INVISIBLE ENEMY
She thought she heard the softest scrape of a
footstep near where the door would be. Her
feeling of dread increased. With a sudden move,
she rolled from the gelbed to the floor.
The motion saved her.
Blinding violet light cut a swath over the bed,
leaving shimmering afterimages and a smell
of scorched plastic and acrid steam. Jemi
shouted and flung herself to where she thought
her attacker might be, knowing that he must
be able to see in this darkness, knowing that
in another moment he'd find her . . .

Other Avon Books by
Stephen Leigh
The Bones of God
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THECrystal
Memory
STEPHEN LEIGH
AVON
PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT, DISCUS AND FLARE BOOKS

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY is an original publication of Avon Books.
This work has never before appeared in book form. This work is a
novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
105 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10016
Copyright © 1987 by Stephen Leigh
Published by arrangement with the author
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-91162
ISBN: 0-380-89960-4
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the
U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Adele Leone Agency, Inc.,
26 Nantucket Place, Scarsdale, New York 10583.
First Avon Printing: September 1987
AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA
REGISTRADA. HECHO EN U.S.A.
Printed in the U.S.A.
K-R 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

This one's for Hania, a better friend than I probably
deserve and one of my favorite critics.
And it's also for Jerry, Michaele, Charlie, Ric, Diane,
and Lisa—along with (why not?) Art, Louise, Tony, and
Chuck. You know why. For those of you still with
me, I wish you few but wondrous deaths.

Homo sapiens is the blame-casting animal. When disaster
slams into us it's never our fault. A bad situation is always due to
someone else's evil intentions. If no one is close by to take the
guilt, we accuse the weather, the time of year, or an old football
injury. Hitler is reputed to have said to Goebbels after the failure
of the Russian invasion in 1941^42: "It was the snow. 1 never
want to see snow again. It is physically repulsive to me."
Given this, it's not surprising that when we found the resources
of our own solar system too few and easily used up; when the
T'Raijek came and demonstrated by their very presence just how
poor and backward we were; when we realized that to ultimately
survive we had to escape the trap of our own sun, most of us
shrugged our shoulders and said it was simply Fate.
We gave up.
It's a damned good thing that mankind, while admiring the
concept of democracy, is also not an animal that follows the lead
of the majority. Homo sapiens is also the rebellious animal. In
that, at least, we found that we are the equal of any other race.
It's probably the snow.
—from The Cage of Sol: Mankind
Trapped by David Morris; Avon
Publications, NY, Earth; published
May, 2175.

We're dogs fighting among the ruins of a past civilization.
We fight among ourselves for the scraps left by our forefa-
thers. We see only what we might scavenge from the rem-
nants left us, blind to the possibility that we ourselves might
do better.
Humanity once looked outward. Now we look only in the
mirror and scowl at what we see.
—from a pamphlet distributed by the
Saliian Peace Committee.
CHAPTER ONE
Jemi pushed the welding equipment into the navigational com-
partment. Even in free-fall, the inertia of the electric quickwelder
was enough to make her grunt. The auto-status check of the ship
had told her what she already knew: her last repairs were not
good enough for standard; she had to redo them before they
arrived in Earth orbit and the docking crews red-marked Starfire's
license. Which told her what she'd be doing for the rest of the
month-long passage. That also meant that she'd have to spend
most of the passage in free-fall without the artificial gravity of
spin. She grimaced.
Jemi shook her head, and the thin veil around the lower part of
her face billowed with the motion. Most of the free traders that
had managed to survive the economic downturn were in the same
kind of shape—it didn't matter whether the registry was Earth,
Highland, or Salii. Even the naval ships were old; no amount of
painting could conceal the weldspots on their hulls, and anyone
who knew electronics could see that the instrumentation was well
behind the current technology. She thought of the sleek, unbro-
ken lines of the T'Raijek ships, those alien cruisers that could
leap from star to star—everything humanity had seemed shabby
1

2
Stephen Leigh
and crude in comparison. She wondered at times if the continuing
depression might not be due to a despair born of that comparison.
"Blame it on the T'Raijek," she muttered to herself. "They
wouldn't care."
Jemi spun around until she was upside down to the docking
configuration of the ship. She pulled herself "down" until she
could see the underside of her spare thruster relay, looking for
one of the old welds. What she saw made her cry out, as if she
were in pain.
It wasn't much—a stuffed toy, a furry thing with blue and
yellow fur, the snout of an elephant and the rotund body of the
usual teddy bear. Beneath the relay, it was snared between the
support strut she'd welded in to hold the last set of hull repairs and
the underside of the panel. The toy floated accusingly in its ugly,
scorched-metal cage.
Kenis must have put it there.
The thought constricted Jemi's throat. She couldn't breathe,
staring at the plush creature. Searing tears gathered at the corners
of her eyes. She took a sobbing breath and slid the upper curtain
of her k'lyge, the Highland veil of discretion, over her eyes so
that her pain was masked. That gesture had grown to be auto-
matic in the last three months.
"Holder Charidilis, what's wrong?"
Jemi glanced toward the voice. With the ship in free-fall, the
motion gave her a slight spin; she piaced a hand on the relay to
steady herself. Through the sheer cloth of the upper veil, she
could see her vivicate Doni as if through a thin haze. The
vivicate sat in the pilot's chair, the thick cord of the umbilical to
Starfire trailing from his spinal sockets. He twitched spasmodi-
cally. The muscular glitches were the legacy of Doni's rekindled
life processes.
"One of Ken's toys," Jemi answered. She could hear the
emotion throbbing in her voice as she reached around the strut
and retrieved it. She hugged the furry thing to her as if in doing
so she could recapture some feeling of Kenis. The ivory beads
sewn along the jawline of the k'lyge rattled—the death beads, the
mourning beads. "Damn," she muttered. She thought she could
smell Kenis on the toy, and that brought back the memories.
"Holder?"

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
3
"Shut up, Doni." Jemi turned away from him. her shoulders
heaving. She put her head against the cool hull of the ship.
"See you when you gel back, Mommy," he said. The creche-
mother held his hand as he tugged to go after Jemi. "Don't be
gone too long, please." He always sounded so old for four, so
mature. He frowned at her, his lower lip sticking out in that
round, fair face, his green eyes looking just like Harris's—it was
the only thing she didn't like about Kenis, but time would scab
over that particular wound.
"Give me a hug," she told him, and he did as she bent down
to him, his arms surprisingly strong around her neck. She kissed
his neck, smelling the faint odor of the shampoo she'd used the
night before, and another, sweeter scent that might have been
Doni's cologne. "Know what?" she asked him, holding him at
arm's length.
His face scrunched up at that. "I know already," he said.
"You say it every time, Mommy. I love you, too."
She laughed and let him go back to the creche-mother.
"I won't be too long, hon," she said, waving to him. "/ just
have to make sure that the ship's loaded and fueled. About two
hours," she added, more to the creche-mother than Kenis. Both
of them had nodded.
"Make it quick, Mommy. Doni told me he'd show me some-
thing we found.
"I'll make it as quick as I can, Ken. You be good, okay?"
' 'Promise.
The next time she'd seen Kenis, he'd been a crumpled, bloody,
unrecognizable form under a blanket.
"Damn it, Doni," Jemi blurted out. "1 thought you got all of
Ken's things out of here." She didn't want to be angry, and she
knew that Doni was only a convenient target, a catharsis from the
memories. In the three months since her son's death, she'd
swung from hysteria to depression; every time something hap-
pened to tug at her emotions, she reacted too strongly. She
wanted to apologize immediately, clutching at the toy with fin-
gers gone white from pressure, but Doni just stared back at her
flatly, a film of drool at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Holder. I thought 1 had." He closed his eyes for a
moment, his hand twitching once, then sinking back to his lap.

4
Stephen Leigh
trembling. "Holder," he said softly. "We all have to die. It was
an accident. There was nothing you could have done."
That brought the tears fully, and with them came anger and
disgust—anger that Doni could provoke the tears so easily, and
disgust that she could not hold them back. She glared at Doni
from behind the veil of the k'lyge, wondering what he had been
in his first life, wondering if he remembered any of it. "I bought
you to help run the ship, not to give me platitudes, Doni," she
snapped. "If you can't do that, I'll sell you to someone else."
"I'm sorry, Holder," he said, and she could not tell with his
flat inflection and the slurred vivicate accent, whether there was
sarcasm in the voice or not. He closed his eyes then, putting all
of his senses into the ship.
Jemi looked from Doni to Kenis's toy. A tear had dropped
from under the veils onto the colorful fur. There, the blue had
gone dark and matted.
They were a half-day out from Highland, well outside the orbit
of Mars and heading inward to Earth. It was going to be a long
trip. When she'd dumped Harris off the ship, over two years ago
now, she'd only felt relief that a bad relationship had ended.
Now, without the child that they'd given life to, the ship seemed
like a tomb, small and dark and shabby.
Jemi took a deep breath. She cradled the toy in the crook of
her arm and pushed away from the wall, floating down the
corridor of her tiny, dilapidated cargo ship toward her room.
At first, in her dream, she seemed to be outside the great
spidery wheel of the colony. Then, just as abruptly, she was
inside with the discolored streets and the buildings that were
falling apart faster than they could be repaired. She glanced up
at the day screens and saw the speck in the artificial sky, a
pinwheeling figure. The arms waved in a soundless terror.
She knew who it was. She knew, and she wanted to scream,
wanted to do anything, but she was caught in the grip of the
nightmare now—unable to act, unable to move. She could only
watch. She could see Kenis falling toward the curved rim of the
worldet Highland, moving ever faster and faster as he drifted
farther from the towering linktube. She could see all the details
with frightening clarity. His mouth was open in a scream torn

