walking around loose unchanged? Howlong have we traced her now?"

"There are indications that some of the traces are four years old. We're digging.""Four years?""Right. At about the same level, too. But mind, we still see

much less of the second one than we do the first. But there's yet more, and the best yet."Parleau groaned aloud, "Oh, no! Tell me no tales of a third!"

"There's a third, it's a fact, but the third one is a human, leaves no traces whatsoever on the chems, and in fact was only caught by accident. All the images are bad and we can'tidentify."

"Who is he following?"

"Crowd-scans so far have associated 'Human X' only withthe first girl, but we are suspicious about some incidents . . . the trouble is that the only way we see the third man, so tospeak, is through criteria that are worthless for addressing thecrowd-scans for him alone. The data don't discriminate enough to pick him out alone."

"So, Plattsman, what you're telling me is-that we have twoler girls who are agents and a human who is in league withthem?"

"Such was my first impression, Chairman. We Controllersare prone to assemble things that way. But evidence suggeststhat is a wrongful vector; we are now exploring the possibility that we may be dealing with a whole family of plots,which may or may not be connected. But one thing we knowfor sure."

"And that is?"

"We ran some tests on the enlarged faces from the crowd-scans. TO volunteers over at the medical school. Now youknow that facial expressions are part of our infant programming and that we retain these residues all our lives, adding layers of subtlety as we go. So when we ran these images,with suitable controls, against the volunteers, we were able tostatistically match the facial expressions on the three againstknown categories. . . . The first one is afraid and worried. The second is blank, and the third . . ."

"Yes?"

". . . is violently hostile."

"You can do this, and not identify them?"

"Recognition is one thing, of basic emotional sets. Pickingindividuals out of a hat quite another."

"Good work, Plattsman. Good work, indeed! This is better than I expected.""I'm not so sure, Chairman." "How so?" "We are very uneasy about these multiplying coincidences.

They are drawing our attention away from the original question. And as you may recall from the Control Functional briefing we give to all chairmen, the more diffused the question, the more useless the answer. None of these programs seem to be leading us to the questions we originally asked. We are not getting our vector of Karma."

"I understand muddy water hides many things. Still, youControllers have information theory to help you extract datafrom noise."

"True, Chairman. But these things take time to run properly, and after that come the interpretations and the decisions. I want to return to the original penetration; pursuethe first girl. We prepose bringing Klyten more into it."

"Very well. Until the next meeting, then?"

"Yes. And I hope we shall all have more to say than wedid the last time. All we did there was allow ourselves to recognize that we had a problem."

'True enough ... and so far we don't know yet exactly what that problem is, do we?"

"I am happy that you agree with our interpretation!"

Plattsman turned and departed Parleau's office.

NINE

The finest tragedies are always on the story of some few houses that may have been involved as either agents or sufferers in some deed of horror.

—Aristotle, Poetics

The place where Maellenkleth and Krisshantem had established their workroom and ad hoc dwelling remained toMorlenden curiously vague in specific location, even thoughthe boy Taskellan hardly talked of anything else during theirlong walk eastward through the naked winter forests of the wild northern provinces of the reservation. And during theirwalk together, Morlenden also learned the boy was somethingmore than the simple rowdy he had first appeared. While itcould not be denied that Taskellan was deficient in most of the approved social graces, it was also apparent that he held his two insiblings in almost worshipful regard, sharing, as it seemed, most of Maellenkleth's likes and dislikes. There were many: Maellenkleth was periously decisive in her opinions. But it was through such second-order reflections that Morlenden was able to begin to get to know the girl he wassearching for. What impressed him far more, however, was the even greater regard the younger boy held for the hifzer Krisshantem. Morlenden half expected any minute to be informed that this Krisshantem was also proficient in faith-healing and dead-raising, among his other skills.

Morlenden was neither surprised nor amazed, even considering the exaggeration which Tas would have to be adding; a hifzer would learn fast to be quick or he would simply notsurvive. And this one did, apparently, survive rather well. Helived alone in the woods, far from any habitation, and seemingly prospered. But beyond the location of the tree-house, there seemed to be no way to determine in advance exactly where Kris was likely to be. It was as if the hifzer boyobeyed some internal variant of Heisenberg's principle—thatone simply could not predict where he would be.

Krisshantem, so the story went, unraveling as they walked,was and had been a nomadic sort of hunter and gatherer, tiedloosely by association to Braid Hulen, the potters. Kris ranged far and wide, uncovering various small deposits of clayand trading these locations with the Hulens for the few thingshe could not make for himself. By and large, the kinds ofclays the Hulens used were few to begin with, spread all overin tiny nodes. But even they could not cover them all, and soKris had moved in on the periphery. And there he remained,silent as the shadows of a wintered branch upon the new fallen snow. He wandered, seeking just the right beds of clayand mineral colorings, meeting rarely with one or another ofthe Hulens to exchange information.

Taskellan said, "The Hulens themselves are closemouthed, secretive. They are something of wanderers, themselves, andthey drift in and out, saying very little. They go off in the woods to their special places and bring back loads of clays.They all might get together once a week, and they don't saymuch even then, or not so I could tell. They're all deep in Multispeech and use it among themselves more than anyone I ever saw, except perhaps the elders of Dragonfly Lodge.That is, when they talk at all. Mael got to know them well,through Kris, and came to like them after a bit. She was putoff at first by their silences; she always did like to talk, argue,expound. But she told me that they listened a lot. Like this:that Kris could locate a good creek-bed for clay just by listening to the water flowing and tinkling, the way it sounded, theway the sound filled the places around its origin. 'Clay comesfrom peace in the water,' he said. 'Rest-peace, not stagnation.Once you learn to listen, water-wording is just like Multi-speech.' "

Morlenden commented, "We Derens are not such masters of Multispeech. We keep the records and Singlespeech will dofor that I can listen to it, but I don't like to give up to it andto its speaker* and I've never had what I'd call a successful transmission."

* The reception of Multispeech demanded that the receiver allowhis will to become passive. This relationship of individual submission to another's will had traditionally limited the use of this linguistic ability to certain Braids and elder communes, who included in their traditional regimens compensatory disciplines tohandle this problem.

Tas disregarded Morlenden's disclaimer. "Mael knows itreal good. I mean, she was good before, but since she metKris, she's been able to do really wild things."

"For instance?"

"You know visual-mode? How you can send holistic pictures with it? These pictures seem like life, but aren't, becausethey're not movable. Or is that just stuff the elders tell the children?"

"As far as I know, it's true." "Mael could make them move. Not so fast as real, slower, but they moved. I let her in once and she showed me.""I had heard once that two or more elders who had worked long at it could do movers. I never saw one."

"I heard that your mind isn't ready for it until you can control autoforgetting." Morlenden winced at the boy's remark. Autoforgetting was a phenomenon they did not mention openly. Taskellan, for his part, caught a trace of Morlenden's discomfort and lapsed into silence, mumblingmonotones when spoken to, or more rarely, subvocalizing,as if talking to himself. Morlenden followed behind, walkingon through the frosted morning of the cold winter day.

Along the way from Yos-Perklaren, Morlenden had not once seen anything remotely resembling a yos or a dooryard, a bower, or even a widened place at the junction of paths where strangers might meet and speak without omen. Theywalked, seemingly, through a trackless, leaf-strewn hardwoodforest, illuminated by a pearly, translucent sunlight filteringthrough a high deck or finely detailed altocumulus. Morlendencould remember hearing Fellirian call such a sky in some oldhuman terms she had heard from an antiquarian. Mackerel sky, they called it, or sometimes buttermilk sky if the cloudlets were larger. They themselves in Singlespeech saidPalosi Pisklendir. Pearl fish-scale sky. And the other they designated Hlavdir—curd-sky. After all, they were much the same in either method of speech.

When they had started, the forest had been the artificallycultivated parasol pines, but out of the lake country, it soonreverted to nature and became a forest of oak and hickory,gallbarks, shagworts, mossycups with cupleaves, on the poorersoils and rocky outcrops. As the sun neared, attained, and began to pass the zenith, there was further change, and the treesappearing were beeches and ironwoods, wild-privets andplanetree, sure signs they were in stream-dominated country.Not bottomland. There were still no paths. They walked on,in silence now, saving their breath, making only the small forest noises of rumpled leaves underfoot as they went Shortly after what Morlenden thought was noon, theystopped, their breath steaming lightly in cold air as limpidand trembling-clear as spring water. Morlenden thought on ita moment, and realized with a start that he was hungry. Heslid out from under his pack and retrieved the fine wayfoodPlindestier and Klervondaf had thoughtfully provided—asmall mesh bag of apples, sausages and bread.

Their lunching-place seemed little different from most ofthe lands they had been walking through all day, since firstlight. Save that here, of course, the forest was predominantly beech, and that they were in the shallow valley of a small stream, surrounded by the silvery naked trunks with their suggestions of the ropy strandings of muscles, broken only by the darker, more somber boles of ironwood, with itsbluish bark color, or the deep, vibrant green of aborvitae. More rarely, there were scraggly junipers.

Despite the cold of the day, Morlenden was relaxing,wrapped well in his hard-winter pleth and traveling cloak, and full of a fine sausage as well. But Taskellen broke intohis meditations. "We're likely to find Kris somewhere aroundhere, if we find him at all." The boy waved his arm about freely, indicating the general area one could see through thenetwork of smooth trunks and bare branches, some still holding a cluster of this year's browned leaves. "The treehouse isa lot farther, but it's on this creek, and the last time I saw him, he was working this area. We passed the way Kris usually goes over to the Hulens, but I saw no sign he'd been there."

"We could miss him easily in these pathless woods. Are you certain that this is the area?"No doubts, no doubts at all, Ser Deren. We would find him

somewhere around here if for no other reason, than that he'd wait for Maellenkleth. She wouldn't wander all over the placewith him. No! Not at all! She sat him down and told him to light in one place and stay there—and he did. After all, it wasKris who was being wooed, not the other way around. He wasthe one who had to learn the new role, not her! Ha! As if she would!"

Taskellan looked about, as if to reassure himself. He saw a forest floor covered with beech leaves, tree trunks, their numbers growing with distance until they formed a solid barrierand blocked out all sense of horizon. Tas looked back at Morlenden, not quite so sure. "This is where he'd be . . . but evenif he was here, we could miss him if he didn't want us to see him . . . they say that he can disappear, just like that. Zip!He's there; and then he isn't. I came with Mael once and he showed me. He just got still, a minute, and then he was gone.No noise, no nothing."

"People can't just vanish. How does he do it? What's thetrick?"

The boy shrugged. "Just his way . . . I don't know. Kris is strange. He and the Hulens alike are hunters and they eat alot of meat, so they need to be sneaks, wood-crafters. Theywander around in all kinds of weather and can't be bothered with carrying around a lot of provisions with them on their treks to the clay-pots."

Morlenden nodded, acknowledging what Tas said, but nevertheless, he was surprised. True hunters were rare in ler society, for several contributory reasons, not the least of which was their basic orientation toward farming, with its commitment to a fixed plot of land. They had long ago chosen thislife. More, the restriction against the use of any weaponwhich left the hand weighed heavily against those who mighthave been so inclined. "Kill not with that which leaves the hand," went the stern injunction, reaffirmed by generations ofRevens and their interpretations of the basic tradition. And sofar as Morlenden knew, it was always obeyed, never broken.It was their most serious individual act of crime. To break it in any fashion made one outcast; against a person called fordeath by any means, fair or foul. . . . No doubt this made a hunting existence extremely difficult, or an interesting problemof discipline. He observed, after thinking it over for a moment, to Tas, "Then they and Kris must be very good at theirhunting."

"You bet they are! Quick. They use hands and knives and tengvaron*. Graigvaron, too, though I've never seen one. All kinds of animals, small and large, although they don't hunt the larger ones so much, unless they have time and feel like smoking it. But if Kris is anywhere around here, he knows we're here, probably what we came for as well. He's spooky; I think he can read minds."

* Tengvar, a light, elegant, half-meter machete. Graigvar, a delicate thrusting-spear. These were rare artifacts as they were weaponsand used for nothing else. Since they were uncommon, considerablemythology was woven about them. For instance, each one possesseda name of its own, generated in the same three-root fashion as werethe names of persons; each one possessed a complex, highly detailedhistory, which was learned rote by each bearer in turn and nevercommitted to writing. "Gvarh" means weapon (and has no othermeaning, being one of the few trans-aspectual roots),t Zvonh: resonance. Ler set an extraordinary, in some cases, excessive valuation upon a logical concept called resonance or harmony.This was also called self-consistency. Nothing was unique or independent, but a part of some larger unit, which possessed purposeand meaning. To lack zvonh was to have contradictions, inequalities. Although a valuable logical tool, it was often popularly misused.

"Road apples!" said Morlenden.

"Thafs what I heard!"

"So is Kris like the Hulens?"

"No. Much more so. I don't know what he was before he

came here and started bartering with them, but he learned

from them. And became something more than them . . .

they're afraid of him now and avoid him, not for what he

does, because he's very quiet and restrained, but for what he

now knows. That's like him all over; I mean, I know Mael

deep, a lot better than Kler, and I knew that he would have

to be something special of himself for her to have anything to

do with him, much less have dhainaz with him, even less inte

grate as they have done.... I don't think you'll get much

out of him; he knows more than Kler and is a lot more secre

tive."

Morlenden asked casually, "Do you know what Maellenkleth was doing?"

"No. I don't know. I heard some stuff, but I always thought that it was all made-up, legends and fairy tales. It doesn't fit together so well and as for its zvonhf . . . it's just not."

"Sometimes it's hard to separate lack of zvonh from a lack of more facts, or perhaps degree of subtlety."

"It's as you say, I know . . . but I never worried about it.Mael knew what she was doing and Mael trusted him and that was enough for me. And I know she took her oaths as aZanklar seriously. She was a Player of the great Life Game,and would not betray guild secrets. But she had taken him far into it. They were in it deep."

Morlenden had been sitting with his legs folded under his body. He now unfolded and arose, stretching. "Well," he said, "we should go on a little farther, shouldn't we? At leastto the treehouse. It's past noon already, and I don't care tosleep in the open in this wild country and the cold."

Stretching more, brushing leaves off his cloak, Morlendenbent over to pick up his traveling-bag, feeling different partsof his body readjusting to the new repose of his clothing, newpatterns of warmth and cold. The day was cold, indeed. Coldand still and beginning to be damp, and though it was yet notfar from midday, a bite lingered in the air of the beech forest. He looked along the shallow valley, upstream, tryingto make some estimate of how far yet they had to walk to thetreehouse. He could not. All he knew was that they had covered an impressive distance on foot in half a day, and that much more remained, in an empty forest without trail or pathor blazon. He looked again, trying to get some better feel forthe distances of the forests . . . and saw, standing not ten feetaway, a person who very definitely had not been there before.It was not the exact way he had been facing, but likewise ithad not been behind him either. Yet there he was. Morlenden stared at the silent figure, feeling an odd prickling along hisbackbone, and in the center of his fundament, a hollow tickling sensation. The person returned his gaze without expression or apparent comment, with all the impersonality ofsome natural object, a stone, a leaf, at tree trunk. The personappeared to be an adolescent, one of the people, a boy, veryfair-haired, although not so pale of skin nor so gold of hair asCannialin, he caught himself thinking. He was dressed in a patched and well-worn winter overcloak and felt boots, although the clothing was very clean and well cared for. He washardly different from any other mop-head adolescent; slenderand wiry, an angular, stony, serious face, muscular and hardened from years of exposure to the weather and the uncaring that had driven him here to the edge.

Morlenden spoke quietly, so as not to disturb the apparition. "Taskellan?"

The boy looked in the direction Morlenden was looking.He also got to his feet, and said, "I see. That's Kris. Come on, I'll acquaint you. And then I have to go back. Long wayhomeward, you know."

They gathered their things and moved slowly, cautiously,to the place where the other boy was standing, waiting for them; the still, silent figure nodded, virtually imperceptibly, now acknowledging their interest.

Taskellen said, "I present the worthy Krisshantem to a Ser and Kadh of the Braid of Counters, Morlenden Deren." All in the proper order. And as soon as he could estimate that the two strangers were measuring one another, he turned, abruptly, as if afraid this fragile meeting were going to suddenly evaporate, that one or both might bolt and run and return back the way they had come. The younger boy waved toMorlenden. In a moment, he was gone. In a few more moments, his scuffles in the winter-fallen leaves could be heard fading away. Then there was silence, at least to Morlenden's ear.

The two stood and watched one another. In the lightfalling through the clouds and branches, the impression wasof being under water, a very cold and clear water. Morlendenwatched the still, angular face before him with its sharp definitions, planes, and angles, and felt a tension, a wariness. Notdanger. He was being weighed to an exquisite level of discrimination, and it was disturbing. He broke the silence ofthe forest. "And you, then, are indeed Krisshantem, who wasthe lover of the girl Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren?"

"Dhofter," the boy corrected. The correction was offered ina self-confident clear pleasant alto voice. The term dhofter surpised Morlenden somewhat, for the dhof was a specificcategory of personal relationship among lovers which went rather further than the usual pledges of undying desire thatsuch persons were prone to utter in the salad days of their affairs. Far beyond the casual meetings, affairs, sharings,puppy-loves, however intense the sexual desire that went withthem was. Dhof was a serious thing, neither done nor said lightly. There were obligations....

Krisshantem asked, "Who sent you to me here?"

"The Perwathwiy Srith, hetman of Dragonfly Lodge,presented us with a commission to locate Maellenkleth or determine her fate. I went to her yos. Klervondaf recommended

me to you." Morlenden added as tactfully as he could, "Al

though he was not overly fond of so doing."

The words seemed to make no impression on the stonyface before him. "She is not here," Krisshantem said after a long pause.

Morlenden also paused, trying to synchronize somehow with the boy. He said, after a time, "Where is she?"

"Outside. Had you not guessed by now?"

"I suspected. Do you speak from knowledge?"

"Just so, no more."

"WiU she return?"

"I think not... no."

Morlenden persisted. The replies were coming a little faster, now, reluctantly to be sure, but faster, as if the act of conversing were warming up some little-used mechanism somewhere deep within the boy. "Could you find her?"

. . No. I do not know where to go, outside, in the human world. I do not know the texture of it. If I went, I would enmesh myself more deeply than was Maellenkleth. I do not think I could bring her back."

Morlenden breathed deeply. What a mess to stumble through! The hetman says nothing. The outsibling evades.The younger outsibling worships. And the lover is stunned and withdrawn, waiting here in the deep forest for that which he knows will never come back. . . . Nothing. Outside! The whole planet Earth, Manhome, teeming with billions, miles and miles of cities, labyrinths, procedural jungles of the mind of which they collectively knew nothing. She could beanywhere, and the closer he came to the flesh-and-blood bodyof the girl he sought, the more invisible she became. And themore crucial she seemed, but to what? What was this thing,and why was everyone associated with her so much ... such

a . . . Morlenden searched frantically for a word. Yes. Basket-case.

Krisshantem sensed some of Morlenden's exasperation, andvolunteered, carefully neutral, "You intend to go out, then?For her?"

Morlenden felt some tentative stirrings of hope. He said,carefully, "Yes. We hold just such a commission. We will honor it. My word as Toorh, with that of my insibling and co-spouse Fellirian. But it is not an easy thing, and it promises to get harder, Krisshantem, for I have found so farin my studies that this simple girl, this didh-Srith, hardly olderthan the Nerh of my own children's Braid, is an enigma greater than the Braid of the Hulens or the passings of a certain outcast boy."

Krisshantem smiled faintly, but unmistakably. "I agree, Serand Kadh Deren. Aelekle was full of destiny, as we have said,she and I. And others. Fate walked arm and arm with her and conversed with her daily. I do not know the substance ofthese conversations. But the Hulens? Myself? I am no mystery; I am as plain and obvious as weather. I live deep in thewoods and partake of its essences."

"You are quieter in the day than a good thief in the night." Morlenden recalled the tale of Plindestier, of followersand silent listeners under the curve of the yos someone woodswise and crafty. The thought submerged before it could emerge clearly. Morlenden thought, No, not this one. He'd not sneak and lurk under yos-curves, listening at the doorway, and slipping off. No This one Plindestier would never have seen.

"I can teach you tree-ness in a day; it is nothing."

"But the girl; I cannot know where to pick up her trail outside until I discover what she was. And no one will tell me."

The boy looked sharply away from Morlenden, now attending to the distances, into the background of naked beech-limbs, the tracery of branches and twigs, of curdling buttermilk skies, as if weighing, calculating something obtuse anddifficult, amorphic and ineluctable. A truth, they might say,that could be approached only along a ladder of parables andenigmas and silent little explosions of enlightenments. He turned back and fixed Morlenden with a burning gaze thatmade Morlenden acutely uncomfortable. Something had shifted.

"What is it you wish to know, Ser Deren?""Everything you can tell me, will tell me. We must know what we are going into."

"Of course. Everything I can. And there is much. Some things I know, others . . . I know not. But all of them alike, one and all, you and I Will explore and project from. We willlisten to the voices of the night. Will you do thus with me ina treehouse far in the forest? Otherwise we shall have to seek shelter for you with the Hulen guesthouse, and it is far."

"I would not wish to walk so far, but I will sleep in a tree-house. I have not done so since I was a buck." Krisshantem nodded, vigorously now. "Come along, then.

Follow me as you may." And Krisshantem turned and beganwalking up the stream-valley, silently, not looking back to seeif Morlenden was coming along. They did not speak againuntil they had reached, much later, their destination.

TEN

Tragedy is intimately associated with freedom; we only find its depiction in art by people who experience it. Collectivists, when moved to emotion at all, prefer to substitute disasters and calamities, which invariably and inexorably"happen" to masses, multitudes, and other assemblies of crowds. Tragedies, on the other hand, are just as invariably caused by individuals, and so felt by other individuals.

Freedom is a most interesting subject; it must, in the bizarre systematology of basic ideas stretched to the breaking point, include the freedom to choose to be free of freedom.

To avoid the responsibility for complete study at the initiation of a plan guarantees that blame must be found for its unavoidable failure in the end.

—M. A. F., Atropine

It was considerably farther than Morlenden had anticipatedto the treehouse; he walked, or trudged, now, along behindKrisshantem, growing weary as the distances unreeled behindthem. The boy did not seem to hurry, but his progress wassteady and covered ground at a rate Morlenden found somewhat exerting. He himself was no slouch at walking, and hadmade many a distance run himself, but here the effort was beginning to tell on him; he was, in a word, tired. And Krisshantem moved on through the seemingly endless forest of beech and ironwood silently and unhurrying, while the shadows softened and lengthened, and what blue remained in

the sky deepened in color; the western sky, which was behind

them, grew pastel bright and full of colored veils. The boy

made no sound in the fallen leaves, crackled no twigs, left no

mark at all of his passage. Morlenden was embarrassed,

knowing that to Krisshantem's acute hearing, his own passage

must sound like that of a wild bull, breaking through the

leaves behind the boy. No wonder Kris never looked back—

he could follow Morlenden's passage easily enough just by lis

tening.

At last, they reached the treehouse, with evening close

upon them, full night only moments away. Krisshantem did

not hesitate, but went straight to the rope ladder extending out

of the house and climbed within. Morlenden had been expect

ing something rude and unsubstantial, a shanty stuck willy

nilly in the crotch of a tree—but it was, as he watched Kris

climb, an impressive, solid structure, built with an eye for en

durance and resistance to stresses, carefully braced in an an

cient, stolid beech. Far from appearing tacked on, it seemed to

be so much an integral part of the tree and the surrounding

forest that one could easily overlook it. He was sure that it

was nearly invisible in the summer with the leaves to shield it

and break its outlines.

They reached the inside by means of a crude rope ladder,which Morlenden found exacting and difficult to climb, something he had not the practice for. But once inside, any suspicion that the treehouse could have been crude vanished entirely. It was sparse inside, but comfortable and roomy.Rather like a combined hearthroom and sleeper, but insteadof a hearth, there was an ancient iron stove, a wood-burner. A human artifact, from the days long ago. He assumed thatthey had found it nearby, for it seemed so heavy and massivethat they couldn't have dragged it very far on muscle alone.

After lighting several lamps, Krisshantem reached into a locker and produced a couple of freshly killed squirrels, already gutted, dressed, ready for cooking. These he put into apot, along with some potatoes and onions from another pantry, and threw in a couple of suspicious red peppers for goodmeasure. Then he went to work on a fire, and within a short time, had a fire going, the stew cooking, and some of the edge began to come off the cold.

Now warming, they both removed their heavy winter over-cloaks and sat on the floor silently, relaxing. Morlenden offered no words. The boy seemed tired and drawn as well, asif he had come a great distance, for the coldness of the treehouse suggested that it had been untenanted for something more than a day. Krisshantem offerred nothing, apparentlydeeply immersed in some private inner reverie whose boundaries only he knew. Morlenden did not interrupt him, and sothey sat for a considerable time, in silence. But at last Krisshantem looked up, directly at Morlenden, with that same disturbingly intent gaze he had seen before. This time, the glance did not waver, but stayed; Morlenden found the sudden intense attention disconcerting.

"Ser Deren, you will wonder the reasons for my silence?"

"Yes."

The boy looked out the window, a real glass window, not one of the travertine panes they favored for yos windows, deep into the north and west. Only a hint of color remainedin those skies, a deep far-violet; otherwise, it was night. "Iwas setting an image straight," he began, "making it just rightin my mind, for a Multispeech transferral to you. Can youread such an image if I send in the visual-mode?"

"Indeed I can receive, and have the readiness for it. But tell me, where does one such as yourself learn the fine arts ofMultispeech?" Morlenden felt apprehension over the voluntary submission in the will during reception of Multispeech,and wished to make the boy a little defensive before he gaveup to him.

A light flared in the boy's eyes, then dimmed. But did not go out. "I learn well. Many things, from such as will instructme. But it is good that you elect to receive and I to send, forthereby you will at least be able to say then that you know more than just a name."

Morlenden said, "Before I set out on this journey, my insibling said that she could send an image, but that it would beone weak and blurred. I had hoped to find a good one, withthose who knew Maellenkleth well."

"And so it shall be, Ser Deren! You will see, as I did, with the eyes of my mind . . . are you indeed prepared to see-inperdeskris?"

Morlenden felt the intimidation behind the words, but nodded, tense, apprehensive, yet nonetheless determined to go ahead with this not without misgivings. Multispeech hadmany modes, many aspects. One was the direct transmissionof an image direct from one mind to another, in which themedium of transmission was a kind of speech, voice, sound.But it was speech that far transcended the normal linear coding and sorting aspects of traditional language, language as the humans had known it, language as the simpler Single-speech was structured.

In single-channel language, the signal was broad-band, a fingerprint pattern of bands of harmonic tones, shifting frequency slightly, the whole pattern being broken from time totime by sharp clicks, drops, and hisses and combinations thereof: vowels and consonants, former and latter. But in Multispeech, the harmonic bands were individually controlled, and the breaks in tone came separately in each separate band; only with intense concentration would it normallywork at all, for there was no instinct for it: it was all learned. And on the part of the receiver, total submission. This wasthe part of it Morlenden liked least, this sense of losing control, of giving in to another's will. In the past, he and Fellirian had played with it, experimented, but they were bothunskilled, and in any event, uninterested in it. It was nice thatthe people had this ability, he had thought many times; still,they didn't need it in their klanrolh . . . or did they? Well, inany event, there was as yet no suitable method of writing it.Or were they truly primitive . . . and was Multispeech theirtrue communicative way? And this one, this hifzer Krisshantem, was reputedly a master of it.

The boy sat across the room from Morlenden, hidden a bitin the patterns of shadow and lamplight, wrapped in his longovershirt, a plain but much-mended pleth without decoration.In his hand he held a small, pale stick or wand, and with thishe began tapping regularly, slowly, on the platted flooring before himself; simultaneously beginning a slow rocking motionwith his body. Morlenden shut his eyes, instinctively, to concentrate on the sound, even though he knew well enough thatif they did establish contact, he would be blind while he wasreceiving; Multispeech in certain modes overrode and cut outthe visual centers, programming routing from the ears into the visual cortex instead.

. . . He heard the night sounds of the forest and a nearbycreek; he heard the rustling, blurry noises of a hardwood fire,the hiss and bubble of the pot. He heard the musing of a weak breeze outside which had come up, microturbulences asit flowed through the limbs and branches and branchlets andterminal twigs . . . each tree had its own sound in the wind. Each individual tree as well . . . there were those who had made an art of tree-listening and claimed to recognize individuals blindfolded. He heard the creaks and stress-shifts of the treehouse, as it moved in tune with the tree of which it had become a part. And he heard tapping, tapping, somewhere far off, somewhere near.

He heard the tapping of the wand, and under it, a monotonous, repetitive humming, a droning, like the melody ofa song such as a forgetty might make up, simplistic, iterative,recurved inward upon itself, simple, over and over again; yetwhen one tried to listen to it . . . Morlenden found it full of sudden shifts and changes, permutations which had not beenthere before; unseen, unheard. Shifts in key, subtle changes inrhythm, damned subtle when he first noticed, and then getting harder to hear; he had to concentrate deeper on it, trying to anticipate, to find the key to the order of the changes. That was the way of it. Now listening very closely, Morlenden observed, half aware of it, that he thought he could perceive not a tone, but a harmony now opening up; two melodies, perhaps more—yes, there were three, four, five and

THERE he had it, grasped it an instant, lost in as fast, butnow he knew it was easier to pick up the thread, follow thechanges, feel the coming shifts, and he always had more thanone thread of it. The first step, the first linking between himself and the boy Krisshantem. Odd, odd, it was like monocular vision, or an ear blocked; something was trying to form inhis visual center, vague, shapeless, a lump, a nothing, a blur,not-yet-ness. Morlenden began to hum the aimless tune alongwith the boy, tapping with his fingers, picking up the melody,the rhythm, the changes, the shifts, hoping the feedbacks would let Kris know he really was trying, despite his distasteof it, really trying to reach for it, and

NOW NOW NOW and the sensation of sound blew out like an impossible implosion and Morlenden felt himself grasped, in utter silence, by a monster raw will-force, pure aspect stripped of its vehicle, the body-person, an enormity, a formless pulsing power that was reaching deeply into his innermost mind, imposing, dominating. He felt sudden panic,raw fear, madness, lust to break this web of Multispeech andrun screaming out into the night. But it was too late. He hadachieved empathy and synchronization with Krisshantem, viathe aimless little forgetty song, and there was no escaping, norunning, no avoiding. TTiey were not completely separated intheir minds, now.

Morlenden's memory flickered out, was gone, never had been. In its place was nothing. Immediately the vision started.At first it was dim and vague, but also somehow definite. In one moment, it had not been there; and the next it was there, as if it had always been there, clear as his own memory, andoddly offset. He could see it taking shape out of blurred nothingness, but as yet he could not "look" directly at it or any ofits parts. Swiftly, now, the image, blurred and vague, began to brighten, to sharpen, to become detailed. Contrast improved. Blurs and shadows shaped themselves. The resolution improved. The holistic pattern of a Multispeech visual was working, forming like a hologram, the process making animage whole in two dimensions with the suggested dimensionality of parallax, just as Kris had seen originally, and remembered. The image was not built up of lines and dots; the timefactor controlled how clear it became, as area worked in a hologram. The more Morlenden received, the clearer it became, and the more directly he could see it. The pressure increased from the will outside himself.

Now she was clear enough to see . . . it was a girl, here, inthis place, this treehouse, sitting in a beam of sunlight thathad passed through the window . . . smiling warmly, and almost nude, her legs folded to one side under her hips, towardhim. She was wearing the dhwef, a long-tailed, embroideredloinclothlike strip, held on her narrow hips by a belt of wooden beads. She was turned slightly, her left side towardhim. It had been summer; something of the flat tone to thelight falling on her body, the warm, tanned tone of her skin.The image brightened and clarified. So this was Maellenkleth,the First-player who was lost. She matched very well the words he had heard to describe her, but in this case, as with all the rest, the words had not matched the reality very well.She was lovely—Morlenden, now seeing with his own memory-eyes, felt his heartbeat speed a little, recalling thedays of his own adolescence, how she would have seemed tohim then, when he was a buck, how he would have responded to her. She was rare and exquisite, half in the perfect, tautbody, lean and muscular, and half in the imperious will thatanimated it, filled those comely limbs with life and will.

Now Morlenden had a living memory of the girl, in this image of her identical with Krisshantem's own memory of her. It was so detailed, he could see-remember a tiny moleunder her left breast, see-remember a light sheen of perspiration on her forehead, her collarbone, see-remember a soft youthful bloom along the skin of her ankles, a healed scratch on her knee. Her face narrowed down to a finely structured, delicate chin. Her nose was small, narrow, her lips soft, not quite full, slightly pursed. Her eyes were clear, not deep-set, open in their expression. There was determination and innocence in her every gesture, arrested here in midflight, butthere was also a sweet, open smile forming on her mouth, too. Enchanting . . . Morlenden felt himself both voyeur andburglar, despite that he was being given this, for he would always now carry the memory of that smile, its slight adolescent awkwardness and shy offering, and know that it had notbeen directed at him, though it seemed so. .. . Visuals were a cheat.

The image had long since ceased to become clearer, and now Morlenden felt at last that it was over. He relaxed, anticipating the moment when Krisshantem would release himand he would fall out of this reception-self. The pressure increased, became greater, painful, excruciating, making himwince, feel fear now, and the image faded, faded, became gray, blurred, indistinct, even though he could remember it well enough. It was what was being sent. That image faded,vanished. Nothing replaced it. There was darkness and void.Suddenly a series of ideas flashed directly across his imagination: So you woven scum think a hifzer shouldn't learn your precious multispeech, do you? Then watch this elder-to-be, and learn how well one such as I learned his lessons. The concepts were as if shouted by many Krisshantems, all at once, echoing and bouncing and multiplying, feeding backand forth across one another, feeding back upon themselvesuntil Morlenden's whole mind reverberated with them. Then he went totally blank, aware only that something was beingput into him, bypassing his conscious mind altogether—hewould know-remember it later, but not now. Instruction-mode. Raw data. He knew something was happening to him,but he couldn't reach it.

Then he was aware that he was not receiving anymore, that time was passing again, that the presence had withdrawn, that the will which had gripped him with a force he could not have broken had faded away without notice. He was himself, sitting in a treehouse, now warm, smelling squirrel stew. He opened his eyes; Krisshantem was no longer sitting, tapping, humming the monotonous melody, but instead was casually stirring the stew with the wand. Morlenden did not know how much time had passed, nor how long the process had been stopped. He felt shaken, light-headed. Afraid to move. He remembered Maellenkleth, as if she had been his own then;

yet it was not then, in that summer, but was here, moments ago . . . and something else; he remembered the Game. Morlenden touched the memory of the data, stuffed into his mindraw, without referent. Yes, it was all there, the Outer Game, what Krisshantem knew of it, stripped to essentials, his mindfilled with strategy and tactics, millions of rules and configurations; one could wander there forever, bemused. He put itaway. He wanted to inspect this curious new learning anothertime. He cleared his throat. Kris looked up at him, blandly,matter-of-factly, as if nothing at all had happened.

Kris asked casually, "Did you get it all?"

"Indeed I did; completely...."

"I thought as much. I stopped augmenting the image of

Maellenkleth when I sensed from your feedback that you hadmost of it. First it's slow, then it comes fast, then slow again. . . it never quite reaches an exact copy. Not much good going on indefinitely, although I suppose one could. Pardon theintrusion, but I sensed doubt. You have doubtless realized that you are now as I in knowledge of the Game. That will saveus much talk."

"I had no idea you would be able . . . How much of that

did Maellen teach you?"

"I knew some before. Not very much. Most of it came from her. I would have to know all modes to sit with her in the citadel of the Inner Game, which at present I know not.Nor you. I have some ideas on it, for one can always project from the data at hand, but, frankly, some of the conjectures I have imagined are so odd or perhaps outrageous that Ihave not pursued it far, thinking it had to be wrong."

"I remember it now, but I have not thought on what I have newly learned, whether I wished to know or not. How long was I under that?"

"There is, they say, no time in Multispeech . . . I have no idea, but the stew is done. I have heard some elders say that the universe waits until one is finished. However, I remain skeptical there, for to the stew you may add the datum that there is no more light yonder westward. Perhaps the stars have more imagination than the average elder. Those are her words as well."

"You are too good at it. I think I shall not allow that again," Morlenden said without heat, stating a fact. "I will not try again, although I must tell you that there is a variant of Command-mode which insibling Players must

learn, Command-override, which does not require permission,

or even knowledge of it on the part of the receiver. . . . Mael

taught it to me, and it is a fearsome thing I will not use. But

you may meet others not so restrained as I in your travels."

Morlenden was aghast. "But how can I protect myself?"

"No way. If you are of the people, you are susceptible.You can't even autoforget out of it, that is why they restrictits teaching . . . it's very hard to do right. I can't teach it toyou. As I said, it's difficult. Mael taught me only part of it. I didn't use override on you. I am sorry I was angry; you chosenot your position, as neither did I. But I suggest you getsomeone to teach it to you—you can at least strive with onewho would use it."

"Who would try?"

"I don't know. But you get it all only in the Inner Game.But I am but a novice, one who sits at the feet of the greatwho deign to lend their arcane skills. I am not so good as youmay think; instruction I can do; Maellen who was Aelekle tome and me alone I can easily do. . . . Obviously, for I knewher many ways. I knew her as a lover, and as a student of her wisdom. Random images are harder, abstract ones still more so. But should you wish another demonstration, I cannow send you a picture of yourself, as I have seen you "

"Myself through another's eyes? Thank you, no. I must refuse. Please leave me my illusions and memories of the waythings were. I should then no longer be able to imagine myself a buck like yourself. I know very well that I-now-Morlenden possess a potbelly from overindulgence at too many weaving-parties. Nevertheless I prefer to imagine myself a svelte youngster, lean and mean."

"Ha!" Krisshantem smiled at that. It was the first time Morlenden had seen him do so. And inside himself, he forgave the intrusion. He had in part asked for it. He was thankful this wild boy knew no more than he did.

During the meal—the stew turned out well despite Kris'sheavy hand with the red pepper—they did not speak, but atein silence, Morlenden was hungry, for he had walked far intwo days and had eaten little, save pathway-food, cold mealspacked to be eaten along the way. This was the first real honest meal he'd had since leaving home. Krisshantem, too, ate quietly, with a self-possession and attention to the present that surprised Morlenden. After all, it was beginning to bemore than merely apparent that Kris had lost Maellen, to accident, not the usual cause of such separations, and he was only barely older than Morlenden and Fellirian's own Pethmirvin. But where Peth was still very much a child at fifteen,for all her busy sexuality, this boy was something more thanthe usual adult.

Finishing, Kris went to the pantry, returning by way of thestove, pausing, and producing along the way an infusion ofthe ubiquitous root-tea, then returning and settling back in hisplace, folding his legs under himself after the mannerism of atailor, or perhaps a rug-maker.

Morlenden cleaned the remainder in his bowl with the last

crust of bread, observing, "You cook well, indeed. I would

become the fatted calf in your house."

Kris answered pleasantly, "Not so. When the cook is good,one uses him less . . . once a day or less."

Morlenden sipped his tea, looking at the boy from over theedge of his mug. The pleasantries were now over, and the introductions finished, the measures taken. He began, reachingwith the words, "You are, so I have observed, a cool one for one who has been along the ways of dhofterie. . . . I should have thought you more, well, apprehensive about the whereabouts of Maellenkleth."

"My apprehensions are real enough, for all that I refrain from displaying them publicly like yesterday's unwashed laundry. They are, of course, much as you might suspect, perhaps more. But they do not, translated into the here and now,have much of an effect upon the nature and course of things.However strong they are." He looked away and did not meet Morlenden's glance.

"Have you thought of going after her yourself?" Gently, here.

"No. She told me specifically that not under any circumstance should I come after her should she fail to appear. Shefelt about her little expeditions that if she ever got herselfinto something that she couldn't handle, no one else would beable to do it for her, and it would be just throwing good people to waste after bad."

"We are edging into it. Shouldn't we start at the beginning?"

Kris answered, "Start at the beginning, start at the end, orin the middle; in a well-lived story it makes no difference. Does not everything lead to something else?"

Morlenden replied, "True, but for all the sophistry, the accipter flies not backward to present life out of its beak and talons to the Lagomorph."

"Hawk and hare . . . you are correct. I have been rude. Youknow that I do not wish to face this; that is the way of thewords."

"I know these things and walk with you, though I may not now face them myself, in my own life. Once I had a lover "

Kris mused, "We never know what we will face and what we will not... let me caution you of that at least."

The remark rang oddly in Morlenden's mind. Not that itstruth was in question, but that it sounded oddly prophetic after the manner of oracles; ambiguous, indefinable, unknowable as the dream-that-predicts. Until the moment came. What did this woodsman know?

Kris continued, "But, still, I would tell it my own way.Time clouds things, masks significances. You will want what Ihave, to add to what you already know or suspect."

Morlenden laughed. "Then say on as you will, for what Ihave is precious little enough." He sipped at the tea again. Itwas still almost too hot to drink properly.

"This time," he began hesitantly, "was to be her last venture outside. Yes, there were other ventures. Many of them. Ido not know where she went, or what she did. But they wereall short, never more than a few days. But she said that beforewe met there had been some longer ones . . . months, seasons."

"Maellenkleth was outside for a season? Three months?"

"Yes, among the forerunners the whole time, and they knew it not." "Clandestinely? Where could she go for so long?""She would not speak of it any more than the others. Save

once . . . she said in a mood of reminiscence, 'The humans said long ago that God created the universe in seven days, yetjust now have I been to a place where the creation is still going on. And if that be true, perhaps their god still lives andworks in that place.' I know not where it was, nor would shesay, in the sense of how to get there. I saw, in deskris, as she sent, and she said that there would be a place like that for ussomeday. I said, 'Would we go there and live, us, out of our little land?' and she became suddenly sad and said no, not there, never. I saw it, but never where in relation to anywhere else: there was a dark sea, salt water, there were rockybeaches, cliffs, brown mountains, that ran in rippling waves above the waters and plunged into them at their northern ends. The sun set into the sea. No one lives there. It is free and open, but now empty. She said that once, long ago, theycame there to be cured, to be healed, but that now no one will even walk in it, or pass near it."

"A human sfanian, a place of healing?""I would not have thought it, but I am blind to many oftheir ways.""Just so am I. . . , But the last time she went outside: it was important?""Yes, very much so. She could refuse, but she would not. She could not let it go."

"Did she say what she was to do?"

"She was to break two machines no longer in use."

"Absurd! Perhaps if they were in use, but otherwise ..."

"They—those with whom Mael spoke—were worried that ifthese things, still operable, were used, then the Forerunnerswould be able to see something they must not know beforetheir time. That none of us could know until we were prepared. They could make more of these machines, but theywouldn't be so good, and by then it wouldn't make any difference."

"Did she not realize that destroying them would point a finger at the very thing she wished hidden?"

"I asked her the same question. She shook her head, sayingthat she knew. That all that had been considered, but she still had to go."

"I cannot imagine it. What was the secret?"

"Believe me when I say that I never learned it. I know the ways of trees, I listen to the speech of the waters, I have learned to watch the clouds move and permutate, I can slowtime for myself until the sun whirls across the sky. I have mastered the silences. But I could neither get it from her,however else she gave freely, nor see it in her. Maellenklethwas indeed of the aspect of Sank, the Water, but somethingin her was harder than the finest steel, and her mind was a mirror, as are those of all Sanmanon. She received instructions, and she obeyed them, whatever distaste she herself felt."

"The faithful soldier."

"I think that she liked some of it."

"Hm!" Morlenden snorted. "Instructions from whom? Perwathwiy and her elders of Dragonfly Lodge?"

"Oh, no. Not from those, or perhaps not directly. Mael worked not for the elders, and in fact she held them in some

contempt, for they were so willing to let the Perklarens go

without a ripple. She took her instruction from Sanjirmil. Do

you know such a one?"

Morlenden's mind stopped short, as if he had suddenlywalked into a wall. "Sanjirmil? The Terklaren?"

"There can only be one, as custom allows." It was a pointed reproof. Morlenden of all people should know therecould only be one living Sanjirmil. He looked away for a time, and said quietly, "I know her. Or thought I did." Morlenden thought deeply, unable to complete the import ofit. Sanjirmil, who came in the night with the Perwathwiy.Sanjirmil who kept secrets at thirteen. Sanjirmil who was anarch-rival, and a co-plotter in something . . . and they were all operating something under the Game called the Inner Game. What had he walked or stumbled into? What devil's work were he and Fellirian doing, and in reality, forwhom? And what cause was he taking up almost by accident,as he followed Maellenkleth's path, finishing her business? Heleft it. There was not enough yet.

He said, "Tell me about your weaving with her. How was that to be arranged?"

Kris answered, "We met and became lovers by accident.Indeed. I am Air aspect. It became more than casual, and shefound that I could do certain things, things she gave value to.She offered to me, and I accepted. That is not so hard. Imagine, me becoming a shartoorhosi player of the great Game!But once I learned it, I felt it odd and . . . unfinished, and I thought of the flow of the life I have learned in the forest and visions of the sky. Very odd, those two."

"Odd? Why?""Because at first the two seem so different, but from a certain level of awareness they are much the same thing."

"I know. The wise say that there is only one reality, andthat we catch only glimpses of it. The mad are so because they cannot turn away from it; but they also cannot live in it.They are pulled apart. And that categories are errors causedby the degree of imperfection; the more highly categorized, the greater the degree of imperfection. But the universe is one."

"Spoken like a Gameplayer, Ser Deren!" Krisshantem exclaimed. "But for all that," he continued soberly, "we imperfections must live on a workaday world, where there are, after all, categories, divisions, classifications."

"There is always, in any good list, a sort called 'other.'"

"Thus the Game as well. I had always thought of it, whenI reflected on it, as a kind of manipulation, but as I learned more from Maellen-Aelekle, I saw that it was also a verycurious way of looking at a process of perception, to perceivesmall detail and large overview simultaneously. Perception!"

"All games are that in part."

"But this one more so."

"I know that Maellen was a player of the First-players. Agood one, indeed. Which came first—was it that she was torebuild because she found you, or were you the last part of alarger plan?"

Kris answered without heat or offense, "We came first. She had thought of it before, but never seriously. She went for itlong after we met. She did not use me, nor was there trade—legitimacy for becoming a Noble Player. In fact, shethought of taking the Inner Game by storm. It was rather impractical . . . the one we could have done in time, but the other would have been death for both of us; Maellen had many enemies."

'T o start a new Braid would require the permission of theRevens. And I know that they do not grant that lightly, evento the simplest of farmer Braids. And to Gameplayers? Whenthe community of the Players, past, present, and future, wasallowing the Perklarens to end, just like that, without a whimper of protest—including the Perklaren parents themselves?"

"It sounded fantastic to me as well, when we talked and plotted of it, here, in this very place where sit you and I. Butnot impossible. I said she had enemies; she also had powerfulfriends. There was something about a check upon Sanjirmil,which both Pellandrey Reven and the Perwathwiy had cometo. I think that they came to regret the decision to let the Perklarens go, after it was too late and they were committed. The others had a stake in it, and wanted things left as they had been committed to. Still, one must train for the real Game. That which I gave you in instruction-mode is nothing,just the basic foundation. It is not something most have anytalent for. In fact, Maellenkleth was the only one anyoneever heard of who had a real talent for it. And, of course, the Terklarens were rather violently against it. They said thatthe work of two Player Braids was done," He paused, and then added cryptically, "Whatever that work really was."

"So, then; attend. You are now, for all intents, a Player, if somewhat unauthorized and unpermitted. Why would Pellandrey wish Sanjirmil counterweighted?"

"Hard to explain, Ser Deren. As a Player, now, I see things I could not realize before. There are many revelations therein. Now Sanjirmil, she's competent enough in the Game,I suppose, but there's no style to her. It's like swimming ordancing or making love or just good old dhainaz . . . there's a sense of flow, motion, style. Dynamics. Maellenkleth's InnerGame names among the masters were Korh, crow, and Brodh, otter. But Sanjirmil has no grace, no style. After all, sheknows well enough that at fertility she'll be the Terklaren.Perhaps I should say the Klaren."

"I know. She is very strong-willed."

"I know not how you know her, but I know her in the Game; strong-willed is not the word. She is fierce and dominant. The masters call her Slansovh, Tiger-owl, and Hifshah,the Werewolf. She is Fire aspect. Her Braidmates, co-spouses,follow her implicitly. They are already woven."

"Woven?" Morlenden exclaimed. "Why, they aren't fertile yet, none of them!"

"None the less, it is so. She already has them trained. Allfour of them. The Revens know, the Perwathwiy knows. Andhad things gone as Maellen and I had hoped and dreamed, sowould it have been with her and me and two others I do not know."

Morlenden sighed. "And we, the poor Derens who mustregister such things, are the last to be informed. I have neverheard of such a thing, even among the Revens. Do they livetogether?"

"Indeed. The old Terklarens have already left, and joinedDragonfly Lodge; with the Perklarens. Once enemies, nowuneasy allies."

Morlenden interjected, "Against two romantics."

Krisshantem said, with great dignity, "I assure you there was nothing of the sort in it. There I know Maellen well. There was more than desperation in her plan; rather, an urgent sense of necessity." He paused momentarily. "Maellenwas very concerned about this preweaving of the younger Terklarens; for, despite the radical air which she may have projected, she was in fact very traditionalist-minded, very conservative. Her view of this was that is was stealing what youalready possess, in the person of Sanjirmil, which is as youmay know one of the omens not desirable to be seen. And soher idea was that with practice, and constant pressure on them, we could eventually win it all back and recover the rightful order of things. But however much she showed me of the Game, she always left something out; I sensed deeperpurpose in it, but it remained behind the veil—within an inner adytum into which I was not yet permitted. And she did obey the Law of the Game, thus. I put together that therewas to be an initiation in a cave somewhere near or on the Mountain of Madness, but only Pellandrey could permit it—or, in my case, perform it. And she said, 'not for love, not fordhof, not for all the sweetness we have shared, will I initiate you until they say I can. It is something more than I can giveof my own desire.' "

"Even in dhof? She spoke exactly thus?"

"Aye, even in dhof, just so, Ser Deren."

"So now—what could it have been?"

"There I am lost, blind. Yes, with all that I can do of my

own added to all that she gave me, it is still ankavemosi, that which is concealed. 'You cannot get there from here.' It is unprojectable; the knowledge of the Outer Game is both insufficient data and a program of misdirection as well. But nowyou are a Player just as I . . . everything varies in it, even thedimensional matrix. Those were the kind of games that Maellenkleth liked best. Because Sanjirmil falls upon her fundament within the higher-order Games. And Mael said, 'Present Sanjir-Dear with a matrix higher than four-dimensional and she can't tell her own arse from a knot-hole in a plank.' As unskilled as I was, I could see that from the playsI saw her make. But the lower-order Games she could handle well enough: crude, but very effective—her Game plans areheavy-handed, brute-force assaults. There is a feeling of destruction about her maneuvering."

"I believe," said Morlenden.

"When she faces a problem, she burns her way out. Power,raw imposition of order. Maellen, of the other thumb, plays a delicate, laughing Game . . . artful, skillful, balanced. To follow her Games is to experience the wind and the water, toknow sailing and flight and the surge and rush of the mounting wave of the sea."

"I have the idea," said Morlenden, "that much seems to be focused in these two . . . Braid traditions as well as what theymay differ among themselves."

"Indeed, indeed, both. Their natures, their talents and abilities, the force of the traditions of both Braids. That was why two Player Braids were established in the beginning—thateach should explore different aspects of approach to the Game, substance and style. Another battle in the eternal warbetween harmony and invention. We must have both elements. And you must not think that Sanjirmil was of necessity at a disadvantage for her lesser talent in the Game. Shehad other abilities . . . the majority would follow her, withinthe Game, and she has power under those closest to her; lust,hope, and fear. She is dangerous."

"But they work together!"

"They have no choice. Sanjirmil is forbidden to leave thereservation as the Master-Player-to-be; yet there is much, sothey say, to do outside. Sanjir is responsible for the work outside, and has only Maellen to send. And before Mael and I met, she had little else to do, anyway. And in that aspect, they do treat one another correctly, if somewhat coldly.Sanjir has now the power, the authority, Maellen has muchvalor. It has been so since Mevlannen determined to go out."

"Nevertheless, Maellenkleth sounds determined herself, to go so far against the will of so many."

"Determined? Yes, she was so. But she was also gentle ofspeech and manner in all things, save the subject of Sanjirmil,about which she could surpass a bargeman in vulgarity. . . ." And here Krisshantem looked abstracted a moment, as if recalling something, setting a tangled web of data straight,things he had assembled piecemeal over the months. "Theymade the decision to let the Perklarens terminate and unravel when Mevlannen was born. She is younger-insibling. Sanjirwas about ten, then. And later, something like five years, Idon't know exactly, something happened to Sanjirmil . . . something of the Inner Game that none will speak of save inwhispers. Not an accident, but as if something happened too soon . . . there is something about timing of certain events inthe Inner Game. At any rate, from then Sanjir became evermore ungovernable and wild. Fey, arrogant. And she becameconscious of what she had won, and that she had won it not by valor or skill but default. The Terklarens had always beenthe underlings. Now time was helping her, and all she had todo was wait and her traditional enemies would be gone. Butit wasn't enough—she wanted to win it. She was hungry.Some of the elders became regretful of their earlier decision, but by the time enough had spoken for action, the years had passed and Mevlannen had determined to go outAnd when Mael and I had become lovers, she was spendingmost of her time inside in meditation, trying to free herself ofthe hold of it . . . because once you play the Game, there isnothing else that will satisfy you. Truly it is a most dangerous and addictive poison, even though it illuminates."

Kris continued and Morlenden listened to every word now,trying to pick up the threads of this tale. "We toyed with itand I surprised her with my response to it; we traded. I taught her how I learn in the forest, from weather-watching, from trying to see the wind . . . you can, you know.It is hard, but one can. It flowed both ways. And she beganto have hope again, and began to act again. We met Pellandrey once in the woods north of the Mountain of Madness and she spoke plainly of what she was doing. Then came interminable interrogations by the Past Masters. They calledMael names, they insulted her. Never mind what they said to me. But some were intrigued, captivated by this new situation, Pellandrey, Perwathwiy, even though she is of Sanjirmil's own line of the Terklaren Braid. Make no mistake: they are all afraid of Sanjirmil, even her supporters. Againthe Inner Game and her strength and position in it."

For a moment, an inner fire, an enthusiasm, had risen in the boy's eyes and voice. Now it wavered, at the last, flickered, and went out. He resumed his demeanor of quiet resignation. He sighed deeply, and said, "But we knew however much help we had, it was a lost cause. Less than a year, and Sanjir has everything."

"Aside from her approaching fertility and investiture as senior Player, how so? I don't understand. Could Mael not challenge her later at her own fertility, with you as her shartoorh co-spouse."

"No. They let the Perklarens unravel—some say it was caused—because the Inner Game conceals something, and in the middle of Sanjirmil's generation, they will no longer need to conceal it. Whatever the Inner Game is, Sanjirmil will manifest it openly, to the astonishment of all, ler and human alike, and there will be no more Game."

"No more Game, but one Braid of Players remains!"

"Thus. And so that was why Maellen was desperate. It was her whole life, her special talent, and she could not bear to part with it; she would go against them all to keep it, even to

seek"—here Kris paused delicately—"sharhifzergan* She would declare herself so and stay here. We would rebuild itfrom scratch. Think: the only Player ever born with the inborn gift for it, and by long love of it, she is far and above anyPlayer, living or dead, in skill, in knowledge of its range ofsubtleties. All that, then, to waste, perhaps spent in the pursuitof excellence in turnips. A Perklaren, who only held the Revens above them."

* Perhaps, "honorary bastardhood." In the context of ler society,such an event was considered impossible, the ultimate in undesirability. Maellenkleth would be untouchable to untouchables.

Morlenden asked, "The other, Mevlannen. What is she to this?"

"They were insiblings without the sexual bond; yet theyhave always been close, deep into one another. They alwaysmet whenever they could, even after Mevlan's work took herto the far places, space itself. There was more to it than twostanding together in the storm of troubles; Mevlan was a partof it as well, what they were all doing, in the Inner Game,and in the outside operation."

"I thought Mevlannen was with the humans, working on atelescope in space."

"True. But she also spends a lot of time on the ground.Now when Maellenkleth went out this last time, it was to be her last trip out; and after it there was to be a trip to meetwith Mevlan openly, to get something from her. They wereall elated, anticipating .. . things were to change. That is all Iknow of it. I asked, and they all said, Hvaszan, Inner Game. I had hoped to learn more. . . ."

Morlenden interrupted. "And so you may yet. Now listenand attend: if Maellen is yet alive, we can get her back. Fellirian is working that end of it. But if she was as deep in' secrets as you say she was, and it is as touchy as her ownBraid acts, then there must be the possibility that what we willfind, if we find her, isn't Maellenkleth anymore."

"You suggest she autoforgot? Sharhifzergan she considered, but autoforgetting ..."

"I consider it possible, on the basis of what you have toldme, and what else I have seen with my own eyes. This last errand outside—if she was taken alive, she would have to protect what she knew . . . and if she would not tell it to you whowere her only hope of getting back, then autoforgetting cannot be ruled out. It is distinct."

"Then it would be a task indeed to bring her back, and inthe end, nothing in it for me . . . for if she autoforgot, thenshe is a stranger, an alien. Not Maellenkleth. Her body wassweet and full of life, but that which I loved has gone forever."

"Painful as that is, so it is truth. And now I must ask, who can do a reconstruction in Multispeech, if we bring her? Neither Fellirian nor I have the skill."

Kris mused over the question, pondering imponderables. "Areconstruction? I don't know who does them . . . I can do it, although I never did it before. You can't practice it, youknow—it's too dangerous. But I do know how, if only now intheory; it's rather like the Game, in fact it's related. But it'stricky . . . you need two others at minimum to do it. Mael toldme how before she left. It was her last gift to me."

"As if she knew she might need it. But why that? She wouldhave known if she autoforgot she wouldn't return. Just the body."

"I don't know."

"But you agree that we have to try to look, and if we findher, bring her back and try to reconstruct something; we owethat to her."

"I owe her more than that." "So then, the reconstructors you need. How skilled must they be?""Only one need be skilled, and the other two only obey . . .are you volunteering?"

"Fellirian and I, yes. She will agree to it. And perhaps shecan devise some way that we do it there, so we don't have tocarry her back, if we find her. It will solve many problems ifshe can walk back under her own power. And you have invaded my mind once already; I suppose I can live with it again."

Krisshantem asked, tentatively, "Do you think there is a chance we could regain her?"

"I think that we must be prepared for that, so that we shallif we can. And there is no other place to look. Fellirian islooking into this, even now as we talk, perhaps walking into a trap now set for whoever comes looking for Maellenkleth. But it's worth trying—at least talking with Fellirian."

"Of course, yes."

"Can you come now?"

"Yes. I will. Not with you, but I can meet you at your yos on the next day. I had contracted with the Hulens and I must

tell them I am not going to deliver.""And afterward you will meet with us there.""Yes, I will come. And along the way I will practice, as I

walk alone in the forest where no one will hear the spells I

cast in Multispeech.""Are you sure the very rocks will not respond?""No, they will not.""Good!" Morlenden reached across the low table and

patted Krisshantem's suddenly tensed hand. "And perhaps wecan find out what was going to or coming from MevlannenSrith Perklaren. But first we find Mael; then bring her back.Then we find out."

"But from whom, Ser Deren? Perwathwiy?"
"I doubt from her," said Morlenden.
"From the Revens?" asked Kris hopefully.
"Perhaps yet from Maellenkleth herself." And Morlenden

added, "She may have left something for us after all. I refuseto believe that a plot so intricate and impervious as this oneseems to be would end in a nothing forgetty, a blank tablet."

ELEVEN

The things that really stand out in your memory of the past were, at the, time you recorded them, so ordinary and unprepossessing that they were truly unmemorable. Yet the things which you imagined to be stunning and ever-memorable cannot be recalled save as vague blurs, phantoms, mergings, and rubbings. We admit to a problem here: we fail to learn what is significant until its significance and immanence serves no purposesave to haunt us.

—The Game Texts

Morlenden awoke as the sunlight was streaming in the window on the east-facing side of the treehouse, into an alcove inwhich a large and roomy bed-shelf had been fitted into theerratic, form-following structure. A patchwork counterpane, a soft and downy bottom bag. Him between them. Coherencereturned slowly. This was the treehouse in the woods, of twoadolescents, Krisshantem and Maellenkleth, who had been lovers. And something more . . . allies in a war against an opponent who shifted from day to day and seemed to refuse tobe defined. Morlenden blinked and rubbed his eyes, as if thatwould clear the fog in the inside. Perhaps the lack of definition was in him, not in the boy and girl. Better, perhaps theywere all suffering from perceptual problems. The human ofChinese military history, a man whom the people studied often, Sun-tzu, had averred that if one knew his enemy and knew himself, he could not lose. Maellenkleth appeared to have lost; therefore . . . The ler mind, strong in intuition, made the jump for him: she had not known her enemy. Andthis made his scalp prickle, for he did not know her enemyeither, and he himself seemed to be well-committed to a course of making that enemy his enemy.

Their house, their bed. Not like a yos at all, with its sense of being above the individual. The yos belonged to the standing wave of the Braid, belonged to time. When their time came, they left it, never to set foot in it, or any other, again.Objects were the artifacts left behind by forms of life. Thistreehouse was another life-form's artifact . . . something powerful and vital. Different. Alien. It gave him an eerie feeling,like wearing someone else's clothing: they were clean and ofthe proper size, more or less, but somehow they weren't right,they weren't of a piece with one's self.

He and Kris had continued talking long into the night,long past the time either of them usually went to bed. But what they had said beween them had added little to what hehad already discovered, reasoned, put together. Just details,color, the living texture of two lives which had somehow been tangled together, and which had come undone, for reasons neither of them knew. Details. Morlenden knew that he was the only person Kris had spoken with about Maellenkleth, since she had departed on her last errand, two monthsago now. His deep hifzer self-sufficiency had not served himwell in this at all; his silence and reticence had salved not at all the loss of that which he prized above all things.

Morlenden pushed the counterpane down, stretched, groaning, and allowed the chill air to bite at him, nudging him more awake, his hands behind his head, collecting thoughts.Somewhere outside was a thirsty evil that drank the lives ofinnocents whose only crime was an excess of zeal. Something outside, in the human world of 2550, which had roots everywhere, within, around them. She was a natural Player, he thought, and their only genuine prodigy born to it, reputed the best they had ever seen in the history of the Game. But she was also playing in another Game, several games, and in those she was just a novice, an amateur, a loser from the start. A Water-aspectual playing in the area of will and discipline. Playing in an area in which unknown persons bent others to their wills. She went out, she was a spy for someone,perhaps an operative, for Sanjirmil surely, but for who else behind that one? But she didn't like it, she was terrified of it, and on this last mission she even suspected trouble, judgingfrom the preparations she had made, the things she had toldKris. And still she went! Fools! Morlenden rolled over to one side, leaning on his elbow disgustedly, pondering innocence.Their innocence, his innocence.

That's the problem with her, me, Kris, he thought, with us all; we lermen have not known evil. We have always had the luxury of attributing that to the humans. Aye, evil, vice, stupidity. Not for us! We were the New People, the mutants, the ler, we were as innocent as newly fallen snow, trackless and blameless. And what were your sins, Morlenden Deren? That once in your adolescence you refused a plain or homely girl's desire and injured her sensibilities? That you sometimes overcharged for your services as clerk and registrar? That you were sometimes overly fond of your tipple? You are stupidand know almost nothing of that which you have fallen into; into which you will assuredly fall more deeply if you pursue this Maellenkleth to the end.

He felt apprehensions; yet he also was aware of a powerfulcurrent of wrongness, injustice, malice, something even morestrange to him—that a person could be brought to nothing, by something no more involved than an idle procedure, or perhaps the blind machinations of a plot that didn't concernher at all. She was just in the way of others, who would notsee what she was offering them. No, not that, either. Therewas malice in it. But from where? Whom? Morlenden looked for the manifestation of a power, an elemental, deep in hisintuitive sense, but down there, there was only a sense of shimmering contradiction, a dichotomy. Wrong, wrong. He lacked data. He sat up on the bed-shelf. He had decided something. He felt uneasy about it, for an instant dizzy withfear, but he stuck to it, and presently the queasy feeling faded. It did not vanish, and he suspected that it would be with him for the rest of his life, but still it had subsided to a bearable level of intensity.

Kris had slept on the floor by the stove, offering Morlenden the bed-shelf. Obviously the boy could not have sleptvery soundly under that counterpane, full-remembering theemotions that had motivated the acts and encounters per-,formed there, himself and Maellenkleth. Morlenden got up,pulling on his overshirt, and climbed down to the lower levelof the treehouse where were the stove and the hearthroom, the room they had talked in. The treehouse was silent, empty.There was no sense of presence. Morlenden knew well enough that Krisshantem'' was a silent one, but not that silent.He looked about. Kris was gone. By the stove there were some hard-boiled eggs, some bread and cheese, and a note. He picked up the note and read what was written therein, lettered in a neat and precise hand.

Ser Deren, 1 kept you up far too late last night, still I had to be on my way. There are provisions for your return trip home. I will be there to meet you in a day or so. I did not tell you this last night, for I would not speak aloud of it, but be warned and full of care. Someone has been about, shadowing us, more likely you, although I do not know why this should be as it seems. I thought to hear traces of them in the night, but they know me, whoever they are, and they know my range and will not approach close enough for me to identify. At dawn I found a partial trace in the forest. But I still do not know who. I sense danger here, and know you have not the wood-sense of those of us who live here. So go straight to your own holding and do not tarry. I will catch you as fast as I can. Guard yourself as best as you are able.

Morlenden read it through, and read it through again,wondering at the message and pondering over the odd, abruptchoppiness of style, so unlike the speech of Kris in person.Perhaps he really was apprehensive. So there were eavesdroppers in the night by the Perklarens, or rather what was left ofthem; and a watcher out of range by the treehouse in the woods, someone who by Kris's own admission was able to move with skill enough to neutralize his formidable perceptions. Indeed, it did appear as if someone were following him,watching him. Morlenden did not seriously consider that thetwo events were unconnected. Such skill was rare. He went to the window and looked through it into the forest, not really knowing what he expected to see. He saw nothing but the trees, the leaf-strewn forest floor, the bare boles and branches, the shadows of the morning, the sky filming over,hazy, vague. The light held a pearly, graying, fading quality.

He turned to the food, and, gathering it up into a bundle,arranged his clothing for the outside air and began to leavethe treehouse, opening the trapdoor to let in the air. The airhad wanned during the night; it was not nearly so cold as theday before. Rain coming, the kind that would go on for days—start as drizzle and end in a mud sticky from the slowsoaking. He thought that he could make it back to the Deren yos before the rain started in earnest, though. He thought,somewhat ominously, that such would be the case, assumingthat he didn't meet anyone along the way. On an impulse, helooked about for a weapon, something he could use, a knife,a bludgeon. There was nothing visible; and Morlenden had atthis point much too great a respect for the inhabitants of thishouse to rifle through it, looking for a weapon. Which probably didn't exist in here anyway.

A weapon! Morlenden had walked alone all over the reservation, sleeping in the open when the weather permitted, andsometimes when it didn't, working with the rowdiest and theroughest, and unlike Fellirian, had never carried a weapon inhis life. Fellirian did. But not him. He had never thought toneed one. Nor for the matter, did Fellirian. But who could imagine him needing one? Fights he had had, in no shortage,knee and fist, foot and elbow, lost and won alike in equalmeasure. Still he carried no weapon. And now there wasn'tanything. Morlenden turned to go, feeling uneasy, apprehensive. But also defiant: So if my enemy is one of us, then let him close with me, face to face, blows on the front! I may be done with love but I can still fight, and I'll thrash his arse!

Morlenden knew that it was poor weaponry, those brash words, but all the same they made him feel better.

Before he left, out the trapdoor and down the ladder, hestepped out on a narrow landing, not large enough to be properly called a porch; just a place to recline on. At the farend, the corner, it widened into a shelf, a little balcony, a place on the west side to catch the setting sun; something he had seen before—but not before . . . he felt an odd sense of deja vu. He remembered.

The image of Maellenkleth. There had been a pattern oflight and shadow about her, and he had assumed it had beenfrom the window, but of course it hadn't been; it had been sunlight falling through the summer foliage. Of course. Theimage now returned as clear as when Kris had sent it and he saw her, as alive as if he had seen her himself. And there was something about her he had not noticed before, dazzled by her youth and beauty.

Not the body or the pose, relaxed, at her ease, the lover'stentative smile-of-invitation playing along the planes of herface, welling out of her eyes; what was it about her eyes? Theskin was a warm sun-browned tan-olive, the limbs still slightly awkward, unfinished, adolescent, the hands long andbony, just as Klervondaf had suggested. She had a high forehead, childishly hidden under the bangs she wore her dark hair in, in the front. And the eyes . . . the eyes! That was it!It had been in the eyes! Although the image had not moved,but had been a single instant's slice, still something about theeyes had been disturbingly familiar, and now he could see and integrate it. Morlenden had seen that same abstracted and vacant gaze long ago, in one who spent much of her timeand life training herself to see primarily with peripheralvision, the eyes tracking in a pattern to be read out in the visual center, rather than concentrating upon and following a single object. Like Sanjirmil of sixteen years before, only hererather more pronounced. But it had not seemed a handicap atthe time to Sanjirmil, nor did it seem so now to Maellenkleth.Of course, they were both Players of the Game Zan, and something they did in the Game gave them that peculiar gaze,that fixed, staring abstracted look. Morlenden reflected again:But Kris, taught as a Player, did not have it at all, and in his own inserted memories, he could not find anything that would give rise to it, that it would be so pronounced. It couldbe only a behavioral artifact of the Inner Game, somethingneither he nor Krisshantem had ever seen or known!

He turned into the treehouse, climbed through the trapdoor, and descended the ladder to the ground. Morlenden looked about, as best he could, and then set off southwestward, through the empty woods, guessing direction in the frosted, translucent shadowless gray light, carefully watching

for signs of company along his trail as he went. That he sawno sign reassured him not at all. For when he and Taskellanhad found Krisshantem (or had it been the other way?), Krishad materialized, so it seemed, out of nothing. Perhaps therewere others similarly skilled. At least enough to follow himunawares, and stay away from Kris so that the follower couldnot be identified.

By the afternoon, with the air turned cold again from a wind out of the north with more than a hint of dampness in it, Morlenden faced the conclusion that he was not going to arrive at his own yos, or anywhere near it, on this day. By his own internal system of dead reckoning, which he admitted to be in error more often than not, total recall notwithstanding, he thought he was located southeast of the lake district and the Perklarens, and about a day's walk northeast of his home. The area he was now traversing was nowhere as wild as the far northeast, the country of the Hulens, Krisshantem, and apparently few others, but it had still only recently begun to be integrated into the holdings of the reservation Braids and was rather underpopulated. Morlenden knew of few holds in this part, and those which he could remember were nowhere near here, wherever here was; he was not exactly sure. He knew only that if he continued in the direction he had been faring, he would eventually strike an area he was familiar with.

The afternoon wore on, after the manner of land under the influence of diffuse and slow-moving weather systems; soon one could expect the rain to start, perhaps snow, and it would continue for days. Now the light was failing, a late cloudy-day light, weak and blue in overtones; the ler eye, with its larger proportion of retinal cone cells, progressively lost discriminatory ability at lower light levels, and in gray light became particularly poor. Morlenden resigned himself to being cold, and began casting about for suitable shelter for the night. Unthinkable to walk on blind through the woods and tangled new ground, cluttered with raw second-growth: eventually, he would trip and fall over something.

It was while he was looking for some suitable natural shelter, an outcrop, a fallen tree, some ruins from the period when this land had been under the humans, a barn or shed, that he became gradually aware he was in a place showing subtle signs of use: a fresh path, one used fairly recently bytravelers. Ah odd clearing in the half-grown woodland, wherea tree had been artfully removed. Rather unlike the work ofa Braid, working the land for some product. They would bemore careless, and also more specialized. So there was probably an elder lodge somewhere in the vicinity, most likely recently established. That could be anything: Morlenden had never concerned himself with the organizations of the elder class and in fact knew only of the more famous ones, wherethey were and how they lived. He listened carefully, unableto determine anything visually with any certainty in the distances, in the overcast pre-rain murk, shades of gray and violet. Nothing. A sluggish creek nearby. A dripping sound, veryslow, somewhere off in the opposite direction. An expectancy,a waiting for rain. Yes, for sure there would be rain. He could feel it. No snow.

From far off, muffled by distance and the weather, and bythe half-overgrown lands, Morlenden thought he heard thetolling of a bell, from across the overgrown fields. He listenedagain. Silence, for a long time. Then the sound: a bell's tolling, slowly, single deep pulses spreading like the slow ripplesacross a stagnant pond, tangled and choked with weeds and debris . . . again, pulse, followed by silence. Assuming thatthe first one he had heard had actually been the first, he counted them, as the almost inaudible pulses flowed deliberately through the wet air. The eighteenth hour. He did not know who might be ringing the evening in, but he turned inthe direction the tolling had come from.

It was almost completely dark by the time he was sure, after much stumbling, that he was in fact coming to something;there was evidence of cultivated fields, cut-over brush, and an impression of neatness and order, almost parklike as he drew nearer. A light mist had begun to fall. Morlenden followedwhat seemed to be a well-used path. Something was ahead.

Walking along, half stumbing in the poor light, he almost \ walked into a figure standing in the pathway in an attitude ofsilent waiting. It wore a cowled winter pleth, dark in color,and stood, head bowed, even when Morlenden approached.Morlenden went around to the front of the figure, and peeredwithin the dark hood. Within, a pair of calm eyes slowlymoved their focus from the ground to Morlenden's face, fixing him with a steady, expressionless gaze.

Morlenden said, "I am a wayfarer, Morlenden Deren byname, homeward bound, caught out in the rain and the fallof night. Is there shelter nearby?"

The figure did not speak, but raised its arm and pointed along the path in the same direction Morlenden had been walking, inclining its head in that direction, once. Then the figure returned to its meditations, looking back to the earth asif it had been Morlenden who had been the apparition.

Morlenden inquired politely, "Do you not speak?"

The silent figure made no reply, and indeed made no further acknowledgment of Morlenden's presence.

Morlenden did not press the matter, concluding that perhaps he was already disturbing some delicate equilibrium; heturned from the figure and proceeded in the indicated direction. After passing through a few bends in the path, now bordered by tall and dense hedges of privet and pyracantha, hecame upon a rustic wooden gate, and within that, a ramblingcompound of buildings, rough stone and half-timber stucco, some obviously pens for livestock, others worksheds. A few were larger, of two stories, apparently the living quarters. More of the cowled figures were about, proceeding on theirerrands with exaggerated slowness. One passed by Morlenden,paused, and pointed to one of the large buildings. Then itturned and continued on its progression, all in the profound-est of silences. One thing he knew now: this had to be an elder lodge. Which one?

Continuing to the indicated building, Morlenden found a door and entered. Inside there was a low counter, and behind that, a smallish and rather austere refectory. The counter wascovered by a massive slab of blue glass, with a legend etchedinto its bottom in reversed letters, which read: Granite Lodge. In smaller letters, it was stated: contemplation andthe silence. Morlenden found a neat little sign on a post which advised: Distinguished visitors will share in our meditations. The buttery serves from the fifth hour until the eighteenth. Suitable accommodations in the floor above. The discerning guest will find the enumeration of specific tariffs unnecessary. Morlenden understood; he dug into his waist-pouch and retrieved several small coins, which he placed in aconvenient depressed place in the glass surface. He looked about uncertainly. There seemed to be no one in the refectory. He sought stairs or a hallway to another part of the building; far to the right, a darkened hallway terminated innarrow stairs. Morlenden set off in that direction, and began laboriously climbing to the upper floors.

On the second floor, there was a narrow hallway, illuminated by fat, slow-burning candles mounted in sconces of black iron. Insidfe, the half-timber construction of the outside walls continued, broken by heavily timbered doors, which apparently led to sleeping-apartments throughout the floor.Morlenden went to the first door, tried it. It was locked. The second—located at an angle across the hallway, and a little farther on—was not; he entered.

Within, there were two beds, rather after the human mode, but very simple, mere frames for padded platforms. But they were piled high with plenty of coverlets and counterpanes. Morlenden opened his outer cloak and tested the air. Cold; he would need all those coverlets in this damp pile. At the farend of the room, a table and chair rested under a tiny window, which was set high up on the wall. There was a singlelarge candle on the table, now unlit. Morlenden removed thecandle and took it outside, where he presented it to one of the candles alight in their sconces, lit it, and returned to theroom. Now illuminated with the warm yellow light from thecandle, it did not seem quite so bare and stark. The woodwork was of the finest hand-craftsmanship, although with thatsuggestion of raw patina that signified new material, not yetseasoned by time. On the table was a large, heavy tome, accompanied by a sheaf of paper, a pen, and an inkstand. He looked more closely; the legend on the front of the book read: Knun Vrazus*—The Doctrine of Opposites. Morlenden smiled faintly and leafed idly through the book. Hand-inscribed, beautifully illuminated and lavishly illustrated withquaint drawings of mythological beasts and figures, demons, angels, metamorphs. He understood very well: one was intended to meditate here, in this little cell, and pass on one's thoughts and ruminations to the future inhabitants, as well as the denizens of Granite Lodge. He sighed dispiritedly: Morlenden would have preferred to visit the taproom for a dram or two, perhaps a draft, and a bit of conversation. He dug the remaining boiled egg out of his traveling-pack, and cracking it, ate it, sitting gingerly on the hard edge of the bed. As he ate, he listened to the noises of the place, noting nothing save the dripping of rainwater off the roof into puddles outside, and a light, sweet gurgling farther away, the running of water in a gutter or downspout. There was no sound of people at all.

* A collection of anecdotes, told by obscure, unknown, or imaginary ler over the years. These always culminated in a dense parable,which might take the form of being too obvious, or else totallyincomprehensible, at least until the reader realized the point. Thework was considered open-ended and unfinished, and there was alarge commentary and criticism attached to it. Humans of the era,where they were aware of it at all, considered it gross cynicismpushed to levels of perversity. It may be interesting to note herethat Morlenden considered it boring.

Finishing his egg, and drinking water from a small pitcher

that he uncovered in a tiny wall-cabinet, he looked about the

small, bare room once more, shook his head, and began to

undress, hanging his outer clothing on a peg on the wall. The

rest he folded and placed on the desk, leaving on only his un

dershift. Morlenden set about making up the bed, grumbling

to himself, chiefly about the nature of cold boiled eggs before

bed. He was just about to blow out the candle when he heard

footfalls on the stairs, then coming into the hall outside. An

other guest, he thought. May they attend the same party 1

did. He listened. There was a faint rattle at the first door; just

as he had done. Then the visitor tried his own door, which

was now latched but not locked. It rattled once. There was a

pause, and then the visitor knocked on the door. Raising his

eyebrows, Morlenden took the candle and went to the door,

and opened it: and found himself looking into the rain-wet

face of Sanjirmil Srith Terklaren.

She was still dressed in a heavy winter overcloak with a hood that fell far over her forehead, the overcloak was turned water-repellent side out, and in the wavering candlelight, hundreds of sparkling points shimmered all over it, andalong Sanjirmil herself where she was uncovered, her face and hands. Her dusky eyelashes; deep black with the same bluish overtones as her hair.

She spoke first, either recovering her composure or never having lost it, saying, "And you, here? May I join you?"

"Yes, yes, of course you may," he stumbled, waving thecandle. "Yours is the first voice I have heard here; you willbe welcome."

Sanjirmil entered the room shyly, avoided facing Morlenden directly, speaking as if to herself. "You have not visitedhere before? They are silent, these ones, true enough. Never

have I heard them utter a single word." In the center of the room, she removed the outer overcloak, shook the rain off, and cast about for a peg on which to hang it. Finding it, the empty peg on the opposite side of the room, she hung thecloak, followed by a large bag that she had worn slung overone shoulder, which clanked dully as she let it rest against thewall.

Morlenden could see that the overcloak had not kept outall the rain, for there were damp patches along the shouldersand hem of her pleth. This she also removed unselfconsciously, draping it over the end of the unoccupied bed. All that wasleft was her undershift, which she left on. Morlenden noticed many things about her now, but the first thing that caught hiseye was an embroidered design worked into the right shoulderof the undershift, similar to the patterns he had observed earlier in the yos of the Perklarens, but different in shape. Wherethe others had been simple geometric patterns, more or lesssymmetrical, the one on Sanjirmil's undershift had no obviouscellular reference and was asymmetrical—a line of blue dots,arranged in a curve at either end, the right end being largerthan the left. He recalled the basic Player information Krisshantem had forced into him, looking into his new memoriesfor the figure, and found it. It was one of the moving patterns

from the beginner's Game, a figure that moved orthogonallyalong its base across the field in the direction of the larger curl. Like all persistent figures in the Game, this one had a name: Prosianlodh, which was to be rendered by an enigmaticidea—ship of the empty place. The name was not explained.Inner Game.

But he saw other things as well, things he had not troubledto see, or avoided, when the girl had accompanied the Perwathwiy Srith to the yos of the Derens before his trip upcountry. Sanjirmil was now hesitating on the edge of her own fertility, at the summit of adolescence, the end of it, tremblingon that edge. He remembered in his mind's eye the hoyden,the ragamuffin of sixteen years before. Seen closely, as she was to him now, there were still large amounts of those samequalities present—the gestures, the hesitant impatience, the thin, pouty, determined mouth, the half-frown of concentration along the lines and planes of her face. But more, indeed,was there. Her hair was as dark and coarse and tousled as it had always been, but it was longer and fuller now, falling carelessly about her shoulders, almost ready to be braided into the single woven strand that was the mark of parent

phase. Her body was fuller, also, mostly adult, but possessingsomething not quite lermanish in its rounder curvings, yet nothuman either, still subtle and muscular after their fashion. She took the candle from him and placed it upon the desk, moving with measured grace, as a young girl might before her lover, a flowing, dancing motional set, allowing the undershift to swirl about her, and standing afterward so that thelight from the candle would shine through the undershift,suggesting much and revealing nothing. It was a classical move, only slightly less direct than a spoken invitation. Morlenden saw and appreciated all that she was displaying here for him, understanding the message completely. She knows no less than I that my time for that is gone, past, he thought.So it is not so blatant as it appears. It is not invitation, but reminder. As if either of us could ever forget.

He had not forgotten: Sanjir-Ajimi had been hot and sweaty, pungent as the scent of burning leaves, wet wood,and her skin had retained, even after washing, the faint tasteof salt. He had caught her scent here as she had passed him:sharp and imperative, smoky as ever, more so. For the first time in his life he caught himself admitting to some regretsupon the course of things. Morlenden looked back over hislife for a moment, quickly, and recognized Sanjirmil for whatshe had been to him: an ultimate, certainly of the domain of the body, of dhainaz. And of how many other things that he had missed? What was it she was offering?

Sanjirmil Seated herself gently on the edge of what would be her bed, a little tiredly, stiff as if from a long walk. Sheasked, half-mockingly, "And what do you here, Ser Deren?"She leaned back on her elbows, allowing her undershift to fallmore open about her throat, another classic ploy that Morlenden could not miss; and in the candlelight the yellow lightfell along her dusky-olive skin, the shadows in the hollows ofher collarbones, a place for kisses.

He answered cautiously, trying to maintain some semblance of neutrality, some little vestige of secrecy, a futile task, he knew, in the face of this arch-keeper of secrets. He said, "Little enough. I have been searching for an image ofher who we must find, so that we would know the better to look and where. I was on my way home, caught in the rain,and happened on this lodge."

"You did not find her for whom you search.""Hardly. We did not expect to. Just understand who she is, what she is. Or rather, was. Fellirian is exploring down the

other way, about the Institute with her friends there. We think she is still alive. At the least, we are proceeding as ifshe were."

"You will go out for her?"

"Of course."

"Why? When you find where she is, you can report to thePerwathwiy and that will be the end of that."

"Why? An honor thing, I suppose. We said that if we could, we would find her and return her. There is much, though, which we do not know yet. If she lives, her condition." He changed the subject, feeling an oppressive weightabout the subject of Maellenkleth. "And you, Sanjir, what doyou here, in this place of silences? Are you perhaps out of the rain, as I?"

She did not answer immediately, but looked off into spacewith the old blank gaze of hers, gradually turning it towardMorlenden. Yes, the eyes, dark, heavy-lashed, wine-dark; theystill had that eerie scanning quality, but there was a controlled directness in them as well now, flashing with lightningand fire when she concentrated upon something. But for now,they were faraway, seeing something Morlenden did not know. She said, after a time, "We met here, often, our group.It is an excellent place to discuss secret plans, for they wholodge here will not speak of what they hear or see.... Overthe years, I have grown fond of it, of this place, and come alone betimes. And I was troubled, and so I came to seek solitude, peace. To learn peace, Morlen. I know I do not have itin me, but would like to see it once, if but to refuse it."

She fell silent again, chewing the inside of her lower lip. Tonight her lips were pale and colorless, lighter than herface, which lent her an odd, ghostly quality. The lighter pinkof her mouth against the dark olive of her face. Then suddenly she turned to him and fixed him with an intense and uncomfortable regard, saying, "You are thorough in this, indeed. And why so? I know you well enough and know that you never cared a whit for the Game or its Players. Youhave been no Gamefollower, always at the exhibitions. . . . You have no side, no color, no pennant to wave, neither a red nor a blue."

"It is as you say . . . I am no Gamefollower, nor have I supported one against another."

"But you must know of the rivalry between our Braids, and that Maellenkleth and I were exemplars of that traditional rivalry?"

"Indeed. I knew that before you spoke of it.""So why pursue this girl to the very end? You need onlydetermine it and report."

"It would appear," he said after a moment's reflection, "that there are many intrigues about the house of Perklaren,some of which I must needs unravel as I go along. It appearsextremely complex, just as does Maellenkleth."

"Maellenkleth was to the contrary; she was simple-mindedand one-sided. I know her well, saw her often."

"So much have I learned. And that also she was reputed tobe an excellent Player." Morlenden felt the necessity to be onhis guard here, but he felt a greater need to needle Sanjirmilinto revealing something more. He was right: she reacted immediately, although she covered it well.

She said, her voice unsteady, "Ah, who was it told youthat? They also said, most likely, that she was a better Playerthan I. Well, I think not better—merely different. For myview Maellenkleth was overly concerned for matters of style,elegance, finesse, little internal codes. But I believe in results,that they tell the true story. And I get them, too." She added,"As a Player."

Morlenden felt reckless, and pursued the topic. "And I had also heard that she was possibly to be allowed to reenter theGame—the Inner Game, whatever it is—again as a shartoorh Dirklaren. of the first generation of Dirklarens."

Sanjirmil's face became darker, flushed, stormy. She responded immediately. "That was foolishness, stupidity, a nuisance! She—they, that out-Braid hifzer—hoped to change theinevitable by little hearthroom children's games and plots andscheming. But I tell you that it could not and did not haveany effect upon me. For the law of the Game, arbitrated byPellandrey himself, says that only a woven Toorh may be Huszan, master of the Game: I am woven, a Toorh and Klandorh to add to it, and the present parent Terklarens havealready retired in my favor, voluntarily. Therefore by the lawI am the master of the Game, to say who may and who nay.Perwathwiy and the others, they may advise, but likewise, theresponsibility is mine and I may ignore. And I will be Huszan and Klandorh until our Toorh children weave in their turn. Now we are talking, Morlen, about another thirty years,more than a span." She repeated the number, emphasizing it:"Two fourteens and two! And the Revens may manufactureall the Braids they wish; in the end only I can admit her into

it, her and her outsider. So what should I care about Dirklarens, Beshklarens, Nanklarens*?" "Technically, you are not woven until, for example, I saythat you are. I, or Fellirian, or Kaldherman, or Cannialin."

* Third-playeis, Fifth-players, Nth-players.

"But of course I am! I am fully initiated! Oh, yes, indeed, am I ever initiated!" And here, Sanjirmil laughed, involuntarily, as if at some irrepressible private joke.

"And you quote the law to keep Maellenkleth out of theGame, but you do not wish to hear the same law applied toyou yourself." Morlenden allowed an edge to come into his voice, as if correcting a child. "There is no record; no Derenwitnessed."

"Oh, but there was a ceremony. Even Mael attended...

"And carried flowers as well, I suppose?"

He did not wait to hear her answer, but continued, "And

there was no notification to those who would legitimize yourplace and position. Not even a courtesy call, a letter by messenger." Here he also reminded her of their past, for it hadbeen Sanjirmil who had so often insisted upon writing, butafter the promises, had never done so. "But in the scale of all things, rights and wrongs, I suppose after all it doesn't reallymake any difference, either way. You need our approval: youhave it, now, this minute. Write down the full-names of yourBraid members, and I will enter them in the records. Done. I would not, in any event, obstruct what is obviously alreadyaccomplished.... I could only go to the Revens for arbitration, but I can gather from all that I have seen that they already know about it."

"Morlenden, you do not know all the reasons...."

"Reasons, are they? The tyranny of reasons, so it is said; we can always find a zhan of them to explain things we shouldn't have done in the first place. And of course we canreasonably project that Maellenkleth is done for anyway."

"She was told of the danger long ago! Clearly, no tricks and nothing hidden! Still, she elected to soldier for us, we didnot make her. She was of a valiant heart and could not be denied, but allowed to the very front of the battle, as it were.She pushed it that way . . . thus she gained obligations fromthose of us who could not go out, as I, even as I. That was not my issue to judge."

"And you say that you are Huszan, master of the Game, but chlenzan, too, prisoner of the Game."

"Prisoner, yes! So it is with all mastery! I am not so

unique! And I do not regret what I have given up to get it,

the trade of the one for the other. Any other. If you knew as

I did, you would take it thus as well, and if it were within

your grasp, you too would reach for it."

"I cannot speak of temptations I have not faced."

"But you could face them and gain thereby if you would

but listen to me."

"How is it that I reach for that which has not been of

fered?"

"I have always offered it, just as long ago."

"To cleave to you as an elder when we could not other

wise? To make with our minds in the future that which we

made with our bodies in the past?"

"Why not, then? I say of it that it was the best and sweetest of my life; and for one time, one only, I was free,just myself, and I forgot my name. I know it would be the same; you have reserves and perceptions you do not know...."

"Even were I to agree to such a thing, so I would have towait for you. . . ."

"As I have waited. But it is as nothing; something we ofthe longer sight see over, beyond. I never forget those days ofthe autumn. It is true that we all carry the obligation to thepeople, to the body, to bring forth and ever keep the line that was given us. Nevertheless the heart and mind know their needs as well."

"Neither have I forgotten. But we were skin-drunken, kiss-drugged, and it was done and left behind ages ago. You musthave thought along the way that we were badly unsynchronized in time: we had our moment, but both of us have had to walk along unique ways."

"But I have heard that you do wish for something more tobe in your free years. And they are free, yours to ask for. Andhave; that I can offer, that, and more."

"I remain skeptical. From what I have learned of the Game I am not so sure I would wish such an adventure. We are simple folk of field and forest, remember; accordingly wehave essentially modest ambitions. Because I have spoken unguardedly of learning new things—for example, to swim— should not be taken to mean that I wish to swim the Green Sea all the way to the land Yevrofian. Do you offer the Game, or will you accept what elderhood I offer?"

"I am not offering the Game; for the one, I cannot. Maellenkleth did thus, for Krisshantem, but they were children. Itis too late for that. Too much to learn, reflexes, Morlenden, reflexes. Knowledge of that is not enough. It's the speed youuse them with, and it takes almost a full span to get themright. Action, decision, foresight, and the sense of timing. Toolate, I must say."

"Then what is it you wish me to take?"

"Just myself. What more can I offer you?"

"I know only one part of you . . . and even now, I cannot

know how well I know even that part. Things change, and Iknow even less of what things have passed in your life."

Sanjirmil shook her head. "Little of that, to be sure. I havenot known another with whom I would have my elderness. Could I speak plainer? You shame my essence evading me thus."

"It cannot be a thing I would say easily, or on the moment. At the least, I would like some time."

"Time, is it? The fifteen years until Pethmirvin weaves?The twenty until Pentandrun and Kevlendos are invested withthe records of the Derens? We do not have twenty years! Wedo not have fifteen years!" She had allowed her voice to gainin volume and presence, but now it dropped abruptly to almost a whisper, as she added, "We do not have even five."

"Of course we do. We have until the end of time."

"We do not! Within the . . . " Sanjirmil stopped. "I say we do not, and there I speak as Huszan, because I know it as Huszan of the Inner Game. Belive me."

"With no reasons for this unseemly haste, save 'believe me'?"

"You are as bullheaded as you ever were!"

"It is not bullheaded to ask why. You must tell me how itis you can be so sure of the time—so sure that you almost gave me a date. What is it and what is to happen?"

"I cannot.... It is true that I read the law lightly, as yousay, when it comes to my own actions, but even so, I couldnot initiate you until I was sure you were committed. To me."

"Those kinds of assurances do not come easy; the requirement is as difficult to satisfy as to fill a bottomless pit withstones. So, after all, this is just another case of Maellenklethand Krisshantem? She would not initiate him either."

"So much you have heard of Kris? But he did not knowMael as well as he thought: so she told him she would not doit. But she told me that she would initiate him anyway, permitted or not! She promised, she did, although I should prefer the word 'threaten.'"

"Had she actually done that?"

"So she said. But we were at least spared that embarrassment by her departure on this last mission instead." (Howconvenient, Morlenden thought, if any of what she was saying was even half-true.) "It would have come, though, never fear."

Morlenden observed, coolly, "This Game and its Playersgrow more interesting with every Player I meet."

Her reply came in a low tone, and she peered at him fromunder her heavy eyebrows, so that the lower whites of her eyes showed. Although the words were mild, the effect wasmenacing, and Morlenden felt it was intended to be. "Be careful that you do not gain too great an interest before yourtime."

"I do only what we have been paid to do by the Perwathwiy, and Pellandrey Reven as well. Go to them for comfort; Iwill even go with you. But as soon as we are a little moreknowledgeable, we are going for Maellenkleth, and whateverit takes to do it, knowledge or arts, rest assured we will attainit. Understand me: I would not pay so much as a thimblefulof the yield of our outhouse for one word of the Game or itsPlayers, in themselves. But it is a matter of a missing girlwho departed under the oddest of circumstances, and it needsuncovering. And to determine where she might be, we mustlearn what she was."

"If you find her, what will you do with what you find?"

"Bring her back, if she lives."

"And if she lives disminded?"

"As you know, she can be restored, slowly over the years, or quickly via Multispeech, each as circumstances warrant She has intrinsic value in several ways, not the least of whichis that she is a person. And as one of us who I think was caught in something quite beyond her; and as a future parentwho will have to bear the future with the rest of us. And the beauty and the spirit I have heard so much of? Surely itwould be a waste to let it all go so casually, lose it withoutfurther thought Not all of it was memory—some of it mustreside at the cellular level, and thence to us through the children."

"But she has no family that can take care of her, that cantake the time and trouble to rebuild her. You know that rebuilding a forgetty is much harder than raising the original child, for with a forgetty the instinctual cues and programming for learning readiness are gone."

"She is of such an age that if all else failed we Derens would take her in. Or perhaps the Hulens. I am not so surethat would be to Kris's liking, for he would still lose her, buteven so ..."

"Hulens? Ragamuffins, hooligans, wanderers, tramps, nomads!"

"I cannot speak of their methodology, but as much of it asthey passed to Kris seemed to be effective enough. True, he iswithdrawn and solitary, but he is competent and practiced inthe basic social graces. He had to learn from someone, andwith his tenuous contact with the Hulens, their way must have some values."

"Morlen, what have we lost that I cannot reach you now?"

"Now? We cannot lose what we never had, Sanjir. As forthe rest, we lose no more than others have done, gracefullyand tactfully, in somewhat similar circumstances. Do not misunderstand: I cherish the time when we were together. I can in truth compare that with no one else. But time has passed and conditions changed. You and I alike are Toorh, and we have debt to others, no matter what we feel. Not to mention other emotions that may have become operative in us. You for yours and likewise I for mine. Would you haveme run off willy-nilly into the forest as some moon-child?"

"Then you will persist in this folly?"

"Even if I were disinterested and wholly mercenary I would proceed. Word is word. But there is far more. This Maellenkleth has obviously been ill-used by the very peoplewho should have shielded her from the terrors of the wider world, whether she desired it or not. She was a child—she had no business being a spy. That is not the business of the young and zealous, but of the seasoned and calm. I know there are high stakes outside, worlds won and lost. Perhapsinside as well. But I have my own values, my own interests.And there seems to be much too much afoot to allow it to remain hidden for no other reason than that it may be sensitivecult-dogma! I owe the truth at least to myself, since now I apparently risk that person. And of course the Perwathwiydeserves what she paid for. So I would learn how Maellenkleth came to be where she is."

"Even though you know you are on the edge of things youmay not be a witness to yet?"

"Indeed, there. Just so. But have no fears; I am discreet bynature and will retain any secrets I uncover.""You expect to find them along the way, like stones in a path?"

"Of course! An excellent choice of words! I could not have put it better. For I have already, hardly looking, turned overseveral interesting stones of such a nature, things I imaginepeople would not have left casually strewn about."

"Morlenden, Morlenden, I urge restraint, I caution you!We are not a riddle to be solved, a puzzle for the curious todecipher ..."

" . . . but a mystery cult of which to stand in awe? While you stand serene and secure above the rest of us? Then explain it!"

"I cannot, I simply cannot. I would lose much, starting with you. You may see that in time, and why, although I wish with all my heart that you do not."

"Well enough," he said, almost grimly. "Well taken, all your warnings. But I continue."

"How far?"

"Until the end."

"I cannot be responsible, then. Not in your debt."

"For what?"

"For what may happen . . . it is suspected that Maellenkleth fell into a clever trap, the like of which has not been setbefore. It may be set even now for you, should you go to it."

"I will take that chance and rely upon ingenuity. She hadhers and went, clean-eyed; I can do no less, with the less thatI have to lose."

To this last, Sanjirmil had nothing to add, and so she sat, for a long time, saying nothing, her eyes totally reverted tothe blind scanning, devoid of expression. At last she got upfrom the bed, wearily, as if she had been through some greatinternal struggle. She moved to the place where Morlendenwas sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning forward. She tookhis face in her hands, which were hot and dry, and pressed his face to her abdomen, the muscles within taut as wires. She was trembling slightly, in the grip of some strong emotion.

She moved his face upward, pressing it to her breasts, thenlooking him directly in the eyes with a burning regard Morlenden did not know he could hold indefinitely, so intense was it.She said slowly, "I will not ask that you sleep with me; I still want you, the past is too well-remembered, and I know thatyou are beyond me now. But I will ask a last kiss."

"A last kiss?"

"A kiss before sleeping, that we may remember each otheras once we were."

She bent farther and pressed her lips to his, childishly, herlips relaxed, making no attempt to shape them. As theytouched, Morlenden felt the image of the past within hismemory emerge, take over, become as one with the present.For all her aggressiveness and belligerence, he remembered vividly that Sanjirmil had been from the first a shy kisser, notteasingly falsely shy, but truly so, as if she were afraid to really give of herself, afraid to abandon herself even to a kiss,and much less what would come after. It was the same, exactly the same, the soft, relaxed mouth, barely parting thelips and not offering her tongue until he touched it with his.Morlenden remembered the past, their past, too well. But forthe present, he felt nothing save some subtle, ephemeral emotions that had no form and no name, except in that they wererelated to a form of sadness, a form of regret. She breathedonce, deeply, through her narrow nostrils, then broke, turnedabruptly, and blew out the candle. Morlenden felt moisture on his cheeks; he did not need to taste its salt to know that it was tears, notwithstanding that he had neither felt nor hearda sob from her. It was blind-dark in the room now, and he could follow her only through the sound of her movements, the rustles of her undershift, the scuffling of her bare feet along the rough wooden floor, the touches and taps of her hands, and he heard the bed creak as it took her weight.Then silence matched the darkness, Morlenden turned under his own covers and began sinking into sleep almost immediately, one last thought surfacing in his mind like some greatbulkhead behind the dam: Yes, the bed creaked, but just this little once. We creaked, too, Sanjir and I, when we took the weight of each other's bodies; we still creak from it.

In the morning, in the gray light of a rainy-day morning,Morlenden awoke and saw that Sanjirmil was still sleeping,breathing slowly and deeply. He slipped out of his bed carefully and quietly, gathering his things and dressing so as notto wake her. He wished no more of the laden conversation they had made the night before.

Taking one last look about to be sure he had left nothing,he paused, wishing to take one last look at Sanjirmil, Sanjir whom he had met in the forest long ago, Ajimi with whomhe had been a lover, and also the new and disturbing Sanjirmil . . . Terklaren, yes, adult, who spoke of traps and threatsand still more enigmas. Sanjirmil was on her side, lightly andcarelessly half covered, half curled, her lips slightly parted,still deeply sleeping. He looked closer, remembering. Asleep,her now-face lost much of its new harshness and seemed soft and childish again, a ragamuffin, yes, but also a ragamuffinwho was very alone, very frightened of the uniqueness beingpressed upon her. The aquiline nose lost much of its predatory curve. Relaxed, it was a face of desires and passions andsomething close to loveliness, ever so slightly slanted in theangles of the eyes, this face delicate and strong-lined at once,smooth and sleek as the face of some wild animal at peace.He saw there was no mystery of how they had come to be together when they had met; Sanjir was indeed in a class all byherself. Striking, commanding, she would have been exceptional even in the midst of girls of great beauty.

He moved yet closer, cautiously, so as not to awaken her,peering closely at her eyes, which were still closed. He thoughtto detect some movement under the lids, as if she were having a dream. He wondered idly what such a one would dreamabout. Closer. Behind the closed eyelids, there was movement, but as he watched her, Morlenden could see that under the soft black lustrous lashes the movement was not the erratic, looping motion of a normal person's dream, but a version of the same scanning pattern he had seen in her before.The eyes scanned, rather than tracked, in a raster pattern: a line across, then repeated, a little lower, until the bottom ofthe field of vision, then repeating the cycle. It was slowed now, and he could see the component motions he could notsee before. Odd, indeed, to be so impressed upon her that shewould even dream it that way. What was she dreaming?The Inner Game? At the same time, he saw that her lips werealso moving, as if sleep-speaking, but he heard no sound. Heleaned closer, trying to hear, identify the mode, listening closely, knowing that even if she were speaking Multispeech he would be in little danger because there was no synchronization and no submission on his part. He could not be caught in it.

It was there, and he caught a fragment of it, an odd form,an unusual mode he couldn't quite identify, something similarto the mode of one-to-many, but with an odd lilt, a catch, a syncopation in the rhythms, almost as if she were somehow

controlling actions in another, others, three people. He begangetting quick visuals. Visuals caught. And now receiving thefull blast of what she was sending in her sleep, Morlendenwas pinned in an iron net of command-override Multispeech,and he saw and performed, and did not understand what he was seeing and doing, but he did with great urgency, the persona being projected by Sanjirmil, because he could not helpdoing exactly as the instructions were passed to him. He didnot have the option to disobey or reflect; and he did not hear,for through sound and modulation and the heritage of the people, Sanjirmil had somehow inserted her own personadirectly into his mind and was manipulating Game skills he didn't know he had. A single will permeated everything, a force filled him with energy, with verve, with skill and power: hell and death flowed along his arms into his hands asthey flew like manic butterflies along the controls of a Gamekeyboard that seemed to surround him, all around the domains of his reach. It was the Game, of course, and he could see it all above him; he was reclining, looking upward,scanning a ceiling the whole of which was a subtly curvedGame display panel alive with patterns of light, color and darkness, the shapes and patterns permutating, evolving,shifting with terrible urgency, immediacy. Something was coming and they blanked it with some motion that caused the rest to tremble and shift and emit pieces of themselves. Waves of change, of destruction, and of reordering flowedacross the field. There was more, and it continued, the intensity growing, but all he felt was confidence, exultation, thesemblance of something coming into reality at last, of beingvictorious, of imposing some concept upon something else,and then there was a terrible stroke they all did together thatmade the multiple personality wince, flinch, shrink back withhorror, but they could not reflect; they must move on. He feltand rejoiced in the exultation emanating from she-who-controlled: triumph, vindication, the utter joy of performing theultimate crimes and atrocities upon one's most hated enemy,something hated and feared and not long ago hidden from. As stability returned slowly something was now being donethat was incomprehensible to him. Energy long-stored, locked up in the prisons of cold matter, rigid, now leaped into freedom and fled shrieking at the skies; there was fire and carnage.

Morlenden knew he was feeding something back to the Control, the Will, but until now he had not attempted to in

sert himself. Now he did. It had gone on long enough. And

he saw himself now as a sage, a governor, a steadying influ

ence against excess, a stay against impulses even more wild

than those he had glimpsed. Like oil on the waters he tried to

steady what they were all doing, through feedback; after all,

was he not Fire aspect, did he not have the Will also? There

was conflict, here there could be only one Fire and out. Shaken, he drew back from the sleeping girl, and he was now back in the real world. Or was it? He saw and did not understand. Now he remembered, and still he did not comprehend. He looked at Sanjirmil again. She was moving restlessly in her sleep, now muttering something unintelligible, the scanning in her eyes stopped. She had been acting outsome dream only she knew, and Morlenden's hands trembledand tingled as if he had received some electric shock. It hadbeen the Game, sure enough, but it had been in a form he had never seen, in a place he could not imagine. He tried toremember: the image was furred and distorted by being someone else's dream, but he could see it, crudely—he hadbeen within a reclining couch, contoured to his body, slightlytilted, his hands at the ready arrayed along massive keyboardcontrols that lay all about him. But he had been scarcely conscious of all that, immersed in concentration upon the hugeGame screen that curved all over him, over them all, dwarfing the tiny beings who manipulated the flying shapes thatfled and changed over its surface. Morlenden could not imagine what it was he had seen, been within. The environment was abstract and alien. But there could be no mistaking theconfidence, the arrogance, of the sender, the girl who lay before him, now relaxing again, drifting back into deeper sleep,almost pretty, exotic in coloring and shape, innocently dreaming in the gray early hours of a rainy winter morning. Shemoved slightly, adjusting her position, disturbing the covers,causing them to emit her scent, still that tart and sweet maddening odor of warm adolescent girl, gamy, all body. Morlenden shivered violently, shaken by the contrasts his senses andmemories were making in him. He hurriedly fastened hisovercloak, and slipped from the room as quickly and as quietly as he could. And as he carefully pulled the door to behind him, out in the cold and drafty corridor, he knew thathowever brave the words he had used, he was in fact very much afraid of this unknown, this imcomprehensible beingconcentrated in the sleek tawny body of Sanjirmil, who hadbeen, upon a time, Ajimi.

He hurried down the corridor and then the stairs, empty asthe night before, half-dark, feeling a pressing danger, a peril,a murderous threat, a panicky urge that inspired him to getout right now. The alternative to the search for Maellenklethwas to get out of it as fast as he could extricate himself andFellirian. He suddenly did not wish to know how Maellenkleth got wherever she was; he wished to forget the wholething, and return all the money to the Perwathwiy and all herhenchmen.

But by the time he had reached the ground floor, he feltreason coming back to him, the old sense, familiar resolvesand character, and the old curiosity and self-confidence. Heentered the refectory and saw people again, and even if theywere unspeaking, takers of vows of silence, it reassured him.He thought of Fellirian and her calmness, her steady pace, her quiet resolve to undergo this, she having many of the same misgivings as had he. The thought of his partner, in-sibling, co-spouse, mate, and rarely, lover, all sobered him. Hesuddenly found himself wishing to be free of the past, of memory. And of this suddenly uncertain future; to be resolved. He looked around and saw a few guests at their tables, all caught up in the rituals of silence in respect to themembers of Granite Lodge, as well as the members themselves, a few of whom were present. One was the cook, standing nonchalantly behind the serving counter and methodicallyfrying sausages as if that were the most important task in thewhole world. At that moment, Morlenden understood that it was just that, exactly and precisely.

He walked across the refectory and took up a position bythe serving counter, holding a simple wooden bowl, wide andshallow. He also understood now that much speech was unnecessary; for to stand behind a counter with bowl in handwas as clear as speech; perhaps talk was what was unneeded,the idle rattling of acorns in a jar.

The cook piled his plate with a generous helping of sausages and flatcakes, nodding at the butter-jar close to hand,and proceeded on with his tasks. Morlenden helped himself,chose a table, and filled himself, knowing that he would haveto walk all day on what he ate here. He reflected, as he satand ate, that perhaps all the talk Sanjirmil had made aboutthe members of Granite Lodge keeping secrets was indeed but an excuse, for the food was unsurpassingly excellent.That was a secret worth keeping. He looked again, and saw that all within sight were well-fed, no doubt about it. He had visions of great platters of roast dripping with gravy, tankards of ale, and laughed inwardly to himself, thinking also ofwhat was expected of one in way of payment: meditation upon the curious strictures of the Doctrine of Opposite. Just imagine, he thought, do that which you fear most; therein lies freedom. And then he thought again, and it did not seem socurious after all. Perhaps he might yet have an entry to makein the tomes of Granite Lodge. But however it went, he resolved to bring the rest of them back here. At least for thefood. As for the rest, he was sure that only Cannialin wouldactually like it. She loved quiet. Fellirian liked talk too much,and Kal was hopeless.

Refreshed and mind more at ease, he left the table, settinghis bowl in a place set aside for them, and departed the refectory and the common-house, leaving behind some more coinsfrom his pouch on the way out. Yes, indeed, he thought. Afine place to visit. And perhaps to live? He would have to think on that. He loved talk no less than Fellirian.

Outside, the day was cold, overcast, and still drizzly. A vileday for a long walk through the woods. But soon, he was onhis way again, covering the ground with his practiced pace learned along many a path across the reservation. He followed paths now pressed into the fabric of the rainy dampforest, the trees covered with a sparkling film of clear water,dripping clear sweet droplets, the pines covered with silveryluminescence.

He headed southwestward, and after not too long a time,began to recognize familiar landmarks. Now, knowing a bit better where he was, and being closer to home than he thoughthe had been, he increased his pace as much as he could, considering the slipperiness of the path, now well-worn down tobare earth. But throughout the gray day's passage, as he walked through the empty woodlands and fields, the temporary sense of well-being he had gained gradually left him, tobe replaced by some of the uneasiness he had felt the nightbefore when he had been with Sanjirmil. Not the morning'spanic. No, not that. An uneasiness, and growing. But he beganto have some sense of apprehension, and by early afternoonhe was watching his back trail carefully, recalling the incidentsof the yos of the Perklarens and at the treehouse of Maellenkleth and Krisshantem. He saw nothing, heard nothing that hecould actually identify, detected no hard evidence whatsoeverof any follower lurking behind him or to the side, but he never lost the feeling that he was being shadowed by someone expertat it, perhaps rivaling Kris in ability to track at a distance andstill keep contact. Kris would not have exploited that talent;he would always approach directly, silently, but directly.

As he thought of it now, he realized that this intuition ofbeing followed had begun not long after he had left GraniteLodge, and had continued, strengthening during the day. Hebegan to keep closer to cover, attempting to conceal his location, trying to walk ever more silently. At first, these intentions had no measurable effect, but after a time the sensation of being followed did begin to decline a little. It neither eliminated it nor cured it, but merely reduced it; as if by beingevasive he had broadened the area of probability about himself, and his shadow had withdrawn a bit, uncertain exactly where he was. Still, he felt followed.

The primary result of his efforts was direct and immediate;it made a long walk longer; and by the time he was trulyback into what he considered his own territory, near the holding of the Derens, it was beginning to shade off toward darkness again. Late afternoon. The only consolation to him was that the rain and the intermittent drizzle had stopped.The ground was extremely slippery, here in the clay-and-hillflint country; red clay that stuck to one's boots when it wasnot threatening to trip one into a nasty fall. But the air wasclear as spring water, washed, clean, sweet-smelling, and the overcast was breaking up. There were patches of luminous blue showing, and there was a lightening along the borders ofthe west, behind the Flint Mountains. It would be clear againby morning. And suddenly he noted that the sense of beingfollowed had vanished as subtly as it had come, that it wasgone, and had been for a considerable time. Fine, that. Perhaps it had been imagination after all, easily spooked by theincident of Sanjirmil's dream-speaking. Or perhaps he had lost his follower through all the detours he had taken. Ahead

he saw—through the leatherleaf oaks, some still bearingbrowned leaves along their dark and twisted branches—his own outhouse, and beyond was the rise that hid the Deren yos from view from this direction. It made him feel a great deal more secure, although the logical part of his mind stillpersisted in reminding him that he was in reality no more secure here than he was anywhere else.

Morlenden detoured by the outhouse before turning downthe hill to the yos, and, finished with his detour, was proceeding slowly down the slippery path, ruefully considering that

after all he should indeed take the ritual wash down in the trough, and most assuredly it would be cold. He shivered atthe thought of it. Perhaps he could lie to Fellirian, who would insist. No, that wouldn't work either; she'd spot that fast enough, call Kaldherman for help, and they'd pitch him in while Cannialin would stand to the side and laugh herlaugh. But it was cold now. A freeze tonight for sure. Below,in the dooryard, beyond the pot holding the yoj-tree, an overage blackwillow, he caught sight of Fellirian and Pethmirvinwalking slowly up to the yos, their breath steaming in the cold, damp air. Fellirian saw him, nudged Peth, and theyboth waved. Morlenden returned the wave, remembering towatch for his ancient enemy the root at the same time. Thereit was, and for once he had missed it, but in watching Fellirian and Pethmirvin, waving, and avoiding the root, he hadmisjudged his footing on the rain-slick path and the red clay,and began a ludicrous slip, now waving both arms wildly forbalance. He thought in the midst of a most undignified escapade that he heard a sudden, sharp, woody noise close by,like a chop of an ax, but it was indeed a busy moment andhe could not be sure. What was much more curious was the fact that he did not fall, but hung suspended, a strange happening indeed until he realized with a chill that he had beenpinned to an oak by a large metal arrow, dully anodized intoa vague greenish-brown color to make it blend into the background. Morlenden felt ice in his veins, for the arrow had passed through his clothing under one armpit and driven intothe tree with such force that when Pethmirvin and Fellirian arrived, all three of them together could not pull it out. Morlenden worked free of it, and shortly afterward Kaldhermanarrived. He returned to the shed behind the yos, retrieved a large machete they used against the always-encroaching brushabout the yos, and immediately charged off into the brushywoods in the direction from which the arrow had come, following back along the shaft. That he found nothing, save some vague and scuffed tracks that shortly disappeared in theundergrowth, surprised no one.

TWELVE

. . . is there no place left for repentance, none

for pardon left? None left but by submission;

and that word disdain forbids me, and my dread

of shame among the spirits beneath, whom I se

duced with other promises and other vaunts than

to submit, boasting I could subdue the omnipo

tent. Aye me! They little know how dearly 1 abide

that boast so vain, under what torments inwardly

I groan.

—Milton, Paradise Lost

They were all in Chairman Parleau's intimidating office, making small talk before the meeting got under way; Eykorwas having one of his interminable low-grade arguments withPlattsman over the differences in functions between Securityand Control, as well as the historical reasons for the rise of the latter at much of the expense of the former. Parleau tookno active part in the argument, although from time to timehe would goad one to make some audacious sally, which wasimmediately pounced upon by the other.

The heart of the discussion at this point lay in Eykor's accusation that over the years Control had actually usurpedmuch of the best part of Security, namely, the prediction andanticipation of events warranting the use of deadly force.Plattsman was following the counterargument that the aim ofControl, with its sophisticated statistical analyses, monitor stations, and status-reporting networks, was in fact to make thepredictions so good and so accurate that corrective action wasbacked up from corrective, but coercive, force, to a "best trade-off" action taken this side of force. It might have beenmoot to say that the original object of the whole system of Control was to illuminate problems and cure them, a true bridge between managerial government and naked power politics.

Plattsman was saying, "Ultimately, we could not usurp Security, for we have, in plain fact, no troops.""We are your troops, most of the time," replied Eykor.

"Symbiosis, then. Hands and eyes that work together. Theability of the hand to sense its field of action is limited to close field work—touch, heat detection. On the other hand, the eye sees and integrates, but can of itself take no action toimplement its evaluations. It can't even evade a threat."

They could have continued much longer, and would have, but Parleau grew restive and waved them to a halt. He knew,of course, that Plattsman was basically correct in his analogyof hand and eye, but that he had left out several factors. Oneof these was that once Control had become firmly established,it began to evolve from an initial position of rather altruisticprofessionalism toward the self-perpetuations of the classical bureaucracy, thus lessening its true functional growth. Secondly, Control over the years had become vastly entangled in the manipulation of information for its own sake, and had, on several occasions, come perilously close to strangling itselfon its own internal flow problems and turbulences. They hadweathered these crises remarkably well, and their integrity was a watchword within the various regional departments. But Parleau was of the opinion that too much reliance was placed upon them; there had always been a requirement for "wetwork," as the jargon of the day put it. Parleau's own phrasing of it might have been, as he sometimes observed to his most trusted associates from the old days, "At the bottomline, you're always going to need some hard-faced bastard tokick the arses and take the names. There is simply no substitute for a good truncheon, a rubber hose, or perhaps a coathanger, applied with a will and decided upon unhesitatingly."Security filled that requirement commendably, although it could often be denounced for excesses of zeal. And its requests for manpower were simply not to be believed!