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
5
away by the rushing air, his green eyes wide with panic, his
pudgy arms flailing desperately, helplessly. The shabby buildings
of Highland seemed to rise up toward him with terrifying speed,
until he was smashed against them. Jemi could hear the impact,
and in her mind she saw it again
. . . and again . . .
. . . and again . . .
"Kenis!" Jemi Charidilis woke with a start, her throat raw and
dry, her heart pounding with the terror of the dream. Every time
she slept, every time she plunged into those horrible nightmares,
Kenis was there.
This time she whispered the name, shaking her head with her
eyes closed: "Kenis."
Then something pounded against the ship, jolting the bed
beneath her.
It was wrong, it was all wrong. This was her cabin, yes. but
the emergency lights were on, emerald green. Around the lights
smoke hurtled past as if caught in sand-laden winds, yet all was
caught in an eerie silence. Jemi pulled up her k'lyge, touching as
she always did the beads she'd sewn into the hem after Kenis's
death. Adrenaline banished fatigue. She knew, suddenly, that she
was alive only because the failsafe shield of her bed had gone up
and because she'd strapped herself to the bed even though she'd
put spin on the ship for the night—she could feel herself floating
free against the straps and her skin tingled with the prickling of
the shield's static. The silence, the swift smoke: all told her that
Starfire's fragile hull had been breached and torn. Jemi cursed,
adjusting the crown strap of the k'lyge firmly. She unbuckled the
bed restraints and reached for the pressure suit hanging above the
headboard, fumbling clumsily in free-fall. Pulling the suit from
its rack, she knocked aside Kenis's toy, velcroed to the head-
board. The colorful animal tumbled past her, spinning wildly—as
Kenis had in her dream.
Even before the seals were in place, she could hear the yam-
mering of the suit's alarm. "Doni?" she said. The hooting signal
died, then Doni's voice screamed, "Get up here. Holder."
"I'm coming now," she said, trying to shake away the last

6
Stephen Leigh
remnants of the nightmare. Damn the vivicate for being so
panicky . . . Doni was usually trustworthy. "What's happened?"
"We've been holed, damn it! There's another ship— Please
get moving. 1—the ship's been hurt badly."
His voice trailed off and she felt a surge of acceleration, a
lurching roll that made the hull's ceiling seem wrongly down.
Jemi slapped a palm over the shield contacts, felt her suit sud-
denly balloon around her. "On my way, Doni," she said.
Starfire's corridors were a nightmare, awash in the sea-light of
the battery lamps, filled with flying rubble that shifted as the ship
spun erratically. Jemi passed a long, blackened tear through
which she could see a lumbering, tossing starfield. The edges of
the hole still glowed with heat. Jemi swallowed hard, forced
herself to move carefully toward the navigational compartment in
the interior of the ship. She was twisted back and forth with the
ship's yawing movements. The hallways of Starfire were in
chaos, nearly useless with the ship's insane rotation. She pulled
herself from handhold to handhold. cursing the entire time. She
found herself thinking, oddly, how difficult it was going to be for
her to repair all this damage.
If you live through this, you'll never see her repaired: you
can't afford it.
At least the navigational compartment was still airtight—the
pressure suit flattened again as she cycled through the lock. Doni
was in his seat at the center of the room, the ship's umbilical
snarled around him. The vivicate was on the edge of panic. His
eyes were glazed and wild, his mouth working soundlessly as he
turned to her, spittle laced with blood flying from torn lips—he'd
bitten himself. He'd not disconnected—through the sockets, he
was the ship, and the ship was terribly wounded. If he survived
this, he'd be useless to her afterward, it was so hard to find one
that had anything close to a pilot's reflexes, and 1 paid so much
for him ... It pained her to see the mad eyes and flailing limbs
of the man who had already died once before. "Christ, Holder,
they're killing us! We're holed in three fucking places, and I
can't outrun them. They won't answer."
"Who, Doni?" Jemi shouted, trying to get past his fear.
"Who?"
"You won't believe—" Doni closed his eyes momentarily and

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
7
an LCD monitor lit on the control panel before him, shimmering
with static. Doni flung a spastic hand toward it, pointing. "Look!"
Jemi's eyes narrowed. "My God," she said.
She had time to say nothing else. The walls buckled suddenly;
a great, rushing silence slammed her from her handhold and Doni
began a scream that he never finished. Starfire shuddered in its
death throes.
Jemi saw her lost son Kenis as the chaos of the control room
faded from her sight. He smiled the wide grin that she remem-
bered too well, and she reached out a hand for her child. "Come
to Mommy, love," she said.

Only within the navy is there still the pride that mankind
once had. You are the future, all of you. You hold the founda-
tions of the UCN. You work to accomplish your dreams while
your brothers and sisters slumber at home.
—from Admiral Strickland's address to
the graduating class, Naval Officer's
Training School, 2167.
CHAPTER TWO
She remembered a dream, a child falling and falling who
looked achingly like Kenis. But it wasn't Ken. It couldn't possi-
bly be her son, for Kenis could never have climbed a linktube.
Kenis was only two. He'd spent too little time in full gravity,
though she kept spin on the ship as much as she could: he was
still just beginning to learn to walk. It wasn't Ken. It couldn't be
Ken. She wouldn't let it be Ken.
The bearded face above her was not unkind in appearance, but
it was unexpected. Jemi started, trying to turn on the bed. She
groaned with the effort; she could hardly move. Her muscles
were stiff and aching. A hand—the sleeve cuffed with the twin
starbursts of the United Coalition of Nations Navy—gently pushed
her back down. "No., please. You can't get up yet. Your
injuries ..."
His breath was warm on her naked face. Jemi. trembling,
touched her cheeks and found not the cloth of her k'lyge, but
skin. She turned away from the man hastily, burying her head in
her pillow. Tears of shame burned in her eyes. Seen. Seen by a
stranger with all the emotions open. No one except Kenis has
seen me that way since I tossed Harris off the ship. "The
k'lyge," she breathed. "My veil, please."
The man seemed startled. He touched her again, not compre-
8

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
9
hending her distress and insensitive to her feelings. Like most
naval people; like all Earthers. A Highlander would never have
let her wake up in so compromised a position; a Highlander
would have cared about her privacy. If Highland ever rid them-
selves of the UCN's shackles, as the colony of Salii had done, it
would be because of that uncaring arrogance. It would be their
own fault. "Just a moment!" Jemi listened to his footsteps
crossing the room. She heard a drawer open and close again with
a soft thud. Familiar, soft fabric brushed her hands. "Is this what
you want?"
"Thank you." She could hear the shakiness in her voice and
hated the fact that she wasn't able to control it. Hastily, Jemi
adjusted the forehead and crown straps, moved the nearly trans-
parent eyeveil aside and pulled the lower curtain over her nose
and mouth. Her breath was moist and comforting against the
azure cloth. Ivory beads swayed along the jawline. She could feel
the man's stare on her.
"You're from Highland." His voice was professionally gentle.
She nodded, still facing away from him.
"I thought that you were. We had an engineer from there
shipping with us on one tour. He wore one of those—what'd you
call it?"
"K'lyge," Jemi said. She turned back to him, smoothing the
veils. There was a strange smell to it—like smoke or burnt
plastic. Her fingertips brushed the lower hem and found beads
there that she didn't remember. She read the incised lines there
with her fingertips, wondering if this was the betrothal k'lyge
Harris had given her. Her fingers stopped; she gasped. These
were mourning beads.
Death beads.
Jemi inhaled sharply, suddenly frightened, realizing abruptly
that she didn't know where she was. didn't know this man in the
white naval uniform, that any calmness she possessed was only
the lethargy of medicines. The man wore a familiar symbol on
his chest: twined serpents. He was a doctor, then, and that
explained the aloof friendliness in his voice. Fear hammered at
her, and Jemi drew the eyeveil across so that he could not see her
panic. She remembered the dream all too well. Harris. Let it be
Harris; I might have mourned for him too, simply because of