Parleau motioned for them to begin. All those presentshuffled papers, rearranged their notes, made their positionsready, moved restlessly in their seats, then fell quiet. Plattsman would be first, of course. He had the data they had beenwaiting for, or so they hoped and had been led to believe. Plattsman had sheaves and sheaves of machine-print reportsand summaries, analyses and conclusions.

Plattsman began, "Well. Monitors in the office of one W.Vance, Institute Director, recorded a conversation between Vance and a Hando Errat, apparently of Continental, their subject being a representation of the girl who was picked upin the vandalism case."

Something stirred in Parleau's mind then, about Errat. He had heard that name before, but he couldn't place it. Had itbeen at Continental? He tried to remember, but the expression on Eykor's face distracted him, and he lost it. No matter, they could follow it later. What interest did Continental have in this?

Plattsman paused slightly, to be sure he had their attentionwith his use of the word "vandalism" when Eykor had calledit "terrorism" from the beginning. Then he continued, "Shortly thereafter, Vance solicited assistance from one Doctor Harkle, head of Research and Development. She recalledthe girl immediately, and this data was reported upchannel.We also were able to capture a disprint of the repro, and it matches the girl."

Parleau interjected, "Was this recorded? Did you run a check on this Errat?"

Plattsman hesitated, then replied, "No, Chairman, no record was made. We had been overseeing Vance somewhatearlier, and the tap had been taken off. There was still sampling being conducted, but it was being run on a priority-fivebasis, which is 'no recorders.' We were extremely lucky to getthis, as it was. Indeed, were it not for some quick thinking,with the disprint equipment, we wouldn't have been able to match the girl up. It was only uncovered for a few minutes."

"Naturally, no disprint of Errat."

"We didn't get one. By the time our monitor realized whatwas happening, Errat was gone. We did check with Continental Control, but they could not discuss the matter over an open line. Referred us to Section Q, Denver. We did not press the matter."

"I understand." Indeed Parleau did understand. Peoplewho asked questions of Section Q were asked questions by"the Q" and then faded away from sight

Something was still nagging at Parleau's mind, but now Plattsman continued, "Pertinent data follows: the subject isone Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren, age twenty; sex, female. She was a part-time research assistant in the Math Department, then R and D. She was, according to evaluations wehave been able to obtain, of a tendency to be somewhat abstracted and distant, but competent. She appears to have beenshy and retiring, but withal, cooperative and pleasant. Therewas one uncorroborated entry about family problems, but wewere unable to determine their nature. She is listed in the Institute personnel records as being an insibling in their familyreference."

Plattsman stopped, and Parleau looked up, expecting more.This was what Plattsman called a meeting for? He asked Eykor, "Is that all? What does Security have?"

Eykor said, "We didn't think we'd find anything, becausewe don't get into reservation business. I would like to havechased down her family relationship, and all that crap, butwe ran a routine check of our own stuff to see if there was any correlation. We found nothing on this one, but we did find in the records a reference, indeed a file, on another, who was listed only initially as Perklaren, M.S., in the space program, if you can believe that. We went further into it, actually physically dug out the fiche files. This one was called Mevlannen Srith Perklaren, and from the photo we determined that they are not the same person. The Perklaren thatSecurity found is also a ler female, now has a security clearance of Level Four, Access type B, ratings excellent. Performance has been rated as 'outstanding and innovative.' Assigned to Team Trojan Eye. She is normally located about the West Coast Test Range, or actually in space. I cross-referred with Control and we were able to pinpoint her locationas on the ground at present. Additionally, we were able to insert a request to keep her there for the time being. Distraction and excuses. We could bring her in easily enough."

"What does this Perklaren do?" "Apprentice free-fall structural technician, and opticsspecialist."

Klyten laughed. "Now there's one for you! A ler in optics.Might as well find an amputee employed as a pavement-breaker, handling a chipperstripper!"

Everyone turned and stared at Klyten. He recovered his academic composure and explained, "They are rather notorious for having what we consider to be poor eyesight. The lerretina is almost totally comprised of cone cells. They have anextreme degree of color acuity, but less capability of resolution; and of course they are severely handicapped in light levels of semidarkness, where a human would see quite well, ifprimarily in monotone. They compensate for this by havingmore kinds of cone cells, and a broadened spectrum that includes, so I understand, two distinct 'colors' below what we call red and one in the near ultraviolet, but it doesn't helpthem much. So one working as an optician, building a telescope, is really something. You know, on the ground, here onEarth, they are reputed to have great difficulty seeing anything

in the night sky below Magnitude three, rarely four. That's

why I laughed: she's working under a severe handicap."

Parleau observed, "She must also be very good at what she

does to work under it and still produce results. Is there any

connection between her and the girl we caught?"

Klyten answered, "The custom in naming is that the namesdon't repeat. Each person carries a name that is unique andmeaningful, if somewhat fanciful and exotic for my taste.They try to run seven generations before repeating a proper name. As for the surnames, they don't repeat either. Eachsurname of a family group relates to an occupation, and if they have more than one such group in an activity, they prefix a number to the name root. According to what I have inmy files, the names 'Klaren' would equate to, well, 'Player.'But they have two such family groups, so the older is calledPerklaren, 'First-player,' and the second, Terklaren, 'Secondplayer.' Now since neither name repeats, and we have two who are the same, then they are in the same group. Properlyspeaking, they don't use surnames once they graduate to elder status, so these would have to be in the same generation.Eykor, what was your girl's age?"

"Twenty."

"Then they are insiblings to one another. Hm.... But thatwould mean that their family group, or Braid, as they call it,has two insiblings of the same sex, unless there was a twinning we don't know about. This could be the source of thefamily problems."

Parleau said, "How so? I don't understand."

Klyten replied, "The tradition is that the insiblings marry,or weave, if you'd rather, each other."

"That would be incest," observed Parleau.

"Perhaps. Depends on your definitions. But it's not, genetically; the insiblings have different parents, completely,and are not related at all, as we would call it, even though they are raised together, if anything, more closely than the usual brother-sister relationship. But now, in this case, it would appear to follow the condition they call Polhovemosi: 'sexed-out.' If the insiblings are of the same sex, then the Braid ends and all must weave into other Braids in the outsibling position. They lose a lot: status, continuity with the past, tradition. These things are highly valued among them. To lose one's family-group role is one of the unkindest blows."

Eykor observed, "Well, I suppose that's interesting enough, but not of very much use to us, here. Is there anything worthdigging into in their surname?"

And Parleau added, as an afterthought, "And how aboutthe connection between Maellenkleth the Player and Maellenkleth the vandal? If she resented her situation, as well it appears she might from what you say, then why didn't she vandalize something of her own people's? After all, we didn't make up their cultural structures for them."

Eykor said, "It would appear that at least one of them harbored no resentments, at least visibly. Her ratings were impressive, and doubly so, when you consider Klyten's dissertation on her eyesight"

Klyten answered, "It is true what you guess by instinctthat their family groups tend to be very homogenous in theirvalue systems; that the one is an achiever probably doesn'tmean that the other would be, but it does argue against herbeing a vandal. . . . But these are only probabilities, not oracles or predictions. What say you, Plattsman, for Control?"

"As always, that we need more data. Basically, I agree, butvandalism is an intricate structure, and I should like to know more about the girl, her matrix, internal values of the class ofwhich she belongs. I don't know if we can project the humanfamily structure or sexual values onto them with any accuracy either. Need some work, there, back in the vaults."

Klyten nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed,and began to feel his way into Eykor's question, which hadalmost been forgotten. What indeed, was in the surname? Hesaid, "I said that every Braid has a role or profession, whichis indicated by the name. In the case of the two Playergroups, that is what they do—play a Game. It is a very curious matter, just another of their oddities."

Up until this time, Parleau had been somewhat disengaged,aloof from the flow of the remarks, but now his interest deepened. "They play a Game?"

"Well, yes, it is peculiar, full of all kinds of anomalies; it seems that they have, included in their social order, two families whose role is exactly that, to play a Game in publicexhibitions. But as we understand the term, professionalsportsmen somehow seems inappropriate to this. You see, ithappens to be the only organized sport they have, playedwith formal rules and organized teams. Without exception, allof the rest of their games are informal and very unstructured, more like traditional children's games than anything else, What's more, it, this Game, is not played on a field or a court, but on a portable electronic display panel. This, mind,in a culture that almost never uses electric power or electronics."

Parleau raised his eyebrows, and opened his mouth to speak, but Plattsman contributed before he could, "We havealso studied this game, in Control, and what Klyten says is true. Their board is both portable and durable, apparentlyhas an independent power supply, and is extremely reliableiAt the least, they have never had a breakdown during a public Game. We can deduce that a computer has been integrated into its structure, although we cannot as yet specifically locate its position within the machine."

Parleau leaned back in his chair, reflectively. He mused, aloud, "No breakdowns in public is not so hard to attain withgood mechanics, engineers, and tight scheduling. And as forwhere the switching and logic and memory units would be—good, tight design could work it into almost any volume youcould care to mention."

Plattsman replied, looking at the chairman's shiny forehead. "I understand, Chairman. That's all true. What Klytenis trying to point out, and I as well, is that this is occurring,over a period of generations, within a culture that suppressestechnology, particularly electronic technology, as we know it."

Klyten put in, before Parleau could think of some rationalization, "And a formal Game with elaborate rules and rigid operations in a culture that plays unstructured children's games that occur spontaneously. Now consider this, too: thisinside a conceptual Surround in which every family group hasa functional occupation, a necessity to society. The Playersdo nothing, aside from some low-level self-support, except play the Game."

Parleau returned to a normal position, then leaned forward, his heavy arms and hands pressed flat on the surfaceon his desk. He said, "Every Braid supports and contributesto the whole, but the Players are, in effect, subsidized?"

"Exactly," said Klyten.

Plattsman added, "We don't have access to their macroeconomics, but by the models in the studies that have been done using offset simulations, it would appear that considerable cost is involved."

Klyten added more. "And that is verified by their wholevalue system. Marginal activities—for example, arts—exist in quantity, but only as sidelines. In fact, there is an extremelysophisticated management system integrated at the popularculture level that simply eliminates occupations that don't contribute, no matter how attractive they might be. And thismanagement system is as hard to pin down as the location ofthe computer in their Game display board. We know that thefunction must exist, but no one yet has located it. There isalso some consideration of the idea that the vast majority ofthe ler people themselves are unaware of this system. They fitinto it so harmoniously...."

Parleau knotted his brows. "This is hard for me to say, because I never believed that I'd ever find myself saying itWhat you are saying by all your remarks, is that in fact thesewoods-bound rustics actually operate a . . . nation, with almostno visible government, at a greater efficiency and with less friction than we do."

Klyten answered, "So it appears. These facts have beenknown for years, of course, but it is so low-key that nobodyever assembled it before. This explains much—how they canoperate the reservation at a profit, not counting what the Institute brings in, and it also explains the true source of the product of the Institute, and the data they feed us."

Parleau reflected, and said, "So they are, in effect, feedingus off the top of their system?"

Eykor interjected angrily, "Programming us, I'd call it!"

Parleau looked blandly and without rancor at the chief ofSecurity. 'There's no denying that if they are, it's been to thegeneral welfare. I say, if it works, then let it be. Unless Control can project some nefarious purpose in these manipulations."

Plattsman said, "Control until this minute was unaware that we were being manipulated. And I hardly see evidenceof detail work, the kind that would be necessary to bring usto some point desirable to them. But I'll certainly send thisthrough Research, to see if we can prove it, and if so, find out where it's going." He spoke slowly, as if unwilling to believe the implications of what they had uncovered here: Control was totally unaware that a more subtle system was probably being applied to them all, a macrosystem involving—andhere Plattsman's mind took a giant, risk-filled leap across normal deductive logic—yes, very likely the large-scale nudgingand controlling of the whole damn planet! And for what purpose? As Parleau had most accurately put it, "to the generalwelfare." That could not be denied. He added, as an after

thought, "Yes, I'll have those crazies down in Games-TheoryBranch get cracking on it right away."Parleau nodded approval, and said, "I want to hear about that girl and this Game they play. How old is it?"

Klyten answered, "According to the annals, the Game appeared coincident with the move into the reservation. It seems to be tied up deeply in the popular religion, a kind ofmovable morality play. They have factions, rivalries, the whole thing. It is very Byzantine, and the fine points are shrouded in layers of allegorical nonsense."

Parleau observed, "So they sublimate aggression into sports? That's nothing new. We've done that, ourselves, for aeons."

Klyten persisted, "No, no, it's that there is an aggressionpresent within the Game that isn't present anywhere else. Literally. And by no means does it reach all the people. Infact, on the whole, the people are rather uninterested in it.Less than half even bother with it in any degree and the number of real fans is probably less than ten percent, counting the Players themselves."

The data made no more sense to Parleau than it did to anyone else. He pondered on that for a moment, then asked,"Well, what in hell is this Game? We're talking about anotherof these things we can't see, or are we fishing in the dark there, too?" A sudden light had been illuminated in Parleau'smind. If he could but penetrate into this system, which hesensed was part of a larger, elaborate plan, then by opening itup, he would pave his way, beyond Denver. If he could onlyprod these blockheads to find the answers. Yes. Suddenlymerely surviving his assignment to Seaboard South seemedpetty, unvisioned, lacking scope.

Plattsman said, "It's a recursive system...

Klyten added, interrupting the Controller, "Yes, recursive. The Game itself, as we see it, appears to be very distantlyrelated to chess, or checkers, but of course it is almost inconceivably more complex than either of those examples. It ismanifestly difficult even to try to describe it.... They normally play on a two-dimensional field, which can be dividedat will into one of several tiling arrays: triangles, squares,and hexagons, those being equilateral and regular, and also quite a number of irregular pentagons and hexagons. Thesedivide the field up into cells. Inside the cell, one can have a number of conditions, ranging from binary on-off two-stateon up. I don't think there is a limit to the number of states a cell can have, although obviously there are some practicallimits. The Game begins with some simple, and I use this word guardedly in this context, patterns of states in cells . . . a move in the Game, or a time-component unit, is the sum ofall the changes produced by considering each cell, serially, inrelation to a surrounding number of cells, sometimes by rawsum, and sometimes by position of cells of different state arrayed about the referent cell. This neighborhood can also bevaried, from close in to far away. Then they apply transitionrules, some statistical, some arbitrary, and make the changes.When all the cells have been processed according to the program, then the whole changes and they start over again. Theobject of the Game appears to attain certain desirable configurations in shape and color and dynamics, while the opposingteam tries to manipulate certain parts of the rules and otherfactors to prevent it; but they, too, operate under elaboraterules covering what they can do."

Plattsman contributed, "You have to understand recursive math to comprehend the Game."

Klyten added one more thought, "We think that this is whythey evolved their cumbersome number system of variable-numbers with no permanent fixed base, as our decimal system. It makes it easier to understand the Game, when you have to or want to, in the case of the spectators."

Plattsman continued, "We in Control have tried to explorerecursive systems also, because the concept is deeply tied upwith decision-making, controlling functions, and programming. The concept was first worked out in the twentieth century, about the middle, if I have my history straight. There was an extensive literature on the subject well into the twenty-first century."

Klyten said, "They were playing random-start Games eventhen: just fill it up, more or less randomly, and watch it evolve."

Plattsman counterpointed, "But simple Games with unchanging rules and neighborhoods. Most people played on computers when they could get access, but a few fanatics were known to play it on graph paper, some of which theyhad to have specially printed for the purpose. Absolute maniacs!"

Parleau asked, "Why the difference?"

Plattsman answered, "The computer-players could see the motion and the patterns of change, and spot productive patterns faster, but the graph-paper players, while vastly slowed down by the need to run every single step in the programmanually, were able to see farther into the scope of it, andthe things it could lead to. Eventually, however, they werealso forced into computers by the sheer volume of transactions, but they used the computers only as working aids. Allongoing work in the Game tended to originate from the minority Graphists, and what we know from the Archives indicates that the ler built upon one particularly active Graphistfaction—one could almost call it a cult—that was active in the latter third of the twentieth century."

Parleau shook his head exaggeratedly from side to side. Hesighed, looked at the ceiling, scratched his neck, and returnedhis attention to the group. "Tell me no more! I do not wishto become one of these Players—just relate this unknown girlto what she was doing and why, and why she insisted uponwithdrawing into herself rather than answer a few simplequestions. I will accept your description of things as provisionally accurate in substance, although I admit to imcomprehension. By what means do they control the display?"

Klyten said, "By a keyboard, something rather like an organ of the old days."

"I fail to see why they would devote so much energy tosomething that demonstrably produces no results. What is the use of it?"

Klyten observed, "We have been unable to determine that Obviously it is of great importance to them, and nobodythinks that its sole purpose is entertainment. I mean, after all,the Players have a certain regard, an exclusiveness, but hardly are they lionized as popular figures."

Plattsman offered, "Chairman, we have some tapes of someGames material, if you would like to see them. It makes more sense if you can see it in action, perceive the motion init."

"Yes, by all means," said Parleau. "I would like very muchto see this Game. Perhaps we can all learn something from itYou have prepared recordings?"

Plattsman replied, "We have an extensive file of them, Chairman. Control has been studying the Game for manyyears. From that, we have selected what appears to be a typical, although short, round of a Game."

Klyten added, "This recording was made a few years ago,at their Solstice Tournaments. I have it on the good word ofthose who claim to be authoritative on such matters that this particular Game is a classic of its type, but is rather short in duration. The curtuosity here is after the manner of chambermusic, rather than oratorios, symphonies, and grand operas. We mutually apologize, Plattsman and I, for the lack of sound, but none had been thought necessary, since the play isalmost exclusively visual as medium."

Plattsman motioned to an unseen operator. The office dimmed, a section of the far wall opened, and the panels slidback into cleverly hidden recesses in the walls, revealing a softly glowing screen occupying most of the space betweenfloor and ceiling. After an uncertain pause, the screen flickered, flashed bright momentarily, then went completely dark.Then gradually a moving series of images began to fade in,growing in brightness and contrast until it seemed natural tothe viewers' dark-adapting eyesight

The screen showed an open space in the forest, a pleasantly bucolic environment, a natural depression that hadbeen subtly modified into an amphitheater. The show was incolor, and though it appeared from the light within to be evening, there was no fading or overexposure; they saw as if they were there. They watched and became absorbed in it. It was a summer evening, deep evening shades and shadows inthe small gathering-place of the Players and their audience; they sensed, rather than saw, that somewhere offscreen the sun was yet in the sky; nevertheless it was evening, not merely late afternoon. A subdued, middling crowd was present, all ler, at least as far as could be seen. Some wore summer clothing, light overshirts, loose robelike affairs, whichwere the everyday, general-purpose ler garment; others worea garment suggesting a kimono, but with the belt or sash looped and hung loosely over one hip or the other. Many ofthe younger ones present wore only a saronglike wraparoundabout their lower bodies, leaving their chests and abdomens bare, while the ends of it fell to their ankles. Even then, with the identical haircuts, it was difficult at first glance to tell boyfrom girl, to Parleau's eye. You simply could not differentiate. . . . Only if he picked one and watched it for some timecould he determine which sex it belonged to. It was as if the whole secret of defining lay in dynamics and motions, ratherthan in states-of-being, a disturbing notion indeed. He watched what he believed to be a boy, who was engaged inteasing, very subtly, what appeared to be a girl. What was it,the difference? She seemed softer, more delicate, smoother perhaps. He couldn't say just what it was. The way she moved, smiled? They were both trying to appear most serious

and attentive, but of course it was a summer evening, warmand scented, and their minds were elsewhere, as well they might have been, with the soft shadows falling across the leafy little glade. The one who had recorded this little dramaunawares had not even been observing the boy and the girl,for in the image they both were far off-center, and as Gametime came closer, he lost them entirely, expanding the imageand zooming closer to take in the display board and the Players.

The board itself was a large, square unit, supported on asimple, broad base, completely unadorned. It looked simple,but in no way did this display board suggest primitiveness, orcrudity; to the contrary, it seemed the product of a highlyprofessional technological civilization. Before it was a small,desklike console, furnished with several rows of buttons, while to either side were two larger consoles with imposingmultiplex keyboards, which resembled OFgan consoles more than they did anything else. The Players were already in place, the Reds to the right and the Blues to the left, two Players by each console, and two more behind them. An announcer, was addressing the crowd, apparently in a most relaxed, easygoing manner, as if he (or she—Parleau could not tell) were among friends and acquaintances.

The announcer finished whatever remarks were required,and then retired offstage with a flirty little flourish, to be replaced by a stem and imposing couple, elders by the look ofthem and the twin long pigtails of iron-gray hair that hungdown the fronts of their garments. Their color was dark; Parleau thought black, although he could not be sure . . . the light of day was slowly fading in the recording. These wouldbe the referees. They made no speeches or gestures to the spectators, but turned to the center console and one of themmade a chopping motion with his hand. And on the board, immediately appeared a preliminary figure, a mildly complexgeometrical figure in five colors. It stayed in place a moment,winked out, and then reappeared.

The whole board shimmered, came alive, changed to a hexagonal cellular array, retaining the figure as well as it could be accommodated into the new matrix; a series of indecipherable symbols began flowing across the top of the screen, and the figure began changing rapidly, evolving intodifferent shapes and densities as the initial moves of the Game proceeded. Parleau watched in attentive astonishment,riveted to his plush chair, as the figure first lost all its color,

becoming black against the illuminated background, and then

abruptly began to change shape, colors flowing over it like

firelight flickering over a wall, or perhaps summer lightning.

The most basic color appeared to be green, and it seemed

that the Reds were trying to control the figure and manipu

late it into other shapes, desired configurations, while at the

same time, the Blues, just as tenaciously, attempted to hinder

this operation and tried to arrange things so that the de

veloping figure would fly apart and dismember itself. The

symbols flowing across the top of the screen changed con

stantly; scoring? A running commentary while the game was

in progress?

At first, despite the interference of the Blues, the Reds seemed to be having the better of it; they manipulated the vibrating Bgure into a larger shape that seemed more impervious to attack, but this lasted only minutes. Soon, Blue attacked with increased zeal and dedication, their centers laboring mightily over the keyboards, arms and heads blurredin motion, moving faster than the scan rate of the recordingdevice. Soon, the advances of the Reds were blunted, dissipated, brought to a halt. Parleau looked back to the Reds: they were playing, if anything, with even more vigor than theBlues, and as they occasionally turned, he could see that theexpressions of intense concentration, indeed, they grimacedwith effort.

Suddenly, a foul was called on Blue, and the referees engaged their controls; the Blues were forced to sit helpless fora measured time, their keyboard locked out, while the Reds advanced and rebuilt their figure into an impressively complex configuration. But when they returned, they reenteredthe Game furious with zeal, and by dint of extreme effortand a brilliant, virtuoso attack, forced the Reds to give up much they had gained, and in fact, as Parleau remembered, forced them to return to an earlier configuration. A foul wasnow called on Red, and now they also had to sit helplesslyaside while Blue, with glee, dismembered the complex figure.But returning, they did not give up, were not routed, and hung on gamely. The Reds began to advance again, slowernow than before, but inexorable, like the tide coming in. Blue sensed that there was nothing to be gained by further delay,and they changed the array to square cells, and after a moment, to the triangular lattice, all apparently in an effort to disorient Red and keep them off balance. At first, it seemedto succeed. Red seemed to lose momentum and drift, uncer

tain of what to do next. Parleau, now indeed caught up in theswirling patterns of the Game, sensed that this had been a reasonable course on the part of Blue, for Red had, he sensed, been gaining, if slowly. Perhaps this could lead to astalemate, which would of course favor the defending Blues.But soon it became apparent that the maneuver was to be unsuccessful, for Red was still gaining. They had ridden with theattack, drifted with the changing current, and were now fullyin possession of the field again. Blue riposted by a move ofdesperation, changing the field to a beautifully weird pentagonal tesselation, the cells irregular polygons, and after a moment, back to the square grid. But it appeared to be too late,this rearguard action; the audience was waving little red pennants, while partisans of the Blues stood about glumly, their

heads lowered, expecting the worst It was not long in coming: in an amazing tour de force, Red finally manipulated the figure somehow into an astonishing and enigmatic shape, one which hung on the displayboard screen for a long time, emitting coherent sparks and particles that fled to the edges and vanished. Across the topof the board, the cryptic symbols flowed on for a moment, asif they had fallen behind the action, and then they stopped, abruptly, and without warning the board went blank, dimmed, and went out. Red partisans and their friends wavedtheir pennants and applauded, rather restrainedly, while Bluefans began to walk away, dejected and expressionless. Some,however, despite their loss, also joined in the subdued approval, showing that they could appreciate a good Game, even if their team had lost. One of the centers of the Red team turned from the console and made a short speech. Theview expanded, as if the operator had wished to take in moreof the crowd; Parleau looked for the boy and girl he had noticed earlier, but they were almost conspicuously absent. Thescreen went blank....

Parleau breathed deeply, once. The rest said and did nothing.After a time, he asked, "Control, what can you tell us about that particular Game?"

"We can set up simplex sequences back in the labs; that is,Games with unchanging parameters. Now, this one you justsaw," said Plattsman, "escapes detailed analysis. We thinkthat this one was held to a minimum deliberately, probably varying between three-state and, say, fifteen-to-twenty-state for an upper limit. They use color to symbolize states; in some of the higher-order games, this can get serious, becausethey have greater color-discrimination than we do. The gridchanges you saw yourself. By and large, most cellular arraysare pretty straightforward—equilateral triangles, squares, hexagons. But the pentagonal arrays are all irregular and have some tricky rules; the neighborhood can vary, even when it'sat minimum closest to the reference cell. And the rules! Here is where we really are at sea! We think that none of those remained stable for more than a few moves, two to three. We have to deduce it by effect. They used to say, back in the olddays, that one insurgent could tie down ten regulars; it's thesame ratio here: to compute backward takes about ten timesthe number of computations, and without long time-strings ofsteady states of rules, that does us no good. The rules are never symmetrical with respect to time—they only work as rules one way. When you try to work them backward and figure back, you get an uncertainty factor...."

Parleau exclaimed, "Jesus!" He reverted to ancient oaths, and they came easily, even though most people had forgottenthe reason why they had been originally said. "Why hasn'tsomeone been working on this longer, brought it up at Staff?All you have to do is look at that equipment and look at what they do with it. Those people are about as primitive asBuckminster Fuller!"

Plattsman said, "We had been trying to come to some conclusion about where the activity was leading . . . so far, it has defied all attempts to vector it."

"How long?" Parleau insisted.

"About... ah, since the Game appeared, Chairman."

"And nothing?"

"Nothing. It doesn't change in any manner we can measure. It appeared, and we took sample recordings, and attempted to analyze them. Inasmuch as we have been able todetermine, the sole difference between a Game of say, lastsummer, and one of a hundred years ago, is the same as between any two Games out of the same cycle: individual variation and style of the moment, you know, personal variations."

"And you can't conclude from that?"Plattsman answered shamefully, "No, sir, we haven't to date."

Parleau leaned forward, and added projection to his voice:"Well, I'm no Controller, but I can see of that remark that, if it is true, what you are seeing is a finished product, an artifact! Sports as we know them continuously evolve and shift,

because they are responding to changing needs of the people

who play and watch them. But your people, who are the mas

ters of the science of change, can see no change in this

Game, and you're stymied! That's the great secret! The Game

doesn't change! You idiots, what does it conceal?"

Plattsman hesitated. "I don't understand...."

"That's why I'm chairman and you're a Controller! An ar

tifact doesn't change—ifs the end of the process! They do

something with it that has nothing to do with sports or enter

tainment or bleeding off aggression. Now what is it?"

Plattsman said, "We pursued that angle early, Chairman.That was the first thing we thought of, just as you did. Nowthis Game does have fine possibilities for a system of processing information, but it seems like an awful lot of elaboration, and a lot of calling attention to themselves when they could certainly be more secretive about it. I mean, it's like using a code—in some circumstances, that just alerts peopleto the fact that you have something to hide. Now a code cangive you security, but you want the parameter of speed and reliability also in any information-flow system, and the use ofcodes lowers both, in some cases appreciably."

Klyten helped Plattsman. "The speed of the responses ofthe Players, and the actions they take, indicate that whatevermessages are concealed in it apply to them. The crowds apparently see no more than we did, that one side or the othergains or loses control of the shape of the figure they are working."

Plattsman agreed, nodding his head vigorously, and Klytencontinued, "And you have to remember that those Playersare raised on a diet of that practically from birth. They getserious about it at around age fourteen, as I understand. Bythe time they are playing in tournaments, they've all had at least twenty years of it, more. Plus a lot of theory that wedon't ever see; they release nothing about the Game or recursive mathematics through the Institute . . . they won't even acknowledge its existence."

Parleau's earlier attack seemed to lose direction now. He seemed stopped in his tracks by the fact that the Controllershad asked the same question he had, years before, and had seen nothing in it but an unchanging Game.... He said, "That's another aspect of this that bothers me; exactly that. The long time they spend learning it. How do they maintain motivation? Say what you will about training, about ability, about privilege, I can still see that that stuff doesn't come easy for them, no more than it would be for us. Those Players in the recording were working hard! How much exposuredo they get?"

Klyten answered, "They have the great tournaments at theSummer Solstices. Lesser Games are played throughout the warm months. Technically, the Game runs from springequinox to autumnal."

"And that's all they have to do?"

"That's correct, Chairman."

"Then they are only employed six months of the year?That's the damndest thing I ever heard!"

Klyten said, "Well, it's not entirely without precedent: their ruling Braid, the Revens, does almost nothing. Theirrole is to arbitrate disputes, but very little ever gets taken tothem, so they do almost nothing...."

"But they symbolize authority, nationhood, and all that, like the hereditary kings of old."

"Yes, Chairman, that's true, but you have to bear in mindthat if they are following the royal-dynasty model, they are doing so without any of the traditional symbols of royalty; they have no ceremony, no 'court,' no deference. When he is not 'in his role,' as they say, the High Reven is a dirt farmer,just like the lowest."

Parleau said, "So this Mallenkleth . . . "

"Maeflenkleth," Klyten corrected, changing the broad, open flA-sound Parleau had used to a shorter, flatter sound,something intermediate between an "A" and an "E," but without the nasal quality of the North American Modanglic"ae."

"What's the difference?" " 'Mai' means 'bad,' 'Mael' means 'Apple.' There's a difference." "You 're the expert. So, then, this insibling of a Braid ofGameplayers."

Plattsman and Eykor answered together, "Right!"

Parleau continued, "And a mathemetician with the Department of Research and Development at the Institute, and a captured 'vandal' who elects somehow to disappear inside herself rather than reveal one single word? And now she's gone and we can't ask her anything? Damn! I'd really like toknow if there is any connection. So now we all know somethings, but not which is relevant among them."

Klyten said, "We had hoped that these recordings of Game phenomena would suggest something to you that none of ushad seen before. We have all tried, in our way, beforetimes,but there was nothing.... No one ever paid much attentionto the Game before, other than cursorily. And here, we gotthe criminal, as they say, red-handed at the scene of the crime. But no motive. A great anomaly. It's obvious that..."

Eykor interjected, "Obvious that they're up to something.Otherwise, all that we've heard still adds up to nothing. Noother way! And now I must needs ask the learned doctor ofthe mysteries of the New Humans another question: what exactly is this stuff they call 'Multispeech,' anyway?"

Klyten looked about, sharply. "Why do you ask?""Our monitor facilities seem to be picking up a lot more ofit now. Significant statistically."

Klyten said, "Little enough is known of it. They talk freelyenough in their everyday language. Singlespeech. It's just another language, far as I know, if it is a bit more regular thanmost, and of course it has its difficult parts for one to learn.But now Multispeech . . . perhaps multichannel language would be a better term. It is something different, a new concept. Now we express ourselves multiplexually, too, but the media are different; ordinary voice, a broad, harmonicsystem. Then there is body-language. And there is the frequency-modulated fail-alarm system present in our voices allthe time. It's just a tone that's always present in your voice, you never hear it. Nervous system to nervous system, direct. Until you have anxiety. Then the tone drops out and your voice flattens a bit to the ear. When you hear loss of safe-tone, you also lose safe-tone until you discover the source ofthe anxiety. Even infants respond to it. It has uses in verificiation interviews. Now, what has apparently happened in theler brain is that they combine all three systems into one channel of communication, via sound waves modulated by the larynx, and their resonances are so arranged that they can control the individual harmonic bands of the sound, modulate them individually. We know they can communicate with it, but we don't know all that much of what they can do with it . . . we have some studies indicating that in Multispeech the data-rate drops. In other words, it takes longer to say thesame thing. Quite a bit longer. So we can deduce that speedis not one of the reasons for using it."

Plattsman commented, "Wrong, there, Klyten, thoughhate to say it. Communications systems are the heart of Controlling, and we know very well that we will gladly sacrifice

speed for accuracy, because in a system that programs noise

and semantic distortions out, the resultant lack of misunder

standing and the increase in clarity means an ultimate in

crease of speed in the end."

"That's no news! We already know that the principle ap

plies to Singlespeech, which has a rather slower data rate

than any modern, historic language. It's slower than Modan

glic by far."

"Then why have they exploited the ability7 It must be that

much more accurate. And it may have other uses. Communi

cations systems do more than pass words, you know."

"We know little about it. They tell us nothing more than that they can talk to three people at once, saying differentthings... we don't even know how different the texts are."

"Have you correlated Multispeech to specific activities?"

Klyten replied, "It is used extensively in playing the Games, but precisely what part it plays, we cannot determine."

Parleau snorted, "Hmpf! The further we go, the more wefind that someone ought to have been looking into. What have you people been doing all these years? Writing evaluations of evaluations?"

Klyten said, thoughtfully, after a longish pause, "Perhaps,Chairman, these things we are just now turning up fit somehow into a picture that we were never supposed to see, andthat this is the reason why the girl allowed herself to reach the condition she was found in, in the box."

Parleau answered, "That's possible. But in essence, we observe what people do and predict therefrom; not why they doit. After all, once you start asking why, all kinds of speculative Pandoras open up.... But if we assume that there was aplot, it can only be that others were in it; and if the girl allowed herself to be reduced to gibbering, slobbering idiocy to prevent us from making certain associations . . . then those associations must exist. I think we have parts of a picturenow."

Plattsman interjected, "Or an unfinished map."

"Very perceptive, that difference," agreed Parleau. "But weare also in a bit of a bind ourselves in this. We cannot act precipitately. They keep a much closer rein on this Regionthan I ever saw at Mojave. We could move first, of course. Imean, execute a Two-twelve, full occupation, tomorrow. Butwe do not at this point know what we are looking for, or where to look for it. Hell, it could be nothing more tangible than an idea; and an ignorant execution of the occupationwould in those circumstances amount to destruction or removal of any evidence or artifacts. For the labor we'd getnothing, and we'd spend the rest of our days explaining whywe took the action to Section Q. So we can't act now, however attractive it might seem, working on no more than we have. Disconnected anomalies that's paranoia."

Eykor added, saturninely, "Sometimes even paranoids haveflesh-and-blood enemies." He paused a moment, then said, "We in Security know that there is something to hide. Giveme a little time, and I can document it, and possibly locate it."

Parleau stared at Eykor, as if he had not heard him. "So granted."Plattsman interrupted. "Pardon me, but I am receiving a signal. May I retire for a moment?"

"Certainly," said Parleau.

He left the office hurriedly, but he was not gone from itfor long. Plattsman returned, saying, "Well, news, of a sort. Not what we might have expected, but something."

"Go ahead."

"Our monitors report that Vance just entertained a groupin his office. There was a reference there to an earlier conversation, which we must have missed; they could find no recordof it. Probably was in a desensitized area. Anyway, this groupclaims to have taken a commission to locate a girl. Maellenkleth by name, and they asked for an introduction to RegionSecurity, for assistance. Vance has forwarded them here, perrequest."

Eykor asked, "According to instructions?""Oh, indeed. Vance has become docile enough, and cooperates freely now."

Eykor chortled, "Wonderful, wonderful! A nibble at the bait, so it is, and soon, too. Great concern, within the plot.And who are our nibblers?"

"In the course of the conversation with Vance, they wereidentified, apparently he knew some of them personally.There are three: a Fellirian Deren, a Morlenden Deren, and the third was identified only as a Krisshantem. No surname.Vance did not know him."

Klyten said, "He gave no surname? None at all?"

Plattsman answered, "Well, I have only the report to goon, but none was listed. They are pretty thorough and if hehad given one, it would have been forwarded."

"A curious matter, no surname. Everyone uses one, even elders, who style themselves with the surnames Tlanh or Srithas befits their gender, or rather former gender. We usuallytranslate it 'lord' or 'lady,' as fits, but I suspect we miss something of the flavor.... Could be he didn't want anyone to know what it was."

Eykor said, "As if he were a Player...."Parleau asked, "What is the probability of Vance being in aplot with them, here?"

Plattsman replied, "Low. Lower than twenty percent correlation. As for the others, we are not so sure. The female Fellirian Deren was cleared previously; she is a long associate ofVance's in the Institute."

Klyten added, "By the names, the one called Morlenden isthe familial co-spouse of Fellirian, although we can't see theexact relationship. If she is clear, he probably is also. But theother one, this Krisshantem. He could be anything. It certainly is possible that he could be, as Eykor suggests, a Player,or one of the plot, but it is also true that he could be in another relationship, either with the girl, or with the Derens, orsomething else, a specialist of some sort. We have no way ofknowing, short of interrogation."

Parleau said, "I cannot permit that at this time, not afterour loss of the girl."Eykor commented, "Loss, perhaps, but look at what that loss has led us to."

Parleau answered, "Yes, I see what it has led us to: anomalies and more questions than we were asking at the start! SoI direct that they be given the girl without obstruction. Butnot without the closest of observation. Have the medics state that we found her that way and have been conducting an investigation."

Eykor asked, "Is that entirely prudent, Chairman? Afterall, they may be able to learn something from her. And herewe have three more..."

"No, no, no, don't take them. Unless they themselves showcause, and then handle subtly—we don't want three more ofthese basket-cases on our hands. However it occurs. Plattsman, can your people follow them?"

"Not easily, Chairman, but I believe we can work out something." "Well, do your best. I want every move recorded and analyzed. As much as possible, Klyten, you go down to Control

and work with them, interpret. And we will also want somereserves close to hand." "No problem, there, Chairman. I can have a Tacsquad in

parallel all the time.""All right| So get to it and keep me informed."Parleau waved them off, naggingly, hurriedly, as if he were

shooing a group of schoolboys away from some valuable statue, or out of a tree they were not supposed to climb. Therest collected their portfolios and departed, leaving Parleaualone in the now silent office. He leaned back deeply in hischair, sighed thoughtfully, and at last, put his heavy feet upon the desk. At first, he placed his hands across his belly,but later, he folded them behind his head, thinking. He tried to fit the pieces together, but there were too many otherpieces missing, and he could not make them fit. He reflectedthat Eykor had had the first crack at the girl, and had failedto extract anything; likewise, in turn, Control. Klyten admitted ignorance of reasons, but supplied considerable data, much of which disturbed him more than the original incident,the destruction of the instruments. That seemed very far away now, a niggling little problem not worthy of solution byhim. Yes. There was much there, strands of coincidences . . . something was nagging, nibbling at the back of his mind. What was it? He tried to relax and free-associate. Yes, something to do with families. They certainly were strongly oriented to the family, maintaining their line with what seemed toParleau to be a most artificial system, and keeping it going.Families. And those aristocratic Players, two family groups ofthem since the dawn of their time, doing something that hadno function.

An alarm went off, silently, in his mind. Yes, he was onthe track of it now. Yes, the Player families. And he sat back, mentally, as it occurred to him what they all had missed. It all fit, beautifully. They had control, they had management, even if no one could describe it and locate it. And they had an electronic Game in an anti-tech culture, a competition in a cooperative, primitive communist society. And a family, no, two, who were subsidized to do something that had no function but to entertain, in an economic environment that saw itself as severely practical. It all smelled. Butnot half so bad as the idea that was arriving sideways, as it were, deep in the recesses of Parleau's mind: that one of these Players was given away to the humans, and that the other was a spy, obviously out of the Game, and that the Braid, the family group, was being allowed to end. And Klyten hadn't even seen it. Parleau felt a rush of pride: hehad seen something their ler expert hadn't, even as he had been commenting on it. Sexed-out, he had said; they had toseek new identities. But the Game as he had seen it requiredtwo sides, and very soon, in a few years, there would be onlyone. They were going to let something go that they had carefully nurtured for three hundred years or more, without a comment! Parleau sat up abruptly, all semblance of relaxation gone. And from a recess in the desk, he retrieved a vocoder and began transcribing some ideas and instructions, as fast as he could consider them. Yes. It was all tied togethersomehow, and he was going to derive the answer, if he had torun all of them right into the ground.

THIRTEEN

In the Game, it is arbitrarily considered that the total number of operations on every cell in the pattern-area constitutes one unit of Game-time. How we do it is unimportant, serially or by parallel computation, or by scalar patterning; that is our limitation as finite creatures—but in reality it all occurs simultaneously, instantly, for that is the smallest unit into which time can be divided, an absolute.... And so across Game-time, we observe motion, as moving particles with varying degrees of coherence and self-identity; as ripples of unique wavelike patterns of presence and absence; as "invisible waves" that seem to transit empty cellular space and cause reactions in target portions of the developing pattern. There is no motion and there are no waves. Period. That is illusion. There is only the sequential and recursive interaction of the defined Surround with the associated Transition-rules and Paradigms. It is necessary to order our perceptions from the cellular unit outward, that we may fully comprehend higher-order

phenomena of appearances, and thereby not be deceived, as one might easily be working from the macrocosm to the microcosm.

—The Game Texts

To be attacked with malice in mind was, while relativelyrare enough, at the least understandable under certain conditions, Morlenden and Fellirian alike could vividly recall theheyday of the Mask-Factory highwaymen of a span ago;likewise they could also recall several inter-Braid feuds and vendettas of greater or lesser importance. In particular, theKhlefen—Termazen—Trithen triangular vendetta of the generation past could come to mind, even though in the presentit had been reduced in scale and severity to minor incidentsof mild disrespect, or perhaps contemptible behavior within the precincts of neighborhood markets.

At any rate, they, the Derens, had no feuds at present withanyone, and it was obvious that robbery was not the motivefor the attack on Morlenden. But whatever the intent, it had come by arrow, certainly a weapon which could only be usedleaving the hand. On this basis, and after studying the arrowitself, a deadly metal construction, they all reasoned that theassailant had to have been human. But this raised more questions than it answered, for who could it be among the forerunners who moved silently through the forest and brush,in the middle of the reservation, and then vanished without a trace? And then, more importantly, what human would wishto injure Morlenden? Only a handful even knew of his existence.

Kaldherman, who was prone to eccentric ideas, had voiceda suspicion that the assassin had been one of the people, a concept which had disturbing overtones indeed. And to addinfluence to this position, Morlenden had commented that Sanjirmil had indeed expressed apprehension about his possible uncovering of Game secrets. But he did not tell all the reasons why he could not bring himself to accuse her, and the rest could see no reason why one elder Player would hirethem, and another try to prevent them.

Krisshantem was also suspected, if for no other reason than his uncanny silence in the woods. And his status as hifzer, who might be capable of anything; once the one set oftraditions went, who could say what others might follow? Buthe had the least motive of all, and in fact later arrived to dispel the notion in person, a day behind Morlenden, and in the company of one Halyandhin, one of the elder Hulens, who completely verified his story and whereabouts. And the issueremained where it had been—unsolved. Krisshantem examined the place where the attack had come from, but he wouldsay nothing of what he saw therein, if indeed anything. Whenpressed on the matter by Kaldherman to the edge of insult, he admitted ruefully that it seemed to him to be the work ofa human of superior knowledge as a tracker, a notion he considered outrageous. There simply were none in the reservationat all.

So it was that with great apprehensions the party had departed the Deren yos and journeyed down to the Institute onthe mono, and spoken with Director Vance; Morlenden, Fellirian, and Krisshantem. These were the ones Vance gavedirections to. There were two more whom Vance did not see, and whose directions came from Fellirian: Kaldherman and Cannialin, who were to travel with them, but keeping a discreet distance, as if unconnected. Tourists, a young couple,out on a holiday.

Departing the tube-train at Region Central, the three ler appeared at some distinction from the humans who were using the underground terminal at that time of day. It wassomewhat after the noon hour, so the terminal was relativelyempty of the ebb and flow of shift changes; yet there was considerable traffic, incidental people on errands of unknownsignificance. Smaller in stature and lighter in build than the humans, they were also recognizable immediately by theirclothing; the simple fall of overshirts, even heavy winter ones,was greatly different from the heavy folds, tucks, pleats, andstiff fabrics of their human co-travelers. They had thrown their hoods back; two had the long, single braid of hair thatmarked the adult and parent phase ler, while the third worehis in the anonymous bowl cut of the adolescent. To the casual eye, they suggested a family group on an outing, an air Fellirian had suggested that they cultivate, for the fartherthey were from the reservation, the less people would actuallyrecall about ler Braid ordering, and would project their own images upon them. Kaldherman and Cannialin maintained contact, but also distance. They seemed to be only countryyokels who gaped in astonishment at almost everything theysaw. At least in part, for Kaldherman, this was not entirelyplayacting, for it was his first trip outside. He was astonished,in fact.

Standing in the station, pausing before further onward mo

tion, the tube-train waited, making soft mechanical noises,

while along its length, doors opened and closed, and in the

terminal itself, along the platform, echoes moved in the air,

up and down, seeking a quiet corner among the dull concrete

facings in which to spin out and die. The underground termi

nal was a broad hall of indeterminate length—a smoky bluish

haze obscured the distant ends where the tunnel dipped down

into the earth again. One could sense that the end walls were

there, not so very far away, but still vague and unmarked;

there was nothing for the eye to fasten to, and the prevailing

dimness, lit by weak lamps spotted along the low ceilings,

stretched the capacity of their eyes to the utmost.

By the stairwell leading upward, a sweeperman absentmindedly poked with his pushbroom at an insignificant pile of trash, coughing randomly with no great urgency. At dimly lighted kiosks along the stained walls, patrons discussed apparently the prices of fares and the configurations of schedules. The answers, like the questions, were tentative, hedged, rationalized, qualified to a degree no ler could hopeto understand, holding a melancholy air of perpetual indecision. As if, having nowhere to go, the indefinite wranglingsover schedules and fares had become a peculiar free entertainment, a substitute for more meaningful communicationand relationships. Over all hung an odor, extremely peculiarand noticeable to the ler sense of smell. It filled the clotted damp air: ozone, lubricating oils and greases, metals and metallic compounds, metalloceramic and plastic hybrids, staleclothing, cigarette smoke, humans of several degrees of hygiene.

Climbing the stairwell to the surface, Morlenden asked Fellirian if the humans, with all their vast technology, could notperhaps have installed a moving stairway, better lighting, asthey were reputed to have done in some of their great cities.

Fellirian answered, smiling faintly as she climbed the stairwell to the upper world, "They have a phrase that describesthat perfectly: they call it somewhere-else-ism. If you ask why anything isn't as it should be—social inequities, shift disparities, mechanical malfunctions, nonexistent conveniences, and loaded benefits—the responsible parties alwayscite some location, preferably rather far away, where thingsare just right. To your question about slideways, the local engineer would most likely say, 'Oh, they have just installedthat system this very week in Tashkent Center.' And in Tashkent, or Zinder, or Coquilhatville, they are saying at the sametime to their complainants, 'In Old North America they haveall that stuff, and low taxes* as well.' And there's a time variation of it, too, not just of place: either they had it, and itbroke, or it's coming next summer. And they repair the hot-water pipes in, you guessed it, the dead of winter, too. No,Olede, I fear that very little of the technology leaks down tothe street level. In fact, these,"—and here Fellirian gesturedat random passersby with a slight motion of her head—"haverather less, on the whole, than their foreparents did. Thus isthe way of all things like this, and why we pursue them withgreater caution."

* To the ler, all permanent taxes, or standing taxes, were conceptually a horror; taxes were intended to be specific and unique.Since Braid Deren collected such taxes as required, Fellirian couldspeak with wry authority on the subject

They reached the top of the stairwell and emerged into the more open air of a plaza, about which low, subtly-coloredbuildings clustered. Before the stairwell opening, a paintedsign mounted on posts listed significantly organizations nearby,presumably of interest to the arriving traveler, identifyingtheir locations according to building numbers of the structures in which they were housed. Morlenden, not as familiarwith Modanglic as Fellirian, thought there was something oddabout the sign, something he couldn't exactly place, until herealized that several of the words on it were apparently misspelled, or so it seemed. One word was misspelled twice, intwo different ways. The errors cast a singular air of bland incompetence about the sign, and by inference, those who haderected it, an impression reinforced by the shoddy repaintingthe sign had received many times.

The air of the city was translucent, an effect compoundedof a light fog, overcast, steam from underground vents, andvarious fumes; and as in the station platform belowground, there was a similar vagueness, an indeterminacy, to the distances. A few forlorn trees filled elevated planters of concretesited at random intervals along the main plaza walkway, theinhabitants now mostly bare of leaves and foliage and dripping with condensate.

Of the buildings they could see, as they paused to allow Fellirian to orient herself, none appeared to be larger thanthree or four stories, and none bore any indication relating totheir occupants or their functions; but they did, each build ing, bear enormous placards at their corners, which in turn displayed numbers, none of which seemed to have any relationship to any other displayed number. One announced, "3754." Another, immediately adjacent, said, just as definitively, "2071." The streets moved off in a square grid pattern, with regular ninety-degree corners, but it was the pattern of a maze, rather than thoroughfares; none of the streets appeared to go through to anywhere. Morlenden vulgarly observed aside to Krisshantem that it seemed the humans laid out their streets after the tile-joints on the floors of the public toilets at the Institute: the neat, ninety-degree lines went nowhere. They knew where they needed to go—to Building 8905, as Vance had told them—but this building was not listed on the directory sign, nor could any of them locate it from their viewpoint on the plaza. Fellirian, more at home with humans than either Morlenden or Krisshantem, accosted a passerby and asked the location of Building 8905.

The man responded somewhat furtively, and hurried on hisway, into the terminal, down the steps. Fellirian returned,and said, "That one said that eight-nine-oh-five is to our left,a few blocks over. Head left from the plaza, right at the firststreet beyond the end of three-seven-five-four over there, skipan alley, and then left and left at the very next streets. Left,right, skip, left and left."

Kris exclaimed under his breath, "Insane! None of these blocks is numbered in any order. Why number them in thefirst place?"

"I know," she answered. "It's an awful system. The original intent was a good one, I suppose; then there was order.But with rebuilding and changes, it got all mixed up. Now and again, some administrator tries to reorder his district, butwhen you change the number of a building, you also have tochange all of the references to it, all of the records. All the directories. And people get confused. You should try to makea call through the public commnet as it is! Much worse! Ittakes, on the average, five or six calls to get the office or theperson you need. Why, I know of one case where I called onenumber, and a person answered. It was not the man I was calling, so he gave me another number. I called it, and it rang; the same man answered the same instrument, and told me my party wasn't in! And the directory entries make no sense at all: supplies are carried under the section 'Logistics,'while the Logistics-Plans Offices are listed under 'Plans.' At first I thought that it was just me, that I was at fault for not

learning the key to it all, but Vance told me it was the samewith everybody; all of them carry around little personaldirectories, compiled over the years, listing the real numbersand offices and people. Some people actually have a side jobon the sly as professional listers. Others sell personal directories for astounding sums."

Morlenden shook his head. "It certainly would seem that these numbers lend the appearance of greater order."Krisshantem added, "I am surprised that they can have a working society at all on such a basis."

She answered, "Vance has a theory, to which I also subscribe, that there is a good reason for such tangles and whysociety chooses to work through them. He thinks that bureaucratic systems and number messes like this arise, not throughcarelessness, but through specific, if half-conscious, attemptsto put distance between people, because the civilization has somehow compressed them closer to one another than they arecapable of being naturally. They build a time delay into alltheir transactions, because, crowded in personal space, they must expand into time."

"They have traded frustration for satisfaction, no doubt," finished Morlenden as they started off to the left across the plaza toward 8905.

She said, "True! But that frustration with the time delay isa forebrain problem: one can rationalize it, which adds to its effectiveness. But body-space contact aggression is at a deeperlevel, more instinctual, and thus more difficult to control. No, trading time for space works."

He laughed. "And so we're building the very same thing! Look at us, you and I, Eliya; with all our records of births and deaths and transfers to elder lodges. Braid-line diagrams,Braidbooks, collations of names. Aren't we now preparing thegroundbreaking for the same thing to come? I mean, in miel years, we could all come back and visit and see scores of little Perderens, Terderens, Zhanderens, all busy, scribblingaway in their little offices, just like this, and instead of us visiting them, they will all be required to call us upon every minor little event."

Fellirian did not answer him, Krisshantem added, most cryptically, 'Too, it is a way to slow or stop time. All eventsleave ripples, and these methods are sad attempts to make standing waves of those ripples. It gives the illusion of permanence and eminence to those who feel swept along in thegeneral rate. But the events themselves are never prolonged

beyond their time; they aren't even touched, for these things

avoid them."

For some unaccountable reason, this remark left Morlenden with a dire sense of moody foreboding, some unspecifiedmenace. Krisshantem was prone on occasion to utter oracularparables, statements whose true import even he did not understand completely on the conscious level. Nor did Morlenden. . . .

Now off the plaza, they had made their first turn and wereproceeding along a narrow street between two buildingswhich seemed smaller than the general rule. The pastel,stained, or unpainted surfaces, the low cloud cover, the suggestion of winter fog, the pervasive mechanical smells, odors,tinctures, distillations, all combined in an alien gestalt to lend a sly, just-out-of-range-of-recognition melancholy to their journey. There was danger in this, indeed, so they all knew,great danger. But however near it might very well be, it alsoseemed remote, miniature, disinterested, accidental or blind policy if at all. All that remained was not excitement, but anodd sadness, a peculiar emotion they could not recall feelingbefore, though they had all known painful circumstances intheir lives. It impelled one to lassitude and blind, wheel-spinning action for the sake of action at the same time. And passing humans seemed also to share it.

To ease the tension rising among them, they began to talkamong themselves. The basic gray, the basic color behind the overcast gray day, changed and shifted, clotting suddenly,and then clearing again, only to close in again. Now it wasyellowish, now blue and violet, and now again, pinkish. Thecloud deck was thin, and as the clouds moved overhead in the spaces of sky between the buildings, above the faceless and nameless buildings, they changed the quality of light passing through their vague, unformed layers.

Krisshantem was the first to speak openly of it. "Why do we feel as we do? Is this city so alien to us?"

This time it was Morlenden who did not speak. Fellirianglanced about her once, muttering something uncatchable under her breath, adding, "They used to call it sienon . . . the blues. But few know the term anymore. They feel it, all thesame. There is no natural law that says that men can't live incities, or us, either. It's just that this kind of city isn't right forthem. Or us. We feel the wrongness."

Krisshantem digested this in silence. Then he asked, "And

so you are sure that we will find Maellen here, in this pile, in

this eight-nine-oh-five?"

She said, "So much Vance averred. But he also added that

according to his informants there was something wrong with

her. I have adjudged it was a good thing that we spent those

extra days practicing recovering and reprogramming a for

getty."

"Now that we are here," Kris said, "I like that not at all.

We should not even discuss such a thing in this place, much

less assay to perform it here."

Morlenden agreed in part. "I'd also prefer to do it in a safer environment, but then there's the problem of carryingher back.... I also didn't want Kal to see us do it; he'll probably think it the vilest sort of black magic." Then he added, "But rathers don't count so much, do they?"

Fellirian laughed, deep down in her throat. "True, what you say . . . but I have a trick in mind, and for it to work, she will have to be self-propelled and ambulatory."

Morlenden continued, to Krisshantem, "So, then. You who have instructed us in the way of restoring forgetties; are yousure we won't get back any of the original Maellenkleth?"

Kris looked idly about himself, at the chipped and crackedfacades, the blind windows, which were few enough, and those filmed over with dust and grime and the streakingadded by the rain. He said, coldly, impersonally, "Completelysure. Nothing. Well, there may be fragments left, indeed, wecan expect to see some, observing her over a few months, until the new persona digests and integrates them. Little odd pieces, flashes of partial mnemons, but the memory and the old persona? It's all gone. I have heard that forgetties say oddthings, hints of the old, but they themselves don't know whythey say them, and in time they stop."

Fellirian reached to the boy as they walked, touching himwith an affectionate gesture, half a mother's reassurance, andhalf the consolation of one who has shared as co-equal. Krisshantem was a bit in both worlds. She said, "So this is doubly cruel, that she will most surely be a forgetty. You lose her,even as we are engaged in recovering her. What we will get back will be a stranger."

Kris responded, "That is how it will be, how it must be."

"I am sorry, sincerely sorry that we had to drag you into this. There were others, after all...."

"It is no matter to regret, Fellirian Deren. I would nothave it otherwise; it repays much of what she gave freely to me. Have no fears: I will do it right, lead you well. That sorrow has already been struck, and I do not moon over echoes."

And now they had made their last left turn, and stopped,looking about uncertainly. At last they discovered a small, grimy sign affixed to the side of an inconspicuous building, which read, 8905. After further searching about for a few more moments, they located the small and insignificant entry,passed through it, not without some misgivings, and were inside. And what had Vance told them? In eight-nine-oh-five,do not sightsee or evidence any idle curiosity; ignore that which you see that is not specifically shown to you. Eight-nine-oh-five can be a house of lamentations for those who look too closely into it. Inside, all seemed innocuous. A preoccupied, diffident reception clerk at a disorderly desk piledhigh with forms and worksheets directed them to a small anteroom, where they waited, sitting in plastic chairs that someone had, some time in a remote past, mistakenly assumed would be form-fitting.

After a wait of unknown duration, for it seemed that time was curiously exempted inside this building, a single human appeared, dressed in a plain, very dark blue tunic and pants, unadorned except for an odd heraldic device affixed to the upper left chest. This one was very dark in complexion, imposing and dignified, reticent yet vital, all at the same time. His face was immobile, but of a certainty not vacant. Fellirian, as she saw him, made an involuntary gesture, nervously brushing back her fine brown hair at her right temple; a nervous gesture. Morlenden had seen her make that gesture only rarely, and only when she met someone of considerably more takh* than herself. He became very alert. This was the one.

* Best translated, "force of personality," although a full explanation involves considerably more than just personality, delving farinto concepts of aggression and projection.

The man spoke. "I am Hando Errat. I have been assigned to assist you, expedite any forms that may have to be completed. You are the persons assigned to take custody of the girl?"

Fellirian answered, rising to her feet, "Yes. We hold such a commission from her family. We are the keepers of the census records, the nearest thing we have to a civil service." Morlenden saw, as she stood to address Errat, how large the human really was: he topped Fellirian by almost two heads.

The immobile face did not change expression, but intoned solemnly, "There will be a small difficulty. She was apparently responsible for the destruction of some valuable instruments."

"We were not aware of this," she answered, carefully neutral.

"There will be no requirement for punishment. Compensation will be required for the value of the items. She has alsoreceived some custodial care in the interim since that time."

Fellirian said, "We have brought no currency for such a contingency. But in any matter concerning fees, I am certainthat any agreement I sign will be honored in full by our sponsors. My word as head of Braid."

Morlenden asked, "What were the instruments?"

"Implements of no great account. A curious case; we havebeen unable to comprehend exactly why she did that. I believe the charges and surcharges will come to something neara thousand valuta," said Errat, disappointment showing subtlyin the set of his face, his posture, the tone of his deep voice.Fellirian read him, and saw, relaxing herself, that he had weighed them and found them innocent. Controller-Interrogator, she thought, finally deciphering the badge. He would obviously have been box-trained to read minutae, derive volumes from the most careful evasions. And he paused, as ifweighing imponderables, unseen quantities.

Then, "What will you do with the girl? She is now in a condition that I would term inoperable. I have been advisedthat it occurred under unknown causes."

Fellirian answered, "It is one of our liabilities. We were aware of the possibility of such an occurrence. We intend toreturn her to the community of the people, where there are methods available to restore her . . . although not as before.She can never be as before; she has lost her entire memory."

"Amnesia?"

"No, something more. It's gone, that's all. We will rebuilda new personality in her, enough for her to function."

"You have such abilities?"

"She will relearn, after the manner of a newborn. All we do in accelerate the process somewhat. Personality and memory are timeless, dimensionless, a wave front. We will start another wave."

"You will reprogram her?" Errat was dangerously percep

tive.

"In a word."

"We were not aware of this quality in the people."

"It is neither short nor easy—not on her, not on they whowill build the new one." "How is this done, may I ask?""By a process that has no analog in your people, and is

useless to you; and of course, I would demean my honor bydivulging what is in essence a highly religious ceremony."

There was an uncanny silence while Errat digested the import of what Fellirian had said. He felt that the small, diminutive New Human female was telling the truth, or at least most of it. Now, reprogramming! That was news! But it wasalso a distraction, for they would not offer it so readily otherwise. And it was a tacit admission that whatever the girl hadbeen, whatever she had known, it was gone, for them as well.They wanted her back for religious reasons! Culture! Whatrubbish! But in the heart of Errat's certainty, he felt a tiny quiver of apprehension. There was perhaps a clever illusion here, but he couldn't quite grasp it; something just beyond.Well, she had said it would be so, but even so, instructions were clear enough, as was his own plan. Let them have the room and see what they do with it. They are but simpletons pretending to be sophisticated, knowledgeable. But under it all, still just that: simpletons. And another voice said, Wrong,wrong. What was it about this?

And he said, "Certainly, indeed. I would not dream of violating a trust. We have such as well as you. But, of course, any insights you could pass along, through the Institute, would be most gratefully appreciated by us all. Do you havecontacts there? No doubt they would like to apply this kindof thinking to some of the problems we are facing. We have a considerable problem in this area . . . people mislay andforget things, drift off into irresponsible reveries, start spending time daydreaming."

Fellirian shook her head. "Speaking with due attention to your goal, I see little we could add to help you. What we dodoes not aid memory, increase the span of attention, or energize people whose wits are slipping. But I will mention yourneeds to my friends in their departments; I am sure that theywill be able to offer you some insights which will be useful toyou." Standoff! Errat had been trying to lead Fellirian bynegatives; let her deny enough areas of applicability, and he could find the area and fill it in himself, with a little cleverness. But she had simply fed back his own categories to him,and then shut down the conversation.

Errat nodded. He understood what had been said, as well as that which had been implied. He stood back a bit and motioned to them to follow. "Well, come along, then. We can release the girl if you're ready for her."

They followed Errat out of the anteroom, and Morlenden watched closely, direct vision averted, warily, as theyproceeded by a most roundabout way through the viscera ofBuilding 8905; there were corridors with poor lighting and many abrupt turns; short, dingy stairwells, lifts, walkways,ramps. To his eye, 8905 was fey, alien, a structure embodying concepts they hardly knew, much less cultivated. Its strangeness, he felt instinctively, possessed a complexity thatconcealed its essence from even its regular users. And he could not escape the suspicion, arising just as instinctively,that the way they were going was not the main route throughthe building, but was a back way, a janitor's route, or a watchman's patrolway. Or perhaps a secret route, known only

to initiates. Errat did not hesitate: he seemed to know exactlywhere he was going. Along the way they met few people; all,to a person, minded their own business and did not look, beyond a cursory inspection. And on they walked. Sometimesup, sometimes down. The light from the frosted windows remained exactly the same, no matter how they found the windows, and the light did not change in quality. Morlenden knew that they had walked farther than the outside of the building could have contained. That, and the unchanginglight, convinced him that wherever they were, it was not inside the building they had seen from the outside. A cold chillpassed rapidly through him. This whole neighborhood must be eight-nine-oh-five, passaged like an anthill with connecting tunnels and overwalks, and every single one of the windows is blind to the outside, its lighting controlled artificially. What shows on the outside is just a front, and located on a side alley as well.

He glanced covertly at the others who had come with him;Fellirian, his insibling and co-spouse. She was not such a stranger to the ways of the forerunners, and in this place,seemed to be only slightly more alert than usual. It was obvious they were going to give them the girl and let them go. What else they might have in mind, she felt they could handle. But along her face, around her large, expressive eyes, around the corners of her broad, full mouth, there were also infinitesimal little lines and tics revealing her concern for thecondition in which they could expect to find Maellenkleth.Or, rather, she who had once been Maellenkleth. No more. She who was yet to be in this body they would call Schaeszendur, for though the body be the same, the personawould be different.

On the other hand, Krisshantem was tense and wary as awild animal confronting the zoo for the first time. Everysense was alert, every perception was peaked at maximum receptivity. Morlenden had learned to trust the boy's perceptions, and he recalled that during their journey to this place,this anthill warren, he had not been so nervous, but moodyand belligerent. Therefore he sensed something about thisBuilding 8905. What was it he had seen, sensed, or inferredin these bland, sometimes cracked and stained walls, the substantial, heavy doors, the rare figures they passed who avertedtheir eyes, and the silences? The silences? These, Morlendenknew, were not the quiet of absences, but a pressure of closeness, things carefully hidden.

At last they came to a section that revealed, in its betterlighting, and a sharp, astringent scent in the air, it was devoted to medical purposes. In the odor-complex, there werealso undertones of many other substances, mostly organic,some natural, some highly artificial. He could identify none ofthem. They passed through a brightly lit area that seemed tobe the source of most of the odors, a laboratory, and onwardinto a suite of wards and rooms. Errat spoke briefly to an attendant who seemingly materialized out of thin air, and theyentered one of the rooms. There was an inhabitant, tied lightly in a hospital bed. It was Maellenkleth.

To Morlenden, who could remember the mnemo-holistic image impressed into him by Krisshantem, the girl lookedmuch the same in overall configuration and shape, althoughshe was a bit thinner than he recalled in the image. But theexpression in her face was neither that of a living adolescent,nor of a person who had withdrawn within, but rather like anabandoned newborn: vacant, blank, uncoordinated. It was easy to see, but that difference said everything, even as one almost overlooked it and its simplicity. The personality, thepersona, the undefinable, unboundable person that inhabitedthis body and acted in it was now gone, as if it had never been. This was not, strictly speaking, Maellenkleth, but anempty shell that had once responded to that name.

Morlenden had never seen a forgetty closely before in hislife; and if it had not occurred to him before, it was broughthome now to him with redoubled force that something hadindeed been very, very wrong, to lead to this result He didnot know yet the secret Maellenkleth had been protectingwith her life, but knowing as much as he did, he was surethat this was no accident Intuition: this did not happen. It was caused.

He watched Krisshantem closely. This time, above all others, must not be the one ruled by the power of Water. Theemotions. Kris must not reveal to any watcher that he had any relationship with her whatsoever. What would he do? The boy did nothing. Krisshantem looked closely at the girl,dispassionately examining her as if she were just anotherspecimen of these labs, and then turned back to Morlenden.The expression on the boy's face told Morlenden what he wanted to see: This person is not the girl I knew, loved, slept with, made dhainaz with uncounted sweet moments we hoped would never end. Yes, it was she, once, but this one is a stranger. It deserves care and respect, this strange ksensrithman girl, but little more than that. And of revenges we shall speak later, when we know more. Much more. It was a look of logic and duty. No more, save deep down under it theresimmered fire.

Both Fellirian and Morlenden suddenly felt all their careful plans empty into a stagnant sump, dissipating. What couldthey do with her? She was helpless, and they could not in anyway recover her here. Madness! They were at a loss for theproper action. Should they just go to the bed, and unceremoniously pick her up and cart her off, like a sack of potatoes?What could she do, or not do?

Errat sensing their quandary, politely suggested, "To us, she appears to have no more responses than the average newborn, in fact somewhat less than the human standard we have compared her with. She doesn't seem to learn as fast Atthe first, it was necessary to restrain her, as she thrashed about uncontrollably; later she did gain enough control to avoid abrupt movements. Now she is generally quiet She cannot turn herself over, nor sit up, nor care for herself in any way. It is a most odd condition. Is this a peculiar ler form of psychosis?"

Fellirian answered, "Most definitely not a psychosis."

"We have even had to exercise her, but I am sure there has been considerable muscular atrophy.... What will you do with her?"

Morlenden volunteered, "We'll have to carry her back to our home. We'll need something to carry her in. I suppose a . . . stretcher. Excuse me, but my Modanglic is strictly schoollevel, and I don't know the exact terms."

Errat answered smoothly, "Yes. Of course. One can be obtained." He turned to an orderly, who exchanged words withhim and then vanished. Errat made an impatient gesture. "Yes, easily. My man has gone for it even now. But even with the three of you, you'll need help."

Fellirian said, "We can manage."

Errat seemed to become fractionally more insistent. "It will be no trouble at all. In fact, the two who would accompany you are the very ones who have been working with her in therapy. They are both strong of arm and knowledgeable ofmind."

"Oh, very well. We can certainly use the help," she said. As she spoke, Morlenden had the thought that he could indeed be certain that the orderlies would be strong and knowledgeable. Indeed. And a more accurate description of their role would be "agents."

Errat left the room for a moment. Fellirian started to speak, but Kris motioned her to silence. And shortly afterward, he returned with two large, muscular men, dressed inwhite uniforms, and they were pushing a low, wheeled stretcher. The two went to work immediately, gathering Maellenkleth and placing her into the apparatus. They did not appear all that expert in their work.

Errat said, as the attendants were completing their preparations, "We assumed that you would wish to return her to your own environment without further delay; the trip alreadyhas been a long one. So arrangements have been made; wehave procured tickets on the southbound evening tube. If youleave now you can make it." He added, as an afterthought."We had to settle for a local, so there will be more stops, butat the least, there will be private compartments."

Fellirian watched the two men bundling Maellenkleth clumsily onto the stretcher, and said, "Very well. We accept."She watched the two orderlies closely. "And what about theforms you mentioned earlier, the damage claims, the surcharges?"

Oddly, the question seemed to bother Errat no little bit. Helooked about, almost apprehensively, saying quickly, "No problem there, at all. We can paperwhip it here and send therest to the Institute later, through Vance. Yes, the forms willbe routed through the Office of the Director. You may signthem at your leisure."

Fellirian nodded agreement, otherwise making no motion, no sign, but Morlenden saw a quick flicker in her gray eyes,a tiny brightening of expression, and then it was gone. Errathad not seen it, he had been turned away. And how wouldErrat have known to send it to Vance? He should know that paperwork routing and deliveries were the bane of civilization, and that one did not send valuable papers blind. Hadthey been followed all the way from the reservation, from before, even? How much did these people see?

The orderlies, having arranged the girl for transport, now began to wheel her off. They were fussy about their work, however inexpert they were at it. They did not, so it appeared, want any of the ler party to touch Maellenkleth in any way.

They indeed did depart 8905 through a different way thanthey had entered. Looking back once, Morlenden thoughtthat the place where they left had the unmistakable look of awarehouse loading dock to it, rather than a regular door; andat that, one in not too much use. He also worried lest Cannialin and Kaldherman lose them through this labyrinthinegame of evasion, but after a few turns, they were back on one of the main avenues debouching on the plaza, which theyounger Derens had remained close to. Morlenden saw them pretending to admire a statuary group, all the time scanningthe plaza entrances for them. They saw them, and across thedistance, Morlenden could make out Cannialin whispering toKal. And now they began moving off, as if to enter the terminal station from the other side.

The party escorting Maellenkleth boarded the tube withoutincident, although Morlenden, now carefully watching every move the orderlies made, observed that the orderlies were most careful to retain the tickets. Fortunately, they were separated into two compartments. He saw that Kaldherman and Cannialin also boarded the tube-train, taking a coach justahead of them. And oddly enough, Fellirian had little trouble, once aboard, in convincing the orderlies that Maellenkleth would be better off in their compartment, with her people. It was as if the orderlies—agents—felt the train moresecure. From what? Where could they go in the endless alternating urban centers and industrial suburbs of manworld? Es

cape was remote until they were at the Institute stop. Or wasit secure from interference? Morlenden thought that if Fellirian had a plan, she had better use it fast. All had been smooth up to this point. Too smooth by far. It was not to have been so easy. That was the reason for including the others in it. And now?

Morlenden and Krisshantem moved into the compartmentwith the girl, While Fellirian remained behind momentarily,conversing confidentially with one of the agents, the one whoseemed to be in charge. After a moment, she joined them

also, closing the compartment door.

Motioning them to silence, she paused, and then began to speak in Multispeech, using the one-to-many speech-mode, but with the side channels suppressed. Morlenden was impressed; he would not have thought that she had learned the skill.

To any human that might have been listening, it soundedrather like nonsensical music, wordless, and with an odd, ringing purity of tone. Fellirian had told the agents that theywould now perform a rite over the girl and that they wouldhear chanting. But to the ler ear, there was no music in it atall, indeed, as in most forms of Multispeech, there was no consciousness of sound or ears at all. It was just ideas, stripped to simplicity, somehow whispered directly into theirminds.

She said, "Spy.two.they.now.here.speak.past.Eliya.tell.Godseek.for.her&thisspeak.noread.they@&!do.it.now.quick.yes??"

And Krisshantem answered in the same mode. "Two.here. know.parts.&&.same.now.Stop. -I-Two.here.make.base.line& three.make.her&lose.them (!)(!)."

Keeping the chant up, but now not sending anything in it,they moved quickly, carefully placing Maellenkleth on the floor between Morlenden and Fellirian. She was awake, but passive and unresisting. They arranged her as Krisshantem directed, and settled into position themselves, assuming a studied, rigorous posture with their legs folded under them,and sitting back on their turned heels. Krisshantem took uphis position at the head of the girl, in the same posture. Theprocess began.

Now Morlenden and Fellirian took up the chant, immediately shifting the mode, making it even more submelodic, exactly as Krisshantem had instructed them. Morlenden now felt his vision dim and fade, as the new mode took hold and blanked out his visual center, readying it for another purpose.

"Remember," Kris had admonished them with adolescent

severity, "you must, you two, make the base line. The per

sona is four-dimensional, and the maker will erect the

restored one upon that line. You must keep it steady; that is

the hardest part of the whole thing—the steadying of the

reference line. When I get fully into the rebuild pattern, if I

get that far and residuals in her mind do not resist me, I can

compensate for some dislocation, but if I get tied up in that

follower sub-routine I will lose the growth pattern, and we all

may be in danger of getting sucked into that forgetty pro

gram stored in her. Remember, no one ever shut it off. It is

still the paramount instruction in her mind. That is why they

couldn't do anything with her. Most of what she learns she

erases immediately. And in the net, she can do it to us. Never

forget this: this is dangerous to us. Also remember that I am

no expert at this. I have never done it live before; only re

ceived instruction from Mael. So you must be steady"

The theory, he had explained, was that the persona was afour-dimensional figure, a tessaract in space, the elementals Fire, Earth, Air, and Water permutating and pervolving uponthemselves, making a cruciform (in three-space projection)figure of equal lines and ninety degree angles. For their part,Morlenden and Fellirian would make the reference line, which set orientation in space and the length determined how much would go into it. There was one such line, uniquelyplaced, for everyone, if one could but find it; here, they weremaking one from scratch. In Maellenkleth's case, they could,within limits, select any line they wished, for they were starting anew.

Holding the developing subject rigidly in the growing pattern, the maker reprogrammed the subject, nonverbally, inserting concepts directly into the appropriate parts of the brain.And to her, there was further risk: do it right, and they would end up with a retarded but functional Schaeszendur. And do it wrong, and a thousand disasters awaited them. They could kill her, for one choice. In another, she could become a dangerous maniac, beyond their abilities to subdue her, physically or multispecifically.

The Deren insiblings reached deep within themselves forcalmness and strength, striving to make the base line, bring itinto being, and hold it just so, at such a position in space.That was near what she had been before, Kris had advised, suggesting that orientation because she would be less likely to

fight them. Yes, he had said. They had told each other what

their lines had been. They had been dhofters, had they not?

At first the effort was just a song, but before long, Morlen

den could see it in his mind's eye, slowly coming into being

in the web of Multispeech, a bright, hard, sodium-yellow line,

piercingly narrow, now varying in length and waving about in

a rubbery, unstable, nonoriented manner, then slowing, stif

fening, stabilizing in length, feeling the right angle of orienta

tion, coming to rest now, but still as unstable as the opposing

poles of two magnets, slippery, elsewhere wanting. And it

came into hard focus, and all vagueness vanished. There was

nothing else, a universe of utter black night Night and

darkness and the hard, burning yellow line. Morlenden,

seeing it, tried to see through the vision and pick up some

thing of the coach-sleeper, some outside sight. It was no use;

he was completely blind, save to the vision being generated

by Multispeech. He knew that Fellirian must also be equally

blind now, completely into it.

The line steadied, and now, delicately touched and nudgedby a third power in the net! Krisshantem. It drifted slowly,still moving in orientation, becoming steady. He let Morlenden and Fellirian hold it thus for a moment, to get the feel ofit, measuring the chant he was entering and increasingly controlling. Holding the line was hard, hard. He heard, somewhere very far away, a subvocal moan from her who had been Maellenkleth and was about to be Schaeszendur. The line wavered with his attention, and he returned to it, increased the power, and nailed it down. And on the other end,he could feel the feedback from Fellirian, also clampingdown, mastering the unstable yellow line. He remembered totake a deep breath, and concentrated, and

Now a third point in the furry darkness appeared fromnowhere, and the line was a square, empty, hanging alone inspace, still oddly and rigidly oriented. It hung a moment, a little uncertain. The Derens applied more pressure, more inner strength. It steadied. Morlenden could not now sense Krisshantem as a person, but as an intense force, somewhereoffstage, who was manipulating their visions, their work. Thatwas what it was. He could not imagine what Kris was seeingnow. The same as they? And now Fellirian was fading as aperson also, becoming the anchor at the far end of the line,holding it in space. He could not sense Maellenkleth-Schaeszendur at all: she was in the figure only. That was she,and they were making her now. But there were four here in the unity that three were controlling. They held the chant,held down the square in a vise of Will, and

Now the figure trembled off-center, making odd little perturbations, paused, and sprang into three dimensions, a stick-figure empty cube, now beginning to fight them, to resist, toknow Will. It seemed to want to go back into its old squareshape, but the Krisshantem would not allow it to, and in a sudden moment of weakness he had it and

Now it leaped into the shape of the tessaract and they sawit not as a projection in three dimensions, a cruciform shapewith an extra cubical arm in the front and the back, but there was no time to contemplate it; the outlined, stick-figuretessaract suddenly became solid, instantly, without sense of transition, opaque, solid, tangible, hanging in the empty spaceof their minds, and the whole surface was covered, a living,scintillating mosaic of changing black and yellow tiny squaresall over the surface, cells flickering, changing; patternswashed over the now solid surface in their minds, patternsthat moved and lunged like the reflected light of flame alonga wall, more so, the yellow burned, the bumblebee patternsreminding them too closely of the striking visual display onesaw in a migraine attack. Like that, yes, and it went on andon, the deeper rhythms washing over the surfaces like the play of summer lightning. Morlenden grunted with effort. And at the far end of the now submerged base line, he couldalso feel Fellirian straining as well. And something was nowactively resisting them, something inside the crawling figurein their minds. It took all their effort to hold it still, for now all of Krisshantem's attention was devoted to controlling thewild patterns flying over the surface of the tessaract.

The process continued, seemingly endless, inexorable, and they could see no apparent change in the patterns. Theycould not determine how long it was taking, for there was nosubjective sense of time when that time had been integratedas a spatial dimension. To Morlenden, it seemed to go on andon beyond levels of endurance he thought he might have had;days, weeks, a whole span devoted to a sustained effort of raw Will, Fire-Elemental, Panrus. He ached in odd places inhis body, places which in his mind's eye did not correspondto any known locations in his old familiar physical body.

Then there was change. The pattern on the surface of theenigmatic tessaract slowed, slowed, slowed some more, and changed to a regular, surging motion, rather like the slow andrhythmic beating of waves onto some low shore, calm, reflective, steady. The figure also relaxed something of its taut straining, and became easier to hold. A sense of time came back, into them from the edge of the universe, intruding a little, and they were able to hear, as from some immense distance, faint sounds from the everyday world. Everydayworld; not the real world. This was the real world, and they were making it. The everyday world was now, seemed disheartening, disappointing; after all, the perceptual surround of a Multispeech reprogram was seductive and addictive. It was naked Power. And along the intruding edges theyheard the voice of Krisshantem, speaking ordinary words, inserted into the stream of Multispeech, as if he could retain the present pattern by nudging it now and again.

The voice said hoarsely, "Worst over, the longest part. .. . Motor coordination, control, body . . . all in place, calibratedand tested.... Next will be verbals and pseudomemory, therepersona, Schaeszendur. Different. . . she'll fight us now . ..hold it down like never before . . . now, now, now," and

Now the voice vanished, blown out like a candle flame, as if it had never been, never could be. Darkness and the tessaract. The tiny cellular units seemed to randomize slightly, lose coherence momentarily, but in the cellular units, a new coherence was building, surging, coming in like the tide, like an approaching storm, powerful and inescapable. Thesensation of waves rather than firelight became very pronounced, and Morlenden tasted a brassy, metallic flavor inhis mouth, smelled an unknown, spicy and rotten odor; goneinstantly. And this one was becoming much harder to hold.There was definitely another force now, opposing them, something whose location they, could not determine, but which seemed to be emanating from deep within (?) the projected figure in their minds. It tried to move away, escape them, distort the shape of the tessaract. Morlenden reached deep, for reserves he was not sure existed; and there he foundsomething that allowed him to hang on, clamp down some more, for a little longer. But the figure's resistance was alsoincreasing. Yet now it was not so steady; it waxed and waned, now fighting them, now withdrawing, and oddly,sometimes catching the sense and rhythm of what they weredoing and in quick flashes surging ahead of them, anticipating almost, very nearly helping.

Yes, it was harder than the first part, but it was not as long in duration. Already they could sense a weakening in the resistance, and as the resistance slackened, it became passive, submissive, waiting. It was now much easier to hold, almostno effort at all; and with the easing of their common tension,now Morlenden began to feel fatigue for the first time, muchdeeper than mere tiredness as he had felt before. He was weary; releasing the figure felt like sinking into an ocean of warm syrup. And the resistance faded even more, and now they could definitely feel for the first time the actual presenceof a fourth in the web of Multispeech that had bound themall together. This fourth was warm, engaging, friendly, like a small child, of no great mind, but pleasant and without anyforce whatsoever. They . . . he was on the verge of welcomingher and

Now with no warning or anticipation the tessaract in their minds everted, collapsed, and with it went the universal night: and they were sitting on the floor in a compartment ona tube-train, lit by ceiling fixtures that seemed too bright, andthey were back in the old, shabby world of reality, yes, asshabby and subtle as it was. And in their midst, a girl namedSchaeszendur was sitting up, leaning on one arm, looking idlyand vacantly about, gazing passively over the compartmentwith a dazed, uncomprehending expression on her pretty face, the soft, pursed mouth.

Morlenden looked long at the girl, now-Schaeszendur, comparing the image of her with the memory of then-Maellenkleth, which he would never forget no matter what happenedto him. There was no doubt of it; there was a noticeable difference. This Schaeszendur was as pretty as the old Maellenkleth, perhaps more so, but there were lacks. This one lackedthe drive, the ambition, and-the prodigy intelligence of theold; she now was relaxed, at her ease, submissive and passive.This was only a gentle, retarded creature who wanted but toplease, and to be happy and free of pain and sorrow. She would be functional, she could look after herself. And if cared for lovingly by people who knew what they were about,in time, she would grow to be almost a full-person again. Butnever the Maellenkleth who challenged the Gameplayers andthree hundred and more years of tradition, of course.

Morlenden tried to move out of the position he had beenholding himself in, but his muscles would not obey him, and he more or less half fell over on one side, supported by onearm. As he had fallen closer to Krisshantem, the boy felt themotion and turned to him. Kris spoke slowly, as if recounting a dream, as if trying to recapture the exact flavor it had. "You felt her in the end, how first she fought us, and then helped? There was a lot left of the original in her after shehad disminded; also many of the mnemonic fragments didnot subfractionate completely. She fought us, but she wantedto come back purified, too . . . that was not your imagination,for she really was there in the net with us. She was, unconsciously. Beforetimes, when she was Maellenkleth and whole when we were together, we would speak Multispeech while we made dhainaz, the whole time, however long we took. That is like projecting mentally . . . mentally, that which yourbodies do with muscle and flesh. There were echoes of that in this Schaeszendur."

Morlenden tried to speak, but his voice came out a croak."Is . . . everything all right with her?"

"Yes. She is whole. It worked better than I imagined itwould. We did a better job than I had hoped for, even betterthan she who taught me could imagine. But all the same, this Schaeszendur is a stranger. And I know a secret, that the maker must want the new persona to come terribly. That would be common sense; but also the holders must want it almost as much. My motivations are clear enough, but what of yours and your insibling co-spouse's? How is it that you, a stranger to Maellenkleth-who-was, want this as I?"

Morlenden answered wearily: "I have not known a forgetty before. Had we done this as strangers who had just metfor the purpose, upon an utter nobody, perhaps things wouldhave been different. I . . . just felt that she needed this restoration to balance justice, that she had not, whatever she did,deserved to come to the forgetty fate. I learned to care verymuch about Maellenkleth, just as I suppose we should abouteveryone.... Fellirian told me it was the same with her, as she pursued memories and reflections and echoes down in theInstitute. And neither of us would see anyone ill-used, no matter by whom."

Now Morlenden felt more control returning to his limbs;he got to his feet with effort, still somewhat dazed, and wentto the girl, helping her to her feet. She stood unsteadily, blinking in the harsh artificial light. Morlenden hoped that the pseudomemories Kris had programmed into her mind were pleasant ones, of cool nights and warm hearthfires, of kindness and body-friends, and of love affairs that did not end out of phase with their owners' times. He took her handand gently led her to one of the sleeping-bunks, and she camewith him, unquestioning, trusting, accepting without doubt.Morlenden was of course now long past the days of his fertility, the springing erect seasons of desire, the sudden emotions, the tidelike urgings as it had been with Fellirian. But hehad not forgotten the embraces of the girls he had known, nor the soft sounds they made in his ear, the unspeakablewords they had said to one another, the sleek strong bodies;nor would he forget, let go the various thrills, anticipations,satisfactions, and, yes, dissatisfactions of which he had measured his portion. Even so, as he led the girl Schaeszendur to the small bunk, as he undressed her out of the voluminous palliatory coverall, as he laid her down, he felt something like an echo of what had been but was no more. And Schaeszendur who was Maellenkleth was slender, gracefullymuscular without seeming angular or stringy, her skin a richsoft olive color with darker shades along the accent lines andcreases; the tendons of her neck, the insides of her elbows; honey and olive and sandalwood. Similar to Sanjirmil, perhaps, but richer, more range, more degrees of contrast. Morlenden smiled at her, knowing what little else to do, hoping itwould reassure her, tucking her in under the covers and kissing her forehead chastely, as if she were a very young child,which of course she now was, whatever the lovely, lean bodyshouted at one. And like a child, she fell asleep instantly, effortlessly, not fidgeting, playing, daydreaming or twisting andsearching for just that right position to enter the Dark World.Her eyelids simply fell shut, and she was breathing deeply, herrosy mouth opened very slightly....

He returned to Fellirian, who had not moved. She was still sitting on the floor, head bowed, breathing in lengthy deep sighs. Morlenden knelt behind her and began kneading themuscles of her back, neck, shoulders. He felt a shiver rippleacross the spare, graceful frame he knew so well, better thananyone else, better almost than he knew himself. She sank forward to the floor and lay, facedown, groaning.

After a while, she turned her face to the side and said, "Once of that in a lifetime is enough. I feel as if I'd been beaten."

Morlenden lay down alongside her, turning his head to face her. "And I also."

"Ifs too close to childbirth to suit me. It's not fair, me going through that: my time was over long ago. Done. Even ifthis was all in the mind, not in the body."

"It is a birth, that's a fact."

"Except this is all at once, you don't have that year and a

half to get ready for it*.... What does she seem like to you?

You put her to bed."

* The ler period of gestation was eighteen months.

"Mixed, Eliya. Some ways, like a very young child. Other

ways, like an adolescent, but with odd pieces left out."

Then they no longer spoke. They lay side by side for a

long time, in a halfway state between sleep and wakefulness,

conscious enough to be aware of the deep, regular breathing

of the girl, and also to hear the faint but undeniable snoring

of Krisshantem. They felt the motion of the vehicle carrying

them at what unknown velocity through the bowels of the

earth, through rock and dirt, far from the sky, the tube-train

adjusting magnetically to tiny irregularities in its roadbed, a

motion curiously alive and animal-like, more like careful

walking than anything else.

After a time, Fellirian moved closer to Morlenden, whis

pering, "I hate to speak of it, but I think we should depart

this machine at the stop before the Institute terminal."

"Why so? Errat seemed manifestly uninterested in

Mael...."

"Only seemed. I am certain that we have been monitored in various ways since we left Vance's office; it's their way,but they're sloppy about it, so I doubt we've given anythingaway. They don't watch the tubes, they think they're secure enough if they control the entries. But I sensed planning inthe way they tossed her off onto us; they expect us to makecertain moves. It is my intent to confuse and muddy those predictions. But there's a problem."

Morlenden asked, "Which is?"

"The tickets they use are always coded magnetically for a specific destination. The numbers are integrated into the material; you can't see them. So if we just try to get off on our own at another stop, we'll set off an alarm and they'll spot us for sure."

"We're stuck with them, then."

"No, there may be a way . . . yes. The ones who came with us, the agents. They would have to have some way to override the destination register."

"If they are in fact agents."

"They're agents, all right. Trust me in this."

"Do you know how they override it?"

"Yes, I remember. I heard Vance talking about it once, long ago, to someone else. I was very young. Before we wove."

"So somehow we must get them to open the doors."

"Yes, exactly. And the stop before the Institute is a busy

one. Not for us, but for them. Big factory town. I know this

local will stop there, never fear."

"But they'll soon find out we're not where we are supposed

to be."

"So let them. All we need is a little head start. I know the

way. We can cross into the reservation by climbing the fence,

in the northeast provinces. We'll have a hard walk, "perhaps a

run, ahead of us, and what's more, after what we have just

done. And Schaeszendur out of condition as well, but there's

no cure for it. I know ever more surely that if we stay with

these two primates we'll never see the inside again. It's been

too easy. And I don't want them to see what we've done for

her, either, even if I did insist on building her as we rode. Do

you see why, now? She must be able to walk on her own. We

could not carry her all that way. And she would also have to

respond to simple instructions."

"Eliya, have you been planning it this way all the way along?"

"Not completely. . . . It really didn't dawn on me completely until after we built her back up, since we received herfrom that Errat . . . th« whole situation smells like a trap setto catch more victims, some who might talk, in place of onewho didn't"

"You think she did that on her own?"

"Absolutely. They don't have the facilities to cause it. She was facing something she couldn't handle, and she made surethe secret of the Inner Game never got out from her. Or that no association be made between those instruments and anyliving Gameplayer."

"So you say. But even now, you and I, we know in fact very little."

"They don't know that. And we have suspicions, too."

"How much time do we have to get ready?"

"Not very much, dear. I lost track of time while we were > deep in it back there, and afterward . . . wait a moment." Very quietly, Fellirian got to her feet opened the compartment door, looked out, adjusting her overshirt. She left for amoment, and did not return for some time.

But she did return, slipping into the compartment as quietly as she had left it She bent close to Morlenden, whispering softly, "Not so much time as I thought we'd have. We'llhave to wake Kris and Maellenkleth-Schaeszendur, get themready. While I do that, you go up into the next car and collect Kaldherman and Cannialin; bring them here, quietly,quietly. Be a sneak for once. And you and I, too; you'll likethis, Mor.

FOURTEEN

Everything you have ever done is training or the next moment. —M.A.F., Atropine

Outside in the corridor, Morlenden and Fellirian waited and watched through the single window for the appearanceof the next underground station platform; they saw unrelieved darkness passing, a blurred blank wall, illuminated only by the dim running-light glow of the tube-train corridor,light leaking out through the few windows. There was not enough light to distinguish any details, and what few werethere were blurred by the terrific speed with which they werehurtled through the tunnels in the earth.

They could not sense any change in elevation in the train,or increase or reduction of its unknown speed; if there was any it was too gradual to be distinguished. But apparentlychange was coming, for without warning, a series of brightlights flashed by the window, too fast for more than a glance.Whatever message the lights conveyed, it was not verbal, as the patterns did not form any letters Fellirian could recognize. And shortly after the lights, they began to feel the trainslowing, as simultaneously a slight pressure told them thatthey were rising. The train slowed more, obvious now, and then the walls nearby fell away from the window, first into anempty blank void of darkness, and then into a more openspace, dimly illuminated by fixtures set at intervals along theceiling. The chamber was low-ceilinged, the fixtures long outof repair; many of them did not work at all. The train slowed now to a walking pace, and they could make out a large,

dingy sign painted on the concrete underground wall, whichred CPX010. And the tube-train stopped.

As Fellirian had anticipated, there was considerable coming and going all along the length of the train, in fact morethan they had seen earlier in the day at Region Central. Theactivity suggested an air of busyness and relaxed conventions,but after a moment, this early impression corrected itself under closer observation; the procedure was formal, deliberatelyinterrupted, highly formatted all around. Patrons who wished to depart the train walked up to the sliding doors, insertedtheir tickets in a convenient slot beside the doors, and waited for the doors to open. And when they did, and the waitingpatron departed, they hurried over the doorsill, and the doorclosed smartly behind them, with enough force to injure onewho was unlucky enough to be laggard in his motions. So onelurched through, a jerky, graceless motion, which they nevertheless performed with the expertise of those who made suchmotions through similar doorways often, daily.

Fellirian watched carefully, until most of the traffic in theunderground terminal had died down. There were yet some people scattered along the platform, but they seemed either tobe idlers, or else deeply engrossed in their own affairs. Theywere completely uninterested in the train, or any of its passengers. At a signal from Fellirian, all the members of the party assumed their positions: all save Morlenden and Fellirian hid themselves carefully in the compartment. They allpaused, took deep breaths. Morlenden rapped loudly on thedoor of the agents' compartment. And, oddly, it took some time to> get a response out of them; apparently both of theirguards either had gone to sleep or had been dozing.

The older agent, most probably the senior man, appeared at the door, bearing an attitude composed of nine-tenths irritation and one-tenth suspicion. "Yes, yes, what is it,what is the problem?"

Morlenden hoped that he sounded panicky. He cried out,blurting, "It's the girl! She's gone! We finished with our riteand slept—everything seemed to be in order. But when themotion of the train at the stop here woke us, we saw that shewas gone! Fellirian thought she heard the compartment doorclosing, but we had just awakened and could not be sure. It could have been some other noise."

"Gone? Where the hell could she go?" The irritation slidinto apprehension, and the apprehension glissaded into starkpanic. "Gone?" he repeated idiotically, as if she would reappear by magic and prove him wrong. "Gone? That's impossible! Someone would have had to . . . Shit! They did! Well,she can't get very far by herself, nor can anyone else carryingher." He turned aside, back to his own compartment, sayingto his partner, "Bill! Here, get it up now!" A moan rewardedhis efforts. He reiterated, "Come on, bones! The girl's goneand you know what that'll mean. Go and check it out, starting with their compartment, then we'll do the rest of the train. She may not be off it yet."

The second agent appeared, dull with rudely interruptedsleep. And Morlenden and Fellirian watched the pair very closely, while they let their plans mature.

The older one commanded, "You go to their compartment,HI hold the train. Quick, they can't have got far, her and whoever's helping her. She'll have to have help. Look for atleast two, most likely three!"

Now he turned to Morlenden. "There were three of you besides the girl; you two and the boy. Where's he now?"

Morlenden shrunk, diminishing his smaller stature even further, hoping to appear embarrassed. He said slowly, as ifhe hated or feared to admit it, "Well, I don't exactly knowthat. We haven't been able to find him either. I thought hemight have wandered off down the way, looking for the public convenience, but he's not in this section, and I..."

The senior agent suddenly looked ugly. A flash of desperation rebounded across his already homely countenance.Fellirian added, "They were lovers, beforetimes. He has been a bit unstable."

The agent interrupted her. "Where would they go?"

"I don't know. None of us know Complex Ten at all, and I know for a fact that those two don't."

Now the second agent appeared, arranging his clothing, and ill-concealing a yawn, still addled with heavy sleep. The senior agent hurried to the exit doors, removing a red ticket from within a little wallet inside his coat and inserting it in the slot. The doors opened, remained open, as he muttered to himself, "Damn it all, anyway! My last override spent on this goddamn wild-goose chase, and they're harder to get every day. Have to sign your life away now just for one, the chintzy bastards."

Meanwhile, the junior agent had pushed the door of the other compartment open and looked within, carefully enough for the brief time he had spent in looking. But he saw noth

ing. He turned to the senior, still standing in the doorway,and said, "Nobody here."

"All right. You stay here and watch this car." He lookedmenacingly at Morlenden and Fellirian, towering over them."And you two also. I'll check outside, just to be sure. Theywon't get far in Ten, and that's a fact!"

He turned abruptly and hurried through the opened door.The second agent looked on for a moment uneasily and uncertainly, as if something were escaping him as he stood there, something nagging at his mind which he should havenoticed, but had not. Fellirian made nervous little motions with her hands, breaking her tension, hoping that she lookedworried and afraid enough to convince this one. The junioragent looked from one to the other, at Fellirian, at Morlenden, who was nervously watching the terminal outside the car; and back, tentatively, at the compartment. And at the compartment again. He turned suddenly and returned for onemore look, this time actually walking into the compartment,the one vacated by the ler. They heard him start to say something, but what he might have said was never finished. "Oh, yeah, there' s a b—!" There was a sudden silence, followed byfaint rustling sounds, and presently the four from inside appeared: Kaldherman, Cannialin, Schaeszendur, Krisshantem.Kris was last, and he carefully locked the compartment dooras he left, but retaining the key in his hand. He said, "How much time now?"

"No time!" she hissed. "Quick, now! Into the terminal!"

They all filed out into the terminal, quietly and sedately,into the concrete caverns. Sounds echoed along the concrete,faded into the dimmed distances. This place was smokier than Region Central. Fighting the urge to run, they walkedalmost disinterestedly to an empty kiosk along the wall, halfin shadows, its own lighting disconnected. They could not allhide in it, but they concealed themselves as best they could,standing very still, just as Kris had showed them, still and silent as stones. And almost before they had had time to assume their positions, the senior agent returned, blundering down the grimy stairwell, leaving a trail of noisy footfallsthey could all follow with their ears. He wore tiny metal tapson his shoes. He appeared, breathing hard, still in a half-run,and without looking either to the right or the left, still muttering to himself, he boarded the tube-train, flipped open thewallet containing the tickets, and inserted a green ticket intothe door-slot. The door closed, and almost immediately, the train started moving, softly and slowly at first, but all the time accelerating rapidly. They could see him easily throughthe moving windows: he went into his own compartmentwithout looking, slamming the door, making the plastic of thewindow bulge. The train began moving off into its tunneleddarkness under the earth, at the end of the terminal platform.Outside, in the kiosk, they stood absolutely still. As the section in which they had been riding began to approach thetunnel mouth, far down the platform, they observed throughanother window how a figure suddenly burst out of a compartment, frantically looking up and down the corridor. Hevanished, apparently into their compartment. As he went pastthe window, he looked out, sweeping the platform with hispracticed agent's eye, a well-trained glance, yet his glance hadbeen trained to record motion against a stilled background,contrast. And for human subjects, the stained gray concretewalls made a fine background against which to pick up nervous, jerky motions, people wearing dark clothing. That wasexactly the intent ingrained into people, and the dark clothingthe only kind available. But the six ler were still and quiet,although standing openly visible; but their winter overshirtsand cloaks were gray, and to him they were virtually invisible, and would have been even if the train had been standingstill in the station. He had not seen them, and it was apparentfrom his panic that he had found nothing in the upper worldof Complex Ten, either.

The train glided onward, supported on magnetic fields, increasing its speed, sliding, and suddenly the last coach wasdisappearing into the dark mouth of the tunnel entrance. Andit was gone. The tunnel gaped, empty. A butterfly valve doorway closed silently on the tunnel portal. Above the portal, anorange light remained illuminated a moment, then turned green, and "then went out.

Morlenden, not yet daring to move, said, out of the side ofhis mouth to Fellirian, "As you said, a good trick. Yes, I liked it. Now how much time?"

"More. Maybe an hour. With some luck, which means mistakes on someone else's part, still more. These agents are nownormally issued only one override ticket at a time. They wereabusing the privilege, so they were made to sign for it; it wasan awful issue a few years ago. But now that the train is moving, it must go on to the next local stop; it can't stop inclosed sections of the tunnels, and it can't back up. Of coursehe can communicate, through his comment interconnect, but before he makes his report, he'll have to figure out what happened. By the way, the other one: you didn't kill him, did you?"

Kris answered, "No, although your Braid afterfather wasfrowning like a cat licking gravy off a hot basting brush, andyour aftermother was fingering her chicken-slitting knife andleering. No, hell sleep, with bad dreams, and feel the worsefor it. And they may have a problem communicating, for Ipalmed the unit you are talking about, I think. The second one was carrying it."

Fellirian looked at Kris blankly, saying nothing. After a time, she said, "Well, I suppose we can make some use of it.We can listen to it, and it may give us some warning; thenwe are that much more ahead of them. So keep it, although Iwish you hadn't taken it. And keep it out of sight, and whatever you do, whatever it does, don't touch anything on it."

Again she paused, as if she were thinking out somethingthat was easy to conceive, but difficult to say properly. Fellirian had always been diplomatic and polite, sometimes evento a fault. At last she added, "And now let me offer some advice: were I to go adventuring in the deep forest in your company, Krisshantem, I would adhere to your guidance,obey your lead, for that is most properly your world. Just so,thus. And this world that we walk in now is, as much as it can be for one of us, mine. And this world is much more perilous than any of our reservation forests, our wild lands. This is for you Beth Mershonnekh, the house of the devil. If we meet any more forerunners, take nothing from them. Nothing. This is not the time for explanations, and I acceptthe error of faulty instruction. For the time."

Kris nodded.

"Now," she continued. "We must move. Walk briskly, as ifyou had somewhere to go, somewhere near, an affair to see to. No nonsense and no trotting or running. Schaeszendur, doyou understand me?"

The girl answered distantly, passively, "Yes, fast enough."

Then, Fellirian leading the way, they emerged from the kiosk and climbed the grimy, littered dim stairwell to the open-air street level of the terminal.

Complex Ten was one of the more industrialized places inthe Region; and whatever products were manufactured in thisconcentration, it required a lot of lighting in the streets, andproduced considerable dust. It was much dirtier, by and large, than had been Region Central. There were other differences: most of the structures here were clearly devoted to industry, not administration, as had been the case in Central. More, the atmosphere, the ambience, was suggestive of a cruder, more expedient system of order than had seemed toprevail in the almost overfastidious Central. Here there wereno plazas, no intersections with planters, no streets that artfully went nowhere. Here, the streets were broad, straight,and long, and the building numbers followed one another incareful order, sometimes affixing additive letters to signifyrelationships; 242 was succeeded by 243, and immediately adjacent lay 243a.

Fellirian, who seemed to have some basic familiarity withthe layout of this strange and seemingly now empty city, ledthem along a swift path through streets and lanes and freightalleys, dodging drains and gutter-runs brimming with blackwater floating an iridescent scum on its surface. Nowhere didthey see heavy traffic, although there was plenty of evidencethat everywhere the trafficways knew heavy and prolongeduse; the main routes were generally free of trash and dust, blown clean by the fans of hovercraft and burnished to a dullsheen by thousands of rollers, bladders, and pounding wheels. Only rarely did they see any sort of vehicle at all, and evenless frequently passersby.

They passed through empty streets flanked by large, flattened buildings whose purpose could not be determined fromtheir shapes. All were illuminated within in various degrees,and as they passed each one, they sensed different orders ofadditional evidence: heavy thudding pounding, or grating,rattling sounds. Odors of hot metal, plastic reek, burning rubber, ozone, and hot grease. Smaller buildings were arrayed atrandom among the larger edifices, some housing units, barracks, small retail outlets, kiosks, stands. An occasional store; more rarely, offices. In the damp, smoky air, there was in theheart of the city a sense of desolation, abandonment, whichsat squarely at variance with the obvious busyness of the place. They crossed canals, where drains trickled limply, darkwater steamed, and lusterless surfaces eddied flaccidly.

Walking briskly, they soon crossed the more industrializedarea and moved into another—this one devoted to dwelling-blocks, barracks, dormitories, flats—beginning to alternate with open, vacant lots and small fields. Near one such unit,apparently a housing unit, they passed a straggling group ofpeople who were standing by a vendor's kiosk, drinking steaming cups of some heated beverage. The patrons' faces were lit by the brighter lights of the stand, and there was a certain sense of reserved camaraderie among them. Two older men made earnest conversation with three women, while a younger man stood aloofly to one side, making a smallcontribution from time to time, largely ignored. Mostly heseemed to brood upon affairs known only to himself, keepinghis nose in his cup. The patrons took little, if any, notice ofthe ler as they passed across the street. Morlenden tried to imagine the whole of the scene before him; conjectures roseeasily in his mind, but none of them were of any impressivedegree of verity. It was a static scene, extracted out of timeand life, held poised in a moment of cryptic significance.

After they had gone well past the group, he asked Fellirian, "They didn't notice us?"

"No, not in Ten. Those are Midnighters, about to go towork, so I should guess; they are half asleep. If they thoughtanything at all, it would be that we are Midnighters just likethemselves, going to work somewhere. And if they bothered to recognize us for what we are, the people, it probablywould not bother them greatly. Some of the Institute ler sojourn here at times."

Farther back in line, shepherding Schaeszendur, Krisshantem could be heard, muttering, "A vile place, this! Worsethan the other. What business could our people have here?"

Fellirian Said, back over her shoulder, "A lot. Ten is a kind of test site, where things are tried out; that's why it looks so. . . transient, impermanent."

"Still, vile," Kris added, his distaste not to be denied, "You would not see many of us living in a place like this."

Fellirian agreed, "Not now, no. But when Earth held only a few millions of forerunners I doubt if they would havelived so by choice, either.... And I am not so sure that in the end we would arrive in any more style, even though wesay now that we'd choose a different destination...." For themoment, she fell silent

Morlenden said, "I'll credit you with knowing them betterthan I, than most of us, their nature and history. You work with them. But we are conjecturing a very distant future."

She looked back, saying, "Yes, a far future. And you knowthe legend as well as I, that someday the people will leaveEarth, crossing the oceans of space to make our own worldsomewhere.... I wonder about that future, though I will notsee it; if we would be exiles there, too, though we were lords there, when here we were only poor relatives, cast-off and restricted. Here, at least, artifacts though we may be to some,we still share chemistry with the other creatures of Earth. Ioften try to imagine those strange skies, the different odors onthe wind. Would the skies be blue? How will we react to that? Not us, Olede, of course."

Morlenden said nothing, preferring to let her mood take her where it would. She would return presently and becomethe practical Fellirian, Madheliya, once again, leading them as befitted head of Braid through a strange and dangerousworld. A deep and brooding one, that Eliya, he thought. Always conjecturing serious things that at least for the moment were manifestly improbable, if not damned impossible. Lerliving in factory towns! Crossing space to another planet in aspaceship! All that was legendary, true, but he had never pondered deeply upon it. Children's tales, they were . . . tales to tell children under the stars of summer nights. But whenhe had looked back at the girl Schaeszendur when Fellirianhad been talking about ships and journeys and futures, he had seen, just for a second, a trace, a print, an echo of an expression on her face which he could not identify, even as hehad seen it. The remains of an odd little half-smile, and a lambent flicker in the dark eyes, a subtle tensing of that soft,full, pursed mouth, sweet as a ripe persimmon.

They walked on and on, now passing sections of cultivatedfields, interspersed with fewer of the low, flat enigmatic buildings. The fields were empty, their crops harvested. And theair was changing, too; it was still every bit as heavy with thetinctures and essences of the city, but now there was also a fresher undertone in it. They approached and passed whatseemed to be a warehouse, or processing depot, now vacant. Morlenden looked back at Schaeszendur again; she had begun to trail them a little.

They stopped and waited for her to catch up; when she had caught up with all of them, he asked her, affectionately,"How do you feel, Schaeszen?"

"Tired," she answered in a dull voice. "I hurt."

Fellirian went to her and began to stroke the girl's arms and shoulders, gently but firmly. She said, "I know. You haven't walked so far in a long time. You have been very ill."

"I have? Was I in the house of a healer?"

"You have been ill and those who looked after you acted asbest they could according to their lights. Don't worry now. I don't want to force you to do more than you can, but we do have to go on as fast as we are able. I promise that when weget home, you can sleep as long as you want. We'll take careof you. Rest now, here, this little bit. Then we'll go on somemore."

The girl said softly, "I'm cold, too."

Fellirian said, "Kris, warm her."

Krisshantem, who had been standing alongside uncertainly,

sat down on the roadside on the curb beside Schaeszendur and put his arm around her shoulders, tentatively, shyly. Sheadjusted to his contours, fitting herself to him, smiling and glancing at the boy from under her eyebrows, half-expectantly. There was also, in her face, something of a flickeringsmile, very like the one Morlenden could still see vividly inthe image he had of Maellenkleth. Krisshantem looked hack at her, smiling also, but weakly, and then looked away,blank.

Damn, thought Morlenden to himself. He's the first male this Schaeszendur has ever seen in her real life, save me, when I put her to bed, and of course she wants him already for a little casual flower-fight. And her body needs it. What an irony! Or could there be something left over from before, from Maellenkleth; could she be remembering flashes of that which she had done before with this one? He moved close beside Fellirian, sitting, feeling the familiar contours and warmth of flank and thigh, buttock and shoulder, contours soingrained in his own mind that he knew he could survive autoforgetting with them intact.

He whispered, so the younger couple would not hear, "Eliya, is there any way she could remember him from before?"

"I don't think so..,. Here, put your arm around me as well; I'm cold, too . . . there. And Schaes, remember? No, no way, according to all that I've heard. To autoforget is final.And even if there were mnemons left, pieces, the rebuildingwould obliterate many of them, substituting things in their places. I suppose that she would catch some glimpses, butthey would be meaningless to her; she might feel some familiarity, as with certain dreams, but she wouldn't know why.Don't trouble her, you'll only disturb her. Poor thing, thisSchaeszendur was only just born a couple of hours ago."

"I've heard much the same about this as have you, Eliya,but I've been watching her: there's something there.""Perhaps. Remember, neither you nor I have known a forgetty before. You could be mistaking what you see."

Morlenden suddenly felt mulish, obstinate. He started tosay, "True, true, but nevertheless I . . ." He had intended to continue in the infuriating manner he had often used to goodpurpose with Fellirian in their long days together, but he wasinterrupted by a sudden noise from Krisshantem's waist-pouch.

The boy hurriedly dug out the tiny electronic unit, smallenough to fit comfortably in his hand. Commnet Interconnect, Fellirian had called it. Krisshantem looked dumbly atthe unit, while a speaker somewhere in it made an eerie wailing noise, not particularly loud, but a sound that carried,a repeating sliding tone that shivered up and down a short scale, rapidly, oscillating.

Fellirian started violently, tensing her whole body. "Kris,give it to me!"

Staring at the wailing unit, he handed it over to her carefully, as if it were about to explode. As he did, the wailing stopped, replaced immediately by a tired, bored voice, malefrom the sound of it, speaking Modanglic.

"Green system test call, green system test call, test call inthe green system, system green, I say again. All operatives initiate roll on my mark . . . mark!" A tiny red light illuminated at the top of the unit Fellirian was holding in her hand,both near and far thumbs gripping it so her knuckles werewhite.

She looked frantically over the unit, trying to see if she could discover the correct button to press. But nothing on theCommnet Interconnect was lettered or numbered. She looked at it again in the poor light. Even if she could press the rightone, what if anything, was she supposed to say? Again shewent over the unit carefully. Then she laid it carefully on theground, getting to her feet. The red light began winking onand off, on and off.

The speaker said, still in the same, bored voice, "B-fifteen,depress your acknowledge button." There was a long pause. Following Fellirian's example, allof them arose, anticipating. The speaker now said, "B-fifteen, procedure two." This time an edge had crept into the voice.

There was another pause. Then the red light went out, tobe replaced by two orange lights that flickered on and off, alternating in a hypnotic rhythm. The speaker said, with finality, "B-fifteen, ninety-eight Alpha Alpha, break, out." There was a pulse of static, a click, and the speaker went dead. Theorange lights continued to alternate.

Fellirian began dusting herself off, scuffling the area whereshe and Morlenden had been sitting. "Get going, all of you.We have to move now, run if necessary. I don't know how tooperate that model, but I can guess what it is doing: it's sending out a signal so they can locate it. So scuff your placeswell before we leave here; they'll bring infrared trackers andin this cold weather our body heat will leave ground-glowlike hot irons. And come on, move! We've got to get awayfrom here, now!"

Krisshantem helped Schaeszendur to her feet, with some difficulty, and even after that she stood unsteadily, swayingand shivering while the rest of the party scuffed up theirplaces, and hers. As if by an afterthought, Fellirian picked upthe Commnet Interconnect, looked at it stupidly for a moment, and then turned, and in one flowing movement threw itinto a nearby field as far as she could. Then they began theirjourney anew; Fellirian leading, Morlenden helping the girlalong, followed by Cannialin and Kaldherman, with Kris guarding their rear, alert and awake. They immediately leftthe road and began an erratic, zigzag course among the accessways in the fields, always trying to keep a shed, or a clump of brush, between themselves and the place where theyhad stopped and rested. Whenever she could do so without delaying them too much, Fellirian led them through brush,and close by sheds and warehouses. At first, she paced themat a brisk walk, but after they had warmed up to that pace,she increased their speed to almost a half-trot, something more than a fast walk.

Morlenden, and especially Krisshantem, had no difficultyat all keeping the pace that Fellirian set, nor did the others,but they could tell easily that Schaeszendur was tiring fastnow; she had used up almost all her reserves just to get as faras they had come already. Still, she was trying mightily tokeep up and not slow them all, neither crying nor complaining. But as Morlenden helped her along from time to time, hecould see her mouth moving, as if she were talking to herself.He could not hear words, nor make out what it might havebeen, but all in all, he knew that she would not make much more distance on her own.

They made better progress toward their unknown destination than would have seemed possible on foot. Moving in andout of shadows, brushlicks, odd little copses, groves, clusters of sheds; they were now moving through land almost completely given over to agriculture, and were beginning to hitpatches and plots not completely recovered from the wild, orelse perhaps returning to it again. The sky-glow from thelighting of Complex Ten was growing fractionally dimmer, tosomething nearer the light level one could see at night insidethe reservation. And with their gray winter overshirts and hoods and cloaks, they were close to being practically invisible, if their motion did not give them away.

And now that they were spread out somewhat, Krisshantem seemed at times to disappear, and reappear again, unlessone watched him constantly, and with an effort of will. Morlenden looked back at the boy often, marveling at his facility;and also at the way Kaldherman and Cannialin were following his example; Krisshantem's motions were almost the exactopposite of that of the humans they had seen earlier in the terminals—the jerky, learned, deliberately difficult motions,deliberately designed to make the user stand out against a background, and become obvious to a trained observer, deepin the secrets of the perception of motion. Kris, on the otherhand, moved in a manner that could only be called transinstinctual, the sinuous weaving, looping, graceful, sine-curvemotions, half random, the minimum energy curve, the motions of a feral creature who had carefully cultivated the littlebit of natural wildness remaining to him. To glance at himcasually, one would have seen only a person walking, but onthe second scan across the target, Kris would not break thebackground, by pattern or motion. He was grass in the wind,a tree, a leaf, a branch, a bird. And Cannialin and Kaldherman were imitating him, following his example.

After a hard, fast walk, they reached at last the edges ofthe cultivated areas and entered the boundary woods, whichin this place were composed of young pine trees, more or lessregularly spaced. They all stopped as soon as they had attained the dense, furry growth, now on rising ground, and looked back over the fields in the direction from which theyhad come. It was a good distance; they had done very well,all things considered. And there across the fields was the suggestion of activity, blurred by the distance and the darkness:movement and lights. Distant hummings and fainter throbbing sounds. For the moment, the activity seemed rather random, purposeless, and undirected, but it was nevertheless inthe exact spot where they had stopped to rest. Morlenden watched and felt a curious duality of emotions: complete

disassociation from the meaningless motion and activity in

the far distance, and simultaneously a personal feeling of

dread, a definite suspicion that the activity was, under the

muddled surface, very purposeful and highly intelligent. A

semiliving gestalt organism whose entire consciousness was be

coming focused upon their group, its prey. Yes, it was a pred

ator taking shape back there.

Fellirian stopped and let the rest gather to her side as theycaught up, one by one; Morlenden shepherding Schaeszendur,Cannialin and Kaldherman, Krisshantem bringing up the rear. Schaeszendur they brought into their midst, closing theirbodies tightly about the girl, shielding her from the sudden chill of their stopping in the cold air. They were all breathinghard, and Morlenden could see, in the sky-scatter from the city lights, that there was a fine sheen of sweat glazed over Fellirian's face. Her eyes were alert, but heavy-lidded and tired; she had been in no better shape for this than he.