10
Stephen Leigh
what we'd been. But not Kenis. God, it can't be Kenis. "Where's
my son? Where's Kenis?" She could hear the rising panic in her
voice, the rush that revealed her concern. She forced herself to
breathe slowly, to be patient—she could tell by this one's unhidden
eyes that he would speak only in his own time.
The doctor's smoke black pupils stared at her through the thin
haze of the eyeveil. "When did you pick up your cargo, Holder
Charidilis?" He used the polite Highland form of address, but his
accent was European.
"Last week, from the Outer Mines." She could not understand
the stupidity of the man's questions—what possible difference
did the timing of her cargo matter? "Where's Kenis? Please ..."
Underneath the beard, she saw muscles working along his
jaw—he was keeping something back. A dread certainty stabbed
at her, a blade of ice. "This question is going to sound ridiculous
to you," the doctor was saying. "You must believe me when I
say that your answer's very important. When you loaded that
cargo—what year was it?"
Jemi hesitated. Behind the k'lyge, her eyes narrowed. Her lips
were dry, she licked at them with a tongue, trying to shake away
the fog of the drugs. " 'Sixty-eight," she said impatiently. "Look,
any idiot knows what year it is. Listen to me—you must tell me
where Kenis is. I have to know—" Abruptly, she fell silent.
Jemi could see the fatal, unspoken words even under the semi-
veil of the doctor's beard. His mouth began to open; then he shut
it again. He blinked slowly.
"I have orders to inform Admiral Strickland that you've awak-
ened." He was trying to placate her now, all his words
overinflected with heartiness. Behind it, like a shield, was an
underlying, impersonal efficiency. "It'd be best if you waited to
speak with him."
Worry and fright banished the stupor of the medication. Jemi
rose to an elbow, feeling muscles pull and tear along her side.
"You ask me stupid questions, and then you expect me to wait to
get the important one answered?" she raged. "You tell me now!
Where's Kenis? What's happened to me?"
The doctor retreated a step, put his back to some machine that
was attached to a curving wall. Amber lights winked behind him.
She could see more of the room—the floor curved upward like a

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
11
bow at an odd angle, empty beds bolted along the rise. She
seemed to lie at the bottom of a bowl—a ship, then, under spin.
"If you'll wait a minute. Holder, I'll call for the Admiral."
"Damn you, give me an answer, not more evasions. Why are
you so cruel?" Jemi tried to sit up, then lay back once more as
muscles spasmed along her spine. "Oh, Jesus!" Her teeth gritted
against the intense pain, her hands clawing at the sheets. She
could not hold back a grunting cry.
"Holder—" The doctor rushed forward and reached for her.
She felt a pricking in her arm and a shadow fell over her veiled
face as he moved equipment over her bed. "Keep away from
me," Jemi whispered, gasping. "Just give me my son." She
struck out at the man, feeling her nails dragging against skin. She
lashed again, clawing, and found only air. The man backed away
from her bed, cradling his hand against his chest.
There was suddenly no kindness at all in his gaze.
"I can't give you your son." His voice was harsh. He looked
at his hand, and Jemi could see the blood she'd drawn. "No one
can, unless you want him as a vivicate." Then his eyes widened
with guilty sorrow, his lips twisted with remorse. "Holder. I'm
sorry. I didn't mean—"
But Jemi wasn't listening. She screamed.
She screamed because she knew that he told her the truth,
because she knew that Kenis was gone and yet she had no
memory of his death at all. In her mind, it had been but a few
hours since she'd put Kenis in his bed aboard Starfire. She
screamed, not caring that her sorrow and fear rode for all to hear
in that keening, banshee sound. She was still screaming when
something intensely cold pressed against her arm and flung her
back into muffled darkness.
She floated for a time in that darkness. There, a strong, dark
voice spoke to her, its subtones all compelling her to trust it.
Again and again the voice repeated the words: "You have lost
two years. The year is 2170, not 2168. You've been hurt: you've
forgotten much. Kenis is gone. You will mourn your son because
you must, but you will be calm. You will be calm. You have lost
two xears ..."

12
Stephen Leigh
She listened. She heard. But she was not certain she could
believe.
Admiral Strickland had a look of benign and secure authority:
silver-gray hair cut in the usual short military manner, a ramrod-
straight back, and steel blue eyes caught in folds that crinkled
sympathetically at Jemi as she entered his office. The walls were
a surprising pastel blue totally unlike the drab of the corridors,
though paint was peeling in long strips from a corner. Strickland
smiled at her and a slow sadness touched his lips. He bowed to
her in a manner that she imagined her great-great-grandmother
might have seen, and waved a large, stubby-fingered hand
toward a scarred wooden chair bolted before his desk.
"Have a seat, Holder Charidilis," he said, dismissing the
nurse who had accompanied her. "Rest yourself, please. Dr.
Miles tells me that you're coming along fine, but that you're still
weak." Strickland cleared his throat—it seemed to be a nervous
habit. "Tea or coffee?"
"Nothing,"" Jemi said. Then, belatedly: "Thank you, any-
way." She blinked heavily. Her thoughts were slow and
wandering—the doctor had given her an injection before she'd
been allowed to see the Admiral.
Strickland nodded, smiled again, and poured himself a cup
from a silver servette beside the desk. Jemi watched him. The
Admiral moved slowly, carefully, as if at any moment the ship's
living quarters might lose spin and the false gravity collapse—she
supposed that it might have happened before to him—she could
tell by the layers of paint that the ship was old. Turning the
handle of the dispenser, measuring sugar, stirring: everything
was done meticulously and without hurrying. He said nothing to
Jemi until he'd placed the steaming cup in the exact middle of his
desk. "You must be tired," he commented at last. "You've been
several days recovering."
He stared at her without seeming to notice the k'lyge's lower
veil masking her face. The corner of his mouth lifted in a faint
smite. And he was right, as well—Jemi was tired and the medi-
cations hung like a mist over her thoughts. She shifted in the
chair and grimaced behind the k'lyge at the resulting quick tug of
pain.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
13
The Admiral shook his head in sympathy. His massive hands
cradled the mug as if for its warmth. "Holder, you've had a
terrible experience. Believe me, 1 can understand both your
confusion and your concern. I hope 1 can alleviate some of that
for you."
There was one thought before all the others in her mind. She
spoke it more gruffly than she intended. "Where's my son?"
Jemi fingered the death beads on the k'lyge, praying that the
answer would not be the one she feared, the one the dark voice
had foretold in the dreams.
Strickland glanced down at his desk. He cleared his throat
again. His eyes were very sad, like a puppy's. "The doctor
informs me that you've been told subliminally. Yet 1 dread
having to be the one that consciously gives you the truth. Your
son . . . Kenis ... is dead. He was killed in an accident three
months ago on Highland. You've gone through the grief once
before, and it's unfair that you're being forced to endure it again.
I've contacted Highland and asked that they forward the report to
New York, where we'll be taking you, but I've been given the
essential details. It was an unfortunate fall from an inner linktube.
He'd been climbing ..."
Jemi had drawn the eyeveil across with Strickland's first words.
She heard them all—slow, deliberate, methodical, like every-
thing the Admiral seemed to do, and she cried bitter, silent tears.
She'd not thought that she could ever hurt so badly. Images of
Kenis came to her: his smile, the joy of his first accomplish-
ments, his first words. His laughter, bright and unalloyed, the
feel of him suckling at her breasts—the memories were a thou-
sand small knives, each taking their blood from her. "Three
months ago," she repeated when she could control her voice.
She lifted her head to Strickland. "And that was 'seventy? Is that
also what I've been told?"
He didn't want to admit it. She could see it in the way he
grasped the mug. "Yes."
"Admiral"—she had to stop, swallowing back the grief once
more-—"my last memory is of 'sixty-eight. In my mind, Kenis is
two, yet you tell me that he was nearly four when—"
She couldn't say it. The words choked her. She swallowed
again, feeling the wetness of her cheeks, glad this once of the

14
Stephen Leigh
imposed calmness of the drugs. "I've lost Kenis twice. He's not
only gone from me, but half of his life's been stolen from me as
well. Admiral, I want, I need to know what's happened. You've
said, correctly, that I'd be confused. I am. Where's Starfire?
Where's my vivicate, Doni? Where am I and why am I here?
Your Dr. Miles wouldn't answer any of my questions." The
sorrow overwhelmed her again and she bent her head, her shoul-
ders heaving helplessly. She could hear the Admiral's loud breath
as he waited for her to look up again. She could hear him lift his
mug, set it down. He cleared his throat. Jemi took a deep,
sobbing breath and raised her head.
"Captain Miles was following my orders," he said. "Please
don't blame him. I'm afraid that you won't care for my answers,
Holder."
He was staring at her, his mouth twisted in a dismayed gri-
mace. If it was simply discomfiture, she could understand it—
most people who were unused to the k'lyge found it disconcerting
to see nothing of the face of the person to whom they spoke, to
miss the intricate and detailed language of the mouth, the jaw: all
the musculature of the face. That was the private speech that, by
the customs of Highland, only intimates should share.
Finally, he simply glanced away. He harrumphed several times
and his thick fingers toyed with the slick glaze of his mug. "It's
difficult to know exactly where to begin," he said at last. "Let's
start with the easiest things. You're aboard my cruiser, the
Strolov. We were on a routine patrol when my communications
officer told me that he'd picked up a distress beacon. We investi-
gated." Strickland paused, almost too long. Jemi wondered if he
were arranging words to his satisfaction; to spare her pain,
perhaps.
"You found Starfire?"
He glanced back at her. He sipped his coffee, rumbled his
throat. "We found Starfire," he said. "She was gutted and
helpless after an attack. We also saw something else, on the very
edge of our sensor's range: a fleeing ship—from all indications,
it was Condor class, something much like Salii would build. That
would make it a Family Jardien ship. However, before we could
run the entire analysis, the craft slipped away. With a newer
ship, a better drive system, they would not have gotten away."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
15
Strickland shook his head, looking down at his desk. He almost
seemed to sigh. "This has been a constant guerrilla war between
the navy and the Jardien pirates, as you know. And this is a good
indication why it drags on, in the face of the fact that all mankind
should be standing together now. The T'Raijek—" Strickland's
head came up, twisted in a bemused expression. He smiled—a
flicker of thin lips—then turned sad again, "i know that none of
this concerns you at the moment. You must forgive an old
military man his tirades, Holder Charidilis. The junior officers
aboard can tell you that these speeches sometimes slip out. If
you'd like to hear my old war tales, I'll gladly bore you some-
time later. My apologies." He inclined his head.
Jemi nodded. Behind the k'lyge, a faint half-smile touched her
lips. She thought that she might like this man, had they met
under different circumstances. But her grief would not allow her
to speculate much beyond the fact of Kenis's death. "I'll gladly
listen later, as you say. Admiral. And I hope that you don't think
me ungracious if I say that right now my only interest is in Kenis
and my ship."
*'I'd be surprised if you felt any other way," Strickland
answered. Each word was precise, separate.
The Admiral swiveled in his seat. He reached to one side of
the desk and touched a contact there, grimaced when nothing
happened, and touched the contact again, harder this time: an
LCD screen spat light on the wall to Jemi's right. There, like a
model set on satin, rested the wreck of a ship. Torn and savaged
as it was, Jemi didn't recognize it for a moment. "Not Starfire?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Christ," Jemi whispered.
She stared at the hulk. Starfire had been a large sphere linked
to a box, the array of the mercury ion drive trailing behind it.
Now, the ball of the living quarters was rent by scorched lines,
the drive was a twisted, melted glob, the storage compartment
hung by a few cables, askew and crumpled. Metallic fragments
slid past the camera view, winking in the glare of Strolov's
spotlights.
"I know she looks bad," Strickland said. "But I've had my
engineering staff go over her and they tell me that she's salvage-
able." His voice was soft, empathetic. "We have her under tow.

16
Stephen Leigh
taking her back to Uphill Port. You should have no trouble
getting repairs authorized. I assume you're insured?"
"1 am—I mean, 1 was ..." Jemi's words trailed off in a
whisper. She leaned her head back against the cushions of the
floater and stared at the corpse of her ship. She closed her eyes
once more.
Kenis, in free-fall in the tube leading back to storage, his arms
and legs flailing as he tried to control his motions, bouncing
from bulkhead to bulkhead and all the time giggling . . . Harris
was there then, before 1 kicked him off the ship. We both watched
Kenis—proud parents. Doni shot past us, the vivicate as dexter-
ous here as he was awkward in gravity, and retrieved the blun-
dering Kenis. Doni and Kenis both laughed, and Harris and I
laughed with them.
The mourning beads were cold against her throat. "Admiral, 1
still don't understand. Why can't 1 remember any of this? Was I
that badly hurt?" She still looked at the ship.
"The Jardien ship attacked you. In the time before we arrived,
for some reason of their own, they wiped the last two years from
your memory."
Always precise, each word dropping into existence like a gem.
Impossible.
Jemi turned to stare at the Admiral. Through the fabric of the
k'lyge, his features were softened, yet there was a hardness to the
set of his jaw that made Jemi wonder at the calmness of the
man's words. "That's not possible," she said slowly, half in
defiance, half in disbelief. "It can't be done."
Strickland growled throatily. He seemed more nervous now
than before. He picked up the coffee mug, set it down again
without tasting. "Yet that's the only supposition that I can make,
Holder. 1 can understand your disbelief. What I've just said is,
by all that I know, impossible—at least with the precision we've
found in your memory loss. But my people have examined you in
every way they could. And you know that Salii's technology
diverged somewhat from ours during their isolation on Mars."
He shrugged, brushing imaginary dust from his desk top. "You
show no trauma to the skull—so the memory wasn't affected by a
blow. There isn't any subconscious suppression of the memory,
either. I ordered you examined under drugs, using techniques our
intelligence branch has utilized, and you still could not remember."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
17
Now Strickland sipped his coffee. He made a face as if the
brew were too bitter. Jemi wished that he would speak faster, yet
at the same time she yearned for him to say nothing more. She
didn't know how much more she could absorb. Everything that
he had said hammered at her, making her want to dissolve into
helpless panic.
"I can't see your face," Strickland said, "so I don't know
how you're reacting to all this. Believe me, I ordered you tested
in such ways only hesitantly. I felt I had to do it, for various
reasons that I can't go into here. I'm relatively satisfied that
you've faked nothing, that your attack and your memory loss are,
for whatever reasons, genuine. If that makes me sound callous,
I'm afraid that it's part of the job and not my lack of sympathy
for another human being."
She couldn't summon the anger she thought she might have
felt; not when Strickland was so empathetic, not when the death
of Kenis weighed on her. "I couldn't fake losing my child," she
said. "I couldn't. But I've never heard that it was possible to
induce a memory loss such as mine."
Harrumph. "It's certainly possible—certain techniques, com-
binations of drugs and hypnosis . . . There are interrogative
techniques, yes." Strickland glanced down at his hands as if
they held the answer. "But none of them could have done this so
cleanly, buried it so well. Your memory is sheared off, a clean
slice somewhere during May 15, 2168. If we probed deeper, I
suspect that we could narrow it down further to an hour, a
minute. From that point on, your recall is simply gone. Vanished."
"You're telling me that what happened to me can't be done."
"I'm telling you that we couldn't do it." His hand came up to
cup his chin; he leaned toward her. "Perhaps Salii has something
that the UCN knows nothing about. And there is always the
technology of the T'Raijek—an alien race with a stardrive could
certainly have the ability to do this to you." He looked at her
strangely, as if waiting for a comment. "I think we can discount
Highland—your home could have nothing that I wouldn't know
about." Then Strickland rose, walking with halting steps toward
the screen. His right leg dragged as if from some old injury. He
stared at the view there for a time, his hands locked behind his
back. Jemi watched his fingers flexing, curling into fists: some-

18
Stephen Leigh
thing bothered the Admiral deeply, something beyond what he'd
said here. The man was not at ease with himself; some demon
raked his soul from inside—his stance was too erect, the muscles
too taut. He spoke to the screen, not Jemi.
"Let me state all this openly, Holder Charidilis. First, your
ship was attacked. You are a small, independent trader carrying,
according to your log, a shipment of bioelectronics from High-
land, to be delivered to Uphill and ferried down to Tokyo from
there. You were perhaps ten days away, seven days out from
lunar orbit. And a Family Jardien vessel attacked you. Then they
boarded the ship they'd gutted—just incidentally having destroyed
the cargo in the attack—and they either find your vivicate, Doni,
dead or kill him themselves. You, Holder, they torture—what
else can 1 call this selective destruction of memory? Obviously
these pirates were not after your cargo or money, but something
that you knew or held. That's the only scenario that makes sense,
isn't it?"
"If you're certain that my memory's been wiped. Admiral,
then I can assume the question's rhetorical."
He turned to her and smiled. His laughter was genuine; it filled
the room. Jemi suddenly wanted to see Strickland more clearly.
She no longer cared that he saw her sorrow—these people had
known her far more intimately than she wanted to admit; what
would seeing her tears matter? She pulled the eyeveil aside and
fastened it behind her ear, pushing dark ringlets of hair back. "I
didn't intend for that to be amusing, Admiral. My sense of
humor's entirely gone, I'm afraid."
He still smiled, but the set of his face hardened, as if he didn't
enjoy his thoughts. He took a stiff-legged step toward her—his
right knee didn't seem to bend. "Have you ever smuggled.
Holder? Have you ever been tempted by the large profits a clever
person can make shipping contraband?"
She had expected the question. It seemed obvious in the face
of the incident he'd outlined. She willed her eyes to show
nothing, and replied with as much calmness as she could muster.
"I can tell by your face that you already have an answer to that.
Why do you bother to ask?"
Strickland shrugged, though the smile faded. "You admitted
to it under the drugs, yes."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
19
"And that admission is illegal, Admiral. As a citizen of the
UCN, you can't convict me with that."
He waved aside her protest, his demeanor pained. He moved
slowly over to his desk and leaned against it. Under the gray
hair, his forehead was creased. "I'm not trying to shock you into
an admission, Holder. Please believe that. 1 know that nearly
every entrepreneur like yourself smuggles at one time or another.
In poor times like these it's rather forgivable. I assure you that I
don't care: I've no intention of using that information against you
in any way. But you must understand why I ask."
His face sagged, his shoulders dropped, as if the Admiral had
suddenly decided to drop his facade and show his weariness. He
reached across the desk and picked up his mug once more.
Again, he cleared his throat. "You're sure you'd like nothing?"
He pointed with the mug to the servette.
Jemi shook her head.
Strickland moved over to the servette himself and carefully
warmed his coffee. He spooned a small amount of sugar into the
liquid, stirred. "The conflict between Earth and Salii is going to
drag on for decades, Holder. Year upon year. There will be some
other tired old man commanding this cruiser when the treaties are
finally signed. Neither side can move freely. It's like a pawn-
dominated endgame: we all make slow, careful moves, always
watching the other side. None of those moves by itself can cause
mate. None of us can be entirely independent of the other."
He sipped his coffee, made a face again. Jemi waited. "Oh,
yes," he continued, "the Family Jardien and Salii are legally
free of all ties to Earth, but. damn it, Earth built that colony."
Strickland shook his head and his gaze traveled back to the
screen and the hulk of Starfire once more. "I need to find out
why this happened, why the Family Jardien would attack you. It
must be important."
"I can't tell you why."
He sighed. She could hear a wheeze in his breath. "I know
you can't."
"Admiral, what could I possibly have smuggled that would be
worth the Family Jardien's time? The Saliian pirates go after
cargo that they can use—they don't destroy ships. Even if I did
have something aboard, why not just kill me rather than going to