She said, between breaths, "Now we can assume . . . that the agents have made . . . their reports . . . and that they havelocated . . . the Commnet Interconnect. Probably . . . seen some . . . witnesses in the city."

Morlenden suggested, "The group at the hot-drink kiosk."

"There, yes. Maybe others; we did walk openly. With whatthey know, they can easily anticipate that we will be comingthis way, to the reservation boundary. And they will certainlybe bringing tracking equipment."

Krisshantem asked, "Could we not now take another course, to throw them off?"

Fellirian, recovering her breath, answered kindly, "No, that would not work except to our disadvantage. Attend: we cannot push Schaeszen, which we must if we turn now. And wewould lengthen our exposure in the forerunner world; it is not like your woods out here, Kris—away from this area,close upon the reservation fence, there is nowhere we couldsurvive for very long. None of us, not me, not you, knowtheir ways well enough to pass unseen and uncaught in theirmidst for long. No, no, we cannot; we must go as straight aswe can and hope that they have difficulty in picking up ourtrail."

She stopped, suddenly attentive, listening. In the far distance, a change had come in the humming sound, and thethrobbing increased; they looked back, to see a group of lights detach itself from the others and move upward, slowly.It continued to move about, without apparent purpose or

goal, but they could also see that it was quartering over thefields about the place where they had rested.Krisshantem observed, "That, at least, is no mystery.know that: it is an aircraft, looking for tracks."

Fellirian said, "Yes, so it must be. We'll soon know whether to rest a bit more, or make the last run to the fence."

The random, quartering motion of the lights continued fora time, but apparently the aircraft did not sense any obvioustracks within its sensor search pattern, for after several sweepsover the search area, it returned to the cluster of lights on theground, merged with them, and as it did, the humming noisefaded. The sense of activity around the cluster of lights in thedistance continued, and if anything, increased in motion.

Fellirian watched the activity closely, and when the aircrafthad landed, she did not seem any more optimistic by thatwhich she had seen. She sighed deeply, and said, "For nowthey have missed us on the first cast. From the sound and movement of it, it's a hovercraft, a platform on ducted fans. . . . They know the general direction we must come, though, so they will try again. And once they pick up a goodtrail, they'll let shock troops down on ropes.... We had better move on now. We have much less of a lead on them."

Fellirian now turned away from the group, facing the direction they must go; she saw only pine trees, denselypacked together, an uphill slope, a suggestion of higher forestfarther up the slope, a darker sky that had no lights under it.It was not physically far as distances went: no more than the same distance back to the place where they had rested. Butthe aircraft was very close now; on a good trail, the troopscould be upon them in minutes, and they were all past their best now.

Krisshantem laid his hand on Fellirian's arm. "Wait. I have an idea; you say that I am not wise in the way of cities, andthat is so . . . but are they not equally unwise in the open country? And you say that they track by body-heat? So would not a brighter target capture their attention better thana muted one?"

They had no flares with them, and it was too damp for fire . . . Fellirian's mind leaped ahead. "Krisshantem, I forbid ..."

"Now let us not speak of forbiddings and permissions.Were I blind and deaf, I could evade such as those: I have watched the clouds change, measured the color of the sky, seen the green of the winter sky. I have watched day-shadowmove. And they will see where I have been, they will hearechoes, but where they look, there I will not be."

The humming in the backrgound increased again, as if toemphasize Kris's point. He also listened, and then continued,"Now, listen. You start—you, Morlenden, Schaeszendur, Kaldherman and Cannialin will come with me. When you get to the fence, you will be near my old territory, and I can catch you there, never fear. But you are better at this than Iwould have imagined most townsmen to be, so you may get abit ahead . . . but you cannot lose me. I will always knowwhere you are. And we will lead them on a merry chase."

Fellirian stood still, saying nothing. Morlenden thought onit, considered. It would have to be that way. They could not now hope to get Schaeszendur across the fence to safety,back inside, unless someone decoyed the forces now arrayingthemselves against them, and distracted them away from the one moment they needed. He moved the girl, nudging her gently, to let her know that the rest was at an end. She moved sluggishly, as if under water, turning her face to Morlenden's, a blank, blind gaze of exhaustion.

Morlenden said, "Schaeszen can't run any more. Ill have to carry her. I agree with Kris's proposal." Close by, Kaldherman set his face into a grim expression and nodded assent. Cannialin looked upward, at the sky-glow, and let her mouthfall into a weird, beatific smile.

Morlenden thought, Just such an abstracted smile I have seen on her pretty face when she was slaughtering a chicken, slitting its throat with that long knife of hers

Reluctantly, Fellirian agreed. "Yes, I see. Very well, Mor,I'll find the best way for you; follow my sound, and I'll helpyou at the fence." She listened to the sound. Then she turnedto look at the wood once more, and back for a moment, calculating, indecisive . . . then started off at a lope into the pinybrushwood, resolutely negotiating a passage. Morlenden, helping the girl along, half carrying her, set out behind. Kris andthe others remained where they were, staring after them.

Kris called out, as they disappeared into the dense and prickly underbrush, "Don't crash so, you dray-horse! Theywill hear you even over the motor noises!"

Deep in the brush, Morlenden paused and looked back. Through a small gap he could see the boy removing his feltboots, while Kal and Cannialin did the same: to leave heated footprints in the cold ground, while he and Fellirian and Schaeszen left less obvious marks. And farther back, behind them all, on the edge of the city, a cluster of lights was moving, not exactly toward them, but close enough. Then the lights went out, but the humming and throbbing did not change. And after a moment, Morlenden thought he could sense, at the edge of perception, a darker spot, vague in shape, moving against the background sky-scatter. He turnedand looked back up the hill: there the sky was darker, and there was no sound, save the passing of Fellirian through thepines, making as much noise as she could now. In that direction, there were no moving shapes in the sky.

Now he started out, helping the girl along as best he could,partially supporting her, as she walked now only a little under her own power. He discovered that he could keep up withFellirian, ahead, as she moved back and forth, searching outthe easiest way for them. He hardly ever had sight of her, buthe could follow her by sound almost as easily, listening carefully. And behind them, the humming grew louder. Morlenden looked back, over his shoulder, and saw the dark patchmoving against the sky again, more clearly now, but still notdistinctly enough to make its shape truly. It had covered mostof the distance to the beginning of the woods, but seemed tobe drifting a bit to the south of his present position. Therewas no indication that they who flew in the craft had actually seen anything, not yet. Morlenden increased his pace,moving deeper into the woods.

Schaeszendur sobbed, and Morlenden felt her full weightsag against his left arm; further progress had become impossible for her, even with assistance. She had reached the end of her physical resources. Morlenden bent, and let her fall across his shoulders, taking her full weight. She was lighterthan he expected her to be . . . Maellenkleth had been well-formed, comely and strong, but this Schaeszendur was madeof fluff and bubbles, her flesh soft and stringy. She was, afterher long confinement, still her basic build, but much reduced . . . and despite her weight, he made better progress, becausehe did not have to half-drag her along.

Now he did not turn to watch the aircraft; he listened. He heard the hum and throb of the motors change tone abruptly.He tried to ignore it, but could not; swinging the load of thegirl slowly around on his shoulders, Morlenden turned clumsily about, to see. The darkness in the sky was almost abreastof them now to the south, and it was falling, as an autumn leaf might glide downward, but without the sudden turns and swoops of the leaf. Lower, it stopped as if running into a wallof feathers, the motors surging mightily, then falling in toneagain. The craft hovered, now stopped dead-still in the air, and the lights came on again. Other lights came on with them, searchlights directed against the ground. In their glarehe could see rope ladders falling, unrolling out of the craft,and immediately, on them, figures climbing down, many withbulky backpacks. Morlenden struggled with his burden and lurched off in the direction he imagined Fellirian ^o be, tryingto move faster and more quietly. And behind him, he now heard voices, faintly, muffled by the trees and the air, ghostly,unsubstantial. The hovercraft powered up, rose sharply, turning as it did and withdrawing a little back toward the city.He stopped, listening for Fellirian. Over the pounding of hisheart and the throb of the hovercraft motors, he could not hear her. Morlenden listened again, carefully, all senses tenseand strained. The motor noise was fading. Otherwise, nothing.

And the voices faded also, fell silent. He now began to feela touch of fear . . . he half expected to hear, as he continuedslogging up the hill along what seemed to be the best way, a sharp, peremptory command. Or perhaps nothing, a sudden pain. His skin crawled. Where the hell was Fellirian?

There was no actual sign that he was being pursued. Everything seemed quiet nearby. Morlenden continued walking,and noticed that the upward slope was beginning to level offa little, and that the trees were larger, more mature; he knewinstinctively that they had to be near the fence, but as yet hecould not see it.

Behind him, now far down the gentle slope, Morlenden heard a curious, half-muffled sound, more a prolonged puff orwhooshing than a report, of gunshot. He had never heard anything like it before. After the sound died away, he also heard calls, cries, hoarse exhortations, also distorted by distance and the intervening trees. Kris, Kal, Ayali.... He heard more sounds, faraway crashing and tearing in the brush, more calls, so it seemed, all in Modanglic. How many?Three? Four? He had seen five or six men climb down from the hovercraft. But from the noise they made, it sounded likea small army. All the same, the continuing racket reassuredhim; they would not be so loud, if they had caught any of thedecoy party. No, Kris would be teasing them, drawing themoff. That would be Kris's way; and then he'd just vanish among the trees. The crashing and shouting moved fartheroff, more southerly, became fainter.

Morlenden stopped now, his head reeling, feeling the full weight of fatigue. He stooped over, and, as gently as he could, laid Schaeszendur down, resting her head on a pile ofpine needles he had hastily scraped together. Kneeling besideher, he examined her closely; she seemed conscious, but shemade no attempt to speak. Her eyes remained, open, but theexpression in them was glassy, unfocused. Morlenden lookedaround himself. He saw nothing save darkness, the ever-present sky-scatter, the shapes of trees, black trunks looming.It was dense here, like the forests inside. He knew they wereclose, they had to be, but now the ground was level and hecould not determine in which direction the fence lay. He could guess one way, for there was some thinning in the trees, a sense of openness. From that direction he heard faintscuffling in the carpet of fallen needles underfoot, glimpsed a suggestion of movement, a dark shape, becoming a gray winter overcloak; it was Fellirian. She was coming at a half-run.

Fellirian saw him, the girl on the ground, and called out, "It's not far now, just over there, where I came from. It's more open near the fence. Can you make it?"

Morlenden was still short of breath. "Have to. They drewthem off to the south, I think. It's quiet again. But there aretoo many ifs. They know there is more than one of us, so they might catch on to the trick. And we are more visible here." He looked upward as he spoke, nodding toward thethrobbing that now never faded entirely from hearing.

Fellirian reached them, knelt beside the girl, held the girl's eye open and looked closely. Then she looked in the same direction he had indicated, and nodded. Breath-steam wreathed her face and the overhanging cowl of her overshirt.She said, "I'll help you with her. Come on."

Together, they lifted the girl between them, and beganmoving forward again, supporting, half dragging Schaeszenbetween them, dodging around tree trunks, stumbling overfallen branches in their way, abandoning the pretense of stealth and quiet. They crossed a low rise, a swell in the ground, and stopped. Just ahead of them, Morlenden couldsee an old-fashioned chain-link fence, about twice his height.They stumbled forward to it in a last rush, reaching the fenceand stopping, leaning against the links and mesh of cold metal. There were thin flakes of ice on some of the links.

Fellirian asked, "How do we get her over? I was counting on her climbing herself. Now, I don't know; I don't think she can climb it on her own."

"I don't know. Let her rest a bit more; let me think." They tenderly laid the girl down again, propped against the fence, Morlenden kneeling partially supporting her. Fellierian stood over them, legs slightly apart, panting. Suddenly she turned her head, back, the way they had come up the hill.

She said urgently, softly, "Olede! Voices, there, speaking Modanglic! They're coming!" "Sh! I hear them. Lights, too; see them? It has to be now, doesn't it, Eliya? Give me a hand with her, here."

Morlenden now leaned over Schaeszendur, shook her roughly, sharply, "Schaeszendur!" There was no response. She looked at him, but did nothing else. Her eyes were dull, lifeless. He shook her again. "Schaeszendur! Maellenkleth!" Some luster reappeared in her eyes. "Aezedu! Aelekle! Wake up! Listen to me!" The girl seemed to listen to him now. "Can you hold to me if I carry your weight?"

"Yes." The voice was flat and unaccented, but it was clear, steady.

"Then you must do this: hold to me, no matter what. Rest and sleep are not far now. Just one more effort and you're safe. Use all your strength and hold to me! We have to climb a fence!"

The same calm, distant measured voice answered him. "Yes, I understand, I must hold to you. I can. I will do it."

He stood and helped the girl to her feet, while Fellirian steadied her. She was very shaky on her feet, although she did now stand on her own. Her eyes were clear also, but somehow she did not seem to be aware of her surroundings. Morlenden turned to the fence, getting into position, reaching for and feeling the cold metal strands, experimentally feeling with his toe for a foothold. Fellirian helped the girl onto Morlenden's back, arranging her arms about his neck, placing the girl's hands so she would be steady, locked in position however Morlenden had to move on the fence.

She whispered in Shaeszendur-Maellenkleth's ear, "That's a good girl. Yes, just like this now, hold on, whatever happens; hold on to Morlenden."

Then to Morlenden, "We'll have to hurry, Olede, the lights are close now. I'll try to get them away from you." Her presence suddenly withdrew.

It was true. He could clearly hear the sounds of crashing in the brush back in the woods, not so far at all now. He took a deep breath, looked at the fence, tensed his muscles. One more obstacle, and we're over. They won't dare touch us inside the fence. He drew another deep breath, tightened hisgrasp on the cold metal, thrust. He could not look upwardwithout moving the girl. He took his first step up, feeling thefull weight of the girl settling on his back, shifting throughhis arms down to his hands, his fingers, pressing on the wirestrands.

And behind him he heard footfalls in the ground-cover,sharp scufflings off to the left, in the direction Fellirian hadtaken. Then there were more from the same direction, but farther off. And now directly behind him, sudden crashing ofbrush, footfalls on the hard ground pounding, and an actiniclight cast its glare upon his hands on the fence.

He heard a voice shouting in Modanglic, "There they are,two, on the fence!" Another shouted hoarsely, "You! You, stop! Get down from there, now!"

Morlenden shook his head slightly, to himself, and took another step up. There was more commotion behind him, scuffling, hoarse exclamations, oaths, curses, and as someone cried out some unintelligible word, he heard at close hand thesame odd sound he had heard earlier. A whooshing, a hiss, very close, especially loud. He felt Schaeszendur tense herwhole supple body, sharply, heard her emit a short grunt, aswith great effort. Her grip around his neck tightened convulsively, strongly, and she was choking him. She coughed,wetly, and the intense grip began to weaken. She was goingto let go, she would fall; Morlenden let himself back down,and as he felt solid ground under his boots and bent to cushion her fall, she let go, relaxing completely, sliding off andslumping against the fence in much the same posture she hadrested in only moments before. Morlenden turned around.

He felt a black, consuming rage rising, suffusing him, distorting his vision, altering his perceptions. We felt enlarged,he felt time slow, he expanded into something strange, fey, anevil released, clenching his hands convulsively, breathing indeep, steady breaths. Morlenden turned around, withdrawinghis fish-knife from its baldric. He saw a confused blur of action.

They were all there—Fellirian, Krisshantem, Cannialin,

Kaldherman—moving about a perimeter enclosing a small

group of five humans, one of whom was struggling with an

unwieldy piece of elongated equipment, gunlike in shape, but not exactly a gun, either, in the traditional sense. The remaining four seemed to be protecting that one. It seemed that none of them noticed Morlenden, so intent were they on theflashing, whirling figures approaching from outside their group. Morlenden tightened his grip on the long, thin knife,walking like an invulnerable sleepwalker. They did not see him, the invisible one, and he would deal among them likethe angel of death. He felt like Kris, more so, invulnerable and invisible, charmed. The rest skirmished to the rear, opening up the gunner for him. The one with the odd, bulky gunwas open, in front of him, still struggling with some adjustment; perhaps the weapon was jammed, broken. Morlendenwalked calmly, quietly to him, almost reaching him before the man became aware of him. The man looked up, startled, raising the weapon, and as he did, Morlenden casuallystepped inside the reach of the gun and calmly, still calmly,pushed the knife into the man's chest. There was a resistance,and blood flowed around the wound. He pushed harder, looking directly into the man's shocked eyes with a lover's intimacy. The weapon dropped from his hands and the man looked at Morlenden accusingly, incredulously, as if this could not be happening to him, him the weaponeer. And a darkness greater than the night passed over his vision, as he slumped to the cold ground.

The others now saw that their weaponeer was down, and they menaced the five ler with hand-pistols, while one amongthem struggled, panic-stricken, with a small device, somethingsimilar to the communications unit Krisshantem had taken off the agent. They seemed confident now, slowed, sure that noneof the group facing them would use any kind of released weapon. They had been briefed. Before he could set the controls the way he intended to, Fellirian menaced him, her ownknife drawn, before any of the others could bring a weaponto bear. The man danced backward, holding it high, out ofreach, as the others tried to get into position for a shot. One went down immediately, as he suddenly met a Kris who wasn't supposed to be where he was, throat-chopped. Morlenden sliced at the hand holding the communicator, heard, as ifunder water, a harsh cry, and the communicator was on theground. He stepped on it, breaking its delicate inner structureinto a jumble of metal, now smoking and sparking as its power-pack shorted out. Cannialin dispatched that one, whilehe was trying to avoid Morlenden, with the crazed look in his eyes of a berserker, and Fellirian, who steadily advanced upon him, uttering terrible words in a language he did not understand. The last saw his position, and tried to run, but hemet Kaldherman and Krisshantem and his journey, even in flight, was a short one.

And there was silence in the forest,, marked only by hardbreathing, and a distant hum and throb of motors from the hovercraft, quartering the distance, far away. Morlenden feltthe rage abating, saw what they had done, saw that the otherssaw it, too. They did not speak, but dumbly walked about thescene of the battle, numb, astonished. Morlenden could see clearly again, and looking at Fellirian, saw streams of tears down her cheeks, although there was no change in the expression on her face. They all knew they had avenged something here, they had defeated armed men, with no more thantheir hand weapons. But something had snapped, and would never be the same again. There was blood on the ground,that had not been spilled in such a way before.

Krisshantem was the first to find his voice. He said slowly,"After a time, they began to realize what we were doing.They had tried a shot at us, to no good. While they shot atwhere they thought I was, Kal and Cannialin got one of them. But the rest saw, and knew we were not the ones theysought. So they retreated, turned back. They found your trailwith that weapon, and followed it. They would not be diverted. We tried to intercept them, but they were then betweenus, and running hard. It was no good, no good, we couldn'tprevent it...."

Time was resuming its normal flow. Morlenden asked, distantly, "Eliya, what did they shoot her with?"

Her voice was flat, overcontrolled. "A filthy thing, a wire-guide. It launches a tiny rocket with an explosive head containing barbs. It's connected by a wire to the gun itself, whichfollows the flight with a computer, guides it. All you have todo is keep the target in the sights. They like to use it againstfugitives. . . . Do you see? Once hit with that thing, the targetcannot escape, even if it didn't have a mortal wound."

Morlenden said dryly, "Now I understand the weapon prohibition better...."

"Yes," Fellirian said. "So do we all who were here. A weapon that leaves the hand magnifies the user too much, somuch that often the original will that guided it is lost, expanded, diluted. Washed out. And that is why we fear much technology, why we labor to retain our innocence; other things magnify, too, just the same way, and we are not wise enough yet to know if we really do want to see that magnified image of ourselves . . . until we have a better control ofourselves. We are not restrained enough yet by half. Were itso with them, too."

Morlenden said, "Innocence . . . I do not feel so innocent. There is blood."

Cannialin interrupted. "Sh! Listen!"

At her command, they all stopped, in a circle, facing eachother, the five of them, and listened. Schaeszendur. The girlwas not yet dead. They could hear her in the silence after theviolence, by the fence, where she had fallen. She was talkingaimlessly, now protected by shock from the pain that wouldhave come. She was talking, but most of it was just babbling, nonsense, not even words. The mortal wound she had received, the fatigue, the unstable implant persona, they were all coming together now. They listened to the soft, hoarse voice, childishly high in tone. Just babbling. Morlenden felt avast dull pain in his heart. And they turned from the placewhere they had made murder, where they had fought in heatwith the men, the forerunners, and walked slowly to the fence, to her.

They all knelt close around her. She was lying, partly propped against the fence, as they had left her. Morlenden cradled her head, feeling the soft, dark hair, the heated skinalong the back of her neck. He wiped her mouth; there hadbeen blood at one corner of it. And brushed the adolescent hair off her forehead, out of her eyes. An odd frown creasedher forehead momentarily.

Her eyes had been open, but had been moving aimlessly,sometimes independently of one another. She did not see, except some artificial interior scene Krisshantem had implantedin her . . . some memory. But without warning, the expressionof dull shock and confusion in her face faded away quickly,changing radically into something else. The contours of her face began to shift, as if obeying instructions from a differentset of muscles, a different personality. The childlike roundness of face faded, vanished, and was replaced by a harder,more adult set along the jaw, tense and concentrated aroundthe eyes. The eyes cleared, became focused, calm, then intense. Without moving her head, she looked hard at them all,from face to face, pausing especially long when she came toKris. Morlenden recognized that look in her eyes at once: it was the look of one who saw strangers and knew not how they came there. Only Kris was familiar. He knew. Maellenkleth knew only Kris among them, while Schaeszendur hadknown them all alike. This was Maellenkleth, how, he didn't know, but Maellenkleth it undeniably was.

She took a deep breath, breaking something deep inside. They heard a rattling in her throat. She grasped Morlenden, who was closest to her, and with a capable, terrifyingly strong grip, pulled him down close to her, so that his face was by hers. All of Morlenden's senses were alive, tensed to ultimate receptivity, alert: he sensed all of her, how short hertime-line was. She had only seconds to live. He smelled sweat, fear-scent, the reek of adrenaline, blood, musky, salty,all overlying the sweet fragrance of a young girl.

And he heard the harsh voice in his ear, ragged with shockand the leading edge of the wedge of pain. It was not the simplistic child's voice he had heard before, when it was Schaeszendur; this was different. Hoarse and wounded and dying it may have been, but it was also the voice of one almost adult, filled with knowledge and desires and incredible will for one born in the sign of the Water elemental. The griptightened. And the voice rasped, "Mevlannen . .. Mevlannen . . . to Sanjirmil."

"What?" he asked.

The rasping whisper repeated again, ".... Matrix . . from Mev ... from Elane ... get the matrix from Mev-Elane ... take to Sanjirmil. . . ."

"What matrix, what for?"

"Get the matrix from Mevlannen . . ." and then the voice trailed off into another series of nonsense words, drifting backinto the childish intonations of the forgetty, Schaeszendur. Or was it? The face did not change, though the grip was now relaxing. The voice trailed off. She was yet breathing, but itwas obvious that she had but a few instants left to live. Krisshantem stepped forward, and it was as if she was seeing himfor the first time. Morlenden felt the hand holding his over-shirt clench hard, almost as if she were going to try to rise toher feet. Then he saw her lips moving, trying to form words,and she found her voice, her eyes cleared completely, and shespoke, and

Now an immense Will suddenly grasped their minds and clamped down, hard, so intense it was painful. All five ofthem immediately lost the sensory input of the world around them. This was Maellenkleth, Maellenkleth the master Player,and she was sending an image in Multispeech. In visual Command-override, so powerful they could not move, or block it out of their minds. They all saw the same thing, and it wouldremain impressed on their minds, reverberating, forever. It was not a message, an instruction, a command, but a picture.A picture of Maellenkleth, not quite as any of them had everseen her before, her face shining with rapture, turning slightlyto her right side, turned a little away from the viewer, herarms outstretched from her torso. All around her, surrounding her, outlined in faint, glowing blue, were the outlines of atessaract, encompassing her, protecting her. It was clear thathere, in the vision, she had truly come into her own. She floated in space, inside a translucent tessaract, wearing theritual robes of a high Perklaren contestant of the Game, theInner Game, intricate and arcane Game patterns and emblems embroidered vertically down a panel of linen on the front of her robe, and also along the hem of the robe abouther pretty, delicate feet, and on the borders of the wide sleeves of the garment. Behind her, almost in the direction she was facing, as if looking over her shoulder, was a background of the patterns of some Game projected upward ontoa spherical ceiling and part of a wall, an immense multicolored Game diagram, stopped in midflight.

They felt the Will fading, the image fading with it, not changing, but dimming, losing color contrast, becoming pastelled, becoming empty outlines, fading, fading, graying, darkening, and out. Their optic nerves resumed transmittingthe images of a nighttime forest, by a fence, to their visualcenters. And Maellenkleth lay relaxed against the fence, as ifasleep, the face relaxed, peaceful. Morlenden, his hand stillunder her slender neck, could feel her cooling. Life had departed this body.

Fellirian hiccuped nervously. "What was she sending?"Kris answered, "Something about a matrix Mevlannen has.Take it to Sanjirmil She's dead now."

"I know," said Morlenden. "Had you ever seen her send animage like that before?" He knew very well that somehow shehad imposed an image of herself upon a background of the Inner Game. He also knew that none of the rest of the Der-ens had seen that before.

Krisshantem answered, "No, nothing like that. I could recognize a Game display, but it is in a strange form. Wasthat Inner Game?"

"Yes. And I don't know what the significance of it is."

The boy said, "I never saw her do anything like that before. I didn't realize she could override like that, even though she taught me override.... That pattern on the display she did show me once, but plain and flat, not like that curved screen-ceiling.... It is something very special, I know that,something very secret." He sat back on his heels, shaking hishead. "That was the old Maellen, there, in the end, the old Maellen and something more. She was sending Truth, then,not playing or concealing, though she had not the time to tellus what it means. I know it not. But it must have been a powerful thing, to have endured through autoforgetting and restructuring; she believed something powerfully."

Fellirian said slowly, "Truth is what we believe; and of course we become what we believe ourselves to be. Unlimited things. Only the lesser are provable. She sent to us what shewas to herself."

Morlenden asked, "Do you know what she meant?"

"No."

"Must we, then, do as she asked?"

"I still shake from the force of it; of course we must, we cannot choose at this point, but follow it through to the veryend. That is why she sent that image in the end, the very end.She said, there, 'Do this for me, it is my very life.' To haveretained it through all she endured, it must have been the central immanent fact of her life, something she lived withdaily, ingrained in her at the cellular level, beyond the reachof even autoforgetting. It was that which lent meaning to herlife."

Kris added, "It was truly her, this I know. There was muchthat she did not tell me, but I could sense that we were close to it; she took me as far as she could. And if you will notpursue this, Morlenden, then I will."

"Rest in ease, Krisshantem. I will take it. I think not to the ends of the Earth, either, for Mevlannen I can find."

Fellirian added, "And it must be quickly, too, Olede. Therewas an urgency in her, something that must be done quickly.And we should do this without informing the Perwathwiy orSanjirmil. It will be difficult and perilous, a risk, that trip allthe way across the continent. They will be watchful, wary, after what was done here tonight. I know some tricks yet,though, and with the watchfulness there may also be much confusion, enough to slip through...." She stopped now, thinking. "And now let us act in reverence toward this poorbody that has endured so much, and for what? Yes, let us doit, for they will come, looking for their shock troops."

Kris said, as Fellirian got to her feet, "She said once to me that she did that which she performed outside because she enjoyed it, the shadow-play, the feints, the skill of passing unseen on many errands; but that overriding all personal likesand dislikes was a higher reason, that we would all know ofit, within her lifetime. She thought, before fertility, which waswhy she was working so hard to instruct me in the Game basics, and gather support for her proposal to have us declared shartoorh Dirklarens. I do not know why, but I knowthe meaning of her words and her deeds: this was for us. Thepeople."

Morlenden said, also getting to his feet, "Then may it havebeen a worthy price, for she paid with two lives for it: not many would go so far as to risk even one."

Kaldherman had been silent through the whole adventure.Now he spoke. "I have an unraveled thread of my own, youthinkers and worriers and ponderers; I wish to know how it isthe five of us, with no more than knives, best armed and trained forerunners?"

Cannialin also asked, "Indeed. Where are the wild-eyed,merciless humans, who are reputed to shoot and burn withoutstint? These were willing enough to shoot one in the back, but when the scars would be in the front side, they milled about like geese in the slaughteryard. I admit to no cowardice, but I had not thought myself so fearsome before. Kalder, perhaps: he had a look about him just now that wouldhave wormed a dog, but me?"

Fellirian said, "Ayali, you do not know how strange you look with knife in hand . . . indeed, I fear you myself sometimes at home, when you are slicing a fowl's throat. The onlything I can say is that they must not be accustomed to resistance, much less attack upon themselves; but that raisesmany questions in my mind, and an answer that makes questions isn't such a good one, is it?"

Morlenden said, "You mean they just have to threaten, notactually do anything?"

"So it seems. They respond quickly enough. That I haveseen with my own eyes, and the targets always run, and aregathered. No one resists."

"And what if someone did?"

"Unthinkable."

"Do they have any idea what a foundation they have built

upon, that a dozen determined men could take over the whole planet?" No one answered Morlenden's question. And now they all

stood about Maellenkleth, and bent to pick her up. In the background they could still hear the humming and throbbingof the hovercraft, now somewhat nearer. Morlenden was still somewhat stunned, and he felt light-headed, still not quitehimself. It had been unthinkable that he had been shot at byan unknown assassin; but to do as he had done here, this night: that was an even more remote conception. Yet he haddone it, and as he thought back on it, he felt convinced thatit was right, proper. Revenge, and self-survival. And something, some unknown quantity in the unseen underworld, hadshifted, changed, and now he was being borne along on themain current of an uncharted stream, flowing to an unknowndestination. He shrugged, a gesture that the others missed.

And he said, half to himself, which they also did not notice, lifting the girl up to Kaldherman and Krisshantem, whohad climbed the fence, "Watching? Confused? Yes, they willbe all those things . . . and maybe they will not be watchinghalf so well as they imagine they do. This one moved amongthem unseen. Now I . . . ?"

And they began the painful process of lifting Maellen'sbody over the fence. She was of the Water elemental, and would have to be returned to the waters; they would have tocarry her a long way.

FIFTEEN

When I write, betimes, in my Journal, I al

ways feel supremely confident I solve all prob

lems, not only with ease, but with style as well,

seasoned with considerable wit. . . . We also may

note the same condition in men who have been

deprived of Oxygen. This is enough to make

one wonder.

—The Vaseline Dreams of Hundifer Soames

That which had gathered in the office of Klaneth Parleau,Chairman of Seaboard South Region, could only be called a mob, and at the moment, all of its constituent parts were trying to talk at once, to each other, to nobody, to anybody, perhaps even to themselves, all utilizing the maximum in volume to make themselves heard. Nobody managed to hear anything but din and confusion. It was, in a word, chaos. Parleau watched in astounded consternation, striying mightilyto capture their attention, but his efforts, normally successful,were useless. In fact, they added measurably to the reigningconfusion. The members just talked louder and heard less. Atlast, in total exasperation, Parleau picked up a heavy paperweight, a large stainless steel cube a handsbreadth on a side,and pounded his appointment book until the noise at leastdied down enough for him to be heard.

"Damn it to hell!" roared the chairman, uncharacteristically in the full grip of his temper. "Is this a Regional Board of Inquiry, or a panel discussion among anarchists?" The noise level dropped some more. They were offended that thechairman should call them anarchists. It became almost quiet.Parleau did not intend to let them rest there. He roared on, "Is this the office of a Regional Chairman, or is it a bandits'den?"

And at last, true, blessed silence fell. Parleau commanded,

"Blantine, read the names of those prekent!"

A voice, hoarse from bawling at the others, started, fromsomewhere near the far end of the table, "But, Chairman, we.. ."

"Shut the hell up, Gerlin! Recorder, read the names as instructed—programmed, unprogrammed, and soon to be de-programmed."

Blantine, the recorder, a junior administrative apprentice,hastily borrowed from the shift currently working days, began in a voice full of uneasiness. "Doctor Mandor Klyten, Department of Alien Affairs; Edner Eykor, S-eighteen, Security; Aseph Plattsman, S-twelve, Control; Thoro Gerlin, M -six, Tactical Units . . ." And continuing through several others, at last finishing and sitting down, trying his best to appear inconspicuous. He had not listed himself as a member. He did not intend to add anything or contribute, save record what they said.

Parleau was still standing. He added, not willing to let theapprentice clerk off the hook, either, "And Cretus Blantine,Recorder." He noted that the reading of names had its desired effect: they were now all quiet and attentive.

Parleau began, "We are here to determine the causes and consequences of a series of incidents that occurred two daysago in this Region, in or near Complex Ten." Parleau observed some fidgeting out of the corner of his eye, and added,"This board is hereby convened by instruction of ContinentalSecretariat, Denver, Central High Plains Region." Here he paused to let it sink in, with the implications. A RegionalChairman held power in his own region, of course, but impelled by ConSec, he could bring forces to bear from outsidethe region. He thought, Argue, would they? We'll see what kind of song they sing for Section Q when they go to explain this. He said, "Plattsman, review events."

Plattsman, after consulting some logs, began, "At about the sixteenth hour, the girl we had been holding, the vandal identified as one Maellenkleth Srith Perklaren, was released in the custody and responsibility of a party of New Humans who had previously been identified. And immediately the problem commences. Somehow, the transaction, thoughhandled according to instructions and regulational data, was actually performed by a Hando Errat, accompanied by agentsunder his personal control. We conjecture that there was aplan to abduct the whole party at some other point, before they could return the girl to the reservation. However, at Complex Ten, the New Human party somehow evaded Er-rat's men and escaped into the Urblex. I may add here thatnone of this was reported until much later, owing to the substitution of agents. Also, reporting and monitoring was further delayed because somehow the New Humans removed theCommnet Interconnect from the agent who had been carryingit, abandoning it several miles to the west. This unit had notresponded to a routine maintenance call-up, so autolocation was initiated. At the same time, our own monitor at the Institute stop reported no contact, and Complex Seven picked up the false agents in the tube terminal, failing exit procedure. Regional Control called for a Tactical Team, but toomuch time had elapsed, and detailed tracking with chemsensors was deemed unlikely. The TacTeam was deployed intothe woods adjacent to the reservation boundary, reporting alive track. They descended, grounded, the carryall standingby. After some time elapsed, the carryall reported no contact,although it observed some action. It returned for reinforcements, onloaded, and returned to the site. The team on the ground did not respond, so a thorough search was madeof the area. One member was found near the grounding site,and the rest were located near the fence, in deceased condition."

Parleau said, "Continue."

"Subsequent investigation, necessarily hasty, has established

that six New Humans were observed transiting Complex Ten.

Of the weapons possessed by the TacTeam, only the wire-

guide had been discharged. One dart was not located, the

other was still attached to the guide. That dart retained

blood, which lab has identified as identical with the blood of

the girl we were detaining. Nothing else was found. All mem

bers were terminated either by knife wounds, or by blows of

a blunt instrument, skillfully applied. From appearances, the

investigation team concluded that the party crossed the fence

into the reservation, taking the girl with them. Her condition

is unknown, but from the amount of blood on the scene, her

survival is doubtful."

Parleau said, "I wish to emphasize several interestingpoints about this preliminary report. One, of most pressinginterest, is that there was a mix of agents. What was to be aroutine exercise went to hell in a handbasket, and fast. We, in short, have been penetrated, but by whom and for what purpose? Item two: all witnesses in Ten say that there were sixNew Humans. I repeat. Six. How so six? We knew of three,plus one basket-case. But there were six, self-propelled. Itemthree: the call for TacTeam was requested under signalforty—operative in the field needs assistance, fugitives to beremanded for interrogation—but no description was given,and when Control tried to recontact, the line was dead. Four: six members of a TacTeam, and the best systems money andmind can make, were defeated and heinously slain by unarmed farmers, who disappeared. If you do not have questions out of all this, I certainly do."

Eykor responded, "We have the junior agent. It appearsthat he knew little of what was going on, being kept deliberately in the -dark, by Errat and the other agent. I am ashamedto say that he was one of our own men, recruited under somepeculiar circumstances. He was low, and had no access, andso could not verify or disprove what Errat told him. I haverecommended retraining and reconditioning, and tentative reestablishment, pending good behavior, of course."

"How did Errat get on that detail? Why weren't your ownmen on it?"

"They say they were properly relieved by Errat."

"Who the hell is this Errat?"

Plattsman answered, "Both Errat and the other agenthave vanished into thin air. All routes have been closed, but I think that will prove nothing. Errat identified himself as an operative out of Secretariat. This was formerly true, as we have uncovered. He was assigned to Section Q, Overseas Branch, but at present had been in retired status. I might add,that was Retired Status After Cause. He was last reported residing in Appalachian Region. That was from Section Q. Appalachian officially denied ever having known such a person. We believe that Errat was the one who called the requestfor TacTeam. He had all the correct codes and authenticators, and the call was made, so we have traced, from Buildingeight-nine-oh-five. He had never left it, at least until then."

Parleau asked, "Are you sure he isn't there yet?"Eykor affirmed, "We have screened everybody, body-search. The building has been scoured. He isn't there."

Plattsman continued, "Control Staff, in conjunction with some friends we have at ConSec-Q, think that Errat had two purposes, not one. The first was to prevent at all cost the girlfrom returning; she would there be turned over to others inthe plot with him for unknown uses. The second was more interesting: you see, there is a faction in A.R. that would likevery much to gain control of the Institute for their own purposes. As you know, the Region is historically poor. Errat hasbeen identified as a sympathizer with this group by an informant we have planted. The secondary purpose of this mission for him was apparently to embarrass us. He did so, but by then the rest had started to add to it, so it was completelyout of control. We think he wanted us to recapture the NewHuman party. The resulting uproar would make us look bad...."

Parleau asked, sitting down at last, "Could Errat have beenworking with them, the ler? They did have a supremacist organization way back in the old days " Parleau had been reading his history.

"We have not found any evidence whatsoever that Errat was working with any group of New Humans, present or past. His dossier lists him as being violently anti-ler. Our implant in in A.R. confirms his association with like-minded groups in the Region, and elsewhere."

Parleau sighed deeply. "Well, whoever he was with, had hisplan worked, the girl would have been taken and we'd be inthe thick of it for sure. We were saved that, at least. But what we're in isn't a whole lot better.... And Errat's gone,you say?"

Eykor answered, "Not out of Seaboard South, unless he got out almost immediately, and there is low probability

there. We sealed all crossings, everywhere. Nobody in or out

without authenticated identification. There is no way he can

get out, unless he walks through the reservation, which I

doubt. It will take time, but we'll get him."

Plattsman commented, "You may not, so plan for the contingency. What we have been able to get out of Q suggeststhat he was formerly engaged in some pretty slippery wet-work for ConSec, working Tricontinent and Africa-Sud for them. God only knows what he was doing for them; those people are tough and they play the game hard. I think that ifhe could survive that as a career, he could probably come and go here pretty much as he pleases."

Eykor exclaimed, "But he was a Controller!"

"Ostensibly, a Controller. In fact, he was the worst sort of spy, and I suspect an assassin. Don't flinch; we still have them, and have good use of them. The Federated Earth Government hasn't been able to eliminate local interests, and right now they're not likely to. As a fact, we encourage it asgeneral policy; the war of spies prevents a war of men, of armies."

Parleau said, "Perhaps, but that's a dangerous game, thatsubstitute. It could lead to worse than skirmishes and riots. And to think that someone turned a wild man like Errat loose among us...."

Plattsman countered, "No, Chairman, they did not turn him loose. He was acting on his own, or with at best a smallgroup. Certain other bodies found it convenient to look theother way. Apparently his friends in A.R. hoped that if thecards fell out right they could make their move. But as thingsgo, they are stumbling more than we are—you'd think it happened there, to hear them deny any connection with Errat."

Parleau exclaimed, "Acted on his own! Nobody acts on hisown!"

"Errat did, apparently," Plattsman said blandly.

"No, no, I refuse to believe that, in this day and age. Could he in turn have been manipulated . . . ?" "Manipulate a manipulator? Now, there's an art form indeed!" "I'm serious. Klyten, had this worked as planned, could this have benefited anyone in the reservation?"

"Chairman, there was a supremacist faction long ago, butit was largely discredited by the separationists and has not been very noticeable since. The separationists were the onesresponsible for helping to consolidate the people and for setting up the reservation. It was heading for a showdown, butsegregating the populations cooled things off, and the extremists were replaced by more flexible groups. But back at theheight of it, the supremacist faction was in contact with somehumans, the most extreme. Were there any left, I suppose that Errat could have made contact."

"Too many loose ends . . . this gets worse and worse, does-

n't it? Well, now: what about the six ler? What happened

to the girl? We know she had to be one of the six."

Klyten answered, "All we can say is that she recovered. How, in so short a time, is beyond me."

"Recovered! Is that possible?"

"As fast as it must have happened? I have no idea. It mustbe, but the method is unknown. Also the reason why they would risk an obviously secret method to recover her. I thought that she might have been faking, but no, it couldn'tbe. I know what an autoforgetter looks like, and she was onefor sure. This condition has no analog in humans—it is notamnesia. It is in fact a form of bodiless death. The personaends. Of course, it isn't perfect, but for practical purposes itworks as advertised. Now, supposedly, such a person can beretrained, but the result is something similar to severe retardation . . . but what she knew and was protecting, she tookwith her. They did not retrieve her to interrogate her. Nordid they make her functional by an unknown methodology todo that, either."

"What could Errat have wanted with her?"

"Unknown. I personally think he wanted an incident."

"That's even worse."

"Yes, Chairman, that is so. Oh, and by the way, speaking

of things worse, and no human analogs, my research peoplefound out what is wrong with the second girl. You know, theone Plattsman found in the photographs."

"Tell us that one, Klyten; there's no shortage of bad newshere, so you may as well add your share."

Klyten ignored the remark, and continued, "They have apsychotic condition, which in the literature is called, for wantof a better term, 'Serial Obsession.'"

Plattsman asked, "What is the effect of it?"

"Apparently it is occasioned by extreme mental stress, andinvolves a severe breakdown in the seat of consciousness. It renders the victim incapable of handling reality in a multiplex, simultaneous manner; they then address each simplexcomponent serially, one at a time. Because the rest drift and go astray, they try to compensate by extreme attention to theproblem, and then the next one as it comes up. Because they are behind, and know it, they have to be more attentive as they handle the next problem."

Parleau commented, "That certainly doesn't sound like a psychosis to me. It doesn't even sound like a problem."

"Well, Chairman, they say that every psychosis has an analog in a political theory. They also say that psychoses are remnants of earlier attempts at consciousness. According towhat I have read, Serial Obsession is a normal condition for humans—it isn't a problem to us, true. But it is a severe one to them. The corrective oscillations become progressivelydeeper and more violent with time. Very gradually, but certainly. The end-product is continual manic violence appliedto everything, rather like a standing temper tantrum."

He paused. "And two things apply here: the first is that it'slike other ler psychoses in that the victim knows he's insane,and can compensate for it and seek a cure; the other is thatthe by-product of the compensation is a state of vigorous well-being that increases with time . . . the victim just can'tunderstand why things keep getting worse despite his best attempts. They tend not to seek a cure, and have to be overpowered eventually. Thankfully, this extremely dangerous condition is very rare. We found only enough cases in the records to substantiate an analysis of the condition. But in regard to the second girl, I can imagine no more dangerous anadversary."

Parleau asked, "Why is that important, here?"

"Because, Chairman, this so-called plan of Errat's shows many of the hallmarks of the influence of such a person; theapparent indecision upon a concrete goal, the ambivalence, the confusion. We were confused because, in essense, Errat and his plan were confused. I agree with you in that something as audacious as this would be doubtful, energized byErrat alone. And if he were acting with a group, this aspectof it would have been suppressed by the combined minds ofthe group—that is how we humans handle the problem. Wedampen it by the views of others—we discuss and argue andmutually agree, and then act. Yes, now that I think of it, I amsure of it," Klyten said.

Plattsman said, "Possible, possible. Fits Control Theorywell enough. The planner influences the plan. Plain, straightforward. That's how we trace plans back to their source, nomatter how obvious the first reading of the source is."

Parleau said, "So it is possible, then, that Errat was working for a ler? That's unreal! What could they gain from it?""Rationally, it would seem little. But we are conjecturing apossibly dangerous, shrewd psychotic, too."

Plattsman exclaimed, "The third man in the crowd-scans! Damn! Why didn't we think of it before? I didn't even thinkto try to match them with the file images of Errat. I'll betthey match."

Klyten said, "Probably will. But it doesn't help us anymore. We still don't know what he wanted, ultimately. Or hiscontact, if there was one."

Parleau said, "Wait, wait a minute. We are drifting fartherand farther away from the central issue. In fact that seems to characterize this whole proceeding, from the time the girl wasdiscovered in Isolation."

Eykor brightened. "A plot, Chairman?"

"No, inattention to the main issue. The committee systemdoesn't seem to save us from serial obsessions of our own, for which I thank Klyten for reminding me. We have been reacting to the wrong stimuli all along. We may be seeing toomuch, and becoming bemused with the process. We're looking at details, trying to run an investigation . . . and the real events are flowing along and jumping up and biting us on theasses, now almost daily. We are looking bad, may I remindyou. We simply have to get on top of this thing, and quickly,too."

Parleau stopped, and looked up at the distant ceiling. He mused, "Now here we have a girl who most probably hassomething to hide." He shot a quick glare at Eykor, then atPlattsman. "And don't try now to figure what. And by contrast, we have a group of ler who ostensibly have nothing tohide, in fact, one is certified clean by our own Control. Butthe first, the girl goes passive and loses her mind, and the lat

. ter fight like a regiment of devils. Now what in hell are wedealing with? Answer me that." Klyten said, "The girl knew escape was improbable. The group was close to the fence.""Hmph. That tells the obvious. It doesn't explain the severity of the response."Eykor said, "There was a man-loss in that."Parleau responded, "I hardly need reminders of that, either. What I am after is why they were so aggressive."Klyten said, "Defense, revenge, who knows. We can't evendetermine who made the first move."

Eykor interrupted, "They made the first move! They fled,they evaded, they..."

"They would possibly have done neither had not Errat seta goon-squad on them," commented Parleau. "So now let me summarize where we are. All this time we've been playing itclose to find out, to see, to know. And with this we getbehind. And so we now find ourselves being put in an increasingly defensive position in regard to Appalachian and Con-Sec. I can well imagine what will be next: Piedmont will startagitating for a piece of the action, on some shabby pretext—they always wait for someone else to stir up the muck, and then they try to scoop up whatever they can."

Eykor asked, "Then what are we to do, different than we've been doing?"

"I have the plan, suggested by this very meeting. First:Control and Security, get Errat, and I don't care how you doit Alive. I want him interrogated, no restraints, and I want everything out of him. But especially what in the hell was hetrying to do and for whom. Second, I want to go back to theoriginal incident the girl. The instruments. Make up some working models. Eykor and Security do both; the rest of youdo what he asks. I'm beginning to think we were right in thebeginning. That's what comes of second-thoughts. And now,"he said, wagging his index finger pedantically, "I have to leave, for a conference call with ConSec. I hope what I haveto say will satisfy them for the moment, buy time, until wecan get a basic handle on this. I hope that we all have thisreasonably straight And if you have any further business, feel free to continue. I'm off to the Communications Center."

Parleau stood, as did the others in deference to him. He gathered some notes from his desk, and left the oflice without ceremony.

The others who were left were silent for a time, but that was only for the moment, and shortly the old free-for-all resumed. The clerk, who had sincerely been trying to keep upwith the discussion, now gave up in consternation and electedto sit back and wait until his services were called for. Theywere not. After an hour, he discreetly left the table, and thenthe office, and returned to his shift assignment They didn'teven know he was gone.

The members of the Regional Board of Inquiry, occasional though the Board was, were creatures of ingrained habitand products of a unique environment That this environment included in its capabilities the ability to monitor and observedistant events through electronic relay systems and Controllers was taken for granted by all of them. But the very easewith which they monitored distant events and made decisiofiupon that which they saw, tended to build in them a habit ofoverconfident insularity, of projecting pseudorealities that possessed the disturbing habit of coming unglued, without existential reference and constant updating.

Thus, in their analysis of the event that occurred near Complex Ten, they were basically correctly oriented to themost pressing problem: Errat. But lacking data, they all toohastily were willing to accept the assumption that he was running. He was not. Or that he knew a lot about what the planner behind him was after. He did not. Errat was content to act, as if alone,, on a set of internal directions. He was, in essence, inertially guided, rather than controlled, by Command or exterior reference.

Errat knew these things both from his long association withControllers and his experiences as an agent for Continental Secretariat; especially that the key personnel of Seaboard South Region would make those assumptions, or somethingvery close to them. He also knew that the successful undergrounder did not so much physically hide or run, as he relied upon flaws in the perceptual field of his opposition. Hehad not been in the field for some time, but the old skills did not die out, being founded upon universals about behavior,and he found them coming back easily. And his feedback toldhim that, at least to date, he had been completely correct.

Nor did Errat trouble himself overly with deep self-analysis. He was in the field primarily because he enjoyed his workin that environment. Perhaps it would have been more correct to venture that he was addicted to it, and had been awayfrom it so long now that he had been playing a very minorgame in his own right, just to keep the hand fresh, so to speak. Then this had come along and offered a fine opportunity to work on a project, and, as a fine, artistic flourish, betray them all, and vanish, letting both parties go down locked in a death-grip; he felt only contempt for both parties,the secretive contact who had intercepted him, and the Region authorities alike. He thought of an aphorism to coverthe situation, as he often did: the conspirator(s) were secretive because they were weak and ineffective; the Region authorities were weak and ineffective because they were secretive.

Hando Errat was not under any illusion that he was secure, however much contempt he had for Seaboard South Region. Indeed, the greater part of his camouflage was basedupon constant mobility, lack of fixture and base. This, admittedly, was somewhat a challenge in a society that placed a premium on lack of movement, but that only added spice toit. And wasn't particularly difficult. He had been prepared forit. That, indeed, had been one of his first lessons, one that had enabled him to survive—that a good agent is not necessarily the one who gets quick results and promotions, but theone who survives to come another day. He had reflected on that lesson often, since this contingency had begun. Perhapsthey would be interested to learn just how easily one could move around, when one could anticipate. After all—after A1Qahira, Esh-Sham, El Kuds the Holy, Jidda, Aden—SeaboardSouth had been a piece of cake to penetrate.

Errat had affected the appearance of a maintenance man in this phase of his movements, and it had been a good disguise. He would hate to give it up. The fastidious avoided his grimy coveralls, and the local precinct Controllers and Security men never looked twice; maint-techs were considered the most conservative and habit-bound members of society, stable and fixed, beginning one day, ending it, always in standard time.

He was engaged in moving his location again, but still within Region Central. He had never left it; indeed, he hadnot properly even left the sight of an observer perched atop8905 . . . had there been such an observer knowing what tolook for. They would expect him to make for the northern border of the Region, toward his ostensible home. But there was only a cubicle in the public dormitory there, and he could give that away without a thought. No, he had remainedin Region Central. Later, he would drift to the south. They expected him to run, and he was standing still. And whychase him at all? He had left deliberate traces of himself at the last, so they would; he had even used his own programmed name, rather than an alias.

Of course there was real danger; but for now he discounted the possibility that Seaboard South would call in operatives from ConSec, some of whom Errat had first trained himself. No, they wouldn't do that; they were too tied up in their own embarrassment to call them in, and by the time they came in on their own, he would be long gone.Let them look for him! But of all things, he was not worried

about what Eykor might think of doing; the man had the

imagination of an earwig, and in that hadn't changed since

Errat had first seen him as a Security man, way back when,

in Alexandria, posted there from sojnewhere in Europe. His

handling of that mutant girl had been typical: doing a half

way job, depending on machines, and then half-covering it

up, protecting department hands. Contemptible all across

the board! He knew that if he had got hold of her, she would

have spoken, indeed would have begged to sing. And when

they had got what they wanted out of her, it would have been

worth sweeping it under the rug and to hell with the protect

ed people, the Muties and their fine little country farm. What

did they have to enforce it with? A pack was only as good as

the arms that backed it....

Errat walked through the rainy streets of the night, all in

all, not too apprehensive. Alert, but by no means paranoid.

Nobody seemed to be following him that he could detect, al

though a couple of incidents had cast some suspicions that

way and sharpened his senses. Nothing he could put his fin

ger on, though, and there were none of the follow-on betray

als of presence. He had highly sophisticated means to spot

trackers. No, he had written it off as a symptom of his being

out of practice. He felt completely in control of the situation,

and being out in the open, on the street, actually gave him a

feeling of exhilaration.

In the quarter in which he was now walking, there werefewer lights and less traffic. He could see very well, however,by the sky-glow, the city light reflected from the low clouds.December, Twelvemonth. In this part of Central, the buildings were still the pastel-stained blocks of the newer parts ofthe city, but this was not a part of the city devoted to plazasand terminals. Rather more like the warehouse quarter, localsupply depots and the like, mixed with shabby rooming houses, transdorms, workers' godowns. He listened to the sounds of the city at night: distant machinery sounds, relaxedand unhurried, muted. Water gurgling in drains, splashingfrom vehicles. The humming of a hovercraft. There would befew out on a wet night like this. He listened carefully, for this was his environment, as some ancient predator might have

listened to the sounds of the jungle. The predators were gone,but their example remained for the last predator, Man. Theworld was City, denser or less dense. The pattern of soundsnow completely reassured him; things were normal, and exactly as they should be.

Errat reached his destination, a down-at-the-heels roomer, used mostly by assistance-recips, itennies, retired laborers, and taxmen, all of whom had never made it to secure a family license. He looked it over carefully with his practiced eye, verifying what he had thought of the place earlier. Asafe place for a couple of days, from which to put out hissensitive antennae into the grapevines of the neighborhood,time to watch the vidcasts and read between the lines. Then, thus reoriented, to move from once more.

There was a doorman, as he expected, but this one did notseem either alert or zealous in his duties. In fact, he seemed half asleep; perhaps more than half.

Errat approached the doorway, feigning a slight confusion,a hesitation, all the time watching the doorman for signs ofbetrayal. There were none. The man was becoming aware ofhim, but there was no alarm in his manner, just a slight annoyance, countered by a desire to interact with someone while at his post. And a sense of superiority, out of the position of doorman, while the stranger in the street, in the rain,had nothing, no place, no peers. He could afford to be haughty, but not so much that the stranger would become angry. A delicate balance of pecking orders. The doorman thought he knew his game well. Errat was a player of thesame game who was leagues ahead of him.

Errat greeted him, "Evening.""Yourself," answered the doorman. "Need in, or just visiting?"

"Like in if I can." Errat set down his duffel, which looked as if it contained tools, but which in reality contained clothing and makeup.

"Bag?"

"Corrosion-controlman, me. Hell of a job."

"Looks like. Where ya been? In the sewers?"

"'Bout. Workin' the cableways. You'd think they'd make 'em so's a body cud stand, but no, ya haf'ta crawl." As Erratregistered the doorman's speech patterns, he swiftly and subtly aligned his own speech patterns to fit them. Nothingworked so well as a properly reproduced local ascent.

" 'Ja see any?"

"See any what?"

"C'rosyun."

"Shee-yit."

"Looks like. Well, what's yur name and number?"

'Tanner, twenty-four-A— Wait a min't, I'll dig those papers out, they're aright here " Errat fumbled for something in the deep pockets of the coverall, a prolonged process.

The doorman, convinced of his sincerity, watched him fumble for a time, and then said, "Man, there's no need, there. Bugger it! Hold on, the nightmon's out, but I'll get you something. We got empties."

"No, no. I'll need 'um for the ledge."

"Na, na, bugger the ledge, the ledgerkeep, and the 'orse 'e sat 'is arse on. We'll get to it, by and by. How long ya be?""Semipermer, me. Working this sector.""Well, then, all right! No prob, come on." And he lurched

off his stool, opening the outer gate for Errat to enter. Nowtogether, they walked down a drafty, damp, poorly lit hallway, arriving at a board beside a small window in the wall.The window was closed. From the board, the night watchmannow removed a key, fumbling and deciding, handing it to Er-rat. There was a tag attached to the key, with a piece of dirtyand frayed string.

"Here y'are, two-oh-one. Up the stairs and to the right; yacan't miss it. It's the only one to the right, har, har. Say, wanta sip a' caffers?"

"I'd like, but I gotta bag. I mean, the sheets are reallybarkin'. Been a long un. How 'bout tomorra?"

"Ya off?"

"Can take it."

"Well, all right! Say then, see ya then, um?"

"Will do, there. What was your name?"

"Bork, me. Paulie Bork."

"See ya then, Paulie."

Errat turned to the stairwell and started up, feigning tiredness and an older, hard-worked body. He reflected as he did so that he didn't have to fake too much; he actually was tired. Letdown. He was past the last event of the day. This place was going to be perfect, perfect. Shabby and forgotten,except in the mind of some renewal planner, who would replace it with something no less trashy. How else keep the proles busy? But it was no matter tha'. He found himself slipping unconsciously into the gutter idiom as he climbed the narrow stairs, unable to resist the temptation to fall completely into the character of it. No doubt about it, he was tired, but it was also good to be out in the field once again,out on the killing floor, on the line.

Errat found the room, unlocked the door, and entered, re-locking it as he closed it. He let his bag settle to the floor, quietly. In the dimness he could make out a bed, a washstand. The bed was small, probably too soft and too lumpy.Where was the chair and desk? There was usually one. Yes,there it was; by the window he saw an outline of a chair, hiseyes adjusting. He smelled deeply, sifting the odors of the room, waiting for the expected odor of transient old rooms, of musty sheets and smoke-abused curtains. Yes, just like heexpected. And Errat's skin crawled.

There was something else in the odors of the room. He reached for the light switch on the wall behind him by thedoor, felt for it, fumbled, fighting panic generated by something he could smell but not see, found it, flipped it. Nothinghappened. He tried to recover quickly, get control of the situation. He admitted to a moment of fear. He cursed the slowness of night-vision, trying to see into the furry shadows,backlighted by the window. Yes, the desk. On the desk. It wasbetween two windows, and the backlighting had obscured it.Something bulky and body-sized on the desk. He inhaled deeply and slowly, trying to catch the elusive scent, mutteringunder his breath about faulty lights, emitting minor obscenities* reaching for his throw-knife at the same time. A heavyplastic, it could not be detected by the finest weapon-detector,and could even be bent, slowly, to fit. He also had a gun, made of similar material, but he knew he'd never reach it. But he knew one thing; he had time. If it was here to kill andask no questions, they would have already tried.