20
Stephen Leigh
the trouble of wiping my memory? By any logic I can conceive, I
should be dead. I should be with Kenis." She could feel the tears
gathering again at the mention of his name. She spoke through
their shimmering. "Damn it, Admiral, what do you want from
me? I've lost my child, two years of my life and his, and I don't
remember anything that can possibly help you." She would have
said more, but forced herself to stop.
Later. You can be angry later, you can mourn fully later. For
now, wait. Be calm. Harris used to say it: "Jem, you're too
damned quick-tempered. That's why you and I never seem to get
any close anymore." It was too like Harris to put the guilt
entirely on her rather than sharing it himself, but there was some
truth in what he said—and that had made her even angrier.
"Perhaps you were working for the Family Jardien."
He didn't believe that himself—she could see it. He wasn't
even looking at her. His gaze was still snagged on the wreck of
her ship. There was no inflection of suspicion in his plodding
voice. "You drugged me and looked into my mind. Admiral. I'm
sure that you have sources to uncover my past movements, as
well. I'm positive you've already formed an answer to that
question."
"You're right," he admitted graciously. "I won't bother to
ask again. Frankly, I'd be most pleased if I thought you were an
agent of the Family Jardien: I'd no longer be so concerned over
the affair. It might make sense: an internal squabble ..."
"Admiral Strickland, what happens to me now?"
He said nothing for a minute. Limping over to his desk, he
seated himself once more, sighing and wheezing with a rumbling
of mucus in his chest. He touched the screen's contact. Starfire
vanished, the room lights brightened. "We'll take you to Uphill
and then New York. At the moment, we're two days out, inside
lunar orbit. You still have some recovering to do; I'll leave you
to the ministrations of my medical staff for the remaining time
aboard. You'll have a private cubicle where no one need disturb
you—I've commanded Highlanders before, and I know your
needs. I'll ask you to verify my report and give a statement of
your own, but . . ." He spread his hands wide, then brought
them back around the mug. He smiled gently at Jemi, the folds
lifting around his eyes. "You'll be free to go. I'll see that the

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
21
report on your son's death is given to you. From that point, you
may do as you wish."
He wasn't finished. Jemi saw his eyes suddenly narrow, his
back straighten. He spoke with more force than before, with an
edge to his voice that Jemi didn't understand. "There's one
provision to all this, Holder Charidilis. You will contact me
personally if you learn anything more about this incident, if
memory begins to come back to you, or if you stumble across
something that you think might interest me. Contact my office at
Uphill Port. If I'm available, you'll be put through; if not, leave
word where you can be reached, but give no one else the
information. Frankly, there are people within the UCN and the
navy whose sympathies are more with the Saliians than the UCN.
Holder, I want to see this long war ended, and you may know
something that will help in that. It wouldn't surprise me if a
message for my eyes only was intercepted. Please, contact only
me. Is that acceptable?"
Jemi shrugged, pretending nonchalance. Once away from Earth,
back on Highland where the nearest naval base was a week or
more away, she intended to forget Admiral Strickland entirely.
"That's as acceptable as anything I could wish, Admiral. I feel
invaded. Raped. At this point, I'd do anything to know who stole
Kenis from me, and why. I assure you, I'm on your side in
this." Jemi stood. The beads of her k'lyge clashed percussively.
"I won't take any more of your time, Admiral." She was tired;
she wanted to sleep, to have time to think out all of this. Her
mind was numb; she could only think about Kenis—it didn't seem
possible that he wasn't in his bed on Starfire, waiting for her.
"I hope you hold no grudges against me for the way you've
been treated."
"Admiral, you saved me, saved my ship, and healed my
wounds. The rest you did because you had to. I understand
that."
Strickland nodded and smiled. Jemi turned to go. She was
almost to the door when he spoke again, and hidden emotions
twisted his voice: "I'm very sorry about your son. Holder. I lost
a daughter myself to an accident, and I can understand how you
feel. I wish I could help you with your burden. Whoever did this
to you should not have stolen your remembrances of Kenis: that

22
Stephen Leigh
was the unkindest thing done to you. No one should be forced to
mourn twice."
"Admiral Strickland." Jemi answered, "I'm sure 1 never
slopped mourning.''
She slid the eyeveil back over her facc as she turned away
from him.

The cities were once humanity's finest accomplishment.
After the World Depression—the Bust—after three decades
of utter neglect and with few resources left, the cities had
become old, filthy, and dangerous. That they still stand, that
they can still evoke feelings of awe in us, only makes their
decay more pitiable.
—introduction to "Cities" by R. M.
Jordan, UCN Geographic, May
2169.
CHAPTER THREE
Karl Shiolev had never seen the Director. That fact made
meetings with that official all the more terrifying. The rendez-
vous changed location every time, from a shabby tenement apart-
ment in New York to here, an underground car garage in Paris.
The garage was abandoned; with the oil supplies nearly depleted
on Earth, far fewer people could afford to run groundcars. This
place was as safe as any other.
There was only one constant to the encounters. There would be
a backlit screen on which Karl could see a bulky, moving shadow
of a head and torso. He would hear a voice that was too filtered
and synthesized to be recognizable. For that matter, he didn't
know if the silhouette of the Director was real. He knew nothing
about the person at all. whether the Director might be tall or
short, fat or thin, man or woman. There was only the shape on
the screen, the unreal voice, and the feeling of eyes peering at
him.
He sat on a plain wooden chair and tugged at his sleeves,
uncomfortable. He touched the scar where a tube had once
pierced his nostrils—where the oxygen tube used by the Families
on the surface of Mars had once gone.
23

24
Stephen Leigh
Shiolev was on one of the ramps, the screen filling the area
before him. He cleared his throat, hearing the sound echo through
the concrete structure. He would rather be back in space, back on
Salii again with the Director's money in his pocket and Mars
turning slowly underneath him. This last bit of business had been
distasteful—having to share the rebuilt Condor ship with that
witch of a psychologist, having to fire on a helpless freighter.
But there were the debts to pay if he ever wanted to return to
Salii and Mars, and the Director had promised that all the notes
would be torn up afterward. He would talk with the apparition
one last time and see the notes destroyed. Then he would go
home and try to forget it all. He would go home a hero, having
helped Family Shiolev and the influence of Family Jardien on
Martian society.
His butt was getting sore, sitting on the hard wood. He shifted
his weight even as the screen lit, flooding the ramp with blinding
light. Shiolev shielded his eyes momentarily against the glare.
"Quit fidgeting, man," the voice said. It arced and buzzed, as
if imbued with a snarling energy. "Tell me, what did Maria use
on the woman?"
"Scloramine. Not many people know about it—she told me
that it's a psycho-suggestive derived from natural organics. The
stuff is purified orbitally on Salii, and its use classified—I know
that the UCN got hold of the formula, though. HeadFather
Shiolev said that a Saliian turncoat gave it away to the UCN a
year ago in return for amnesty."
"A turncoat like you, eh?" The voice screeched laughter.
"Charidilis talked freely?" the Director rasped then, a growl
with high overtones.
"We took what we could before the navy got there." Shiolev
shivered, remembering the scene in the little portable shelter
they'd rigged in the middle of the ship's rubble: the wide-eyed
Holder yammering about her life, her son, reliving all the emo-
tions before his eyes. The witchwoman laughed half the time, not
caring that Charidilis was emptying the vessel of her memory
forever. "The stuff's really amazing—Charidilis babbled on non-
stop, with all the detail you could ever want. At your suggestion,
we started with the most crucial time period and moved back

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
25
from there. We'd gotten a little earlier than the most critical
parameters by the time we had to leave."
"And you say you got nothing? Nothing?'' The last word was
overloaded, distorted, and the man jumped in his seat.
"I'm sorry, Director. Maria claimed to be one of the best
people in her field. That was corroborated by others we con-
tacted. She said that Charidilis had nothing to tell us."
"Could she have been mistaken?"
"According to her backup, it's possible. Under Scloramine,
the subject must be led or you get too much trivial information. If
we could have taken the time to do it slowly and sift through
everything, we could be more certain. As it is . . ." He shrugged,
watching the slow movements of the shadowy figure behind the
screen. Was the head bald, or did the Director wear a skullcap of
some sort? "We can't be entirely certain, no. But the chances are
small that Charidilis could have withheld anything."
"Or our time frame was wrong, which is also possible," the
Director added. "We know that the T'Raijek used her ship to
transport the crystal. If the crystal wasn't passed to its contact,
then it was hidden on the ship. I find it hard to believe that she
couldn't have known."
"What do you want me to do. Director?"
"Nothing." The distorted shadow of a hand flickered over the
screen. "You can leave. I'll take care of the rest."
"Director, I hate to suggest this, since it appears that the
woman was entirely innocent, but she is a loose end."
"Yes, and we hate loose ends, don't we, Karl Shiolev? You
enjoyed getting rid of Maria, didn't you?"
Despite the filtering, there was no mistaking the amused sar-
casm in the Director's voice, and Karl smiled wanly in response,
straightening his back against the chair's unrelenting spine. The
chair legs scraped loudly against the oil-stained floor of the
garage.
"I don't deny that Maria and 1 were at odds most of the time,
Director. I didn't enjoy killing her, though; I'm not a monster.
But I'm just as glad she's gone. For the same reason, we're both
safer if Charidilis is gone. I'd prefer not to be the one to have to
do it, but if you insist—"

26
Stephen Leigh
"You're probably right, Karl. But you needn't concern your-
self. I'll take care of it."
Shiolev rose with an audible sigh of relief. "As you wish,
Director." He brushed his hands over his pant legs; his palms left
a smear of moisture. Already he was thinking of Salii, of the
welcome he'd get from HeadFather Shiolev. "Director, there's
the matter of my debts."
"More loose ends, Karl?"
"Just my payment. Director." He gave a weak grin in the
direction of the screen, his hands fluttering out like moths. "I
deserve it. I think."
"Probably you do, Karl." The shadow moved on the screen,
became smaller and sharper. Shiolev could distinctly hear foot-
steps, as if from leather soles. The screen itself seemed to shiver
with a breath, and then it was held aside by a hand—a fisted
hand that held a short-barreled gleam of metal. The light flared
out behind the Director, pinning Shiolev in its shadow. Without
the veil pf the screen, Shiolev could recognize the man. He knew
him. He'd seen the face before. And because of that, he knew
what the gun meant as well. This man would never have let
Shiolev. see his face unless—
He stepped backward involuntarily; the chair clattered to the
concrete and Shiolev stumbled over it in his haste to get away,
falling heavily. "No!" he screamed, his face down on the ramp,
afraid to turn around. He thought he could smell decades-old
fumes from the cars. "Not me, not after all I've done for you!"
"You're a loose end," the voice said, still filtered, still alien.
"You know what we have to do with those," the Director said.
He pressed the trigger. There was the faintest pop of com-
pressed air. Shiolev's body jerked once, a tiny circle of red
appearing in the middle of his back. Then he lay still.
When the body was found several hours later by the street
people who sheltered there, it was as cold as the concrete on
which it lay.
New York.
The streets near the East River catered to port workers,
transients, and the businesses dealing with interworld commerce.
In a time when the United States's influence on the world had

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
27
been usurped by the establishment of the United Coalition of
Nations. New York still managed to keep a stranglehold on her
position as a center for finance. Her lines of influence ran both
from the lofty offices uptown to here, where dank, grimy ware-
houses crowded the waterfront. To this sprawling place came
much of the cargo offloaded Uphill—at the orbital stations.
Shuttles shrieked overhead through an overcast composed equally
of cloud and pollution. They landed at the new strips built on
ground laid waste half a century ago by a Saliian Family Jardien
pirate who had strafed the city. Seagoing ships waited patiently
at their moorings.
Earth was still the great consumer for humanity—the electronic
products of Highland, the raw materials from the mining plat-
forms out beyond Mars, even some of the goods of Salii: all
made their way back here. Even the alien T'Raijek, in their ships
that could leap between the stars, even they had come to New
York first.
The burrough that had once been called the Bowery seethed
with a vigorous and sometimes dangerous life. The streets were
dirty with rubbish, stained by time. A constant drizzle left pools
of oily water in every depression: the very buildings seemed to
exist only to cast a darkness on the alleys between. The place
collected filth.
Jemi had always enjoyed her visits here.
But not this one. Her mood had been too darkly stained.
Strickland had given her the report on Kenis. The pages of cold
type had told her nothing. They had evoked no memories; even
the pain she should have felt was blunted by the technical,
dispassionate language of bureaucracy. The "subject"—that's
who Kenis was to them. The "subject."
The subject had been left in the care of a creche while his
mother was involved with loading her ship. The subject had
wandered away from the creche and been seen climbing the
outside of a linktube between sectors of Highland, where the
lessened spin of the colony produced a lower gravity. Before
anyone could get to the subject, he had fallen: slowly at first,
then ever faster as he came nearer the rim of Highland. Propelled
by the colony's spin, he had slammed into the buildings there.
He had been dead when the medical team reached him. The

28
Stephen Leigh
creche-mother in charge had been cited for negligence and jailed
after the investigation, but the subject's death was termed
accidental.
Jemi had read the report. Read it again. It brought only tears
and frustration. Finally, she'd fought off the misery and (with
Strickland's aid) arranged for Starfire's repairs. Then she'd at-
tacked the small mound of paperwork: Strickland's report; a letter
to her uncle on Highland, giving him an unexpurgated version of
the story; a note to Vivicate Corporation, informing them of the
termination of Doni Rowe; a call to her client's representative in
New York, to tell her of the loss of the cargo.
It had taken all her energy to get herself ready to leave the hotel
room in the Marriott, uptown. There was little enough to gather—
she had only a change of clothes given to her on Strolov and her
k'lyge. Strickland had arranged for her to be given a loan from a
victims' aid program until she could transfer some of her own
funds from Highland—he must have known but had not men-
tioned that Jemi had no savings. She'd borrowed a boot-knife
from one of the crewmen before leaving Uphill: that she was
going down to New York had been enough explanation. The
crewman had smiled and tossed it to her.
Evening found her, sullen and depressed, in a tavern off South
Street. Jemi adjusted the k'lyge as she took a seat in a far corner,
crossing the lower folds with the white underveil; a sign on
Highland that she wished no company. She'd brought a paper
with her from the Marriott. All the news was unfamiliar to her:
different names and different faces staring back from the holos.
New problems in new locations. She didn't even recognize Presi-
dent Hughes, who leered at her from the front page:
PRESIDENT OFFERS CONCESSIONS TO UCN
She turned quickly to the local section to escape the confusion
she felt at the headlines. There was a one-column-inch mention
of Starfire's attack, sandwiched between two other stories: New
Mayor Celebrates and T'Raijek Found Dead, State to Investigate.
The story under Highland Freighter Attacked included a quote
from Admiral Strickland, but there was no mention of any Fam-
ily Jardien vessel. Strickland spoke only of an "as yet unidenti-

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
29
fied ship." Jemi shook her head. She set aside the paper, dialed a
drink on the table's menu—Glenfiddich. There was nothing com-
parable to that, and such luxuries were far too expensive on
Highland. She had more than once smuggled bottles of scotch
back home.
As she waited for her order, Jemi glanced about. The place
wasn't much, but then, few places were anymore—plastic beams
molded and stained like wood straggled across the roof, ostensi-
bly to give an aura of age to the tavern but instead jarring her
with their artificiality. The tables were battered and scarred by
years of use, a dark sludge having accumulated in the grooves.
The glass over the menu selector was scratched, almost translu-
cent in spots. Graffiti spilled over the plastic planking of the
walls. Near the back of the bar was an alcove for vivicates,
discreetly set away from the main area of the establishment.
Despite the fact that the place was crowded with workers and the
tables were filling up at the shift-change for the port, the vivicate
alcove was empty. Even on Highland, the vivicates seemed to
avoid public places. It was just as well; most people were dis-
gusted by the vivicates' stumbling, slobbering reflexes.
To one side, near the bar itself, there was a table of fellow
Highlanders. Jemi glanced at them; they had seen her as well.
They nodded, their own k'lyges swaying, but with her veils
bespeaking her desire for privacy, none of them bothered her
further.
Her table chimed dully and she took her scotch from the center
cabinet. As she lifted the k'lyge to sip the smoky liquor, she saw
a T'Raijekian alpha male come through the tavern door. She
recalled the headline in the paper and marveled that New York
could have two of the aliens at one time, especially the alpha
males. From what Jemi understood, the alphas were the rarest of
the tri-sexed T'Raijek. She'd heard that the T'Raijek sometimes
used the free traders for in-system transport, though she'd never
ferried one of the aliens before—unless, she reminded herself, it
had happened during the previous two years.
The thought made her sullen; she stared at the T'Raijek.
wondering if he'd come here looking for a convenient ride. The
alpha male was stocky, short and squat, not like the tall and regal
omega males she'd glimpsed around the Highland embassy. His^