He felt the reassuring warm solidity of the throw-knife. What was that scent? Wet clothing. Somebody had been outin the light rain, with him, for the rain had only started lessthan an hour ago. Ergo, following him. Hmph. Damn skillfuljob, that. ConSec, already? No, darkened rooms weren't theirgame. And under the wet clothing, a warm body, also damp,a little sweaty, a little nervous. Still. There was another scent,an adrenaline odor, and something else, something tense thatmade him tense in turn. And there was more, too, female, perhaps, and something more.

Errat took a chance. "Zandro? Zandro Milar?" That had been the name of his elusive contact through this whole thing, the contact who had sought him out, found him. Theone who made payments, advised, called, always by maddeningly indirect methods. All Errat had managed to discover about this contact was that the owner of the name was probably female, and younger than himself. He had further suspicions, but they made no immediate sense, and he needed

additional data. He breathed again, trying to get a bearing on

the source of the odor-presence. No luck. Whoever had come

in had been in long enough to muddy the air. He watched

the bulk on the desk intently, watching for movement. He

could not tell. His eyes were still adjusting.

A voice emanated from the desk, much like the one he had heard before. Female, throaty, almost hoarse, but with the betrayals of youth in it, too. "Indeed. Speak quietly, theremay be monitors." Yes, the same. And what an odd accent.Errat plumbed his encyclopedic memory, trying to place the accent. He couldn't. It didn't register at all. It continued, "Yes, you were correct. I am Milar. And you certainly havestirred up the anthill."

Errat listened carefully, finding direction. Smell wasn't good enough to find, in a situation like this, or in wind. Butsound was, almost as good as seeing. He moved his head slightly from side to side as the figure spoke, getting the range. Yes, he had it. He could do it. Just like the time in Zinder, when he had got his man in total darkness. The fool!He had stopped to gloat, and had paid. This one was the same. They all were. The source of the voice seemed a little off, little low, as if the owner were half reclining. Odd posefor a threat. She probably had a needier on him. No problem,there! Needlers were invariably low-velocity. He could do it,and move, playing the slowness of her reactions and the slowness of the weapon against her. Yes, there. He thoughthe saw the suggestion of movement, a slight shift. Or had itbeen?

He said, buying time, "You said that I was to kill the girl and those who came for her, or salt them away, and keepthem confused. I did not get the girl, it is true, but much confusion resulted. Seaboard South," he hazarded, "is now discredited."

"You hired reptiles to do primate work." Errat heard, andthought that an odd turn of phrase.

"Couldn't get anyone else." He was stalling now. He edgedimperceptibly closer to the figure on the desk. God, but she was careless, talking while he closed in. Send babes to do grown-up's work was just not the word. But he could hear thethreat in the voice, accent or not. Yes, this one would be easy.

The voice said, "We are dissatisfied, unfulfilled in our most fervent hopings."Errat listened, still weight-shifting, creeping immeasurably

forward, slowly, closer, closer. Shooting in the dark like this,you had to get as close as possible, reduce the CEP* of a quick-thrown knife. Yes, it was Milar. The odd speech patterns, the accent, the Modanglic of an educated foreigner, one who didn't speak Modanglic as a native. Where could that be? There were few places left where it wasn't spoken,and he thought he knew all those accents. Errat felt some regrets. He would hate to kill this Milar before he found outwho she was and who she represented. All the same . . .

* Circular Error Probable.

He said, "They may have set hopes too high for realization. And the direction I received was not a model of clarity."

"Those are insignificant. Our affair here is with the failureof the prime operative."

Errat now had his knife straightened, in pre-throw position,his muscles relaxed, but set and ready to obey for the one swift stroke. He said, taunting, "Not the operative, but the purveyor of instructions!" On the last word he threw the knife at the target he had picked. It would be the throat. Hecould not risk the blade being turned by the ribs. The throat.Disable now, and polish off in a moment, after some tacticalrepair and a quick interrogation. He was expert at that. Buteven as he released the knife he had the smallest hesitation, as if something weren't right. The feeling had been nagginghim all afternoon. Even as it left his hand, he knew there was something wrong, all wrong, and he had made the wrongmove. What was it? The knife struck, that he heard, but the sound was not that of a knife penetrating flesh. Instantly, as the fact registered in his mind, he felt a sudden sharppressure at his back, up and to the left side between the ribs,like a rough shove in a crowd, in a queue, followed by heatand pressure at his heart. Incredible heat! He tried to move,to take a breath. He couldn't. His feet seemed nailed to the floor, his chest bound with iron. The universe contracted to a node of pain, his chest, his back. So this is what it feels like to be knifed, the rational part of his mind thought, coolly and idly.

He did manage to start a turn before he completely lostcontrol of his legs. Yes, his assassin had been behind him allthe while, waiting by the door, absolutely quiet. He must have almost touched her. How had she projected her voice,been so quiet? These things disturbed Errat greatly, and he thought upon them, as he collapsed to the floor, his consciousness fading- And the last thing he saw was the figure of a woman bending over him, her heavy clothing rustling loudly. And then there was nothing.

The person who had claimed to be the bearer of the programmed name Zandro Milar slipped quietly out of the shadows, the deeper shadows by the door, moving stiffly, awkwardly, to stifle the rustling of clothing. The figure bent over Errat, as if listening, or casting for a scent, a gesturecuriously animal-like. It did not touch the body. Apparentlysatisfied, it straightened and stepped over the body to the desk. There, it removed an object from the bundle on the desk, inserted it in a small canybag it was carrying. Then itstopped, pausing, not so much looking, as it did not move itshead, but reminding itself, reviewing circumstances. It recalled something, and went back to one of the windows, carefully opening it a crack. There was a slight draft, and then the night air started seeping into the room. Then it steppedover the body, reaching the door, where again it paused, an interminable moment, listening. There was no presence in thehall outside. It opened the door a crack. There was a strongerdraft. Setting the lock, Zandro Milar stepped outside and closed the door, listening for the click of the lock.

In the hallway, had anyone been there to see, the harshlight would have revealed a slender, smallish woman, dark ofcomplexion, a swarthy olive that suggested a Mediterranean type, sharp-featured, perhaps an Iberian, or an Arab, who might have been attractive had it not been for a predatorycast to her facial structure. She wore the awkward clothing ofthe day with singular gracelessness.

Milar walked quietly down the hallway to a room at the far end, entered, carefully closing the door behind her. Inside,she seemed to slump, relaxing, and sat on the bed, removingher shoes, which seemed to bother her more than all the rest of the clothing. She leaned back and wriggled her toes, relaxing at last. After a moment, she got up again, and removed allthe clothing she had been wearing, and adding the canybag,placed all of it in a small suitcase. She finished, straightened,and walked across the room to a closet. Passing before the single mirror in the room, she glanced at the reflection, seeing it only very dimly, even in the city light coming in thewindows from outside. She smiled. Out of her clothes, her motions were no longer lumpish and crude, but fluid and

graceful. She flexed her hands, stretched until joints cracked.

She checked the closet, verifying that another set of clothing

was there, a man's coverall. Satisfied, she returned to the

lumpy bed, lay on it, naked, pulling the covers around her,

and fell instantly asleep.

After a time, her breathing became deep and regular, andthen she revealed, unknown to her, her only flaw as an operative. She began to mutter, almost inaudibly, in her sleep.Even then, some part of her remembered who and where she was, so that the muttering was very quiet, indeed. It was doubtful if it could have been heard outside the room. Even inside the room, one would have to listen closely to hear it atall. And it would have been valueless to hear it, for the muttering was not in Modanglic. More specifically and strictly,it really wasn't in a language, at least not in the sense of anyone who might have been there to hear it.

When the light from the window had brightened to a certain degree, Milar awoke, as if on some internal timer. She dressed, first donning a tight undergarment that smoothedand obscured the shape of her body, which although undeniably female, was also subtle of curve, wiry, and muscular.Then, over that, the coverall of a hard-laborer. Her hair was short, a deep dull black, a gun-metal blue in the highlights. This she tucked into a tattered flat cap affected by most heavy workmen. She checked a cheap pocket chronometer, nodded to herself. Then, carefully inspecting the room one last time, picked up the suitcase, left the room, and headed down the hallway.

Last night's rain had blown off toward the east, toward theGreen Sea; now it was winter-bright outside, and the lightwas full of blue overtones, which she saw and appreciated. Inthe building, she could hear others getting up and beingabout, getting ready for the events of the day. More significantly, which brought her back to reality, the doorman wouldhave been relieved now by a Daysider, or perhaps no relief atall. She looked, as she entered the lower hall. Correct. No one was there. She walked calmly out of the building, fightingan intense urge to run. She fought with herself, knowing shehad to get control of herself. It began to pass. The adrenalineshe might release could trip stress-monitors all up and down the street. She forced herself to be calm, repeating certainformulas to herself. She paused by the corner, looked back.

Good. Nothing. Now she relaxed in truth, feeling it flood intoher.

Not for nothing had she followed Errat carefully, at greatrisk to herself from him and from others. She had studied him before she had picked him to do the task for her, and now that it had been bungled, she had used that informationto predict his movements. It had been interesting, but also tooeasy. Not half as hard as the one she had him set up. Thatone had escaped for almost a year before she finally nailedher down. And of course Errat had to be eliminated, for in him was a trace to her. Unlike Errat, she did not enjoywetwork, as she had heard him call it. But there had been no cure for it; she had to do it herself. And by the time they discovered Errat, she would be long safe. Yes, and maybe more.... Perhaps then she would have the hammer in her hand, the power, and then there would be a reordering, a replacing, indeed. But back to affairs. There was one more tiresome loop to close, a painful one, but one that had to be.

She placed the suitcase in a public locker, designed to foilthe most determined thief, paying the fee into the credit-box,extracting the identification slip, with its magnetic numbers.This she took to the tube-train terminal and threw in a collecting trashpile, wadded up and unrecognizable. After that, shepurchased a ticket for the Institute Halt, and settled in the waiting room, smiling an odd little half-smile to herself. Shehad taken some extra days, it was true, to do this job herself, but it had been good work. Now, if she could only catchthe other in time, she would have all the loose ends tied off for godd.

BOOK THREE

Navis et Arx

SIXTEEN

When one extracts all the irrational elements

from love, that which is left is a thing unendur

able, unreasonable, and it is most irrational that

one should care to pursue it.

—Ibid

With assistance and advice from Kaldherman, the aid of a rascally, squint-eyed elder known as Jaskovbey the Smuggler, who lived on the banks of the River Yadh, and an attitude of bored disinterest on the part of officials of PiedmontRegion, across the river to the west, Morlenden—using nothing more elaborate than Manthevdam, an assumed name— openly boarded a tube in Piedmont Central, and with one change in Oconee Region, and another on the West Coast,reached a point close by the reputed location of the house ofMevlannen Srith Perklaren. In three days.

Morlenden had his directions to get there, gained from Klervondaf as they walked home from the northeast: west from the old settlement of Santa Barbara, continuing on thelocal transport, now aboveground to Jalama, where the routeturned north, and follow the coast. It was not entirely without hazard; he was walking in the back door of the main continental spaceflight center, but it was not, by and large,guarded, reflecting the widespread belief that the main concern of Man lay not in ways to depart the Earth, but inensuring more ways to survive upon it. In fact, the space program had rather languished for the past two centuries, andaside from timid, careful forays around the inner Solar System, and rarer probes into the outer portions, there was littleactivity. Even the telescope project, which to Morlenden's ears had sounded amazing, was half asleep. Work progressed

at a measured pace. A slow one. And there were no enemies

to guard against. .. .

Morlenden left the transport early in the morning, and

aside from a glance around to get his bearings, did not look

back. He spent the morning negotiating country given over to

pasturage, some desultory farming; but soon the land became

too isolated, too precipitous for even that, and even that

shred of civilization fell behind him. Now he walked along

above the empty cliffs, above a most strange sea in the wan

ing light of afternoon, plodding on toward a holding hidden

away in one of the last pockets of wilderness on the coasts of

old North America.

Morlenden was not well-traveled, and had never seen salt water before (Fellirian had seen the Green Sea once, beforetheir weaving. He had asked, "What did it look like?" Andshe had answered, "Just like a big lake; you can't see the other side. Oh, yes, it smelled funny, and there were waves.")and now he was walking along the edge of the largest oceanin the season of storms. He found it fascinating, full of novelty and endless mystery, but also alien and disturbing; thiswas the Pacific, and the season was winter. A cold wind blew off the sea, and though he could remember seeing palm treesfarther back, it was a cold wind that chilled him to the bone. The sky seemed clear, but there was a milky film in it, an unsettled unsteadiness, as if, at any moment, a storm might blow up, or fog, or rain. He had heard as much about the region. And along the way he had walked, he had seen the ruined remains of buildings and posts, eroded and abraded bythe constant salt-laden wind.

Mevlannen reportedly spent her days on Earth, when she was not working, in a cabin perched atop one of the local mountains. Pico Tranquillon it was named in the older human language of the area. Morlenden thought, looking about himself as he walked, that the name was most curious: a tranquil peak above a quiet sea. That was what the name meant. But the sea was not quiet; the surf grumbled away,sometimes roared, sometimes growled, and constantly groundaway at shells and rocklings in the shallows. It heaved and crawled, that quiet sea, like some live thing. Morlenden avoided looking into the shimmering, pearl-horizoned distances overly long; he sensed some weakness in himself forthis empty place.

And the tranquil peak? The wind whipped at his cloak, and now it was rising, fretting and fraying the wild grasses, hissing at the windblown trees, dark cypresses. The sky watched, unstable, ready now to permutate and change on the instant. In the place of the peak of tranquility, there wasnothing tranquil at all, unless it was the wavelike repose ofthe land and its life, its sense of steady enduring, in the midstof flux.

He walked on in the fading afternoon, becoming uncomfortable in the bite of the relentless wind off the cold ocean. He had seen colder weather, even slept out of doors in someof it, back in the reservation. He had seen snow, often, and he knew it was rare here, yet it was still uncomfortable. There was a feeling of unwelcome to it. The wind, the unimaginable sea full of mysteries, the merciless alien surf andits constant grumblings, the iodine reek of the sea close to hand, unescapable. And he was uncomfortable with his role aswell—the bearer of bad tidings. And no doubt she would beexpecting a younger Tlanhman; she would get a parent phasehalf-elder long past the change, who moreover was beginningto feel fatigued, snared in cobwebs, enmeshed in a labyrinthof plot within plot. It could be unpleasant. And he could notimagine how the girl lived out here alone.

The path—once upon a time, long ago, a road—had led him inward from the beach cliffs and across some deserted flats where yellow wild grain glistened and rippled in the afternoon light. There were remnants of buildings, sheds; thishad been a prosperous farm once. Long ago. They were allgone now. Out on the point, on a headland, west and to hisleft, he could make out the shapes of another ruin, some building long since fallen in upon itself. There were pilings inthe water. Hawks patrolled the air, rattlesnakes guarded theground. There was something lonely and beautiful beyondbearing directly here; he could see clearly, although he could not frame it in words. Descriptions wouldn't do; what it needed was a legendman to set a terrible drama in these lands, for only in lines of action could the true shape of theplace be drawn. Now there was a pervasive melancholy in theair, something in the light. One was impelled to heroic deeds,but also to much brooding. Yes, perhaps the light, an odd, porcelain light, half filtered by the sea air. Or the wind, which was definitely rising, now roaring on its own accountfrom time to time. Morlenden pulled his cloak tighter, raisedand fastened the hood, and followed the path upward, stopping occasionally to catch his breath.

He had worked a good part of the way up to the peak when the light began failing, a thickening in the air. The shadows deepened, spread, grew. Clouds began to appearoverhead, subtle, close to the earth, vague in exact shape, salmon and rose-colored, tints of an impossible fleeting yellow. He felt more uneasy, although in his life he had walkedmany a lonely mile; and from somewhere far below him now,he heard, from far away, carried by the wind, a strange howling. Like a dog, but unlike, too, full of idiotic laughter. Heshivered, and not from the wind; he had walked there not longbefore. An eerie place for the girl, full of ghosts and spirits.

He almost walked into the place before he realized that hehad attained it. Morlenden had been following switchbacks,one after another, walking up the unending mountain trail, and suddenly there were no more, and he was in a shallow saddle between the peak itself and a lower western shoulder. He could see into the north, across a tumbled, shadowy landof valley and uplands beyond, now filling like a bowl with darkness. The clouds were closer overhead, moving swiftly,rippling and leaping with eagerness.

And before him, sheltered under the shoulder of Pico Tranquillon, was a tiny stone cabin, the yellow light inside itspilling out into the darkening evening and the night. A thinstreamer of smoke was being torn from the stone chimney. An odd little place, not at all like anyplace a ler would live in, but for the moment, he thought it was the cheeriest thinghe had ever seen. And above, on the peak itself, were moreruins: shells of concrete, the twisted frameworks of some metal apparatus tangled above them. The wind hissed in themetal, hating it, wearing it down only slightly slower than itwore at the rocks. Morlenden hurried to the door, knocked.

He hadn't expected Mevlannen, the insibling of Maellenkleth, to resemble the latter. After all, it had been the Nerh, Klervondaf, who had shared an insibling parent with Maellen. This one would be a stranger; they had different parentsin the flesh. The person he saw in the opened doorway was aler girl of the appropriate age, about twenty, but she lookedolder. She was dark-haired, as much as he could see of her, but pale-skinned and rather light-eyed. She had a sharp, foxyquality of face that contrasted sharply with the rounded softness of Maellen. But none of the predatory in it, as Sanjirmil, either. The sharpness here was one of fineness anddelicacy, not of muscles held tensed in opposition.

Her hair was straight, dark brown, very fine in texture, worn longer than was seemly for a girl her age.... Then herecalled where she had been the last five years or so. Her skin was a pale snow-creamy color, lightly spotted with tinyfreckles. The nose was straight and narrow, this reminding him most of Taskellan. The winter overshirt she wore concealed most of her body, but from the long, slender neckand the fine, delicate collarbone, he could see that she was thinner than the average, who tended toward a slightly morestrong frame.

Behind the girl was a fireplace, and in it a fire was built and brightly burning; not a traditional hearth, but a heavystonework fireplace, presumably of human style, although Morlenden had never seen one. The fireplace, and a coupleof oil lamps, seemed to be the only light. The girl, backlit bythe warm glow, looked at him with unconcealed curiosity.

She began, tentatively, as if describing a phenomenon,rather than speaking directly. "I was told by the publicmessage service that a visitor was coming . . . and one stands in my door, in the evening, after the fashion of a traveler, almost as one who would go on the Salt Pilgrimage. Yet thereis not salt here."

He answered, "I am Morlenden Deren, and I am your visitor. The name I have used to travel under, and the clothing,only suggest a poor enough disguise."

"I am Mevlannen Srith Perklaren." The voice was, for all its indirection, even and plain, cool and reserved. It was thevoice of one who had learned privacy, and who did not offerinvitations casually. "Am I the one you seek?"

"You are. May I come into your house? There is much wemust say."

She stepped back from the doorway, making a motion withher right hand for him to enter. The motion was in the sameunderlanguage as had been her words, reserve, skepticism.Yet also within was hunger and loneliness as well. Morlenden saw, and deeply regretted the news that he was to bring.More yet he regretted that he had been born too soon: he deeply appreciated what the graceful, reserved motions offered. What was being displayed here. All for nothing. Hestepped inside the door, over the threshold, hearing the doorlatch behind him.

She held out her hands to him to take his cloak, and he slipped out of it and handed it to her. He proceeded forwardbluntly. "The reason I have come is twofold: one, to bring you bad tidings; and the other, to be told something by you,if you will believe that I am indeed the one to carry it."

She hung the cloak on a peg in the wall by the fireplace. "Ihad thought when the word came it might be somethingbad," she said quietly, turning back to him. "You know that no one ever comes here. Ever. At first, I would journey home,but as things went forward, lately . . ."

"I understand some of it. I have been to the yos of the Perklarens. And I see that you are now a stranger in your own yos."

"True. But are we not all thus, one time or another? But never mind that. I have a nice supper. Will you eat here withme, sleep with me tonight?"

"I had hoped to. I have never come so far before."

She turned from her place by the fire. "This is one of thefew places where the world as it was of old has been kept. It used to be said, of the lands along this coast, and another place farther north, that here creation still continued. Maelwas here . . . and loved it. My fellow workers think it peculiar that I should live alone on top of Pico Tranquillon, but itsuits me. They are terrified by the loneliness, but those are my needs. Solitude. I am not bothered here; when I am down, I am free to sit by the window, watch the sea and thesky, and dream.... You know that I am an engineer, but were I that and nothing more, I would be a poor one, I think."

Morlenden looked about the tiny cabin. He nodded approvingly. "Yes, I understand. It is a cozy home here. I didnot know that it could be thus, here, outside."

"I tried to get a yos cast here, but the Revens would not hear of it.... So I built this place myself. It is a copy of ahuman cabin; I learned from places I have seen along thiscoast. Odd, that, for in the older times, this country, here, was the place where all the newest things were tried And now it is the only place on the continent where even a traceof the old ways remain."

Morlenden agreed, noting her hands as he did. Built it herself? With those delicate, needleworker hands, pale and slimfingers? There was more to her than met the eye. But he knew that would be the case. Too much ocean, too much deep space, too much an alien society, the society of humans.Mevlannen had undergone a sea-change.

She said, "So. We will have all night to talk about things.

And I read from your face, Morlenden Deren, that I will beunhappy by that which I will hear. So let us eat Come, sit."She faced him with an arch, coy expression, yet with something wistful in it as well. And as if she sensed his appraisalof her, she said, "I know well enough we could not be evencasual lovers, even for a night; but you can, if you will, lendme for a time some small part of that which I have given up.Lost, now. I need talk, the warmth of my own . . . too much have I seen of silence and conspiracy." She finished and moved around the table with a curious floating grace, a slow,flowing, dancelike motion that caused her overskirt to flow,and eddy about her slender body.

Morlenden sat at a rude table that incorporated benchesinto its form. It looked hand-planed, rough-finished. She hadsaid that she had made this cabin herself. The table too, obviously. She was a capable one, this Mevlannen, for all her delicacy and slenderness of figure.

After supper, which they partook in silence, they sat by thefire on cushions, cross-legged like tailors, and drank steamingcups of coffee, to Morlenden's taste a harsh, bitter drink. Mevlannen had also laced it heavily with brandy. The girlseemed used to it, and as he drank, Morlenden found that it did banish the fatigue and apprehensions he felt.

Mevlannen looked blankly into the fire. She said, suddenly,"Bring me your bad tidings, now."

He began hesitantly, "It is Maellenkleth . . . she had an accident." He stopped. This would lead nowhere. He could circle it all night and never tell her. She needed to know. Bluntness would be best. The cuts of it were deep, but theywould heal faster.

"Some months back, Maellenkleth was captured outside byhumans. After that, something they did apparently frightenedher, and she autoforgot."

Mevlannen continued looking into the fire, giving no sign.She nodded, once, curtly, to acknowledge that she had heardhim.

He continued, "We, the Derens, were commissioned by thePerwathwiy Srith to locate her, determine what had happenedto her. But they would tell us nothing, none of them.... Wewent to Krisshantem, a hifzer, who was her last lover, and with him, we retrieved her from the place where they hadkept her. And with Krisshantem leading, performed a restoration. On the way back to the reservation, some agents tried toprevent us from reaching our destination. In escaping them, they pressed the hunt, and on the fence she was shot by a wire-guide. She died soon after that, after we made revengeupon those who would use a proscribed weapon."

Mevlannen nodded again. "Who performed the rites? Shewas of the Water elemental." "We knew, and we did it. The Derens. Taskellan witnessed for the Perklarens, or rather for so much as is left of them."

"What has happened to Kler and Tas? Tell me."

"Klervondaf is living with the Braid of Plindestier. We havetaken in Taskellan. He was too young; he needed a Braid, ahome. Why were your parents not at home? Why did they not come? Your Braid is full of mysteries, but that one is most far from me."

"Didn't they tell you anything? The Perwathwiy? Sanjirmil?"

"They would say nothing. I wormed out some informationabout Mael from them, as I went, but it was not much, and concerned only her. I have talked with Sanjirmil, but she was more opaque in her words than the others were in their silences."

"I see. Yes, I can imagine that—that they would not havetold you. They couldn't. Yes, it is true . . . the parents Perklaren were not at home as they should have been, and theycould not do right for Mael. I know why; I understand. Theywould do it that way... there was no choice."

"So you know."

"Yes. All too much. That is why I do not travel. I am, I suppose, in it even thicker than was poor Mael. She was ourvaliant soldier, she was, all the while we stayed in the back,working, working...."

"I was told, in her last words, by Maellenkleth, to get fromyou a matrix, to return and transmit it to Sanjirmil. Do youalso know the significance of this?"

She started, an abrupt movement, alarm on her face. "Thematrix? Now? Are you sure of this thing?"

"Certain as I am of little else. She was dying, and a part ofthe old persona emerged, just enough to get that out. Will you give it to me, and will you tell me what is so importantthat a girl should die twice before her time to protect it?"

"Yes . . . I will tell you. Everything. They should have,themselves, from the beginning. You could stumble, and undothe work of generations. You should have known. Theyshould have done it all, initiated you...."

"Krisshantem taught me the Outer Game."

"Not good enough by far, but it will help you understand."

"Then why not more?"

"They probably feared that outside you would tripstressies."

"Stressies?"

"Chemical stress-monitors. They detect anxiety chemically. In your scent, your breath. They are everywhere, but of course more so in the East. They work on us, too. In fact, weusually give stronger readings through them. That is why theywould not tell you. You must take oath to autoforget to protect it."

"I would not reveal a secret, no more than Maellen."

"Just so, just so. I do not doubt you. But we simply couldnot risk sending many into oblivion. And if a centipede losesenough legs, even it will stop walking. And of course, thingscan be traced."

The girl arose now, refilled the cups, and returned to the place before the fire. She did not evidence any emotion Morlenden could identify, but her eyes were moist, reflectingbrightly the light of the fire. She blinked rapidly. A log in thefire collapsed, sending a whirl of sparks up the chimney. Outside, the wind took up a constant moan, and Morlenden could hear rain pelting on the windowpane.

Mevlannen looked up. "I will tell you what I know. Thenthe matrix. You will understand it then. I will not have youstumbling in the dark anymore. You are far too dangerousthat way. But you must oathmake to me, on your name, thatyou will autoforget to protect it."

Morlenden hesitated, drawn by the mystery, but also repelled by the idea of autoforgetting. He said, "Then so be it.On my name, which no one else has ever carried."

She looked deeply at him, into him, with eyes as bright andpiercing as needles of fire. They were a soft, pale-blue color,almost gray, but in the firelight and the intensity of the moment, he did not see the color, so much as he felt that he was being weighed and measured as he had never been before. Apparently she saw what she wished to see. She took a deepbreath.

"Very well . . . now I don't know how to tell this to you properly, for I am not a tale-teller. I know not where to start it; I have lived with it, as did Mael, all my life. And for some of the recent parts, since I came out here, there will be guessing. They will be accurate enough. You see, Mael was to

come here in person, when the time was ripe, for the matrix.No other way; her, alone, when the time came. And so bywhat you have said, and its truth, I know it is time, but fasterthan was expected. After this, you may tell me why this isso."

Morlenden settled back. "I will do what I can. And now, I am ready."

SEVENTEEN

Every word that we utter must decrease the ignorance and increase the mystery. —Ibid

The real beginnings of a journey occur longbefore the act of physical departure. —Enosis ton Barbaron

Mevlannen began, "And now will I give you blunt strokefor blunt stroke, Morlenden Deren. It is thus: we who are the pampered and protected curios, we who live lives characterized by the forerunners as all too agricultural and oversexed, we who supposedly fear technology ... we possess a trueship of the deep spaces, ship and ark, ark and weapon, whichwas to have carried all of us to a new world beyond the stars,our own place, our world."

Morlenden listened to her, heard her words clearly, withno misunderstanding of them, but all the same he wonderedif the news of the death of Maellenkleth had not undermined her sanity; that perhaps she was now reliving a vaguelegend that had circulated about the reservation for several hundreds of years. She had taken the news calmly, too calmly, and now her words were those of romantic bravado. . . . Or was it true? He asked, not concealing his disbelief, "You mean a machine, like the humans build and use to take you to the telescope? And this would take ... all of us to some other world? Aside from being preposterous,where is such a large and weighty device located, that no onehas seen it all these years?"

"I will answer your objections, one by one. Our starship islike the forerunner craft only in that it moves in the same medium, it moves living creatures across the void. But end-functions do not determine things, only the manner of their use. The means, not the ends. And the means determine the shape of the tool. But yes, originally, it was for all of us, andyes, it will go to the stars, as far as we have to. And above all, yes, it is hidden now, but soon it will be revealed. And it was to protect that secret that Maellen paid the price, herprice, her value. And why you have been told nothing up tonow, why you never suspected. It has been a secret since before there was a reservation, indeed it is the sole reason that there is such a thing as the reservation, quiet and isolated from the struggles of this world. And there has never been aleak, not when this was just a dream, a theory, nor when it was building, nor when it is almost ready."

"Not completely leak-free. There are legends, common knowledge among the children, though we all called them nonsense sooner or later. Who could imagine such a thing?"

"Legends? We nurtured the legend. We, Morlenden; thePerklarens, the Terklarens, the Revens, Dragonfly Lodge, wewho are Kai Hrunon, the Shadow that Governs. We kept italive, so that when all was in readiness, need, we would send word in a truth-speaker, and the people would come."

And now Mevlannen stopped, thinking, reaching for somegraceful entry into the story she had longed all her life to tellsomeone, a stranger, but never had. But all her life she had lived in the community of those who knew those whose wholelives consisted of an intricate dance about a point that all acknowledged, an understood, unspoken, implied but invisiblekeystone of their lives.

She began again, "It was in the beginning, when theystarted the Braids, the Law, the Way. Before the reservation.You must understand that. The whole thing with us, the entire culture, the way we perceived, everything was engineeredto convince all outside observers that there never could be such a thing of the people. A vast prestidigitation that also had to fool the magician as well, or at any rate most of him.And of course it was successful, as you will be the first to admit. So successful that even our own imagine it to be nomore than a child's fable; so successful that the disguise hastaken root on its own, and now guides the inner long-rangeplan as well. The values of the disguise have now permeatedthe real plan. And when we leave Earth, the concepts and the way of life that we take with us to transplant on strange soilare not the values of the originators of the plan, but those ofthe shadow-play that protected them all these centuries.

"... But in the beginning, we were not sure it could be done; it was a hope, a theory, a gamble. But the suspicionwas so strong we could not ignore it; so it was started at themountain called Madness. Inside, it was hollowed out, a little at a time, a handful, a pocket-load, to make a place for theark that was to be. And just as gradually, in the smoky meditation halls of Dragonfly Lodge, one pocketful of principle ata time, it began to come into view, to manifest itself. It wasthen we learned that the whole concept of ideas about spacetravel we had been laboring under was wrong, full of limits we would never transcend . . . like powering aircraft with coal-fired steam engines. It would never fly, and should it, byaccident, it would never take us anywhere, or anyone else forthat matter.

"Now spaceflight had been approached by the forerunners,and some good work they did, work we are still using in thevery program in which I am involved. But it has limits thatany child can see; and to escape them, a whole series of fantasies was concocted, leading nowhere in hard science. Whatwas the concept? That one moves in space according to Newton and his bloody laws of motion: forced-power, impositionof will, the Fire elemental, chemical rockets, ion-drives, solar-wind sails. All wrong. It was exactly like when the forerunners in prehistory first sailed upon seas; they couldonly use natural forces—buoyancy, floating ships with sails tocatch the wind, launched by the tides. And we, standing onthe shore of a new and terrible sea, would do the same; we, too, would tap tides and winds and currents. Only all thosewould be analogs, stranger forms of energy-flow in a larger and more multiplex universe."

Morlenden said, "I have world-knowledge; you mean that you tap directly into things like gravity, solar wind, things like that?"

"No:" Her sharp, delicate face became focused, intense. "No. Those things you speak of, the principles, they are nth-order derivatives of the basic underlying forces we tap. In thethings you know, there are no words for the currents, the flows, the forces, the concepts. And we have taken care to ensure that this remains so, forever, until we are ready to giveup the secret.

"Now we saw that space was sea, the great sea. And we saw the analogy of ships of one kind of sea comparing to ships of the other sea. Just so, so that even in Singlespeech we still call a container of people that moves according to control in that medium a ship. But the flaw in the old concept was that we tried to leapfrog to powered ships, fueled ships, before we even knew the nature of that new sea.Or about the kinds of power we could use. Then we saw. And understood. And when we did, we also understood whywe could not test it with a model. You will see also. So we pushed the thinkers, the theoreticians; some collapsed fromthe effort, others retired in disgust and discouragement. Butalways some stayed, and at last we knew enough to begin.Then the Player Braids were formed: first were the Klarens,who were to become the Per-Klarens when the second Player Braid was added, the Ter-Klarens. And thus we have been, until this last generation."

"Thus you have been. To do what?" asked Morlenden,

with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Indeed do what? Play a

distracting Game for three hundred years?"

She laughed, a light, playful silvery laugh. "No, no. You

all have been carefully led to assume that the root klarh-was

Earth aspect, 'to play.' Hence, in turn, the Players.... It is

not Earth aspect: it is Fire, and that means . . . "

"... to fly! Not Players, but Flyers!"

"Indeed, to fly, to soar, to float upon the currents. We arenot idle, privileged entertainers, Morlenden Deren; we are thepilot-astrogators of the Great Ark, the One Ship. There wasno other way to keep the skill , and the knowledge alive, savein a public Game that everyone could see and think he knew."

"Very well. What does the Game have to do with piloting? I know the Game, thanks to Krisshantem, but I fail to see..."

"The hard question; thus the hard answer. Let me build a dynamic identification-series for you: consider vehicles. Youmake a cart, a wagon, hitch it to a pony, and off you go. Its purpose is to go, but it can be stopped, and it doesn't change,or stop being a cart. Yes? Now consider a bicycle, which must be in balance to go. Yes? Now an aircraft; it can onlybe stopped when it is finished being a functional airplane, yes? You can't stop it just anywhere, and never in the air, unless you have rotary wings, which is just cheating the system. Yes? Just so the leap to the Ship. It is a quantum leap into a new concept in machines, if indeed that is the properword. Before, we had machines that could be turned off. The more complex they became, the harder to turn off. With the ship, we enter the concept-world of machines that can't be turned off—at all. They must be on to exist. Once you reach a certain stage in the assembly of it, it's on and that's all there is to it. And when you build it, you are building something very specific; that is the Law of Multiplexity. The moredeveloped the machine, the more unique it becomes.

"So, then," she continued, "this machine can only operate, be on, exist—in one mode only. A spaceship, which can't beturned off. Now, in the true-mode of that existence the laws we limited living creatures perceive about the universe are sodistorted that they may as well not apply. One doesn't look out a window to see where one is going! The kind of spacethat the ship perceives, operates in, is to creatures such as youand I, chaotic, meaningless, and dangerous, when perceiveddirectly, if we can at all. To confront it directly is destructiveto the primate mind, indeed the whole vertebrate nervous system. At present, Dragonfly Lodge thinks that this underlyingreality-universe is destructive to all minds, whatever their configuration, life-form or robotic. Basic to the universe: that itsinmost reality cannot be perceived. A limit. So we interpose asymbolizer, and that translates the view into something we canperceive, and control. And we must control it, for like the sailing ship our Ship emulates, it cannot exist uncontrolled,and there can be no automaton to do it for us. It is flown manually, all the time; even to hold it in place relative to ourperceptual field. For at the level of reality we are operating at

here, to perceive is to manipulate. As you go further downinto mystery, they become more and more similar; even the forerunners know that. But at the Ship they converge."

Morlenden thought a moment, then said, "And I see; the symoblizer portrays a Game."

"Just so. That is the Inner Game. And the Outer Game we have played in public is a much simplified form of the kindof thing we see in the Sensorium, which is display screen andcontrol system all in one. Not combined; it is both. That we see the functions as separate is a measure of our distance from the Eternal. It is accurate enough, but of course certainconfigurations cannot be attained in the Outer Game, since they would lead to flight, too, and an open gameboard is noship to fly in, but only an unmounted sail."

"It... flaps away?"

"About that. Yes, very good. And in two-dimensional display, we have the tesselations: triangular, quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, although this last leaves holesin the continuum and therein uncontrolled things happen.These symbolize the different kinds of space we can use . . . space-three, space-four, space-five, space-six, and space-eight.Each one has a different range and kind of thing it can perceive and control. Pertrol equals both. Within limits, we can set distances as we will."

"I see; when one flies the Ship, one actually is playing amore difficult Game, in which space itself plays the role ofantagonist."

"Yes. And there is no way we fcould practice using theShip's display. There, to simulate is to replace. So we invented the Outer, public Game, to keep us trained in the basics sowe would always be ready when the time came."

"You are one of the pilot-astrogators?"

"No. I would have been, had either Maellen or I been born male. It takes four, and no less, to face that which the symbolizer depicts . . . this is why Braids were invented. The real reason. Not the genetic reason we use—that it keeps us all mixed and gene-pooled. That is excuse. You see? There mustbe four, and the only bond that will hold is the sexual-emotional one. You will not understand now, but I will say andyou must believe that the Game in the Ship cannot be approached as a job, a vocation, a career, or recreation. To thecontrary, it is Life and Death itself at work there. In the InnerGame, we call the Game Dhum Welur, the Mind of God. And that Mind is a terrible mind, that one may not facedirectly and remain whole. Some of the forerunners guessed itlong ago—first the Hebrews far back in time, others along theway, and they wisely left it alone, left the Arcana alone. Thatis why those who studied the occult arts were either fools ordoomed. Fools if they were wrong, and most were; doomed ifright. The forerunners know, and stay away."

"It's that alien?"

"Yes. More than you can imagine.... Consider now, herein this cabin atop this mountain. We will go outside and lookat, into the sky. We will see clouds, storm, and through rentsin the clouds, stars. Ordinary enough, you can say; yet I haveseen the same sky and the same clouds-of-the-world in space-three . . . it is different, full of terrors, of things we cannot understand, save to avoid, other things...."

She stopped for a moment, apparently looking into some interior memory.

Then she continued, "So I suppose that things would havecontinued thus indefinitely. But the Ship was nearing completion, and it was estimated that the need for two PlayerBraids and the deception of the public Game were at an end.Thus the Perklaren insiblings, who were yet to weave at thattime, and because they were the higher Braid, took a drugthat disrupted the normal sexual-selection process of the insiblings* for that generation. They knew that it would make the Toorhon turn out to be the same sex, but they did notknow which sex it would be."

* The first offspring was randomly selected, but thereafter the sexof the children was controlled pheronomically to maintain thefifty-fifty sexual ratio required by the insibling mating pattern.

"They did this by intent?"

"Yes. And it would have been . . . was to be ... of no great effect. But that is one of the ironies of the Game, I think. It does not let you go so easily. The Ship can't beturned off; the Game can't be left, just like that. It will haveits price. And so here is the essence of it: Sanjirmil was theinheritor of the Game, by the actions taken by the Perklareninsiblings before the birth of my generation. But in the province of the Game, Sanjirmil is actually not suited to it at all.Relative to the Game, and only to the Game, she is uninspired and . . . well, stupid. She hasn't the mind for it, although she is capable in other areas. Maellen, on the other hand, had a natural-born talent for it, the best we ever had. She was, by irony or accident, a natural prodigy for the Game, the only one ever so born. A genius. But it was toolate, things had gone too far, the momentum was carrying us,perhaps the Game now controlling us and wished to teach usa lesson. I don't know. But as it stood, it would have been cruel enough. But this ties into another problem. . . ."

"Which is?"

"I said that the Ship was a machine that could not be turned off. That there was no way; that at a certain point inits construction it becomes on, activated, and assumes some of the responsibility for constructing itself, growing itself, while being guided. And so at that point, it turns itself on;and flight begins, ready for it or not. We knew it would be that way—thus the theorists had predicted. After all, it's nota hard prediction—you or I could do as well. But they could not tell the time when the event would occur. That is why wehad the two Player Braids—to keep us all sharp and preparedfor it by means of the artificial rivalry between us. And well it was, too, that the Terklarens had done so well by this generation; but evil, too. An evil star was after our fate. For the event occurred about fifteen years ago."

"About the time of the birth of Taskellan?"

"Yes. Just after. Maellen and I were just five, little children, hazhon-hazhoun, children's children. So the Flyers all had to go to work, alternating in the Sensorium, all the hoursof the day, the days of the week . . . for fifteen years."

"I don't understand...."

"It must be manually flown to hold it in place!" she exclaimed. "Its position at a specific place upon the Earth is notheld there by gravity and momentum, as are the other things;that it stays in that place, it must be flown there. As we sit here, we move in many ways, but are held fast in a matrix oflocal forces. The Earth rotates, revolves in the Earth-moon system, revolves about the sun, follows an orbit about the galaxy, moves with the galaxy in the local galactic group, andparticipates in the steady-state expansion of the universe . . .those motions and their multiplex sum must be reversed andfed into the Ship so that it stays in its cave. Those motions,and many others that we do not see . . . some of these countermotions are those which may not be seen. There are terrors in the universe, and they are not the ones we imagined.And if we do not compensate, then the Ship would drift offon its own, following the currents as it feels them. . . . Perhapsthe word drift is inappropriate, for seen by an outsider on the surface, this drift would seem like an explosion; the Shipwould explosively depart the immediate area at somethingclose to c, the velocity of light, a significant fraction of it, interacting violently with matter in its path and around it. At the value of c it possessed, it would have enough mass, onceit moved, to disrupt the balance of the whole solar system. Itwould, of course, be destroyed in the first moment of ungraded flight, but no matter; it would destroy everything else."

"I don't understand . . . why doesn't it disrupt things now, if it has that much mass?"

"Speed alone. Relativity. The mass approaches infinity as the speed approaches unity-c. Held at rest, it has its own material mass, a few thousand tons. This is damped by thecontrol field, so that it appears massless. Makes it easy to move, short-field. But turned loose, it takes off at almost a full light; so that the mass is approximately equal to two-point-five suns. This is above limits within a given volume ofspace, so the result is a linear supernova as long as it lasts.Those are the limits . . . say, from the mass of Jupiter totwo-point-five suns. There is some inexactitude in our calculations, but at any rate, at either extreme, the result is doom; sowhat does it matter? And as if it made any difference, we cannot determine the vector either. It is a heavy responsibility, flying."

"Indeed, to know the Flyers have been sitting on a bomb for fifteen years. They have been flying it manually?"

"Manually. While the rest of the Ship was being grown andbuilt. Finished, the life-support systems completed. There have never been enough people to do it, the work that isn't done by the Ship. And by the Canon of the Law of the Flyers, only a formed Braid can fly. That means that only two crews are available, although exceptions are made by executive order of the High Reven, to allow relief so the outside Game can go on, and continue its deception. . . . The last time I was home, I was told that an exemptionwould be made for Sanjirmil and her Braid, if she could assemble one."

"So that is why the parent Perklarens were never home."

"Yes. And why I am here. But their story first. They wereat a holy mountain, the Mountain of Madness, inside the Ship,flying alone in the darkness, in space-three, triangular tesselation, hardest of all. Matrix twelve; fine detail work deepinside a gravity well, the solar gravity well. The Ship is spherical in shape and sits in a cradle in the rock, in the cavern; ithas only moved about an inch in all that time. You could siton that very hill and not know it was there, a few score feetunder your very fundament."

She said, after a moment, "Klervondaf was initiated but not trained. Taskellan was not initiated. Both Maellen and were, of course. We did not stop being insiblings. The InnerGame was our heritage and our right. But instead of Player-Flyers, we were to take different roles, so that the last stepmight be implemented; I would come here, to the Trojan Project, and Maellen would secretly soldier for us in the outer world. I chose loneliness, and Maellenkleth chose danger, and ultimately, death."

"Who decided? How?"

"The Shadow, as in all things. We divided it up, Maellenand I, with no more thought than we would share a piece ofcake. There was no particular reason. We were so very young . . . and she was good at the Game, and wanted to remain where she could at least study it, pass on her insights. I amonly average, like anyone else. Better than Sanjirmil, but nothing like Maellen. And so I am here . . . but in many waysI like my work, both the outer and inner portions of it. I like to make things work, and so have done well by my employers, even as I used their instrument to do other things. . . ."

She shook her head, as if still unbelieving. "So I am an astronaut, an engineer. When I would prefer a yos, and now, until I weave, an eager circle of lovers."

Morlenden interrupted her musing. "I see that Maellenkleth was to run destructive interference for the rest of you."

"Yes. One last trick."

"And you?"

"Mine was the last part, a small one, but important. I was to see that the telescope was built, and help build it, so I could have a good reason for using it without arousing suspicion."

"And what were you to use it for?"

"You know we have poor night-vision; that is why the telescope. Not for magnification, but for the gathering of light.Otherwise one of us could have done this from the ground.So, then, I was to obtain views, visually, polychromatically,of the space all around Earth, in all directions, and memorize. Then, using all those views from different points alongthe Earth's orbit about the sun, combine the views together,to make up in my mind a three-dimensional map of interstellar space from eidetic memory. I would have an excellent dimensional view, because I would have a parallax baseline one hundred and eighty-five miles long, the diameter of the orbit. After I had the image, I could convert that into a three-dimensional grid map, using Multispeech space-matrix coordinates, which would then be used in the comparisonastrogation base."

"How so?"

"On a clear night, you look at the stars. Can you see anyorder in their arrangement?"

Morlenden hesitated. " . . . No. I see the brighter constellations, but they are somewhat arbitrary. I cannot tell what isnear or far, or in relation to what. Lights in the sky. Jupiterand Mars seem as far, or as near, as Sirius, Vega, Deneb."

»

For the names of the stars and planets he had used, Morlen

den had unconsciously used the words as he had heard them

from Fellirian; the old Modanglic names. It was only after

he had spoken the words that he realized how alien and

strange they sounded. Mevlannen noticed as well. A light

smile danced across her face.

"You do not know the names of the stars, for those who name are also those who seek order. It was a slow process,for we had to work in part from ancient maps. We do not seethem all from the ground. Painstaking research, thousands ofnights of careful watching, care and secrecy lest it be knownthat we even look at the stars. But we have our own names for the stars, the near ones that we know and feel, and the far ones that we use as reference points. You know the Canon of Names: one syllable for things, two for places,three for people, four for stars, and five for the 'Attributes of God*.' So that Borlinmeldreth is that which the forerunners call Sirius; Kathiarvashien, Sigma Doradus; Skarmethseldir,Deneb. There are many names we have had to learn, reciteby rote."

* Theological terminology. But in this convention was also a tradition that a person's name, proper plus surname, also equated tofive syllables, by dropping all numerical prefixes to the surname.(The last syllable of the surname, -en, was a short form of the syllable ghenh-, a root meaning "family." By and large, the lerfound the guttural—gh—distasteful and would drop it wheneverthey could get away with it.) In this view, then, all persons weretheologically considered to be "Attributes of God."

Morlenden said, "Names, yes, but it is still without order."

"So it seems. But there is a great and mighty system of order in space, although it cannot be seen by a creature on thesurface, without a matrix in the imagination. It is on too vasta scale for us. And we are talking about visuals, that whichwe see with our eyes; you cannot begin to imagine what thesame volume looks like when seen through the symbolizer inspace-four. Or any other. More than chaotic, it is alive withforces and unknown objects whose nature we cannot determine. Eddies and currents are there, and waves and winds and storms whose source and sink we do not know. And as the ancient forerunner Polynesian navigators saw lights in thesea that indicated land over the horizon, the glory of the sea,so do we also see glory in the sea of space, but it is a glorythat makes us very afraid as well; it crawls like the Pacific Ocean down there below Pico Tranquillon. And for such a

Ship, there can be no anchorage anywhere; for the pilot, nolandfall, though a planet be found, and the passengers, thepeople, disembark. For us, a planetfall is just more work inspace-three.... And there are other things, too, things we canonly dimly perceive in the Game, things which have no visualanalog at all. They move, they appear to have volition. Arethey forms of life? Perhaps. So however well we think we seespace in the display, we have to have a reference set of coordinates from the visual perception. Because some things showin the Game that cannot be seen and we must know where these are. And we must know arbitrary things, too—like which way is Galactic North, G-South, Solar North, S-South.The reference for Galactic Meridian. Translating. Our eyessee geodesic lines to the stars, but in the Ship there is no suchthing, and the two must be integrated. That integration hasbeen my real mission, and it is this for which I have beentrained."

She paused, then continued, "It is a problem in synesthesiaas well; we always assumed sight was sight, period. But it was not to be so: what the symbolizer depicts would be best described as being most like a sense of smell, whose operationwe then see through the symbolizer. That is not good, but itwill have to do."

Morlenden at first suppressed a smile, but then he laughedaloud. "So you sniff your way along, blind but for the memorized view, eh?" But he laughed uneasily, for he did not likethe image that came to his mind—that of a hound blinded, nose to the earth, questing in the air, cautiously sniffing out a trail to a place he never knew before, but which had to smellright. And avoid a universe full of things, whose perceptionshe could not verify by sight. Morlenden added, "That is thedamndest thing I ever heard in my life."

Mevlannen smiled with him. "I laughed, too, Morlenden,when I was initiated, and so have we all. Except Sanjirmil. She never laughed. But the dangers are real, and there is much confusion. Naturally we do not desire to get lost—onlyto leave Earth and make planetfall on a world upon whichwe can live. And so thus was my part in it: to reconcile whatwe see with our eyes and what we perceive in the symbolizer.This I have done, and my task is finished."

She stopped speaking, her voice at the last becoming hoarse.Now she looked, and she saw that her cup was empty. Morlenden's was as well. Adding his cup to hers in her hand, she

arose, refilled them both, and returned to her place by the

fire. She seemed dazed, abstracted.

Morlenden also was abstracted, trying to integrate what he

had heard here with what else he heard. Mevlannen had ex

plained a lot, the whole background. But, astounding though

it was, it did not explain what had happened to Maellenkleth.

Or to him. He thought again; he thought he could see the an

swer on the horizon, but he did not care for the shape of it.

There was much yet to comprehend.

He began, "I have many questions, Mevlannen. The

Shadow, Maellenkleth, Sanjirmil . . . I hardly know where to

begin."

She answered tentatively, "I know the basics; I also know

what I have done. But recently, I am out of touch. Remem

ber, I have been out here five years; there is much you will

know better than I."

"Well, then. The first part. I understand secrecy. But I feelcheated that a whole way of life was engineered as a deception, rather than a reality, however good it was for us all....There are things we do out of that which do not come easy,after all. I know these things well. What will it all have beenfor?" he asked.

"That we will be free, to have a world of our own. Is that not enough? And remember the means defining the tool... itwas thus we were defined."

"Have you considered, you of the Shadow, that the peoplewill become cynical?"

"That was considered in the beginning, but it was hopedthat they wouldn't be, that they would graft on those values;'the grafted tree bears the sweetest fruit,' say the Pomen Braidsmen. And it has been good for us, we have thrived under our increased family structure as we would have under no other model we had at the time. And now we are used to it; I should not wish any other way."

"So we say, here . . . but there is also the idea of the government. Ostensibly there were the Revens and the Derens, and that was it—cheerful, law-abiding light anarchy. But nowyou tell me that this has not been so, that we were ruled inreality all these years in secret by a government we didn't even know existed, a council calling itself Kai Hrunon, 'The Very Shadow.' Was the Reven Braid the real ruler?"

"In a word, yes. In another, no. You would, for example,never have been permitted to challenge an arbitration by Pellandrey or his insibling Devlathdar; that it was never done in the past is a measure of our tact, which is what civilization

is."

"But it was always otherwise."

"Mostly. Outer: a Braid to settle disputes, and another to confer familial legitimacy; but inside, in the Shadow, it was amajority of elders, and at that, primarily of the Flyer Braidbackground. And there one rules. The Perwathwiy Srith. Andthe traditional rote is that the Reven arbitrates only aground.In space, the senior Flyer rules. In the name of the Shadowand the Plan."

"I see a danger here: if the Ship cannot be turned off and is always flying, then what now prevents the most ambitious Flyer from taking power and keeping it, using the argument that since the Ship is flying, his is the power. Whatprevents this?"

"Necessity for discretion. Tradition. And the fact that as ofnow, most of the people are still outside the Ship, and wouldprobably ignore orders from within it. Also there is always violence; we are not forbidden it."

"Who is senior Flyer now?"

"When my Perklaren parents took the step to end Perklaren continuity, leadership automatically went to the Braidwith continuity. That would of course be the Terklarens."

"Sanjirmil!"

"No, at least, not when I left. She is not yet of age. Her parent generation, the Terklaren insiblings Daeliaman and Monvargos; such were affairs when I left."

"But it would go to Sanjirmil?"

"Yes, that is so."

"And you said that Maellenkleth was your soldier, your

valiant one?"

"Aye, just so. She always demanded to be in the front of everything, since she could not have the Game. She was brave, even foolhardy."

"Did she act alone, by her own will, or was she directed?"

"In matters outside the reservation, Sanjirmil spoke for theShadow, when she was not flying. A lot of exemptions weremade for her. She was to be allowed to make up her Braidco-spouses early. They needed that, for the work of flying is too demanding for just two crews, and each crew must be four."

"This deception and its effects; one of them may have beenthe unnecessary death of your insibling. Do you understandthis from what I have said?"

She looked away from Morlenden, uneasily, her eyes fixedelsewhere, on nothing, anything. After a time she spoke, butit was with a voice quiet and subdued. "We always knew thatthere was peril in the way we had chosen. Risk and reward,you know. They who risk not, receive not. But we always hadto balance those dangers against what would happen if thehumans derived the secret of the Ship. We knew that we could not build such a Ship openly, for they would simplytake it. How could they not want it? Starships? And once weconsidered sharing it with them, but that was voted down. Studies and tests indicated that if they ever discovered the Inner Game, the matrix overdrive, they would integrate autopilot devices into it; and therein is horror. What we deal with in the Game no machine can handle, because what we do, every second, is decide, and no machine can do that for us. And we use hunch to make those guesses and decisions. Weare using resources we do not entirely understand. But under an autopilot, things would start to slip and the corrections would pile up and the machine would just lock up. It is extremely dangerous to manipulate underlying forces in theuniverse, and one must always do it consciously, never automatically. . . . To observe is to manipulate and once you startyou must continue or destroy the device that allows you to do it. But you can't play span-of-attention with it, play with it and then forget it. And robots would get tied up in the nature of transcendental numbers and become bemused by the algorithm, which is endless."

She added, "We were all told, in the most graphic termsimaginable, what the risks were at each stage of the Game,both to the people, and the ones in individual situations. I know Maellenkleth knew the risks, and she took them freely;I cannot question that further. That she paid it is to the honor of her memory."

Morlenden answered, "I cannot find fault with your loyalty,nor with Maellenkleth's. She stood up to the heaviest of responsibilities, and performed as she said she would; she wasno oath-breaker. But there has been the suspicion in my mindthat such a sacrifice need not have been made, and that there was more to her capture and death than meets the eye. Thatthere are forces at work, right now, in your carefully culturedsystem that could be destructive to the people and the Ship aswell."

"But I cannot imagine ..."

"Of course you cannot. You have been out of touch for

five years. But there is evil afoot in our garden, and I am now

trying to find the source of it. What you have told me is valu

able, but it does not yet bridge the gap. So let me ask you:

why was Maellen sent out to destroy instruments?"

"It must be that she was sent, Morlenden. She was not

willful in that way. Only in regard to the Game. But destroy

instruments? Unusual, that. The outriders were supposed only

to observe. What instruments?"

"As I was told, a device to measure magnetism, feel thefield strength of the area in which it was. Another measured the field strength of gravity from point to point. Small, portable things, but accurate and discriminatory. Also not presentlyin use, which we all found curious."

"As I do also.... You could detect the Ship with those instruments, but since they were not in use . . . "

"You could detect it? How?"

"If you have a large mass of ferric ore or metal, it distortsthe local magnetic field, concentrates the lines, makes the field more intense. The Ship, operating, causes the reverse ofthis—it weakens the local magnetic field. As for the other, the gravity meter, that could also be used in similar fashion:in essence, the mass of the Ship shows much less than youwould expect. This is because the inertia is constantlydamped by the matrix overdrive. Surveying a mountain withsuch an instrument, one would expect a higher reading due to the increased mass, but instead, what you see when the Ship is inside is as if there were a massless hole in the mountain. If the instrument was tuned for fine-detail resolution, you could see that the 'hole' was spherical. . . . If they weregoing to use them, or could conceivably be expected to, thenI could understand destroying them. But of that I cannot speak; I know nothing."

"So we cannot determine if they were to be used or not,here."

"No. Like so much of the wide world, Morlenden, you andI can talk all night, share what we imagine, what we know,but all the same there is much else which we cannot know, of what we share and meld together. Truth takes many, and even then we err. Both true things and provable things as well."

Morlenden said, "Well, then, true or not, I will have to return much as I came . .. but at the least you can return withme, rejoin your family and friends."

T

"No. I can never come back. That was one of the pricesfor this. I have a short tether. I will continue my work."

"We may have taken on the values of the macrodeception,but that does not mean that you have to do the same in yourpart of it. And we need your skill, Engineer. And if nothingelse, we still require the services of a resident star-gazer, ifonly to remember the lore of the skies of Old Earth for thosewho will have left it forever, and to search out the skies of the new world, wherever it will be, though I find it strangeand awesome even to speak of it. Or is it that you fear to return?"

"Perceptive and cruel you are, even as you extend your hand. It is true I fear it. I have lived here long.... We herehave become accustomed to one another's strangeness. Butafter the manner of the people, I have been contaminated bymany of the concepts I have worked with."

She stopped, fatigue showing along the lines of her face, her straight, delicate jawline. Fatigue and repressed grief werebeginning to penetrate her defenses, break down the fortressof her solitude. The pale eyes softened, looked inward. Morlenden could not read the sense of her thoughts: perhaps shewas thinking about space; or of past childhood days with herinsibling, now vanished into the dust and the past. He couldimagine her as a child of the people, but harder it was to picture her in his mind in a spacesuit, the tender, pale adolescent body encased, indistinguishable from the others, forerunners one and all. It disturbed him, following the idea to its hermetic conclusion, that only in gentler environments didcreatures allow themselves the differentiation in form between male and female. The harsher the environment, the less difference showed. Space . . . even that was not the ultimate yet.There were worse things, he sensed.

Mevlannen began speaking again, now reflective rather than assertive. It was gentle speech, and her eyes were unfocused, undirected. She spoke of the stars; and Morlenden lether go uninterruptedly, for she needed this.

As she spoke of the stars and her work, a gentle glow animated her face, a something-inside which had not shown before. Morlenden thought that he knew the stars well enough;he could see the brighter ones as well as any ler*, but the night sky was no spangled glory to him—it was a furry blackemptiness, broken by a number of scattered points. How could he comprehend what Mevlannen Srith Perklaren saw inspace, sidereal day after sidereal day in the endless lidless night of space, perched like a bird in her instrument's primefocus, struck dumb, he was sure, by the incredible, unimaginable sight before her, and awed into insignificance by the three-dimensional image she was building up, line by painfulline, position by position, via eidetic recall comparison. Andshe pronounced the resounding four-syllable names of the stars, in itself a wild, haunting poetry of unknown places anddistant journeys, that curdled unknown longings in himself ashe heard the names for the first time.

* On the whole, from the surface of the Earth, considering also thegenerally dusty air of the times, the average ler could, on a clearnight, perhaps see down to the fourth magnitude. Norm most ofthe time was only third-magnitude objects.

Thondalrhenvir, Alpha Crucis; Lothpaellufkresh, Betelgeuse; Norrimveldrith, Great Rigel. On and on went the multisyllabic list, mixed with ancient Latin and Greek and Arabic names and numbers and letters, the recitation, pointsof light in a sky of darkness, reference points and possible future havens for astrogators and pilots who were going to stepoff the fixed and safe shore and swim in that ever-movingstream. There were names of distant galaxies, which Morlenden did not know at all: Lethlinverdaerlan, M31 in Andromeda; Vardaindralmerran, Maffei I; Klafianpurliendor, the Greater Magellanic Cloud. Some equated only to numbers onobscure surveys, most by human sky-watchers, a few numbered by Mevlannen and her predecessor, Thalvillai, a Perklaren of another generation: Avila 3125, Elane 10110. Morlenden wished to be able to visualize it, desperately, buthe felt that he was falling short of that inner image that illuminated the eyes and face of the girl, places she wouldnever be Closer to than right now, no matter she stayed on Earth or left it. And there were the nearer stars, the neighbor-lights that Man and ler alike had looked at with longingand burning curiosity: Yallov-yardir, Tau Ceti, twelve lights;Diylarmendar, Epsilon Eridani; Thifserminlen, Epsilon Indi;Holdurfarlof, 61 Cygni A; Dharhamnerlaz, Lalande 21185;Melforshamdan, Proxima Centauri; Tandelkvanlin, Barnard's Star; Partherlondrin and Khaliannindos, Alpha Centauri A and B.

And Morlenden thought of his own life, the routines of it,of logbooks and Braid diagrams, of visits and ceremonies and parties, of the security of position and identity in a stableand fixed hereditary society. He thought of foot journeys in the changing forest, all the familiar things he and Fellirian knew. And however restricted the reservation had been, he knew that it had been a good life there and he did not wishto leave it. And which now to lose—the place or the role? Hewas sure it would be place-lost, for one could always changerole; the outsiblings did it every year.

When she stopped for a moment, he gently interrupted her."Mevlannen? There is another thing I should have told you.Do you know anything about a boy named Krisshantem?"

She looked at him blankly. "Nothing."

"He was Maellen's last lover. I understand that she was planning and working toward petitioning the Revens to allow her, with this Krisshantem, to form a Third-player Braid.They would be shartoorh. She taught him the Outer Game, and in fact was apparently receiving some covert support forher plan from Pellandrey Reven, and I think, the Perwathwiyalso. Was it possible that this would have any effect on theShip?"

"I don't know. We could not predict when the Ship wouldactivate, so we could not better predict when it would be ready for flight. When I left, it was felt that the Ship wouldfly before Mael and I would come of age. Just before. Thatwould have been ten years from now. But as you have doubtless found out, Maellenkleth was always dissatisfiedwith her change of role, and who could blame her? She was an authentic genius in the Game, and therefore also in the Ship. But of course that plan of hers would be against the decision of the Shadow and the beneficiaries of that decision, the Terklarens, and of course Sanjirmil. Against Maellenklethat the height of her powers in the Game, Sanjirmil would have been ridiculous as master of the Game, and could not have survived open competition for it. And fear not, Maellenkleth would have forced it. No doubt the intent was resented, especially her bringing an outsider into the Game. The Shadow always carefully selected the outsiblings we wove with."

"So it would have hurt Sanjirmil."

"Indeed, oh, without doubt. Oh, and I see what you think!Hm . . . no, she is capable of it. They feared each other greatly, Mael and Sanjir. And we all knew that the way things turned out was largely a matter of accidental timing. But when you are dealing with generational turnover periodsof two fourteens and seven years, you have to have the bearing that considers a lot can happen in those years. So it fell to Sanjir, and many of us did not like it, but what could wereplace her with? When I left home, nothing. Any way wemoved, we were distorting our own canon, which we had always obeyed in our advantage. It would have been cynicalindeed to go against it because things did not turn out as someof us might have wanted."

She looked away a moment. Then, "You must understandthat in one way, the way most of the Shadow would have seen it, Maellenkleth was wrong. They would say that sincethe Braid in agenetic, talent doesn't matter when it's low, so itshouldn't when it's high. We all loved her dearly, but almostfrom the very beginning she read herself out of it. There wasno accident with the Players; they took deliberate action. Theaccident was with Maellenkleth; she was too good, and whatan irony that was, how cruel! And she never understood whyshe had to give up that which she did best of all things. Youknow she was a prodigy, but what does that mean? I will tell you: she was a full-Player, rated at level fourteen, when shewas ten years old. The best we ever had prior to her was thePerwathwiy, and she only attained level eleven at her peak, and by the kind of discipline that breaks minds and bodies before their time. The average is around seven, and you mustbe a five to be admitted to the Inner Game."

"What is Sanjirmil?"

"Her norm, which is set when one is a child, was alwayssubentry, a three or four. But somehow she made it with a five when she had to. How, I don't know. The numbers are not additive but exponential; there is no way a three could become a five and stay sane; it takes too much."

She stopped, then said, "Now come close to me, for I will give you the numbers. I have not made up my mind yet, andwould sleep on it; yet I will give them to you so they will notbe lost if I decide to stay here.... Now listen close, for theseare matrix numbers and they are hard to catch just right."

Morlenden assented and moved closer to the girl, veryclose, so that their faces were almost touching. He becamestill, opening his mind and will to Mevlannen. All he could see of her were her eyes, whose exact color was now elusivein the firelight. The eyes were expressionless, but they were reddened in the whites and glittered with moisture. Her breath was heavily scented with the brandy she had been dosing the coffee with, and he could also detect the scent of theoil of her face. There was no preliminary warning, as there had been with Krisshantem, but rather like Sanjirmil, it started immediately, seizing his mind, blanking his vision, andinserting the coordinate matrix at once, easily. He did not understand what he was receiving, but he had no time to thinkof it, just retain the matrix the way he got it. It came at lightning speed, but, for all its speed, it seemed to go on for a long time, and soon Morlenden became aware of nothing butspatial numbers, sometimes broken into shorter or longerstrings. Holistic, like a visual, but also something different.This did not build a picture that he could see. By the time itcame to the end, which came without notice or warnings savea little twist that he did not catch, the fire was much dimmer, and he saw again the sad eyes close before him.

He said, "I have it. Are you sure Sanjir will understand?"

Mevlannen unfolded her legs from beneath her and stood,stretching like a cat. She looked closely at Morlenden, as ifseeking some reassurance, or looking for a sign, of something.What? She said, "Yes. She will understand, all that I gave,and more.... I add a caution; never speak of what you havefrom me to anyone, never recite it to anyone but Sanjirmil,even to yourself. You must do neither, or you will fail us all.Only Sanjirmil!"

"Why can't you tell her yourself?"

"Because I was not to come back!" She almost wailed. And after a moment, added, "And anyway, knowing what I donow, I will not be permitted to get close to Sanjir. They willthink of me, rightly or wrongly, that I carry a vendetta against her."

"I know. I see it, too. I do not know how it came to be, but she is my suspect."

An unpleasant grimace flashed across Mevlannen's face. Itcreased her mouth upward at the corners for that moment, but it could not be called a smile. She said, "Indeed . . . so remember your oath, and my instructions. Only to her! Doyou feel arightly? You look peculiar."

Morlenden did feel odd, and he could not locate the source, which seemed to be fading even as he tried to find the cause of the feeling. There was something . . . no, nothing seemed out of place. "Yes, of course, I'm fine. Very tired."

"Do not feel badly over that; you now have much of what we have carried all our lives. It is a weight. And for you,now, it is fresh.... You will pass through the stressies unmarked."

She turned away from him, allowing the loose overshirt to flow around the contours of her slender, almost fragile bodyafter the manner of all ler girls since the beginning of theirtime, walking slowly around the room, putting out the lampsand candles that were still burning. She stooped and shookdown the fire, at the last, covering the fireplace with a metal screen. The room sank into a, deeper darkness, and in the soft, dimensionless dimness, Mevlannen took on an air of expectation, of longing. Morlenden remembered how it had been, and in his mind kicked himself for the circumstances that were. This was indeed a priceless gift, and he was powerless to do more with it than appreciate deeply.

She picked up the last candle, and said softly, "Now youmust sleep with me, for there is but one bed."

He started to protest, but she came quietly to him and laida finger gently over his mouth. The hand was uncharacteristically hard and cool, for all its delicacy a hand of great strength. She said, "I understand all too well what you will say. I know its truth as I know my own. But though I wouldhave that, I wish more We are sharers now of a greatsecret, and are comrades endangered by the world, more thanyou know. That makes us close, as close as poor Mael and I.The last of our kind who slept with me was her, Maellen whogave up nights with someone much more exciting, to come here and be with me. It was just like when we were little children and all we had to do was play games with what we thought was life, and when we were tired we would tumble into bed and sleep in a pile like cats around the hearthfire,making each other secure against the unknown we had bothseen. I have never slept so soundly since."

Morlenden said, "I understand. I will hold you, too."

She said, "There is one thing more . . . I should have thought of it."

"What is it?"

"That in the Outer Game, we always allowed the Terklarens a certain latitude for cheating when they were in theadversary role, the role that equates to the real universe in the Inner Game."

"Cheating? What for?"

"So we prepare for the real thing. That is what the realuniverse seems to do: cheat. Perhaps it does cheat, althoughthat is a conscious process and that leads to speculations I donot care to make about the nature of things. . . . But it has itsown rules and our job as Players is to understand those rulesas best we can. We can manipulate the microcosm and the macrocosm through the Game, but we cannot impose our conception of order upon it; we have to play its way. So there are degrees of subtlety, and then further subtleties, andjust when we think we've got it fixed and secure for all time,it makes a change on us, some little change, some exception. . . . We all know that this means we must learn more, but it feels like cheating. Not fair! So we had allowedthe adversary Player team to cheat a little in the Outer Game, to prepare us for those little shifts in the Inner, whichis not a Game at all, but basic life and death."

Morlenden asked, "Wouldn't this tend to make the adversary Players a little dishonest?"

"There is no doubt of this side effect. All things have consequences, paraconsequences. Sometimes we look too hard atthe effect we want, and forget that there are others, some ofwhich may be of greater strength."

"Why do you tell me this?"

"So that you may know what you have walked into. Weknow it and compensate for it. It is so automatic that we do not even think of it, normally. They did not tell you, and Idid not until this moment. An oversight. But one that couldhave crucial ends."

"All of you?"

"Around other Players, we allow for it, but around otherswe sometimes lose sight of the fact that others do not play byour rules."

"So now that I have at last contacted the Players, I riskbeing tricked and gulled at every stage of the Game."

There was only a little light by which to see, but in that light he could see that at his last question Mevlannen hadturned away from him slightly, an expression of pain on herface. "No," she said. "Not so much that. Or perhaps yes, youmay." She straightened. "Be on your guard now, even withme. But especially with Sanjirmil."

Morlenden was tempted, but he did not speak of what elsehe knew and suspected. "Sanjirmil?"

"Yes. Because she never learned the counterprogram to thecheating. It is an ethical exercise. Somehow, she never got it.They tried to catch up, but you know how those things are. Once out of sequence, and it's gone forever. They tried, butno one knows if it took.... She can be dangerous."

Morlenden nodded, an idea forming in his mind. He saw that it was not lack of data which had prevented it fromcoming earlier, but that he had been suppressing the obvious conclusion all the time. And the knowledge did not cheer him; it told him of a blind side he had carried unknowing, adirty little secret about almost-forbidden fruits, of sweaty, hard supple bodies and salty kisses, and an image which would never have mattered save for intervening circumstances and an accident. Yes. Now he knew. It remained onlyto verify it.

He followed Mevlannen into the rear of the cabin. There, in a separate little room, was a hard, Spartan bed, after thehuman style, piled high with crude but homey quilts.

She blew out the candle she had been carrying to light theway, making a fragile little puff of breath as she did so. Afterward, in the darkness, over the sounds of wind and rain and storm fretting at the cabin walls, and the stunted, slanting junipers sliding - against it, he heard the silky sounds ofher overshirt, slipping off her body over her head, and fallingto the floor. He sensed, rather than seeing or hearing directly,the girl Mevlannen moving across the floor, and then heardthe quilts rustling as she slipped her bare body into the bed.

He removed his own overshirt, not without hesitation, and then, feeling the chill of the room, slid into bed beside her, feeling first the hard, rough fabrics against him; she movedclose, flowing into a space he had made with his arm, stretching full length against him. Although the intent she hadwas not particularly erotic, nevertheless it was, and as such was maddening. The change in Morlenden had been yearsago; he and Fellirian had lost both the will and the way afterFellirian had completed and delivered her third pregnancy.But they still retained their memories and they never forgot,and the senses still performed their functions. So he knew fully the desirability of this smooth, supple young girl, eagerfor love; yet at the same time the thing he felt would not proceed further than a thought, a memory. If it had anybody-response at all, he felt it only vaguely somewhere in thevicinity of the heart, perhaps the diaphragm, where it diffusedinto a something for which there was no word Morlenden knew: something ludicrous and incapable of response, feelinglike some unnamed intermediate sensation, between extreme tenderness and indigestion.

She lay quietly, breathing evenly, deeply. After a time, thebreathing became softer, shallower, and once or twice, her body trembled slightly. Now the combination of fatigue andMevlannen's amazing revelation began to tell on him, and thewarmth of the body next to him relaxed him further, into semiconsciousness. It was in this half-sleep that he thoughthe heard her say something, but he could not be sure she hadsaid anything at all. It had sounded like, "Forgive me for thatwhich I have done." But when he listened again, there wasnothing, and she never repeated it. And so, with a head full of rushing visions and dire suspicions, Morlenden droppedinto sleep like a round pebble falling into a quiet pond.

When he awoke in the morning, the rosy light from theeast was pressing at the curtains of the tiny window, whichhe had not seen the night before; he noted immediately thatthe warm presence that had been next to him was not there,that she was gone, and that the cabin now carried the silenceof emptiness. He arose, donned his old clothes. There was nonote, nothing. He rummaged around, and eventually foundsome biscuits in the cupboard which apparently had been leftfor him to find. He slipped his cloak over the overshirt and left, trying to find a way to lock the door behind him. There was none. Apparently, it could only be barred from inside.He gave up, and started down the path, back the way he hadcome, along the saddle which would take him down to the cliffs above the blue sea, now smooth and glassy, except forperfect swells breaking in precise patterns along the shore, rippling their crests from left to right, leaving a faint rooster's-tail trailing above and behind them. Old Sun painted a clear, golden light over the ocean, the grassy clifftops.

He negotiated the saddle, and turned through two sharpswitchbacks to a lower level, where he found Mevlannen sitting on an ancient juniper stump, dressed in a heavy winterovershirt and cloak that looked as if they had not been wornfor some time. She was looking silently down at the sea; nowand again a stray puff of breeze would ripple a loose strandof hair that had escaped the hood of the cloak.

He greeted the girl, "Daystar light your way as mine! Areyou waiting to say farewell?"

She turned and looked at him blandly, as if he should havealready known what her answer would be. "Here is a place Ilove dearly, and here I gave my part to the plan; but here Iwill not stay and offer a barren fertility to the forerunners while my kin journey to the stars. I will come with you if youoffer me the new family of Taskellan."

Morlenden nodded. "Just so and no more; but you willhave to call me now Kadh'olede, not Ser Deren."

"So much will I do gladly. It has been a long time. Willyour own Braidschildren not resent us?"

"No. I think not, although our Nerh, Pethmirvin, will not approve of your stealing boyfriends from her."

"Oh. I don't know yet if I can."

"Never mind. I have something in mind to keep you busyfor a time."

"You will keep secrets?"

"Indeed I will."

"Very well." She stood, shaking herself off. "Can we get back, do you think?"

"I had no difficulty coming here. Their attention seems elsewhere, now. We will ride, and then we will walk a space;what can we do but try? Tell them you have been on the SaltPilgrimage, if they ask. And of course, use a name other thanyour own, just as I will do."

Mevlannen nodded. She looked back, up the mountain, justonce, at the summit of Pico Tranquillon. She could not seethe cabin from where she stood. Then she turned and started down the narrow path to the sea, rippling far below them inthe morning light. Morlenden joined her and together theywalked down to the sea, and back into the world.

EIGHTEEN

The pathology of the poet says that the undevout astronomer is mad. —A.E. Waite

Eykor, carrying a sheaf of papers, untidily arranged into acumbersome bundle, greeted Parleau in the hallway outsidethe chairman's office. "Chairman, a moment; may I have a word?"

"Certainly, Eykor. It's free, now. Come along." Parleau ledthe way past the shiftsman administrator who sat impassivelyand said nothing.

Eykor followed, carrying the unwieldy sheaf of paperworkas if it concealed a very touchy bomb. Once inside the private office, he carefully placed the bundle on the conference end of Parleau's desk, and turned to the chairman. He began,excitedly, "Chairman, over in the department we have beenpursuing several aspects of this series of incidents centered onthe girl-vandal. We have found more loose ends. Too many.We are now in the embarrassing position of having more clues than crimes or criminals."

"Go on." Parleau knew very well that to one such as Eykor crime flourished everywhere, even in the mind. He would never root them all out, but all the same he would never stop trying, either, heedless of the misery he caused along the way, and the mistakes he made. It was not hatred ofcrime that made him that way, but rather an excess of zeal toduty, and too narrow a view. Such types were ultimately dangerous to all unless kept under strict supervision; and of course, well-supplied with a variety of real criminal activitiesto keep them to task, preoccupy their attention; everythingwas evidence, otherwise.

Eykor said, "We found Errat."

"More specifically, please."

"Errat was discovered in a terminated condition, in a rundown rooming house near the warehouse quarter. Here, inRegion Central. It was handled routinely by neighborhoodSecurity, until an alert watchman noted the reports. Then wegot the department into it"

"Aha. Continue."

"By the time we got there, of course the body had been removed, but the room had not been too disturbed, so we were able to have the forensic pathologist go over the room microscopically. We did the same with Errat, when we caught upwith the body. Errat had been dispatched with a single penetration of a sharp, pointed object in the upper left back; heterminated virtually instantly; there was not a sign of struggle, anywhere. We believe he was taken by surprise."

"Knifing's a common enough cause of murder."

"This was different; it was done without slashing, no sidemovement at all. We were able to reconstruct the shape ofthe weapon."

"Errat seemed to be a free agent for persons unknown.This would indicate that one of them got close to him and had time to aim carefully."

"Exactly. And it was an urfteual weapon; it was straighttwo-edged, about two hands long, but rather thick, for thekinds of knife we are familiar with. It was not metal, but

wood, a very hard wood sealed with a coating that was oncevolatile and which contained many impurities."

"I know of no tool like that."

"Neither did we. At least not in our own community. Butwith the New Humans, such knives are commonplace. They are used for dress and for the settling of feuds. Moreover,this suggested deduction was confirmed by other traces we were able to derive from objects in the room. You see, the

fractions are different, between us and them, the chemical traces. The detector-men went crazy until it occurred to themthat their machine was actually correct. I got into the Archives with Klyten and we reconstructed a basic outline to describe the person who was in the room with Errat: it was aler female, probably adolescent, although there are conflictingindications. Also, the traces were distorted by a very high reading for adrenaline fractions and residuals, and another family of residual fractions that doesn't equate to anything.Whoever was in there was very tense, more or less permanently. And we also checked with Control. The traces wefound, the unknown ones, are the same as the unidentified female in the crowd-scans."

"Good God, man! What else could you get on whoever itis?"

"Very little else, Chairman. But at least we were able to make that correlation. Of course we checked out all the inhabitants of the building very carefully. Nothing. And of course no one could recall any ler being in the neighborhoodfor any period. Never had seen one. But female, allegedlyfrom Inspection Bureau, had been there, but was no longer.The name she used is unimportant; it didn't check anywhere.The stress-monitors in the area were tripped, but they had been that way for years—nobody had checked them, so it would seem. I am sad to say we lost the trail there."

"Nothing? No trace, no track, no description?"

"Nothing that would do us any good. We think that whoever she was, she was also using multiple identities anddisguises; it is a ler, all right, but she knows procedures welland moves with impunity."

"A sobering thought, Eykor. The other one, the one we caught, also moved freely among us for years. I wonder howmany others are doing the same."

"Plattsman is running a close-order check of all the stress-monitor reports now. Of necessity this degrades current operations, but we have to know."

"Agreed. That we must. And how about travel permits?"

"All accounted for. Nothing this side of the reservation. There is another thing about this . . . we don't know the motive for Errat's murder. We think he was silenced. His usefulness was done. He seemed to think he was more importantthan he was; but he was just a screening pawn, and when hispart was over, he was dispensed with."

"Ugh. Cold-blooded, that one. Well, I agree, this largelynegates the earlier possibility that he could have been a freeagent. He was tied to someone. But who, and for what purpose? There is someone inside...."

"Yes. The operation was professional. Every person eitherknew nothing and dead-ended there, or was eliminated. We think Errat seriously underestimated his contact. Why, withhis noted experience in wetwork, we can't tell."

"That is odd."

"He was known to be violently anti-ler and we do not believe he would have willingly allied himself with them. Butthis raises more questions, too; what kind of group or organof the ler would wish such an incident precipitated? Or, perhaps, what was intended to happen failed. That was why theygot Errat."

"This sounds worse and worse. Will we ever get to the bottom of it?"

"Perhaps we can find one answer, Chairman. Recall the original incident? Well, we wouldn't have caught her, but forthe fact that the patrols in that area had been put on increased alert. Why were they? Who put them on it? Their chief got a call purporting to be from Security Central, butthere are no records of the call anywhere, and nobody canmake any connection at all. We think the call was made byErrat; we have tentative vocal identification with the man who received the call. Again, how would he know to do that?He must have been instructed to. But why?"

"Eykor, have you considered the possibility that this entiresequence of events has nothing to do per se with us? Thatwould explain why it seems to go nowhere. We are seeing itfrom the wrong angle, as it were."

"I thought that, too . . . but why go to all the trouble, Chairman? We checked with Klyten. The ler can have a feudany time they want. They have no prohibition against murder. Only against certain kinds of weapons."

"Someone wants a vendetta, but doesn't want it known."

"May be that, Chairman. But I have something more, which you should also integrate."

"More? By all means go on."

"The instruments the girl destroyed. We persuadedResearch Section to try to rebuild them. They were not able on short notice to reconstruct the originals, but they didsomething almost as good: they built up replicas. Breadboardjobs, to be sure, but they work. They are crude and delicateand they lack the fine discrimination of the originals, but theytell an interesting story. We tested them out and used them inthe gliders."

"What did you get?"

"It's all in the report and the attachments. But here's whatis significant: we uncovered a most singular feature." Eykorturned from the chairman to the pile of papers and leafed through them until he located a large semitransparency covered with contour lines. This he displayed to Parleau. "This isthe averaged collation from all the runs we made. It depictsthe field strength of gravity in the general area of the reservation. And here," he said, withdrawing another sheet of similarsize from the pile, "is a carto of the reservation, in the samescale, for comparison; what we should expect to see is a general correlation and co-location of regions of higher density of gravitational strength with areas of hills, ridgelines, andthe like. And low-density areas with depressions, valleys."

Parleau looked at the unlabeled masses of contour lines. He said, "I see . . . but what am I supposed to see?"

"The expected correlation is true everywhere on the reservation grounds and surrounding area, except for this one unique area, here." He pointed out a location on the densitychart. "In the northwest we found an area that shows a definite negative correlation."

"You are certain it was not instrument error."

"Absolutely. That is why it took so long, so many days, toget this to you. We wanted it to be complete. There were some anomalies, but they occur everywhere, and they shift in time and location, as one would expect in transient malfunctions. But not this place. This one shows perfectly circular every time. And when we tried the Magnetic AnomalyDetector, we got the same thing, in exactly the same place; acircular area of greatly reduced field strength."

"You are certain there is no doubt of these readings?""Absolutely none. It's all there in the report. A fine pieceof work by the junior Security men, I must say."

"What do you attribute this to?"

"Unknown. We sent the phenomenological descriptionaround, but nobody could come up with any probable cause.We thought a hollowed-out cavern, but the readings we haveare much too deep for that, on the gravity scans, and a cavewould hardly affect the magnetic field at all; if it did, it would be very slight. Also, a cave would have to have an entry, of which photo recon did not find any trace whatsoever.In other words, simple absence of matter isn't enough."

Eykor wasn't finished. He turned again and withdrew stillanother chart from the pile, which was now becoming scattered and untidy. "There's some more, here. This chart, on the same scale as the other two, is a replica of a sociologicalchart that was prepared for Vance and Klyten, twenty yearsago. What it shows is the location of each family group andelder commune, and their interconnections. Like a market diagram of a primitive society. The colors, if you study it for awhile, reveal a certain hierarchy. Now, up to the present, thishas lain in the files, collecting dust, an academic curio, nothing more. But transposed in the proper scale, and overlaid onthe other charts we already have..."

Eykor spread the charts out, and aligned them according tolittle tickmarks on the sides, so that they were in exact relationship to one another. He said, pointing with his free hand,"Now here is the mountain where we located the anomaly;here, in this ridgeline running northeastward from the river.And here, on the north side, is the home of the Second-playerfamily group, while just opposite, on the south of the ridge, isthe hpme of the First-players. Now east and north—and here,again in the north—is the elder commune, Dragonfly Lodge,and opposite that on the south is the house of the ruling dynasty, the Revens or judges. The locations form a perfect square, with the anomaly at its exact center. The locations are also at the four major points of the compass with regardto the anomaly. We had them run a Fourier analysis of thislast chart, using the most elaborate program we could devise,plus trained recon interpreters, and we can say that nowhereelse does a configuration like this exist in regard to any feature, natural or otherwise. All the rest are either randomlyplaced, or located in relation to obvious economic nodes andcrossings. There is only one interpretation: that those four groups have access to the anomaly!"

Parleau stood back from the desk, scratching his chin, star

ing down at the charts. "Plausible, plausible, indeed."

"We cannot dismiss this as not being a weapon. It is assuredly not a natural object; natural objects are neither massless, nor do they depress a magnetic field."

Parleau mused, "Agreed. We can't assume that it's neutralor benign.... It has been there for some time, obviously; andwere it for the general welfare, I should imagine they wouldnot have hidden it so well. And of course, we see that those groups have been mixed up with it from the beginning."

Eykor continued, "Yes. And this at last explains why thegirl, a First-player by family, chose to lose her mind ratherthan take the chance she might reveal even an innocent association that could lead eventually to this. But we still don't know why she did it; I mean, it's stupid, after all; it just calledour attention to it."

''Maybe she was preventing an ongoing project from seeingthat by accident."

"We thought of it; and checked the records. There was nosuch project in view. The instruments would have lain thereanother thousand years for all I know."

"Come on! Are you certain, Eykor?"

"Absolutely, Chairman. Control ran their collator through it; Research Center also. There was no plan to use the instruments in any manner."

"Then she did her work for nothing. Or did she? Is this like the Errat thing, where we can't see the true intent because it isn't aimed at us? But if we hadn't caught her, we'dnever have made the connection."

"We might have thought to make up breadboards and use

them."

"But against whom? We'd have the whole world as suspect,

then."

"Chairman, I believe we agree that Errat was working for

someone, on instructions. Someone he didn't know. He called

the patrol out, and she was captured . . . what if she was sup

posed to be captured?"

"God, you're a worse speculator than Plattsman. What

would be the purpose of that?"

"I can think of innumerable possibilities. It's expensive, but

you've heard of agents provocateurs. We use them. This

could be the same thing, only with an event as bait. To get us

to do something precipitately. Also, Errat was at the root of

the incident in which the girl was wounded or killed."

"Aha! The first time wasn't enough, so they trailed the bait

in front of us again, eh?"

"Something like that . . . they seem to be trying to provokea first strike. But people who invite first strikes usually do so secure in the knowledge that they can weather it and use something worse in return. They want justification to use it What? Whatever is located in the anomaly!"

"Hm. An exercise in subtle moralities.... But all this does not match well with their high regard for life, nor with theirideals of lack of interaction with us."

"Someone wasn't nonviolent with Errat. Someone precipitated some very un-nonviolent behavior to the girl, probablyintended. There's no high regard for life, ours or theirs, in that. But they're uninvolved, I should say . . . so uninvolved they don't care how they get our attention."

"There is something in what you say.... Does Klytenknow these conclusions?"

"No. He saw the questions we had, not the end result."

Parleau depressed a call-button and requested that the administrator call on Mandor Klyten. After a short wait, for Klyten spent considerable time in that very building, and happened to be in, the academician appeared in Parleau's office, arriving slightly flushed. Parleau quickly made a resume of the case so far as Eykor had presented it, summarizing their opinions. Then he asked, "We've gone so far, butwe lack a certain expertise to analyze intentions. I'd like to hear your view of these developments."

Klyten hesitated, looking about randomly, as if trying tobuild an image in his mind's eye to match that which he hadheard. He shook his head.

"I agree completely with Eykor that something is there andthat it can't be natural . . . but we can't say what it is, based solely upon what it is not. We can prove negatives, until doomsday and we'd still be no closer to it than when we started; the range of negatives is infinite. But I'm hesitant toleap to the conclusion that it is a weapon, just because it isn'tnatural. They do in fact have an elaborate ethical system thatdoes invite the aggressor to make the first move, and their culture has elaborate structures built into it to reduce and displace the already low level of aggression which is in them.Yet, they know as well as we the kind of things we can bring to bear on them. We still have the old nuclear warheads stashed away, and we have no shortage of people, too. Hell,we could send a million-man army in there, each man armedwith a switch, for that matter. And I don't understand the kind of logic that would invite that kind of risk at all. That'stoo much. So I'll say this: if there is a weapon involved, that's not all it is."

"Not only a weapon ..." Parleau mused, "then a principle,an invention . . . an artifact, a thing which could have manyuses. What might be some of the possibilities?"

"Damnation! Wide open, there. Be imaginative. Peopledon't hide things, or their containers, for generations, unlessthe thing is very special, a breakthrough in concept. So we candisregard little piddling things like a new aircraft, a new gun-sight, a more efficient power source. They do that stuff in theInstitute every day and don't care who knows it. Think wildly: matter transmission. A faster-than-light drive-system.Force Fields. Hell's bells, why not a time machine? Who knows?"

"So ... it's an it, truly. Do we want it?"

"Want it? Chairman, of course we want it! We want it all, as the saying goes, and the horse it came on. The question is—can we use it and will it do us any good?"

"Hmph. We get it and then we worry about that."

"No, no. All technology is not an unlimited blessing. Everything has consequences. We pick for the consequence wewant, and to hell with the rest; we'll adjust after the fact. Butwe usually don't stop to ask if the particular consequence weare seeking is even major or minor, and what are all the others. For drugs, we do this, and take risks accordingly, giving a man a poison for the chance it will cure before it kills. Consider the bad old days, when we had the old sovereignnations. Some were well-off, some were very badly off. Soone chooses, say, to spend money on the ability to build a nuclear weapon, when one should be investing in the most carefully structured management system. Now one has a bomb. Not only does this piss away money for nothing, but it prevents its being spent on something useful. And not only that; now the influence of it allows this state to influence the spread of its incompetence into neighboring areas, eventuallyblighting the entire region. There was exactly such a case. The entire area just collapsed, taking with it into oblivion a billion lives, half a dozen cultures, and about ten major languages. There's a consequence we don't want," Klyten said.

"It's not the technology—it's the use they put it to," Parleau said.

"Yes. But in their case at least they knew what they werebuying. We don't even know that. We might even have to invent a need for it. Remember lasers? History? They inventedthem, and then worked like dogs to find a use for them. Ornoble-gas chemistry; the same. There wasn't any use for stufflike xenon tetrafluoride; still isn't. It could be very dangerousfor us even to try to use it."

"We've been dealing with them through the Institute forthree hundred years, applying Institute solutions to just abouteverything that's come along. So far it's helped us greatly—helped us survive, as a fact."

"That's true, Chairman. But you miss one facet of this relationship: the Institute always operates on the basis of strict question-and-answer. Problem-solution thinking. Very specific."

"Explain, please."

"They don't accept a problem to work on unless we ask the question."

"What's so difficult about that?"

'The Institute does not do open-ended research for anygroup of humans on the planet, or anyone else, for that matter. The Institute works only on conceptual problems thathave cleared the Priorities Board; limited stuff, that's all. Ask the question first. Like Columbus—he would ask, 'Which way to America?' They would answer, 'We'll tell you where it is.' But he didn't know it existed. Now he says, 'Is there an America?' and they tell him that it isn't part of the Indies. Not the right question. Now in some of the communes theydo pure research, you know, really open-ended speculation,just to see where those roots lead. But the by-products of thatare never made available, even for their own people. As forus, those people won't even pass the time of day with us."

Parleau exclaimed, "Well, then, we've been fooled the whole time!"

"No, no, I couldn't say that; they have applied themselvesdown there, and they've done good work. They produce solutions, tools, programs, plans, and it has always been a high-quality, first-class product. Why, the kind of loosely federatedplanetary government we have today was invented there. I canname a lot of other things we take for granted, too. Shifter Society is another. They have always given their best."

Parleau was following another track, and did not pursuethe values of the Institute, but soundlessly shifted gears intosomething else that was bothering him. "You say the elders do some pure research?"

"Some elders; some communes. The ones that do so tend to specialize in one degree or another. One, for example, doesgenetics, another natural science, another higher mathematics.And of course certain Braids prefer to wind up in certain lodges that are somewhat restricted, while other lodges are nomore than what they seem to be—simple communes, resembling the monastic communities of our own history. There iseven, so I hear, an analog of the Trappists: silence, meditation, devotion, poverty, humility. Their product is an illuminated devotional text; that, and paintings. From what I haveseen, they seem fond of the Dutch Panoramists—Holbein, Bosch, those."

"Do you know Dragonfly Lodge?"

"Only slightly, mostly by reputation. They do Game work;and they are by far the most secretive. . . . Oh, I see. Yes, ofcourse. The girl was a Player."

"Klyten, you haven't seen the half of it; I should well agreethey are secretive, since it appears that they have something to hide. Eykor has associated that lodge with the PlayersBraids and the ruling Braid as well, and tied that to the original incident with the girl. And, in addition, an unusual anomaly that ties in also .. and most probably to Errat."

Klyten, taken somewhat aback, maintained his composure.When Parleau had summarized before, he had done so lightly, without attributing significances. Now it all came together. He replied, noncommittally, "I know them by reputation only, so to speak."

Eykor saw his opportunity to press a point. He asked, pointedly, "Is it true that when they turn the house over to the next generation, the ex-parents then move into various elder lodges?"

Klyten answered absently, "Well, that's not strictly true. Just generally. Some go off alone, others ..."

"But most go to the lodges?"

"Yes, you could say that, but..."

"And do Braids go where they please, or are there trendsand standing associations?"

"Oh, definitely, trends and associations. Braids tend to beassociated with lodges as a matter of tradition. Not exactlyon a one-for-one basis, you understand. There is some mixing. Here you must understand that they don't ever see choice as an Aristotelian dilemma of two options; I shoulduse the word quadrilemma, if anything. They would call sucha choice situation the consideration of the Fire Path, the Air

Path, the Earth Path, the Water Path. Tradition and habit and precedent also play their parts; what one is expected todo by one's peers, for instance...."

Eykor interrupted the dissertation. "For instance, where domembers of the Player Braids go when they reach elder status?"

Klyten knew he was being led, but he seemed powerless tostop it. "Wait a moment, there, let me think. I study the ler,not emulate their mental processes, particularly the one of total recall It would seem that I've seen something on that;yes, of course. They go to Dragonfly Lodge. Yes, I recall it now. They have the highest correlation of any occupational group with an elder lodge."

Parleau asked, "Correlation?"

"Yes. That's where I saw it. A sociological report written some years ago. The Perklarens have a correlation with Dragonfly Lodge of something near ninety-five percent. The Terklarens are even higher; in some periods they have maintained one hundred percent for several generations running. The next association with that lodge was much lower, less than fifty percent, and all the other elder lodges show even lower correlations, down in the twenties, usually."

"Who else joins Dragonfly Lodge?" asked Parleau.

"Only one other Braid: the Reveins. Almost all the insiblings, none of the outsiblings. Or the afterparents. Yes, now that I recall it, I wondered about it at the time, that association of the Revens with Dragonfly. I could see no purpose in it...."

Parleau said quietly, glancing at Eykor, "Then it would be reasonably accurate to aver that, for the most part, Dragonfly Lodge is composed in the main of ex-Players and ex-judges."

"I believe that is accurate. There are some scattered few other individuals, but they are rare .... something less than five percent of membership. It's a restricted lodge."

"Restricted? How so?"

"There are four kinds of lodges: open, closed, male, female. The male and female lodges are obvious in their member selection; they recruit. The open lodges take in anyone. They welcome all. Closed lodges take in only those they want; word gets around, and few apply who are not wanted."

"Four elementals, again?"

"Exactly. Opens are Water aspect. Male and female are, respectively, Air and Earth aspects. The closed lodges are Fire aspect."

"What does Fire aspect connote to you?"

"Decision, order, organization, will, discipline. Willpower,planning, that sort of thing."Parleau asked, following another tangent, "And in what aspect does the root revh- mean 'judge'?"

"Fire."

Eykor began pacing back and forth rapidly, saying, "We'vegot it now, for sure."

Parleau asked, "What do we have? We have little more than what we had from the beginning. Just putting it togetherbetter, confirming the connections. We still don't know whatthe artifact does."

"But, Chairman, we can now confirm that this is no yesterday's plot; it's been going on for generations! Those Braids gottogether, they made a perfect disguise and refuge, an elder lodge, and set up ..."

Klyten interrupted, "No, no. Not that way! You've got itass-backwards. The Braids didn't invent the lodges; it was theother way: the lodges invented the Braids!"

Parleau asked, "What?"

Klyten continued, "That's basic ler history, Chairman. Ihadn't brought it up before because I assumed that it was common knowledge. The institution of the lodges predatesthe first generation of the earliest Braids by about a hundredyears."

"Who made the decisions, then? Who was boss?"

"Of the organized lodges in existence today, less than a third can trace their roots to the pre-Braid, pre-reservation period. At first they were mixed all over with us. At that time, I believe the DNA conversions were still going on. The organization now known as Dragonfly Lodge was simply thebest-organized group of them. They set the whole thing in motion."

"You say, 'now known as.' What were they then?"

"Hm. I believe they were then working on large-scale synthesis of all that was known in certain areas, you know, catching up and integrating. Mathematics, space flight, power-source technology, nuclear engineering, quantummechanics. They especially revere Max Planck."

"Planck?"

"Planck, Dirac, Einstein, Fermi. A few others. Also Von

Neumann, Conway. They were early games theorists."

Parleau withdrew a little, as if he were studying some deepinterior panorama. At last he said, "I had a suspicion aboutthis, always did, about those little bastards. Especially afterEykor showed me the maps and cartos of the area of the anomaly. We always feared that they would turn around onus and produce an advanced human type completely off thescale as far as mind and ability went. And that's what I almost thought it might have been. But now, I think we can narrow it down more than that, for they would fear that more than we would. So, Eykor, I want Plan Two-twelve implemented quietly, no fuss. As soon as we can get it going gracefully."

Eykor was not prepared for what he had won. "Implementit, Chairman?"

"Yes, implement it. Mobilize the assault forces and as soonas we reach readiness phase, go in there and take that hill and whatever is in it. It cannot be ready to use, or else theywould already be using it, on us, doubtless. Never mind the occupation of the reservation, that part of the plan. We don'tneed the whole thing, just that hill. Get us there, and in."

"Chairman, it'll be hard to get it started. It's Twelvemonth,near New Year's. A lot of the troops we could call up are offon otpusk*."

* Otpusk. A Russianism that had replaced such terms as furlough,leave, vacation.

"Well, get them back as best you can and get to it. Don't wait for me, build it up to readiness and go on in. And have your people ready for anything. Anything. They would be fools not to try to defend it, perhaps destroy it. Let's have no more of the business of the TacTeam that went after the girl. They must be ruthless and grab, and shoot. After we get it, we won't need to make apologies for what we did, to them, or to anyone else."

Eykor was still a little behind Parleau. He asked, "But what's in the mountain, Chairman?" He now saw something growing in Parleau's expression, something whose traces had always been there, but which had been subtle, camouflaged, blended, hidden. But with the ultimate before him, in his mind's eye, Parleau was matching those ultimates with some ultimates of his own. He answered Eykor, smiling once again, satisfied that he now knew all he needed to know: "It is either the damndest weapon you ever saw, the key to supreme power, or it's a starship. Nothing else would be worth so much trouble to them. Perhaps both. Either way, it has power. And whatever people say, we were here first, it's ourplanet. And I think the time has come to terminate the reservation, the Institute, and all the rubbish that goes with it. Their useful life is over, and they've delivered it. Klyten,could you operate what they find in that cavern?"

"You jest, Chairman. Of course I couldn't. And I doubt seriously that if what you say is true, we'd find anyone to operate it, either. Willingly."

"We'll get someone, Klyten. Be assured of that. We will find an operator, one way or another."

Klyten looked away, and pretended to become interested inthe untidy pile of documentation brought in by Eykor, turning and hiding his face so that neither Eykor nor Parleau, now earnestly engaged in a discussion of plans, programs, options, could see him clearly and read on his face what was thereon plain. He saw Parleau more clearly than usual, nowthat Parleau thought he knew what was hidden in the anomalyin the hill. He had always kept his vice in check, playing thesystem and abiding by its rules, but with even the hopeful hintof raw power close to his hands, he was now throwing off allrestraint and betting everything on what he thought he could capture and use. This last made Klyten apprehensive; forwhile his loyalties were not in question, he too had followedthe argument from its inception with the capture of the girl.And from his own knowledge of the ler he felt the leadingedge of fear: for if there was anything at all to the conjecturesof the chairman, there would be defense for it, even for probing directly at it. And Klyten could not say with assurancethat his own people had the resources to pay that price, andall its unforeseen billings. Best to have let this all alone, yetnone of them could stop the procedure that was gaining momentum here, leading them here, to this choice-point, thisnexus, with all the consequences it could have. They didn't even see them. They didn't even know such things existed.And of course he could see that they were in the act of rendering his own position obsolete; he would end his days in Inventory Management, yet.

It was in that state of mind that he caught a fragment ofParleau's speech, not said in anger, or even excitement, butcalmly, as if one would ask an associate to pick up some artide of commerce for him. Parleau said, " And while you're at it, pick up that Vance and bring him up here. He'shad far too close an association with those people. His hour'spassed."

NINETEEN

The Times we know are pregnant with the seeds

of Change, that mighty idol of the race

of youth, which seeks in each and every place

to lend new hope to oft-recurring deeds;

we say, the future holds our dearest needs,

but Present holds for us the barest trace

of those who were, with sometime-tortured grace,

the builders of our world, who built with deeds.

But now—they've come and gone, and what they made

now fades before our very eyes; and when

i f s gone, we'll sing of this—our Golden Age,

forgetting that each age is purest Jade,

while Time, that Eiron to the hearts of men,

will smile at us, and turn another page.

—Time the Eiron, 1964

There were four: Fellirian, Morlenden, Krisshantem, and Mevlannen, all alike now standing on the northern slope of Grozgor, the Mountain of Madness. So it had been, that in the last clear light by which to see, they had reached the end of the narrow pathing under the trees, among the weathered rocks of a dry streambed, and now they stood waiting, listening. Their directions would take them only so far and no farther. They listened for what they might have expected to hear; perhaps the sound of muffled machinery from that which was inside the mountain. But there was nothing; no sign, no presence, no trace. The mountain was silent. Far to the west, near the horizon, the sky was red, while higher up, it was the color of winter, a pale aqua. Overhead it was a hard ultramarine. The shortest day, Winter Solstice; it was a

holiday in the calendar of the New People, and they would now all have been home in the yos, partying and cooking,singing and drinking homemade beer, while in the yard, theheavy baking oven would have contained a large goose,stuffed with a bread-and-sage pudding. The children would have been into everything, Peth fidgeting to get away to thewoods and her latest boy, winter or not Solsticeday wasolder than the ler.

They stood in the cold, shuffling about nervously, cold andacutely uncomfortable. Here was Grozgor, and here came theelders of the house of Dragonfly, as it was said, "to restore their flagging vision." For them, a holy place. For the rest, aplace of unknown damnations. Morlenden wondered about the wisdom of coming here, now, when back in the securityof their own yos, it had seemed straightforward and easy: they would come here and ask for judgment of the Reven. Now...

Fellirian shyly asked Mevlannen, "Have you ever been inside it?"

She answered, "Many times. But long ago, to be sure. Much will have changed since then. They will be finishingwhat they have of it."

Fellirian touched the girl's arm lightly. "Sh, now. Someonecomes."

They looked in the direction Fellirian had turned; there, inthe weak light, was one where none had been before, a pale,still figure, in the place where the dry wash had deeply undercut the banks. The figure, dressed in a simple, light overshirtwithout decoration or herald, seemed to ignore the cold, which had become intense. They could see that it was probably parent phase, but they could not make out enough of theface under the raised hood to tell who it was.

The figure came a little closer, hesitating, then speaking softly, gravely, as if in reverence of the place in which hestood. "I am Pellandrey Reven. What will you require here?"

Fellirian felt rooted to the cold, stony ground. She said, "Some who have come to seek justice: Fellirian, whom youknow, and Morlenden, of the Derens. Also Krisshantem, one who has none to sponsor him, and Mevlannen Srith Perklaren. Those also are known to you."

Pellandrey stepped closer, saying, "Yes, I see. Forgive mefor not recognizing you. I came here from bright light." Pellandrey was slightly built, almost thin, with fine, smooth, classical features on a long, well-defined face. Still, with an innercalm, Morlenden had never seen before. Pellandrey added, "Are you well, all of you?"

Fellirian answered quietly, "We are well."

Pellandrey said, "You speak of justice?"

"Yes. And of a message which Morlenden must bear to Sanjirmil. She is in this place?"The answer was guarded, cautious. "She is here."Morlenden said, "And we must speak of things within themountain, and of things between exemplars of your Game."

"Is that the issue of judgment?"

"No, there are others."

"So, then. I, Pellandrey, am your servant and your guide here." He seemed to sense a measure of how much theyknew, and it did not seem to bother him greatly. "But inside?" He continued, "Ah, now, there is a thing . . . you understand that it is not permitted to speak out in the world ofthat which is within Grozgor? If it is that you are knowledgeable and have kept the faith, then you may enter within andbecome illuminated in truth. And if not, then I cannot permityou to leave."

Morlenden answered, "There is much that we do not know, but of what we know we have spoken to no one."

It was dark now, dark enough so that they could not makeout the features of the face of Pellandrey, but they couldsense movement, a gesture—a smile? Morlenden thought not;such a face as one that went with the words would not smile . . . and if it did, it would be a smile he did not wish to see. The Reven said, "Who was told? By whom?"

Morlenden said, "Mostly, by Mevlannen. Much I have suspected from what was told to me by others. I have spoken ofthese things only with Fellirian; there are few secrets between us. Only that which we each did during the vayyon remains private. Krisshantem does not know, save what he has assayed on his own. And no one else."

"Only the vayyon, eh? A good thing, that. It is the onlysecret an insibling should have. And this other, it is almost the same, the kind one should keep above all. So it must be;you will see another sunrise." They all felt a withdrawing, afading of an icy regard. Pellandrey turned from them, saying,"Follow me." He assumed obedience without comment. As the High Reven, the Arbitrator of the People, he had but onecommandment: preserve the people. He completed the motion and began walking back up the streambed, never looking back, or even seeming to notice them. The four who waitedfollowed.

The entrance, if that was truly what it was, appeared to bea simple cleft in the rock face, set in an odd little corner where at some time in the past the intermittent stream had undercut the rock in its passage down the mountain. It was notapparent as an opening into anything conceivable from anyangle, appearing only as some blind pocket whose deepest corners were filled with shadows, even in the brightness of day.

Here, Pellandrey stopped and again turned to them. He said, "There is not time for proper instruction in the form ofthe motions, so perform as best you are able according to your lights. Watch the motions I make and perform them exactly the same. Otherwise there is danger. Do you understand? Let Mevlannen go first; she knows. There is an interface at this point between two universes, and great energiesare involved. Do this seriously. On your own. No one can doit for you."

He turned back to the cleft in the rock, and stood quietly,facing the darkness. Taking a deep breath, and holding it, hethen raised his arms to the .side, as if for balance, then bringing them around to the front, as if he were intending to diveinto a pool of water. Then he stepped off, a half-stride, half-dance, two steps, and made a short, easy jump, as if leapinggracefully over some unseen obstacle. He moved straightahead, but as his figure merged with the darkness of the shadowed cleft, it seemed as if he had somehow turned a corner, for they could no longer see him, or even sense his presence. It was as if Pellandrey had never been. No soundaccompanied this act, and no sense whatsoever of anythinghaving happened at all. But Pellandrey was gone.

Mevlannen stepped forward, moved to the place wherePellandrey had stood. She looked back once, nodding, addingin a voice that was now very small, "Yes, this is the way ofit." She made the motions, took the two steps, and, just as Pellandrey had before her, vanished as soon as her shapemerged with the cleft in the rock face.

Morlenden, Fellirian, and Krisshantem looked at one another tentatively, unbelieving. Krisshantem shrugged. "One must believe," he said, and without further words, went to the place, faced the rock, made the motions. And was not there.

Fellirian looked closely at the place, as if not believing hereyes. She slid closer to the cleft, tried to peer inside. She saw nothing. A darkness, an emptiness within a shadow. She listened, cocking her head; there was no sound. In its placethere was a stuffy deadness, as if something were absorbing sound. No. No one was there. It was absurd. She shook her head, once, and then went to the place from which the othershad already started. From there, she too took the deepbreath, made the motions, took the two steps and the littleleaping glide, and went straight into the corner that one couldnot see. There was silence. Fellirian was not there anymore.

Morlenden listened. There was nothing but the silences ofthe rocks, the out-of-doors. There was no wind in the bare trees over his head. Now he, too, walked to the cleft, peeredinside. He thought he could make out the end of it. It was shallow, after all, not a cave. But when he tried to focus on the end he thought was there, his eyes refused to form an image. Too dark, he thought. Although it didn't feel quite likedarkness, absence of light, something below a threshold. There was something else. Something he could not see. Heshrugged, straightened, looked all around himself, as if for the last time: at the streambed, the mountain, the sky, thetrees. Then he, too, went to the place, made the motions—theindrawn breath, the arms, the steps, the leap; he expected toland in a dark cave and stub his toe, but as he left the ground and the darkness met him, he felt an instant of weightless vertigo, a picoinstant of formless churning chaosand blinding energy, a roaring in his ears of disorganized,torn sound, a brightness and a body-wrenching that made hisstomach churn. And he was standing.

Morlenden had shut his eyes at the lights, as if from reflex.Now he opened them. He was in a plain, dim chamber, apparently brown in color. The light came from every place, noplace. There was no opening anywhere: it was a perfect cube.Sealed. The others were waiting for him. The chamber gaveback no sound whatsoever; the silence was the deepest he hadever heard. Yet there was, under the stillness, some subliminal perception of energy, tremendous energies, carefully balanced and held in check. He said, "Where are we?"

Pellandrey said, reluctantly, as if he did not wish to, "No place. Keep as still as you can and make no attempt to touchthe walls. Watch me and do as I do again. This is the difficultpart; yet, if you make the transition successfully, you will bein the Ship. Feel the resistance and pass through it into reality again. Now attend!"

Pellandrey moved to the exact center of the chamber, stood quietly. With a minimum of preparatory actions, hesuddenly jumped straight up; about at the exact spatial centerof the cube, he vanished. Silently. Morlenden had tried to seeexactly what had happened to him, but it eluded him conceptually; it seemed that the figure receded, too fast to follow, yet stayed where it was.

Now Mevlannen followed, now Krisshantem, now Fellirian; all moved, one by one, to the center, leaped upward, vanished. Morlenden stood alone. He looked carefully about thesmall, bare chamber. There was little enough to see. There was air, but it seemed stale, like cave air. The sound was dead. He had to listen carefully to hear himself breathe. Helooked more closely at the walls, which were no more than abody-length away. He could easily step forward and touch them. He approached the nearer wall, looked closely, tried tofind a point on it, focus on it. He could not. What he thoughtwas surface was only an illusion of a surface; when he triedto see it directly, he felt disoriented instead. He was unable todefine the depth of what he saw. There was no reference point upon which to focus. Morlenden strained, again tryingto force an order onto it. And at the furthest extreme of his efforts, he sensed, rather than saw, motion, perhaps the suggestion of motion; a slow boiling or churning, immenselypowerful, a Brownian motion that concealed a subtle sense ofunderlying order beneath the random movements. He lookeddown at the floor; there, he now saw, at the extremes of vision, the same effect as in the walls, which were all alike of a dull, rich brown that remained a surface only as long as one did not look at it too closely.

Again, he shrugged. They had had faith and made the absurd motions; he would also. From the center, Morlenden also jumped up, straight up, flexing his knees as little as possible.

His first thought was that there was something wrong withthe force of gravity, because instead of slowing down as herose, somehow he was accelerating, and the chamber faded,and in its place there was nothing, no sensation of anything. Where he was, was an imaginary number, a software program with nothing to manipulate, pure abstract process.He hung sensationless, divorced even from feedback from hisown body. He did not know if he was breathing or not. He tried to move, but felt nothing. He tried imagining that hemoved. He felt a resistance. It gave him an eerie feeling in

the pit of his mind. The more he imagined, the more concretefeeling became. Gradually, he felt an opening, but it seemed too small. He embraced it, pulled. He was moving rapidlyabove a plain, conveyed by forces but not in any vehicle. Itwas lighted from an unknown source, an absolutely flat surface, littered with shapeless lumps that were the same brownish color as the plain, the same color as the walls of the chamber. He was passing by the lumps, but there were more . . . there was a suggestion of shape to them, but he couldn'tquite see it. He was moving to an abstract perspective horizon, a child's drawing, the imagination of a madman. He made an effort, the lunge of panic, trying to free himself, andthe plain vanished.

Spatial orientation and normal sensation returned. He wasalone in a small, bare room, but at least a room made of things he could understand, touch: it was basically metal, but was overlaid mostly with beautiful dark wooden paneling,dark wood and handwoven cloth, familiar as the product ofhis own people. This air had odor, temperature. It was cool,almost cold. Yes, it was chilly. He shivered. There were odorsof machinery, material, distant people. The floor was reassuringly solid and in the right place. He moved from the center,to touch the walls, make sure . . . as he did, in quick succession, the rest materialized into the room, displacing air withlittle puffs as they materialized. Pellandrey came last. Whenhe saw Morlenden to the side, his face took on an expressionof amused consternation. Fellirian had come with her eyes tightly closed, standing in a semicrouch, a wrestling posture.She bore on her face an expression of strain, grimacing witheffort.

Morlenden reached for Fellirian, touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes, looking quickly around her, straightening.There was a sense of Machine all around them, a presense ofcontrolled, bound energy, of vital, surging power. Faint noises came now to their ears from other parts of the Ship:metallic sounds; muffled voices; something that sounded likevery ordinary hammering.

Fellirian asked, "Where are we?"

Pellandrey answered, "On the Ship, of course. You will note that Morlenden arrived before us, although he was lastto depart the staging chamber. That is an effect we get sometimes when we go through the gate more than one at a time.Sequence reversal. We do not understand the continuum through which we just passed very well at all. The entry was not a product of design. We would prefer the door-flap of a yos, to be frank. But in part, it . . . ah, happened. After wefound it, we were able to modify it somewhat. Now we cancontrol it a little, and come and go."

Morlenden said, "I saw a plain, with odd lumps scatteredover it. I was moving, flying; there was no end to it."

"The plain? You saw it?"

"Indeed I did, and I did not like what I saw."

Pellendrey shook his head. "We do not know where that place is . . . attempts to explore it, examine it, more closely,have failed, mostly. Most do not experience it at all, and most who do, do not live to tell tales of it. The lumps are, webelieve, the remains of those who have failed, over the years.I have been there once, and I will not speak of what I did there, nor what I learned." Here he stopped, as if recalling something distasteful. "I will not return, willingly. There isone among us who does, though."

Morlenden asked, "Who?" But he thought he would knowthe answer. Pellandrey said, "Sanjirmil." He would say no more, not ofher. He added, "You are lucky to have seen it and lived."

He turned now, and brushed aside an ordinary doorwaycurtain, as if doing no more than escorting visitors into a yossomewhere, motioning them to follow him along a dim hallway that was revealed. "Come along," he said. "We'll go nowinto the Prime Sensorium; there we may speak of what youwill."

He set off along the corridor, making no further remarks.The four followed, equally silently, struck dumb by the contrast between the unreality of the entry and the plain homeliness of the interior furnishings. They moved steadilythrough a maze; all save Mevlannen. She knew where she was.

They came to an intersecting corridor, turned into it, andimmediately began walking down a steep incline. Other corridors ran into it from both sides, leading off into other sections of the Ship. From one they heard the hammering noisesthey had heard earlier. There was also the odor of sawdust,of iron.

They switched corridors many times, sometimes walking onthe level, sometimes down inclines. Some passages were narrow, connecting hallways; others were broad thoroughfares.No section was straight for long, but would jog off, and then back again. Fellirian followed politely, but after a long timeof this she could not contain her curiosity any longer, andasked, "And where are the engines, the fuel, the bunkers?"

"None," answered Pellandrey. "This is not a powered ship,a fueled ship, but the analog of a sailing ship; we only takeenough power to run life-support, operate the synthesizer.That power comes from batteries which are energized by theflux around the Ship." He added, as an afterthought, "Theproblem is not that we don't have enough, but that we havetoo much."

"Then what do you do with it?"

"It must be used within the system from which it was derived; we have been using the excess to regularize the orbitof Pluto, the outermost. It is small in mass as planetarybodies go, but it is sufficient. Understand we do not do anything radical to it. And what we do is not very obvious. Mevlannen can tell you that, I believe."