30
Stephen Leigh
head was bald, the skin golden with a distinct orangish cast,
though a dark fur began at his cheeks and continued until it went
under the powder blue tunic he wore. The face itself had the
barest suggestion of a snout, the cheeks and nose thrust out. Two
six-fingered hands with double opposable thumbs were hooked
into a large silver belt; below, his penile sheath bulged grossly
under tight pants. Around the room, people tried very hard not to
stare. Jemi followed the path of the meter-high creature until she
lost him in the crush around the bar.
"Do you mind company. Holder?"
The voice startled her. Jemi turned to see the face. The man
who'd spoken had short, dark hair, pleasant and large green eyes,
and a mouth whose smile twisted around a small scar dimpling
his left cheek. Tall and thin, he seemed confident, standing easily
beside her table. At another moment, in a different place under
different circumstances, she might have been intrigued.
Not tonight. Not when the unknown ghosts of the stolen
memories crowded her. Harris, her former husband, had also
been tall, dark and confident, and Kenis would have grown to
look much like his father. Jemi glanced away from the man and
placed her glass back down on the table. "On Highland, a person
would have been able to read my veils and wouldn't have dis-
turbed me." When she glanced back up, he was still smiling, one
side higher than the other.
"This is New York, Holder. Home of all humanity and all
customs. I can't read the veils at all. I only saw someone who
looked interesting. I'm sorry if I offended you, but you still
haven't answered my question. Would you mind some com-
pany?" He shifted his weight from foot to foot. Jemi thought that
he must be a man unused to failure. "It can be lonely sitting by
yourself in a strange place." he said, and there was a sympathy
in his voice.
Jemi made 110 effort to smile falsely, as a veiless one might
have done in the same situation. The k'lyge made such lying
gestures pointless. She simply gazed at him. "No," she said.
The words were a warm breath against the cloth. "I'd prefer to
be alone tonight. For my own reasons," she added, not wanting
to be too abrupt.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
31
The man shrugged, gave that twisted smile again. "I listen
well, too, if that's what you need."
"No," she repeated, more firmly this time.
He hesitated. Jemi could see him balanced between continuing
the effort and acknowledging defeat. Finally, he turned back into
the crowds with a sad wave. Jemi glanced back over at the table
of Highlanders. One of them nodded slightly; he had noticed and
sympathized.
She picked up her drink once more, glancing about the room.
The T'Raijek was gone or hidden in the throngs. The tavern, the
night, the city had all begun to cloy on her, though she sat a half
hour longer. There was too much false laughter, too much loud
conversation clashing with the rumble of canned music, too much
animated, artificial friendliness. Jemi felt lonely; worse, she
knew that she was feeling sorry for herself. She wanted to cry,
wanted to be with someone, if just for the temporary solace
another human being could give her. She would have readjusted
her k'lyge and gone over to the table of Highlanders, but they
had finished their drinks and left. If Kenis were still alive, she
could have cuddled the boy in her arms, smoothing his unruly
hair—
And that thought sent her skittering through what memories
she had of such moments with her child, and they seemed
tragically few. All the rest of them were gone.
Taken.
People chattered happily around her. It seemed hollow and
unreal. For all she knew, she might have met some of those here
tonight, might have seen them in her last two years of travel. One
of them might have been a lover and she would never recognize
him or her.
Abruptly, she pushed her chair away from the table and left the
tavern.
The night was sultry, muggy with the drizzle, and noisome.
Shuttles howled at the city with banshee cries, steam rose from
the puddles. The-clouds were infused with a green glow from the
lights of downtown Manhattan to the west. Jemi strolled aim-
lessly down South Street and into the warren of streets along the
East River, past the bars and the crowded houses, past pilots and

32
Stephen Leigh
dockworkers, past whores of both and indeterminate sexes work-
ing the restless night. Jemi sought out the less inhabited areas of
the sector, near the warehouses ringing the landing strips for the
shuttles. She wandered between long, low buildings, her boots
scrunching on blacktop. One by one, she tried to conjure up the
lost months—they were gone. Gone. One of her last memories of
Kenis was of a scolding. She'd become angry with him because
he'd refused to pick up his toys.
"Damn it, Kenis, do what I tell you. Pick them up." He
giggled at her, either not seeing or not caring about her irrita-
tion, and toddled away with an unsteady swagger. "No," he
insisted, using one of his few words. That made her angry
enough to shout at his retreating back. "Young man, you have
three seconds to get back here. One, two . . ."In the end, she'd
had to chase after him. She spanked him, and then scolded him
again when he wouldn't stop crying. She'd apologized immedi-
ately, knowing that she was punishing him for something he
didn't understand. She'd hugged him fiercely then, crooning to
him, and helped him pick up the toys as he sniffled alongside
her. That was nearly the last time she remembered being with
him.
Jemi turned a corner and didn't realize that she was nearly at
the end of a cul-de-sac until a building had reared up to block her
path.
There was the scrape of a footstep behind her.
She'd not expected to see that face again. Certainly not here.
He smiled that tilted smile, the scar white in the glare of spot-
lights along the building's roofs. He flipped a long knife from
hand to hand as he stared at her.
"Hello again, Holder," he said. "You should have taken me
up on my first offer—you made it difficult for me to get you
alone, and that can make me very angry."
Jemi was stunned for a moment. She hesitated, then reached
down to draw her own knife from its leg sheath. "You don't
want trouble," she said at last. ilJust leave me alone. That's all I
want. I don't have enough money to make this worth your
effort."
"Don't want money."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
33
Her lips tightened under the k'lyge. The veils swung. "You'll
get nothing else."
He seemed almost jovial. He snickered. "I know what you're
thinking, and you're wrong. Oh, 1 may have that anyway, after-
ward, but it's not the primary thing at all." He flipped the knife
once more and took a step toward her, his hand tightening on the
hilt. "You know, most people would use a gun," he said. "They
don't want anyone to struggle, to fight. But me, 1 enjoy that.
Guns are too impersonal, don't you think?" His smile was gone
now, his lips pressed tightly together, the scar standing out
against flushed skin. His voice had the same warm sympathy
she'd heard in the bar, only now it seemed eerie and cold. Jemi
retreated, crouching, feeling the weight of her knife. It had been
a long time since she'd used a knife, and that time had only been
a bluff, one luckily not taken. She had a sudden intuition that she
would die here. The man was quick and sure of himself; her own
street tricks were few. If he was at all good with that weapon,
she knew that she would feel its edge.
He came at her slowly, then in a sudden rush. She brought her
knife up, grunting, felt it slither along the length of the man's
blade as she kicked at his groin. He back-stepped, untouched, not
giving her the opportunity to run. He grinned, a feral smile.
"Now, that won't work at all." he taunted. Jemi didn't answer.
She was breathing fast, panting, her back to the wall that trapped
her. The man stared with emerald eyes, shook his head.
He smiled.
He took a step.
He fell.
As Jemi stared, a T'Raijek alpha, either the one from the
tavern or an identical alpha male, stepped into view from the
mouth of the alleyway. He was pocketing a gleaming device in a
pouch hanging from his belt. He strode up to the body with a
side-to-side rolling gait and examined a small, bloodless discolor-
ation in the back of the man's shirt. Then he looked at Jemi.
It was an old face, hidden behind the luxuriant growth of facial
hair. Pupils like dull dark chocolate were webbed in a hundred
folds—those eyes stared at her. "You going to a masquerade or
did you plan to rob a bank?" he said to her.
His voice sounded like two rocks arguing, and the accent was

34
Stephen Leigh
guttural, almost Germanic. Jemi stared from the alien to the body
of her attacker. When she didn't speak, the T'Raijek growled low
in his throat. "You could try 'thank you,' or does the mask mean
that you can't talk, either?"
"Umm, thanks," Jemi said at last. She wrenched her gaze
away from the man. "He's dead?"
The T'Raijek visibly bit back some comment. "Yes, that was
the basic idea," he spat out. "Would you rather I'd politely asked
him to leave you alone?"
"Not exactly." Jemi realized that she was still holding her
knife. She began to sheathe it, then thought better of the idea—
too much had happened in the past few days, in the past hour.
Too much coincidence. First the scarred man. then the T'Raijekian
. . . she couldn't believe that any of this had been accidental.
She kept her hand at her side, but tightened her grip on the hilt.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"Forget the bullshit. I just saved your fucking life."
The obscenities, coming from the alien, almost made her laugh
in shock, and she realized that she was giddy from the adrenaline
surge. She inhaled deeply, not caring that the air stank. She
leaned back against the wall. Cool moisture seeped through the
fabric of her blouse. "I'm sorry. I'm very grateful to you and
I'm glad you showed up when you did, but it doesn't make any
sense."
He smiled, a mirthless grin that exposed wide, flat, and crooked
teeth. "I do good work, huh? Just like you apes." He prodded
the body with a foot, and Jemi noted for the first time that he
wore no shoes. His toes were long and big-jointed. They looked
as if they could do well as hands. He stared back at her in turn,
with a look almost of defiance.
"Am I supposed to know you," Jemi asked. "You keep
looking at me . . . Have we met before?"
"How would 1 know that? Take off the veil so I can see your
face and I'll tell you."
Jemi's intake of breath was a hiss. "You're impudent. On
Highland, comments like that wouldn't be tolerated."
"People who are in other people's debts should be very toler-
ant, I'd think," the T'Raijek replied. He prodded the corpse
again for emphasis. It moved limply. "You can call me Ardent.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
35
Now, I'll admit that this has been a charming conversation, but
it'd be better if we continued it somewhere away from the
evidence, don't you think? You owe me a drink."
"I do?"
"Absolutely." Ardent's gaze was steady—Jemi began to won-
der if the alpha males ever blinked. She crouched down, the
beads of her k'lyge swinging. She quickly went through her
attacker's pockets. Touching the body brought on a sudden nau-
sea; Jemi sat down on the pavement, breathing heavily, trying to
control her stomach. "Looking for money?" Ardent inquired.
There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice. He leered at
her. closer to her than she liked.
"Can't you ever be quiet?" She swallowed heavily.
"You wear a mask, I talk. We all have our faults."
Jemi shook her head, and turned back to continue checking the
body. Scarface had no papers, no identification at all, only a few
loose bills of low denomination. There was nothing to place him
or to indicate why he might have chosen her as his victim. Jemi
thought of Strickland, of his instructions to inform him of any-
thing out of the ordinary. She knew that she should contact the
admiral, yet something held her back. You can always do it later.
It hardly matters now, after all—it was probably just a random
attack. You'll get caught up in more paperwork, more questions.
Highlanders know the Earthers all too well—just get away from
here.
She found it easy to convince herself. She rose, feeling the
ache of muscles only recently healed, and glanced down at the
T'Raijek. Her stomach still roiled, and she could not bear to look
at the corpse again.
"Let's get your drink," she said. "I need one too."
"You could use another pilot to help you, and you need an
ally. You need me."
They were in another bar, drinks pooling rings on the tabletop.
Ardent's thick hands were wrapped around a glass of water,
which he sipped as carefully as the scotch that sat before Jemi.
The tavern's patrons stared and goggled around them, but stayed
well away. Ardent's black, intense gaze was fixed on her once