Mevlannen agreed. "For a year I watched, compared,made calculations; the change we have put into it will not besensible enough to read for thirty years."

Morlenden started to speak, but the moment passed, and Pellandrey turned again to lead them through the maze of corridors. They went through another series of junctions, nodes, at last a dim nexus of five passages. Pellandreystopped before a large, metal hatch set into the bulkhead, secured with threaded T-handles about the perimeter.There was no legend on the hatch, but in a place of curtainsand easily sliding panels, such a doorway could only have one meaning: Keep out. Pellandrey bent and began to unfasten the handles, methodically, one at a time. When he finished,he turned back to them, hand on the hatch, poised to push itinward.

Mevlannen said, "I cannot pass within, if Sanjirmil is nowthere."

Pellandrey asked, "And why so?"

"We are enemies; long ago we made a pact. I thought thatit would not come to a meeting again, so I agreed. Outside, in the forest, alone, one on one, I would take my chances,but here, in the seat of her power, I would fear. I cannot enter; I will be attacked on sight."

"Just so. She is there. But you came for a judgment, so youmust enter, else we hear and decide in the place where we stand. To judge is most serious; would you have us settle the

matter like conspirators behind the warehouse, skulkers in the

alley?"

Morlenden said, "I ask that it be here, if Mevlannen so

wishes. I am her sponsor in any event—it is my argument"

Pellandrey shrugged. "Very well. Speak."

Morlenden did not waste time with formalities, saying,

"You know the history of the Perklarens, so we need not recite it; you also know whence came Krisshantem, here, and what his course had been, and your own part in it. Thus, andthus. These two are of suitable age, and both possess valuableknowledge that must not perish. I ask that they be declaredshartoorh here and designated to weave upon maturity in their own Braid."

Pellandrey turned a cold, steady gaze on Morlenden. "Youalready know too much, Morlenden Deren. And what will betheir role? What will they do?"

Morlenden pressed on, not turning at all from what he came for. "I confess that my original intent had been to resurrect the thrust of the course Maellenkleth had been on, but I see now that such would be folly. Therefore I ask that theybe called Skazen, lore-masters, those who know and those who remember. Too long have we left that function to elderswho will answer to none."

Pellandrey turned a little, avoiding them all with his expressionless eyes. He seemed to look into a distance, weighingimponderables. After a time, he said, "There is much consequence to this. I see, I know; ripples in time across the centuries; there will be the usual objections."

"It is against just such that I strive here, Pellandrey Reven.These two have earned what I ask."

"I know, I know; just as had Maellenkleth. Even as I steered her for my own reasons, I recited arguments to myself upon why I could not do what she asked in the end. Andhad it come to a Dirklaren Braid . . . I do not know. We cannot spend much time on would-have-been's."

"Very well. This petition, then, on its own weight."

The Reven looked now intently at both, Mevlannen and Krisshantem. He asked, "You two are known to one another? And do you agree to this?" They both nodded agreementmoving closer together instinctively.

"Whose idea was this? Let it speak now."

Morlenden said, "Mine, but only of late."

"There will be a price. Will you two agree to pay it?"

Again they nodded. Pellandrey said, "The ritual is inappro

priate for the circumstances. Therefore I do exercise that

right which is mine by inheritance. So be the request of Mor

lenden Deren, let none here forget it until the end of time."

Mevlannen and Krisshantem looked at each other with shining faces. Pellandrey added, grimly, "Do not forget theprice among the rejoicing of new-lovers, as I see you have become." They turned back to him. "And my price is thus.Mevlannen, I lay a prohibition upon you for the peace of thepeople: you and all your descendants hereafter will be forbidden the Game, Outer and Inner. Krisshantem, you and all your descendants hereafter will make your dwelling place inthe heart of the most dense habitation among us. When we build cities, there you shall go. And last I invoke a tradition, which may not be contravened, upon both of you. It has been the practice of the past that shartoorh do not know one another, or at the least, as little as possible. Thus henceforthyou shall live separately until your fertility commences. Thismeans one of you must leave the yos of the Derens. Now you know the weight of it. Decide."

Mevlannen spoke before any of them. "It will be me."

"Very well... . You were to give the matrix to Maellenkleth. Who has it?"

"Morlenden Deren carries the matrix to Sanjirmil."

"So, then. You two will depart from this place to the common room. Never stand before this door again."

They lingered for a moment, as if trying to think of something to say, but nothing came; and at last they turned together, and, Mevlannen leading the way, made their way intoone of the ascending corridors, fading into the dimness.

Again the sound of the Ship returned to them. An odd silence, broken at intervals by distant, faint sounds of continuing construction; faint, unintelligible voices, hammering.Pellandrey waited, until he was sure that Mevlannen and Krisshantem had passed from hearing. Then he turned back to the massive hatch, saying to those remaining, "This is Prime. You might wish to say control room, or bridge, or perhaps quarterdeck, recalling the sailing ships of old. Withinhere is the Inner Game. Follow me."

He ducked and stepped over the high sill into it; Morlenden and Fellirian followed. Pellandrey closed and doggeddown the hatch behind them.

Morlenden and Fellirian stood quite still for a time, tryingto relate what they saw to something they knew. They could

see immediately that they were in a circular room, roofed by

a low, broadly domed ceiling about two hundred feet across.

The floor was an inverted, shallow truncated cone, descend

ing to a central pit. They were on a wide ledge that circled

the chamber.

Morlenden saw, but he could not assemble it into a mean

ingful picture. It was too alien. Nothing in the room related

to anything he had seen before.

If Morlenden had not known what to expect, Fellirian's

problem was that she knew too much. More used to human

ways of doing things, she expected a control room to contain

dials, screens, banks of instruments, lights, indicators, win

dows, portholes, levers, knobs. Considered in that light, it was

an austere, bare, and enigmatic room.

Above the platform, there was only the ceiling dome, a Game display, made of some dull translucent material that did not reflect any of the light from the floor. And at odd intervals around the sloping walls of the cone leading to the pit,there were small recesses spotted here and there, each fittedwith comfortable reclining chairs. Beside each were small panels, containing a few indicator lights, some empty receptacles, a button board. Steps recessed into the material of the sloping sides led to these from the pit floor. There was the actual control; there were four identical consoles, with their operators' chairs, also recliners, tilted back, so the occupantscould see the ceiling at all times. The chairs were actuallyluxurious cradles, surrounded on both sides by massed banksof keyboards, very much like the Game control keyboards ofthe Outer Game except that there were many more of them,enormous curved banks of keyboard strips and panels of tinybuttons, arranged on both sides of the recliners within arm'sreach, not in front or behind.

Above, the dome was dimly lit; only the central portionseemed to be active, about a fifth of its entire area. The onlyother lighting in the room came from small lamps over eachkeyboard bank, and panels in the narrow strip between domed ceiling and conical pit. The recesses were all empty;the operators' positions were filled. They did not seem to beoverly exerting themselves.

The four in the pit appeared to be late adolescents by appearance, reclining in their operators' cradles, all with both hands moving steadily over the banks of keyboard controls, not hurriedly, but steadily and deliberately, touching here,gliding, pausing there, always moving on; and they never

took their eyes off the ceiling for an instant, always keepingthe living, changing, ceaselessly permutating display abovetheir heads in sight. At the same time, though serious at theirwork, there was also a casual air to it as well, a watchful casualness, as if they were doing something easy and long-practiced. Each wore about their heads a light, lacy framework, which supported tiny earplugs and a microphonebefore their lips. And if the visitors on the deck above themwatched very closely, they could see, from time to time, theirlips moving ever so slightly; and when one spoke, the others'eyes would follow to a particular spot in the display above.The movements of their hands would change in rhythm, inscale, and somehow, something would change in the display.Neither Morlenden nor Fellirian could spot what changestook place—the Inner Game was simply too fast-moving.Morlenden found his inadvertent indoctrination as an Outer Player to be of no help at all.

One below nodded, spoke into the microphone. The othersnodded, too, and it seemed that a moment of watchfulness had passed.

Morlenden whispered to Fellirian, "Yonder lies Sanjirmil.On the right hand, to the rear. I would recognize her anywhere; her hair has a dusty blue sheen that even this half-light cannot obscure."

"Indeed. And that must be her Braid, with her."

Pellandrey, overhearing them, agreed. "Yes. The Terklarens-to-be. Tundarstven, her Toorh, to her left; in front, Sunderlai and Leffandel, Srith and Tlanh. Both were Thes."

Sanjirmil's Toorh wore a gray homespun overshirt, plainand austere, with a light woolen cloak against the chill air ofthe Ship. Sunderlai, a rounded, soft girl with a childish face,wore one in pale blues, shadings in shadowed snow. Leffandel wore brighter colors, with a brown cloak. Sanjirmil wore black; her overshirt was of the color of night, broken byshort, vertical strokes in curvings of stark white. Her cloakwas of leather, lined inside in dark gray, of a lusterless black.

Pellandrey said softly, "Morlenden, you spoke of judgment; say what you must now."

"Little more than a month ago," he began, "the Perwathwiy Srith came with an offer of gold, that we would find Maellenkleth, determining along the way what became of her. We have done so, as far as we have been able." And he began to tell what he had laboriously put together, the whole tale, how there had been enmity and rivalry between Maellenkleth and Sanjirmil, how the younger girl, disenfranchisedby the onrushing weight of consequences, had been drivenfrom the one thing she did best of all, and how Sanjirmil, apoor Player at best, had by the same consequences inheritedthe Inner Game. He told how Maellenkleth had planned tochallenge her rival, and how an already poor relationship haddeteriorated into open hositility, and how Sanjirmil had intentionally sent Maellenkleth on a fool's errand, knowing she would be captured. He told Pellandrey how Maellenkleth died, and what she told him as she did. And he spoke ofother things as well, of veiled threats, of an arrow, of a creature of the forest who haunted his steps. And at last he said,"And now I am come to this place for judgment against herfor all that I have said. I will stand for the truth of what I have alleged."

Pellandrey looked at the ceiling dome for a long time, saying nothing. His hands gripped the rail tightly, as he leanedhis weight upon it for support.

At last he turned to Morlenden and Fellirian, saying, "Wealready know of the uproar over the instruments. Sanjirmilherself told us that much after her visit, with Perwathwiy, to your yos. So much we could verify ourselves, and so we made appropriate plans. I suppose as she knew we would."

"Then you agree that I must have this judgment?"

Pellandrey glanced wearily to the place where lay Sanjirmil, controlling the Inner Game, the Zan. "In principle, I agree, concur, all the way. But I am not free to act in this,and I cannot render judgment to you."

"Why not?"

"Because I myself am not entirely without blame in all this; and as you have accused Sanjirmil, then so must you accuse me, for much of this would have been prevented. Couldhave been. It is a most long story; will you stay a while tohear it?"

"We will," they said.

"Very well. In your tale, you said what Mevlannen told you, and what you had put together. So you will rememberthat the Ship activated on its own fifteen, a fourteen and one,years ago? Very good. What you do not know and have notknown until now is what happened on that day. Now I willtell you and you will see."

"The Ship was not active then, so we only maintained a watch here, not a flying crew. But there were hours in the

day when we used the display, which was completed, for thetraining of the novices. That it was complete should havewarned us, but it did not. We kept our eyes too close to theold plan. And so on that day, there was a student at the controls, with two elders giving her additional instruction; she needed all the extra she could get, for she wasn't good at theGame at all; in fact, we were despairing of ever getting herup even to novice level. But she was a fighter, and she persisted, where others would have given up and accepted their true role. Where others had given up in the past history of the Game. So there was an extra session. Perwathwiy and Trethyankov were making her pretend she was flying solo,one of the emergency procedures. She had just taken the controls, was not even properly prepared to control, and the activation commenced. There was no warning, no symptom,nothing. One minute a working board seemingly connected tonothing, the next live. She, the poor girl, thought it was an exercise Perwathwiy had dreamed up, and she was determined not to fail, even though she knew that she would. Shecould never catch on to the way of it. So she took command and ordered Perwathwiy and Trethyankov to their places. Butthey knew, already. The ship was starting to move. By a supreme effort of will, the elders managed to get her steered inthe right direction. Then Trethyankov died. Of shock, of strain, of fear . . . who knows? Then Perwathwiy collapsed ofthe strain of it, passing out completely. The girl flew on, nowmuch too busy even to notice. She knew she was alone, solo,

in the real thing, at last; she knew she couldn't do it, but shehad to, for there was no one to call. All she could do was hold on until the changing of the watch, on the hope thatsome Player would happen by the sensor control and relieveher. She had no hope . . . but she had nerve and a fierce will to survive, to win, to prove to the people that she could, when they needed her. And so she did. Alone. Trethyankov, of course, did not revive. Perwathwiy would come back toconsciousness, but would be beaten down each time, over and over again, by the combined assault of the living display andthe voice of the girl-student, which was by now full Command-override Multispeech.

"And so it continued. We knew what had happened, for when the Ship activated, it sealed itself. Those who were inwere in to stay. As it was, it was a full day before anyonethought to look in here. They were immediately struck down,just as had been Perwathwiy. She had built a wall about herself, and no one could enter here to relieve her. At last, a combination of earplugs and iron discipline allowed an emergency crew of four to take it from her, remove her, andstart flying properly.

"She had to be physically overpowered with great violence,and after it was done, she, too, collapsed. Three days she hadflown solo in a task that takes four people, without food orwater. She was raving, hysterical, and quite mad. Utterly insane. For a year she lay as one dead. Perwathwiy took nearlyas long to recover. We cared for the girl, for we all were deep in her debt; she had done the impossible. But we couldnot effect a cure. The wall still stood. Not even a battery ofSpeakers could break her. She was impervious. And after a long time, a year, she came out of it, of her own, seeming normal, and possessed a great skill in the Game, albeit a heavy-handed skill that none of us liked. And so with care webrought her back to this room in short stages, gradually letting her fly again, with a crew of elders who had been mostcarefully selected. During that time we also tried, from timeto time, to get into her mind by Multispeech, to see if she was sane again. But she would never allow it. In fact, some of those who tried did not return from the attempt."

Morlenden shuddered. "And so the girl was Sanjirmil...."

"Exactly. And we were all wrong to let her back into it, inthis place, for we came to depend on her. This, here, is not athing you can get a replacement for off the path outside.Even among the theorists. And so I was wrong, too, for having been a part of allowing it to happen. When Maellenkleth came along, I sought to bend Sanjirmil to my way by the threat of the return of Maellenkleth. Yes, of course it was Sanjirmil who sent her to capture, disminding, death. I wouldeven suspect her of leaving none of it to chance. She doesn'tin anything else."

Fellirian said, "But you cannot let her go unpunished!"

Pellandrey answered. "It is not me who lets her go in anycondition. She has solidified her position, of course, and in matters of flying is the sole arbiter, not I. My charter hasdiminished greatly. And even if I had the power to do as youwish, I would likely not, for she cannot now be replaced.And still there is no one who can use Command-override on her. She has built a defense against it. There are few who could dare her physically, and none who could do both at once and neutralize her. . . . You have only confirmed whatour worst fears were, laid on the last line."

Morlenden said, heatedly, "No one will dirty their hands,is that it? Then I will. I'll go down there now and give it toher with a bark still on it."

Pellandrey said, "I would have you do it, but you do notrealize what you face. Others have done the very acts you sayyou will do. They are not among us now; do you understandthat? You saw the amber plain. You saw what was on it. That is what happens to those who have tried: cast into limbo. Down deep in her mind she is still reliving the threedays when it was Sanjirmil against the living, ongoing patternof the universe. And won. But the price was her sanity, andunlike all others, she will not permit a cure. If she did, it would be to return to the old self, and the pride that droveher to survive is too fierce for that. Believe me. I know these things. I am a fourteenth-degree master of Multispeech, and of single violence. I tried. Command-override Multispeechwith the most skillful assault I could muster. For my pains, I,too, was cast forth like a leaf in the wind. And there I remained for a long time, or so it seemed to me. There I wandered in the silences of a dead place out of space and out oftime, still defending myself against an enemy who was not even interested enough to appear. At last I was permitted toreturn. I knew then what we had on our hands."

Morlenden said, "I saw that place. Why couldn't you justuse the Game controls when she is off-shift and block it, or move it away?"

"Because it is not under the control of the Game; out of space and out of time. When you go there, you may exit, ifyou do at all, before you entered it. Or perhaps the same instant. Or perhaps centuries later. It is not a place in the universe, speaking analytically and strictly; it is a place built bythe part of her mind that never sleeps and never stops playing. It is, in short, a place which is under her absolute control.You have the visual reference matrix in your memory; give itto her and make no attempt on her. I have warned you of theconsequences."

Fellirian said, "It would seem to me that you have putyourself in a most unpleasant dilemma: you cannot keep herfor the poison that is in her, and you cannot throw her awaybecause she has become Huszan, the master of the Game. If you persist in this she will undoubtedly lead you into coursesnot foreseen by those who planned this venture. She will takea vehicle of life and make of it an instrument of death, of conquest. I have seen much of the forerunner world beyondthe reservation; I do not care for the way they run it. But even less would I care to see Sanjirmil in her present condition made ruler of it all."

"At present, she remains true to the original program. Partof her is still with us. We use that part to guide the rest ofher. But all this has complicated our task immeasurably. Forinstance, there is the matter of takeoff time. When we found out about the instruments, and saw the increase in investigative activity, we knew we would have to move things up."

Morlenden interjected, "And she told me there was no timeto Wait, when I said we had the rest of our lives!"

"Exactly. We did not know the cause of the event then, but our response to its consequences was plain enough: takeoff day had to be moved back, or else the confrontation would come here. As it is, we will just make it barely in time,and for that we have paid a terrible price...."

He was interrupted by the hatch, in which fastening boltswere now unscrewing. Presently the hatch swung inward, andfour elders, led by Perwathwiy, stepped over the sealing edgeand into Control. Pellandrey turned to her and said, "It was as we feared. I was telling them about takeoff day being moved back."

Perwathwiy answered, "Yes, just so. We will all pay for what we allowed to happen. We spent Maellenkleth badly,and for it will receive sorrow. But it goes far beyond us, andinto the wider world of the humans."

Fellirian asked, "How so, that?"

"When the plan to leave Earth was devised, it was debatedthen whether to attempt to rule men by force, or slowly, overthe years, build within them, of their own selves, a way thatwould save them from themselves. It was the latter; after all, we owed our existence to them. This plan, which was to bring their world under control and let it down to a more reasonable level, was to have been complete at about the same time that the Ship was completed. Because, after it activated, the Ship grows itself, and for the estimated population we would have then we would need so much space. Thenwe would leave and we would have also paid our debt."

Fellirian said, "You say would ..."

"Just so. Would have been. Not to be, now. We have had

to cut it off, to ensure the survival of the people and the

values we have nourished."

"But it should be almost complete!" Fellirian said. "Surely they will have the benefit of that part of it which has been finished!"

"No. Not to be. It was a holistic plan, the only one we could use; they could not be aware of it until it was complete. Absolutely complete, the last step done, in exactsequence. By aborting it as we have done, we have only postponed the reckoning, not put it away. At first nothing willseem amiss. Ten years, fifty, a hundred. More. But from the first, because the weave of the seamless garment was not completed, it will begin to unravel. First a little, then more,then a lot."

Morlenden said, "The result?"

'Ten thousand years of barbarism. Those who come to follow us to space after that, when civilization rises again, willhave little, if any, knowledge of these years. They will see theruins, but they will not understand them."

Morlenden said, haltingly, "Srith Perwathwiy, I am sorryfor the news I have brought"

"I knew all along . . . I and the others, we only wished thatwe might have it proved otherwise.... Now you are illuminated, just as we are. And you have come with no better curethan the ones we have already tried and failed. And so now Ileave you, to relieve the Terklarens of their shift. I hear thatyou bring the matrix of Mevlannen. Go ahead and pass it onto her, that we may be the more swiftly on our way." Andshe turned from them and walked along the ledge until she came to a passage down into the pit, the others silently following her in the dim half-light like phantoms on a phantomerrand. Elders, in overshirts, their hoods gulled up over the heads like cowls . . . they descended into the pit with the motions of familiarity, but with reluctance, too, dragging theirsteps. They were trapped into an iron sequence of events andwere blindly following that track now, though it might leadthem all to something unimaginable—doom, unknowable change.

They reached the floor of the pit, joined the Flyers at theirkeyboards. There was no ceremony, no camaraderie; Perwathwiy went to the main console and spoke briefly with Sanjirmil.Then, taking the headset from her, she slid into the reclining cradle as Sanjirmil slid out of it, both without any wasted motions. It looked easy. But in Morlenden's mind was the knowledge of how many years had gone into those motions.

Now standing, Sanjirmil waited patiently, her head thrown back, still attentive to the small active section of the Game display being shown in the dome overhead. Perwathwiy fromher master's chair now directed the changeover of the rest, minding things carefully while they exchanged places, one ata time. Each slid into place and took up the motions of hispredecessor, eyes on the ceiling. Those relieved moved awayfrom their cradles, staring blindly after hours at it. None looked up. And when the new crew was in place and now incontrol, Perwathwiy's bony, ribbed hands flickered over themaster keyboards to either side of her, and in the ceiling overtheir heads, the full display came on.

A muted white light immediately flooded the entire room,and the ceiling came alive, the whole surface of it, down tothe coping along the vertical wall bordering the observationledge; and the domed ceiling was covered with the same flickering, roiling, permutating endless recursive pattern of a complex and large-scale Game in progress, but moving so fast theuntrained eye could not follow it for more than an instant.This array used tiny cells of the triangular tesselation, demarcated by fine black lines, fine as a spider's web. The activity was dense and busy: currents of motion flowed through it,forms appeared, coalescing out of others, then dissolving. Others held their existence and their position, but changed inshape constantly. To Fellirian it was a stunning window intohell and chaos, the primal chaos that underlies all appearances of the outer world of trees and rocks and stones and creatures, buildings and power and abstract reasonings. Herewas displayed in graphic, visual form, the way things were, at some unknowable and unimaginable microlevel, and there was, to the eye, no meaning to it at all, much less the thoughtof controlling and manipulating that mighty flow over theirheads: it was madness to look at it for more than a second.

Fellirian dropped her head, breathing hard, her breath coming in long sobs that shook her whole body. After a time,she said, simply, "My mind is too small." Morlenden had been staring at it, awestruck, dumb, his mouth hanging openin astonishment, for nothing he had seen during his partial indoctrination into the Game had prepared him for this. At last, he too dropped his head, a dazed expression on his face.

Pellandrey said, "This is the array Mevlannen spoke of, space-three; fine detail-work inside a planetary system. I know you are not Players, so I will not try to point out bodies in the solar system in the display. This display in full is part of changeover; the smaller partial unit is enough tokeep the Ship moored, but we must take the larger view every eight hours, just to keep an eye on things."

Morlenden said, "I don't see how you could show me anyparticular body in that welter—it all looks the same, the samedensity everywhere."

"It always looks thus. The great Game we tap into in theuniverse goes on everywhere, source and sink and flow; it isdifferent kinds, different patterns, rather than different densities that determines, in the macrocosm you and I inhabit, justwhat an object becomes—here, a planet; and there, an unseenflux of energy from a distant galaxy."

"How far can you see in these various display patterns?"

"There is no limit save that which we bring to it—the finitelimits of ourselves, imperfect creatures just as all the rest. The greater the area of the display, the more you can do withit. The small partial is sufficient to hold the Ship; we needfull to move it out of the planetary system. And of course there are limits to what even a trained mind can handle—it gets too dense. Space-three is only good out to about, say, a parsec. In deep space, with virtual velocities in whole-numbermultiples of c, we use the higher-order tesselations; space-four, the several fives, the three sixes. Those we use for the most distant viewing."

Fellirian was regaining control of herself once again; shelooked to the ceiling display once, then away. The Perwathwiy, down in the pit, sensing that they had seen as much as they could understand at that time, abruptly returned the display program to the reduced section they had first seen whenthey had come into this place. The light in the control roomdied back to its previous dimness.

Fellirian said, "And what of time delay? When you look

into the distance, do you also see into the far past, as they do

with the telescopes?"

"No. The Game has the same time everywhere; everything

that we see and everything that we see happening is happen

ing at that instant That which is here displayed is an abso

lute universe, not a relativistic one; this is how things are,

right now. No matter how far we have pushed it."

She said, "And what of us? What are we to do when Mor's

transmission of the matrix to Sanjirmil is complete?"

"We had all hoped that you would rest from your journey

here, in the Ship, until the morning. Then we have a decision

to make."

"Is time really different in here?"

"Sometimes . . . but mostly it's just a manner of speaking.Stay here tonight; there will be time tomorrow."

"Will there be, Pellandrey?"

He hesitated. "Time enough," he said laboriously, "for that which we all must do, painful though it will be. I should haveyou fresh for that."

TWENTY

In the Game, Symmetry, however and whenever attained, is not lost, nor can it be. —The Game Texts

And so they all waited along the encircling ledge for therelieved Braid to come up out of the pit to meet them. For atime, Sanjirmil stood close beside the Perwathwiy Srith, bythe main console keyboard, apparently answering questions,adding small operator observations. The visitors could not catch the words, nor discern their meaning; the words wereinaudible, and accompanied by an odd, but total, lack of bodily gestures; Fellirian inferred from this that Perwathwiyand Sanjirmil were speaking in one or another mode of Multispeech.

And while the leaders conversed, the others began drifting up out of the pit, picking their way along carefully, as if dazed, now that they were free of the strain of flying. Theywere all visibly fatigued. The younger girl, Sunderlai, in particular, seemed dazed and disoriented by the weight of herpast shift at the controls: her attention seemed distracted, hermotions as she climbed the stairs almost clumsy. A shame;Sunderlai was a small, delicate girl, of soft, rounded contours,whose skin was the color of whipped honey. The girl was yetjust a child, round-faced, pleasant, pretty although not a beauty. But all in all, a healthy, lively young girl. Or wouldhave been. Fellirian could imagine it well enough: selection, unbeknown to the girl herself, then early uprooting from yosand homelands, and placement into hard training so that shecould fly under the hardest taskmaster of all—Sanjirmil.

The others were not so different. They were all fatiguedand distracted. Numb from the long hours at the consoles. InSanjirmil's insibling, Tundarstven, the effect seemed less pronounced, replaced by something more like a deep indifference. And Sanjirmil turned from her conversation with the Perwathwiy, said something to her insibling that Fellirian didnot catch completely, something about the session they hadjust finished, deep in Inner Game terminology. And the habitof the flying shift was still deep in him, for he turned to herimmediately, but his reply, which came after a little pause,was consciously himself and nothing else, accompanied by alittle gesture of the hand, signifying indifference. By that littleexchange, Fellirian could see the influence Sanjirmil wieldedover them; some Daimons could be exorcised only by indifference.

The three others of Sanjirmil's Braid climbed out of the pit, and departed the room immediately through the mainhatch. Sanjirmil, last to leave, was now apparently finishedwith her remarks with the Perwathwiy, and she, too, left theconsole area, turning away from it, so it seemed, with reluctance and dragging step. She began climbing up to the railedledge about the pit, shedding as she climbed some but not allof that steely air of control she carried with her when she had been controlling. She, too, was visibly fatigued, but shedid not seem disoriented as the others had. Sanjirmil hadreserves they had not begun to learn of yet. And as she approached closer, Fellirian noticed the younger girl's eyes in particular; they held a peculiar expression, an almost glassycast, which upon closer inspection seemed not so much inattention or unfocusing, but an unconscious scanning habit, analmost total reliance on peripheral vision. Of course; she understood: only with trained peripheral vision could they seeand respond to the visual field shimmering above them, especially when the full display was on.

Sanjirmil reached the landing, opposite Fellirian. The eeriescanning gaze turned in their direction, took in Pellandrey,Fellirian, Morlenden. She read all their faces instantly, selecting that which she would fix her real attention upon. She knew Pellandrey had nothing new for her. Fellirian she dismissed from the first. A traditional rival Fellirian had been, the loyal insibling, but no more than that.

In the timeless way of all creatures that move aboht freely,as they faced each other, they took the measure of one another's worth and weight. For her own part, Fellirian felt the confidence her maturity and parenthood had brought to her—through the hundreds of decisions she had made therefrom,the problems solved. She also had her place at the Institute tosupport her as well. She knew herself to be a person of consequence. But Sanjirmil possessed an enormously strong will, a ferocious directional vector, and of course the deception ofher insanity; she was convinced she was right. And here, inthis place, she had the power of her position behind her, forin effect the Ship was hers. But there was more: Sanjirmilpossessed an almost terrifying power of sexuality. Felliriancould sense it, could almost feel the waves of it buffeting her,waves of pure body. Extreme, perverse. Fellirian had never met a girl before possessed of such a raw force, such a strength of it.

Sanjirmil approached her slowly. Fellirian watched her come, powerless to run, or to turn her aside. Seen from theledge, when she had been reclining in her control cradle, thedark clothing Sanjirmil wore had been hardly more than a distraction, but here, close, on equal level, Fellirian saw thefigure coming toward her, impressively dressed in stone black,broken only by thin lines of white. Their eyes met, focused,locked on; the glassy, unfocused look in Sanjirmil's eyesfaded, being replaced by a disturbingly direct gaze of nakedwill, corrosive ability, unlimited malice. It was a gaze that burned. Fellirian instinctively looked away, breaking first,protecting herself from something she sensed was far beyondher abilities to subdue.

She spoke, almost involuntarily. "Morlenden has the matrixfrom Mevlannen."

Sanjirmil nodded, shifting her gaze back to the scanningmode, as if it had been no more than what she had been expecting to hear. And now she faced Morlenden, fixing himwith that same disturbing gaze. He saw her much as had Fellirian, but deeper, too, for this fey, dangerous creature, almost out of control of all of them together, this girl in black,had once been known to him; and had sat not an arm's length away in a silent room, with him. But now she was at her time, at her full maturity, at the summit of her powers,secure in her own place, and he felt the strength of her rathermore acutely than had Fellirian.

Sanjirmil's working overshirt was limp from the hours shehad spent at the console-keyboard in the pit, and through it,the angular, primitive contours of her body showed easily. Along her face and neck and forearms, the only exposed parts, the warm streaky tone was more obvious; a hard, burnished olive along the lines of bone and tendon; soft, dull rose in the softer hollows. Wiry and yet ripe, too, erotic without comment, where others of this color were only lovely, orattractive. He thought that perhaps this effect was due to theshape; for Sanjirmil did not follow the rather undifferentiatedunisex shape of the typical ler girl, flat-chested and narrow-hipped, but was closer to the ancient human shape, with its curves, hollows, fullnesses, increased sexual differentiation. And Morlenden was aware that even tired from a full shift at the master console, her body could still evoke responses inhimself, even after the great change. He felt intimidated, demanded upon.

He sensed hostility in her, not well concealed, under thedrive and power she projected. It was not a hostility of envynow, however it might have been in the beginning; now it was a hostility of arrogance, contempt, hubris, nurtured, forall too long, by too much responsibility piled on by accident,in one by nature not prepared for it. There was no cure for it, he saw as had Pellandrey; circumstances had worked theirevil magic upon them all, just as they had with others andtheir plans, dreams. Morlenden did not doubt whatsoever thatwhatever strange creatures shared the universe with human and ler, they also had faced the same dilemmas; indeed, justnow, somewhere else, some thing was facing the problems they faced, or something similar. Morlenden felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the unknown beings; for he did not like the weight of it. He felt it acutely; too acutely. There was something lurking in the back of his mind, somethingjust out of sight, something enlarging this meeting with Sanjirmil into something more than what it was.... And what could he say to her in reproof that Pellandrey had already not tried? He searched; there was nothing he thoughthe could add; yet there was this anticipation growing in him.It was most curious, as an emotion; for he now had no real desire to see Sanjirmil again, certainly not with a lover's zestand zeal; but it felt something like that. But alien, too, as if there were more components to it.

She was before him now; and he could see her as throughan enlarging glass, with an immanence and a terror. As withall strong-natured ones, she possessed a roiled, complex, turbulent persona, further stirred by a stormy, disturbed sequence of memories. She might well be insane; Morlenden was certain that her memory would be all the clearer for it.

Empathetic, he reached with his instincts, a gestalt perceptionof her, projected outward and continually verified by the reality of the ever-present now. Yes, he could see it, in the larger-than-life figure before him, coming closer, closer, closeenough to reach out and touch, although he knew not if he dared, now. Yes, he could see it: Sanjirmil had been a tomboy, Dantlanosi, wiry, strong, aggressive; she had preferred todo it standing up, under a cool bridge in the rain, quick andhard, no quarter asked, none given, a hot and sweaty, piercingly sweet embrace and coupling.

That was her nature; but it has all been taken from her bythe accident that had made her a Player, but also a monster.What was left was the intense inwardness of the insibling, butnow, of course, greatly magnified out of proportion. Once shehad had the same chance at the rude freedoms of the adolescent as the rest of them, the easy and casual promiscuity, therelaxed and lazy affairs that came with time and the twenties. But she had not had them; instead, Sanjirmil had known a terrible stress, and won; but at what price? And somewhere in herwas the knowledge, carefully hidden from obvious surfacing,that as with all insanities, the price for return did not stay fixedbut slowly and inexorably grew ever larger. He knew that shewould not return normally, of her own will, now. Now? Nowthere remained only the matrix to pass to her, and perhaps afew words, now that he knew. Yes, perhaps that was the sense of apprehension he felt. He would have Sanjirmil in aposition of weakness when she was receiving; perhaps then hecould . . . deflect her from her course, nudge her aside by areference to their shared memories, their past?

He spoke first. "I have brought the matrix from Mevlannen, to you as directed. Are you ready to receive?" And as hespoke to her, he felt a wild surge of anticipation, quite out ofcharacter, and he did not understand why he should feel so exultant, so . . . wild. What the hell was happening to him?The room began to shrink, to converge, to focus on himself,Sanjirmil. What was happening? Whatever it was, he felt increasingly powerless to change the course of things. A wildabandon took him, whispering in his inner ear, Let it be! Let what will come to pass, so come to pass. You will like it and ride willingly with it into the future!

Sanjirmil answered simply, softly, with a voice betraying deep fatigue: "So I have waited, knowing the time to have come for the integration of Game and matrix. Speak on, then, messenger. Deskris . . . I await you."

Her eyes ceased scanning, found Morlenden's, locked on them. Morlenden began, and it was easy, for all he had to dowas remember the sequence Mevlannen had inserted in him,recall it and let it go. There was no composition on his partat all; just remember and release. Easy. And the wild anticipation in his heart leaped up like a wildfire, exulting. Almost there, it seemed to say, almost there, and the moment will be within this scene. He sang the sequence softly to her, slowlyfeeling, inexpertly, how she as receiver was leaning slowly into his influence, becoming a part of him, an extension of himself. All the result of Multispeech, of course; but also a lot of the relationship went into it, too. She was letting Morlenden take over part of her because she trusted Morlendenas she trusted no one else in the world. And he saw on the edge of his perceptions that somehow the feral glow was fading out of her eyes, the tense set of her harsh, angular face,once loved violently and intensely. There were other, familiaremotions beginning to show upon it, and something she heardand recognized, something she could say she truly knew as no one else did. These new emotions flickered over the harsh but softening face, like firelight over a raw, new stone wall.Her thin lips were tensed and white with concentration, as she reached for the more subtle nuances of the matrix, integrating it as she went.

And the string of matrix numbers suddenly ended, ran out;there had been no warning, no anticipation, nor was there forwhat replaced them: Morlenden found himself speaking,quite involuntarily, in the strongest Command-override he had ever heard. Sanjirmil's ego defenses, her will defenses, against outside control by Multispeech Command-mode werenot down, but they had been relaxed to the point where theymight as well have been. The sudden assault, which took Morlenden by as much surprise as it did Sanjirmil, battereddown her will, hammered it flat, beat it down, and beganreaching for the central node inside her mind that would make her sane; yes, sane, as it also killed her from inside. Hisvoice echoed and boomed in his head like the voice of a god,probing, tearing, reaching. And an image of Mevlannen, who was saying, Sorry about the compulsion, Morlenden. I warned you that we'd cheat you. I knew who sent Mael to her death, but I would never get close enough to do it myself. But you would, and here you are now. And now extract our revenge! Destroy this thing before you. It can't be cured, it can only be killed, and from the inside. NOW!

So here was the source of the anticipation, the exultation,that he had been feeling as the moment approached; not himself at all, but a compulsion Mevlannen had set into him asshe had herself passed the matrix to him. Morlenden hesitated, for as much as he wished to avenge Maellenkleth, hehad never attained malice toward Sanjirmil. Only anger. Andnow, that hesitation almost became the end of him, for although Morlenden still had inhibitions, even to the resistanceof Mevlannen's compulsion, Sanjirmil had no such inhibitionswhatsoever. And he was about to find that where survival was at stake, she could shed fatigue like a pine tree shedding raindrops in a sudden wind.

In the instant he had argued with himself, hesitated, foughtthe compulsion, his attention had dropped off Sanjirmil. Andnow she recovered from the Multispeech assault upon her. And he lost belief in the program Mevlannen had set into him, and now the words became just words, falling off Sanjirmil harmlessly. The room winked out in his perceptions, andwas replaced with a boundless darkness. He could imagine,but not see, Sanjirmil, gathering herself, recovering, now rising to strike back. He moved hesitantly. He was in greatdanger, he knew, and began looking for a way he could defend himself against the approaching counterattack.

And a voice shouted at him from all sides: So itwas to be you after all, was it? It was just as I feared the day I came with Perwathwiy: you would unravel the long string and turn against me, too, as have all the rest. Well, then, you have come so far; so witness what others who have tried came to see. Some are there yet. You will join them.

And instantly the furry darkness was replaced with the abstract plain he had glimpsed before. Only now he was standing on the surface, dazed, disoriented, looking about. Therewas no one there but him. A brown, flat plain, illuminated bya wan, amber, sourceless light, arrowed off into infinity, a horizon that seemed staggeringly far away. Sanjirmil had dropped Morlenden into her own private limbo.

He forced himself to think, not to panic and run, which hewas sure the others had done. Run wildly, as they had done,and he knew death would come from a thousand directions, in unknowable ways. He had to think. Morlenden looked atthe "ground." It seemed faintly etched with parallel lines,which he could follow, now that he saw them, off to the horizon. Then there was something regular about this place, afterall. And he knew that this limbo was Game-generated, by Sanjirmil, but part of some Game program still. He forcedhimself to remember all that he had learned from Krisshantem, to try to find a way out He began, hesitantly, vocalizingshort bursts of Game language, in Command-mode. At firstnothing happened, but with one segment there was a suddenwavering of the brown horizon. Yes. His heart leaped. Yes!He could pull this limbo down and walk out of the ruins. Heprobed at it again.

Now a spot developed, just off-center in his field of vision,like a migraine spot, a pulsing, wavering blot of black andbumblebee-yellow, pulsing, growing, writhing into his field ofvision, taking his attention. He increased his efforts. The patch of yellow and black increased in intensity, and he began to hear a humming in his ears, becoming louder, and atthe same time he began to feel a will pressing hard againsthim, harder, harder.... The patch of writhing color grew, becoming immense, covering a third of the scene, and then suddenly shrank, taking on form, someone . . . and Sanjirmilmaterialized out of the patch, with no warning, with a curious, dancelike motion, her leather cloak swirling about herand settling as she materialized into this strange world with afaint pop of displaced air. And now she stood only feet away,dressed in black, her figure set in a posture of dire menace,slowly approaching him, slightly circling.

"Ho, Morlenden!" she challenged him. "You are more resourceful than I thought. A Player, no less! How did you comeby it?"

He faced her, ceasing for the moment his efforts to breakthe walls of limbo. "The same way I came to attack you,Sanjir. Things have been put into me that I did not ask for."

"I know Mevlannen set a compulsion in you; things like that leave traces, like the scent of the hunter on his traps."

"Krisshantem set a program of an Outer Player into me. And I see the light, with it I'm going to pull down this hell you've made."

"I don't doubt for a minute you would, if I let you. Youare the first to realize it could be done, although far betterPlayers have come here . . . and failed. That is why I come inperson. What must be done ... but you know that Can you dissuade me before I...?"

"Dissuade you? I don't intend to. Keep your distance, or Iwill reactivate the destruction program of Mevlannen. I knowyou are powerful, Sanjir, but you cannot cover both ends."And without warning, he slipped into Command-override, trying the instructions of Mevlannen again, but this time withbelief and a deep sense of self-preservation behind them as well. Sanjirmil was unprepared for the second attack; she hadapparently thought that all she would have to do was enter limbo and dispose of this troublesome stranger. . . . Now she staggered back, her image wavering, the horizon suddenlygone unsteady. She had never caught one like this! He wasfighting back! Unthinkable! She exerted a mighty effort thatmade veins emerge into sharp relief around her forehead, countering in Command-override of her own; and Morlendenagain felt himself gripped in the clutches of a monster will. The strange world steadied, as well as her image. And she began circling him, like a wolf, closing slowly. Morlenden alsobegan moving, circling her, keeping up his own song as hewent, for he knew that to waver now would be instant termination; he would never return from this place, wherever it was.

He called to her, "Ho, Sanjirmil! I can stalemate you indefinitely! Attack me and I unravel your limbo. Patch up your world-lines and I'll attack you."

She replied through a grimace of effort, "Stalemate, you think. There is no time here save my time. I'll wear youdown. But know that this is not my heart's desire, Morlen "

"Speak of heart's desire, then. We have little else to say toone another, it would seem, here, save malice."

"If you will cease fighting me, and join me in my crusadeagainst stupidity, I will share it with you, thus and thus.Share and share alike. You are too good to waste in absurdcombat like this."

"Why did you send Maellenkleth out to certain capture?"

"You have said it, therefore you know why. I read the oldhuman story of Damvidhlan and Baethshevban* and saw myway clear. Maellen fell, of course, to the role of the GreatHurthayyan, or as the forerunners call him, Uriah-the-Hittite.Like him, she was fond, overly fond, of the front of the battle, and like him, she was espoused to a being I coveted, the regard of the rest of the Game community. So I, like Damvidhlan, sent her to the place where it was hottest."

*David and Bathsbeba

Morlenden interrupted. "It would not be like you to leavea thing like that to chance."

"No," she said sadly. "No chance. I had been cultivating a vile agent of the humans, holding him for some extraordinarydeed. And there it was. Through him I made sure she was captured. A man named Errat. In the end he became too slippery, and I had to dispose of him. Too dangerous. It is afearsome thing to deal with humans; they are dangerous . . . full of a thousand enmities. Their thoughts subvert one's own,take over, and you become like them. That is why I went outto finish Errat; he was corrupting me."

"Hah!" Morlenden barked. "You corrupted by Errat? Ishould think it the other way. If you did eliminate him, youdid him a favor."

"I shot the arrow at you, to warn you. Do not make mewish to be sorry I missed."

"Not much of a miss, was it? Or do you claim it after thefact? That is a score I must even with you myself: you loosedupon me a weapon that leaves the hand."

"I saw you were coming to it, and would not be deceived byhope. Perwathwiy and the rest I could keep off, for they wanted to believe . . . but I saw the way you were going would lead you to me in the end. I agree it was unwise . . . but you cannot obtain judgment upon me for it, for I have narrowed the field of Players. They need me now, notwithstanding the fact that I am master of the Ship."

"Then you do not need my help." Morlenden turned fromher and began unraveling the ends of the strange half-world Sanjirmil had made. She abruptly countered, stabilizing itagain, a flush of hot anger radiating from her.

"Stop that! You know not what forces you will release!"

"Since you were caught by the Ship, Sanjir, you have livedby playing upon the unthinkable, that there were things others would not do. I see that. But I will do them, won't I? You have gone too far, and I will stop you."

"Regardless of the cost to the people?"

"Look at what you have cost them already! We were innocent, but evil has entered us, wearing your overshirt, yourboots, your leather cape. I do not wish to see this evil carriedto the stars, however you will have it."

"Join me, come with me, be my love again as you once were. We fly soon to the new worlds, and I will set you aboveme when we land, above Pellandrey."

"No." "You owe him nothing. He stole the heart of your insiblingIn her vayyon, long ago. Yes, I know, though you do not. It

was Pellandrey and Fellirian, and it has remained so all theseyears."

"No. The vayyon is the vayyon. One can do that. I hold no grudge. Will have none of it. Is it now that you cannot overcome me, so you bring forth these cheap arguments? Indeedyou are wavering."

"I do not waver in what must be done. See!" And againMorlenden felt the pressure of her will, beating upon him, relentless as the tide. He felt himself being forced, step by step,move by move, into a crouching posture, an ancient posture of defense. And now she advanced on him, pressing close.Morlenden fought back with all the powers he could muster,defending, picking at the wall that was closing around him,compressing him, closing him in. She stood before him, a figure in dark clothing in the eerie half-light of the amber plain,her hands flexing. "See!" she cried. "It would be so easy tosnuff you out. But I am merciful, and something of me stillloves you. Desist, oh Morlenden, from your resistance againstme; join me. You are worth far more to me as a willingfriend than as a vanquished enemy. Anyone can vanquish enemies. It is easy."

In her gloating over her Multispeech powers, and her immense powers as a Player, she had come too close, closed herweb of power too closely about Morlenden. He looked at itclosely, feeling along its boundaries with his mind, feeling fora line of weakness. She had to have one, somewhere.

She was saying, "My last offer: You have the basic skills, Isee. I offer you one half of everything that is mine, the powerand the glory. Only say that you will accept me for what Iam; for I cannot help that."

"No." Morlenden grimaced, still feeling along her will for a weak point. And he found it. A minuscule crack: her memory of him. It was the one thing that someone else would have easily missed; for she had told no one of theirdalliance long ago. Into this crack Morlenden flowed, working his way along the weakened lines of will-force in the webof Multispeech Command-override. And then he was inside her defenses, no longer outside, and he did not hesitate now,for to falter here would mean the end. She wailed, "Nooooo ..." and he found the node in her mind he was looking for,and turned loose, in all its horrors, the destructive program ofMevlannen, but now under his control. She fought him like awild beast, and the plain vanished utterly, and he was filled with vertigo, but he did not let go for an instant. She turned and fied, but Morlenden pursued her like an avenging angel.He was now pulling himself laboriously through a labyrinthof insanity, of the whole elaborate network she had built upover the years. But at last he came to the center, to the central node, the event in her memory that had started it all, thememory of that time in the Ship, when it had activated andshe had had to face the awful cosmos alone. And Morlenden saw the basic flaw, reached into it, and repaired it, and watched the rest, now falling into line after it, readjusting. Itwas over. The process was now fixed, unstoppable, and in theend she would be different. He was sure she would be diminished, though it pained him to reduce her thus.

And they were back in the master Control room, with nowarning, seemingly at the same instant they had left it, onlynow he was holding Sanjirmil in his arms, supporting her asshe sank against him, her body heaving with dry sobs thatshook her whole body. Her eyes were closed tightly, and between sobs, she was moving her lips soundlessly, mutteringsomething. Pellandrey and Fellirian looked at the two of them, amazed at the change in Sanjirmil, which had seemingly come instantly; one moment she had been master of theControl room; the next, collapsed in Morlenden's arms.

Pellandrey stepped forward, eyes blazing. "What have youdone to her?"

Morlenden spoke over his shoulder, never taking his eyesoff the girl. "Cured her, that's what. She'll probably never flyagain, but she can remember the basic integration, the matrixplus the Game-view of the stars, and she can guide you. Butshe's disarmed now. I've clipped her wings."

"You fool, do you know what you've done? You've condemned us to wait until we can replace her. And we don't have that much time; the forces she stirred in the human world will be reaching here within the week, according to ourcomputations."

Morlenden said, over his shoulder, "If you let this one asshe was lead you to that pass, then you're a fool and deservethe blame yourself for what happened. She was insane, youdodo, and she was poisoning all of you, one by one. You lether get this far; all along the way there were actions youwould not take, and she knew it, read you all perfectly. Untilshe had you locked into total dependence on her. God onlyknows what she would have done once she lifted the ship off,in the condition she was in. She'd probably have turned thewhole range of weaponry you have aboard here on Earth and blighted it. All we want to do is get away clean, not leave a legacy of revenge behind us."

Fellirian agreed with Morlenden. "I follow his argument; ifwe allowed that to happen, they would never forgive and theywould never let it leave their minds. They would reinvent thestarship just to hunt us down. I will not have that Daimon pursuing us across space to the ends of the universe."

Morlenden added, "If worse comes, sit in for her yourself.I know she was systematically eliminating potential replacements; but there have to be some left who can take her place.Use them. And make her work for you as an astrogator. Youhave the leverage now."

Pellandrey answered, after a time, "You are right, of course. I admit the flaw; we have all here been living with ittoo long, and the rationalizations always come too easy. And so what did you learn from her? What are the crimes of Sanjirmil, in specific?"

Morlenden said, "To punish her further is meaningless. Shewill flog herself to a shred, now that she has her whole mindback. What more could we do to her that would bring hervictims back? What can we add that will strike down other Sanjirmils to come? We can do no more than be ready forthem when they come, and stop them then. I will not say what I learned of this one. Let it rest there: you would not judge her and act, because of her position as master of theGame. So I took my case to the Game master, disagreed withher-arbitration, and settled the matter with her alone. Proceed with your plan, Pellandrey."

"When I finish telling you what I started to a moment ago,you will not be so kindhearted."

"Pah. I have never been kind in my life. I am being practical."

"Very well, practical. But you will recall that we sensed increased human interest in this site as a result of Sanjirmil'smanipulations? That this had interrupted and aborted one timetable, the program we were putting into human society?"

"Yes." "It interrupted more than that; it also interrupted the orderly growth of the Ship " Fellirian put her hands to her mouth, and said, simply, "Oh."

"And the Ship grows only at a certain rate, controlled bythe Game. This gives us our basic interior space, which wemust then render habitable. We had things tied into our racial birthrate, so that at a certain time, the available space in the

Ship would be exactly that required for the whole of the

people."

Morlenden said, slowly, "So if the Ship can fly now, it

would do so with less room...."

"Exactly. According to what Maellenkleth knew from her

own capture, the time was then near. We are actually over

due a departure even now. We must fly next week at the

latest, or risk, according to our studies, having to fight our

way out. It may be so already, now. And there isn't room for

everyone. Do you understand? There isn't room."

"So someone must stay behind?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"All children and adolescents will go. All eldeis, except for

a handful designated as absolutely essential, will stay behind."

Fellirian said, in a very small voice, "You left out the

parent phase."

Pellandrey said, "Some Braids will have to leave two of the

parents behind, with the elders."

Morlenden laid Sanjirmil down, very gently, along the floor

of the ledge. He straightened, and said, "And who are these

Braids? Are they known to you? Better yet, are they known

to themselves?"

"Tomorrow we send the runners out, to bring the gatheringof the people. We have worked it this way, so the knowledgeof role will not be lost: All Braids that carry a number intheir surname must cast lots among themselves, or somehowmake a decision. And of course, what little government wehave will set the example and bite this most bitter bullet."

Fellirian said, "There are only two Braids in the so-calledgovernment... you and us."

"Yes. Correct. Us, and you. And so now you know, Fellirian Deren; and you are Klandorh, so you must decide howyou will levy it among yourselves. The Revens have alreadymade their decision. I should have waited until morning toreveal this to you, for morning is a better time for bad news."

Morlenden said, "There is no time for bad news. And yousay this will bring the numbers down to what the Ship can carry?"

"Yes. With a little space left over to cover pregnancies thatoccur along the way. Right now, we do not know how longwe will be in space."

Morlenden said, "And what is the decision of the Revens?"

Pellandrey answered, "You do not reveal the crimes of Sanjirmil; neither do I reveal what is already set. You will seewhich of us leaves the ship grounds, when the Ship leaves. Iwould have none copy our example, for the sake of copyingit; it is a hard way, but I have decreed that each so affectedmust face it themselves. And so you as well."

Fellirian shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs from hereyes. "Then we shall have to return to our yos, and there take counsel."

Pellandrey placed his hand on her shoulder. "That is why we asked that you spend the night here, think, and return fresh. It is the kind of thing that we would have none do in ahasty way, for the results will be forever."

Fellirian looked at Pellandrey blankly. "No," she said. And to Morlenden, "I don't know how long, subjectively, youwere locked in with Sanjirmil. Can you brave the cold, insibling?"

Morlenden placed his hands together, locked them, and pulled hard on them until his shoulders creaked. Then he straightened, and said, "Tonight it is. Let us return now." And to Pellandrey he said, "When must we be here, and what must we bring?"

"The runners leave tomorrow, and decision must be taken upon the news. Bring your most precious goods, what eachcan carry with his own hands. And what you can remember,for we will build this world again. That is what will go outwith the runners."

She said, "Then we must leave. We will be our own runners. Although I may have to call for help to convince Kaldherman. He will doubtless think it absurd." And she smiled, but it was a weak smile.

Morlenden said, "You may escort us out of this labyrinth,Pellandrey. Although I am sure it will be easier to come and go, now that Sanjirmil's tumor on the body of space-timehas vanished back into the no-place from whence she builtit."

Pellandrey turned back to the hatch, with heavy step."Very well. It shall be as you will. Make the choice wisely.There can be no regrets."

And so they left the master Control room. Along the way,Pellandrey met some elders, whom he directed to go to theControl room and care for Sanjirmil. And seemingly in a shorter time than it took them to enter the Ship, they were atthe portals of the great Ship, which were now standing open, as Morlenden had suspected. They walked forth, into the night, and Fellirian did not look back.

For a time, Pellandrey stood outside, in the cold, clear night, the stars shining brightly overhead, clear for once through the haze of the sky of Old Earth.

But when they reached the last point on the trail that theycould look back from, and Morlenden and Fellirian stopped,to look back just once, there was no one to be seen. And theyturned homeward, and began the long walk back, in the darkand the still cold, breath-steam clouds wreathing their faces.They were not entirely certain of exactly when the momentoccurred, but after a certain time, they noticed they were clasping one another's hands tightly as they walked. Morlenden grinned sheepishly at his insibling, and Fellirian lookedback quickly at him, but the expression on her face was notone which could easily have been read in the chilly darkness.

TWENTY-ONE

Spring, 2610

It was the end of a day that had promised rain, the skiesbeing filled with ragged, wet-looking clouds, rag-ends of clouds, all moving by overhead at a fast pace through the branches which were just now beginning to green out. But not yet. Not a drop had fallen. The air was heavy,oppressive, but at the same time filled with promise, for it had been a dry spring, a late one, too.

Morlenden leaned on his shovel beside a long mound of fresh earth, and looked off into the distance, as if looking fora sign. It was darker over in the west than it had been, and itseemed there was the distant rumble of thunder there, although he couldn't be quite sure; his hearing wasn't quite what it had been.

For a long time, his thoughts had been quite blank, devoidof any particular sense of direction; now he let it come again,reminding him of what else had to be done. Here was Fellirian. Earth aspect; now returned to it, in the spring, under ahawthorn tree they themselves had planted, how many years

ago. Before Pethmirvin. It didn't matter when, exactly—for

the tree had grown to some size, and the branches were

drooping with age.

They had not been morbid about the end, when they had

talked of it at all; yet under their hopes and fears, somehow

they had always assumed that they would be part of some

family group, some lodge, when one or the other came to the

end. But it was not to have been—in the end, it was just

them, living in the same yos they had been born in, still mar

veling they had not tired of each other's company after so

many years; she had complained of feeling tired, and had

lain down for a nap. And like that, so easily, had sighed,

smiled once at Morlenden, and breathed no more. Somehow,

he had managed to do what had to be done. There was no

one else nearby to help him with it.

Now he remembered it all. How they had returned home,and argued violently through the day, deciding who would gowith the children, in the Ship. But there had been no wavering on Fellirian's part, for she had made up her mind on theway home, and would not be budged from it, no matter howKaldherman had argued, fumed, and stormed about. And sothey had agreed that Kaldherman and Cannialin would takethe children to the Ship and go with them, and that they wouldremain behind. And then they had left, and the yos had fallen silent.

The insiblings did not go with them, nor did they journeyto Grozgor, to see the Ship depart, for it was too painful forthem. But they heard it emerge from the hollow place in themountain, and there were lights in the sky in the northwest,and a distant murmur of sound, and then all was quiet again.The Ship was a full day ahead of the finally mobilizedoccupation forces, which arrived at the mountain and foundonly a smoking crater. They had been met there by a smalldelegation of elders, who politely explained that they were late, and they could do as they liked. Another group hademerged at the Institute, there using what communication facilities were available to spread the word into the forerunnergovernment, explaining exactly, painfully exactly, what hadhappened. And what must then be done.

It had been a trying period. There had been much changein Seaboard South Region; but there had also been turbulencein other places as well, as the impact of the departure of theShip and the people had permeated through the levels and bureaus. There had been a great unwillingness to believe thatthere had been a holistic plan, to pay off the debt to Man forhaving brought the ler into existence in the beginning. But inthe end it had quieted, and the remaining ler and the humanshad set out to work together and salvage as much as they could of the original. This had been Fellirian's aim. Vance also returned from the sanctum of 8905, to the Institute, and played a major part as long as he had been able.

Had they been successful? No one could tell, for the momentum of the plan intended for humanity had been so slowand long-ranging that even in a span of sixty years, theycould not yet see any sign of change, though they looked constantly. The world had not yet changed in any way theycould see. Even those elders most familiar with it could make no predictions, no forecasts. Earth went on much as it had before, only now more cautiously.

Morlenden tried to project in his mind how it must havegone for the children in the sixty-odd intervening years. Hecould not. Sixty years. In the last meeting with Pellandrey,they had been told that the Ship was expected to be in spaceless than a year, before they stopped it and began settling anew planet. And then, the resumption of their lives, under strange skies. Or perhaps they might not be so strange. Sixtyyears. Peth would have woven into another Braid, lived herentire woven period out, and become an elder, living somewhere else. He found it hard to imagine. For him, things remained as they had been in 2550. Morlenden shook his head.He knew these things to be true, but all the same he couldnot see them.

At last, he straightened, plucking his shovel out of the ground, and started back to the yos. Yes, he thought he couldhear the mumbling of distant thunder off in the west, whichhad grown very dark now. He stored the shovel in the tool closet, under the overhang of the back of the yos, and made his way around to the front. He climbed the stairs to the entry, pausing to remove his boots before entering the yos, an action he had performed so many times it was almost automatic now. He moved slowly. Age was beginning to catch upwith him. It was hard to bend over. And as he finished, and was just straightening back to a standing position, one hand on the wooden railing, he felt a very cold and very fat raindrop impact on the back of his neck, sending a little shockwave of shivers through his body. Morlenden smiled in spiteof himself. Yes. She'd be pleased. He looked out over the

yard. The wind was up, whispering in the trees. There was anodor of ozone in the air, a promise of another season of growth. He understood the symbol: life goes on. Yes. He understood completely. He turned and went into the yos, and began laying out a fire for supper.