36
Stephen Leigh
more. "You haven't answered me," he said when Jemi didn't
answer him.
"You're joking," she said. "You must be." This was her
third shot; the first had gone quickly, as if she could obliterate
death with the liquor's fire. Then she'd left the T'Raijek briefly
to phone the local police, to tell them about the body. The stress
of that anonymous call had gone into the second glass.
"I'm serious," the T'Raijek insisted. "The last thing you
want is another vivicate, some zombie that can't even walk
well."
"Without the vivicates, Highland would die. Earth would
die—they use them almost as much as we do," Jemi insisted.
"We need the manpower. The UCN advocates their use—"
Ardent waved the comment away. "I'm offering you a chance
and you keep babbling nonsense." He took a sip from his glass
and then wiped at his beard with the back of his sleeve. "I have
piloting credentials—all UCN-certified. You want to see them, or
do you think you might trust someone who's taken a ship be-
tween the stars?"
Jemi could sense the scorn in his words. Perhaps because of
that, perhaps because too much had happened to her too quickly,
she found her irritation rising. "I'll see them," she told him,
holding her hand out.
Ardent's beard twitched around the ancient mouth, the coarse,
thick strands moving over the pushed-out face. For a second she
thought that he might refuse—what little she knew about the
T'Raijekian alpha males said that they were proud and touchy,
perhaps as a legacy of their rarity; Ardent seemed to fit that mold
well enough. The T'Raijek had entered human history only a
scant half-century before, affording humanity a glimpse of worlds
beyond their sun, but even those who had made a study of them
knew very little of their society, nor had the T'Raijek volunteered
much.
Yet this one had saved her life. If Jemi wasn't sure that she
could entirely trust him, she did owe him that. On Highland,
where death meant that one's body might later be sold as a
vivicate, your mind trapped inside a twitching, altered face, a life
debt was not one easily cast aside.
Ardent had dug into the pouch that covered his codpiece. Jemi

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
37
caught a glimpse of rolled, thick flesh, and then Ardent pulled a
holocard out from an inner pocket. He held it across the table to
her, grinning when she was very slow taking it. "Strange place
to keep things," she said.
"I get very few pickpockets," he answered, still laughing at
her.
Jemi examined the card, read the testimony there. She slid it
back toward him. "Fine. You're certified. 1 can still hire a
hundred others here on Earth or buy another vivicate. Why
should 1 bother with you?"
"I'll work for five hundred a month."
Jemi scowled, her forehead furrowed above the k'lyge. The
alcohol fuzzed her brain. "That's half union standard."
"I'm not union."
"Then what are you, and why are you so interested in working
for me?"
Ardent drained his glass. He slammed it down on the table. In
the dim bar-light, his eyes glittered wildly. Around them, people
turned to stare. "Hell, woman, the tale about Starfire1 s all over
the port. Everyone knows you'll be looking for a pilot."
Jemi shook her head, lowering her voice deliberately. "So you
just happen to go to the bar I'm in. By chance, you're walking by
when someone else who was by accident in that same bar attacks
me. Luckily, you're flat broke and willing to work for half-scale
even though you're certified and as a T'Raijek the UCN'd gladly
foot your bills for a while. That's a whole lot of coincidence to
swallow."
"The T'Raijek believe in a God of Oddities."
"1 don't. I'm having trouble with it."
Ardent shrugged at that. He plucked his card from the table
with his long, oddly jointed fingers and stuffed it back in the
codpiece. Muscles bulged in his thick neck as he shook his head
at Jemi. "I went looking for you, yes," Ardent said. "You're
not exactly hard to trace, not with the k'lyge, not with your
current notoriety. I went into the tavern to see you, but I'm lousy
in crowds—they always want to see me and get in my way.
You're all too tall—I saw a lot of stomachs. When I noticed you
at last, you were already at the door. By the time I fought my
way outside again, you were halfway down the street, strolling

38
Stephen Leigh
along without a care in the world and totally oblivious to the man
following you. who was obvious enough that he could have been
wearing a fucking sign. So / followed him. 1 was curious. And
I'm not without funds of my own; no T'Raijek ever is."
"That almost sounds plausible so far."
Ardent inclined his head in a curiously human gesture. "Why,
thank you. And to think that 1 was beginning to feel that you were
as gullible as an omega."
"That doesn't mean that I trust you."
"Yes you do." Ardent's furry beard lifted as he raised his
head, defiant. "Anyone else would have stayed in the area of the
attack, would have called the authorities immediately, not later.
You went with me."
"1 was shaken," Jemi said. "I'm supposed to contact Admiral
Strickland if—"
"Strickland has his nose up his ass," Ardent interrupted, his
voice too loud. He seemed strangely fierce and dangerous for a
moment, then he smiled again. "And why would the Admiral
want to be bothered about a mugging in New York? They happen
all too often here."
His mocking tone gigged Jemi's irritation. "What 1 tell the
Admiral, and why, is my own business."
Ardent said nothing. A finger circled the lip of his glass. Then
he shook his headjis if to rid it of a thought, and his voice was
gruffly cheerful again. "You're right in that. Holder. Absolutely.
You'll learn that we alphas are sometimes too forward for our
own good—ask any omega. So . . . when do 1 get to see this
ship?"
"I haven't said that I'd hire you."
"More important, you haven't said that you won't, and you
don't look like you're leaving."
"Aren't you afraid that I'll say no just to prove that your
confidence is mistaken?"
"You're not that easily manipulated, are you?"
Despite her suspicion, despite the irritation, Jemi was en-
chanted with Ardent's banter and intrigued by his insistence.
Send him away and you'll never know anything about him. He
saved your life when he could as easily let you die. And no
independent worth her ship ever completely trusted the navy. If

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
39
you want to find out about the attack, about Kenis, you' II need
help.
There were a thousand objections to that logic; she ignored
them. Her final decision was impulsive, intuitive. She fingered
the death-beads of the k'lyge and remembered how fascinated
Kenis had been by pictures of the aliens—the regal omega males;
the dangerous-looking, elusive females; and the squat, dwarfish
alphas, almost comically endowed. Kenis would have been tug-
ging at her sleeve. Behind the veils, a corner of her mouth lifted
in a smile. "You're damned clever, aren't you?"
"Yes," he answered, staring directly back at her with those
ancient eyes. "When do 1 see StarfireT'
Jemi picked up her glass. She swirled the amber liquid in it,
lifted the hem of her k'lyge, and sipped. For good or ill, the
decision had formed in her mind. At last she set down the glass
and looked across at Ardent.
"In the morning." she said. "We'll go up in the morning."

The T'Raijek came at exactly the wrong moment in man-
kind's history. Without them, perhaps we might have climbed
out of the morass. With their strangeness and their technol-
ogy overshadowing our own stalled progress, we collectively
shrugged our shoulders and wondered: Why bother? Let the
rest of the universe come and find us.
If that sounds like a portrait of wounded vanity, well,
maybe that's an accurate mirror we're looking in.
—from the preface to the Time magazine
Special Issue: The Half-Century Mark;
January, 2150.
CHAPTER FOUR
There was no clear, cold light in the morning to change her
mind. In fact, the day presented outside the Marriott's weatherscreen
was hot and damp, with billowing clouds lumbering across the
East Harbor to be snagged on the city's tall buildings. Yet she
had indeed changed her mind.
Jemi's mood matched the gloomy morning. She rolled naked
from the bed and padded about the room, her arms crossed under
her breasts, muttering. She kicked at her pile of clothes and sat
down heavily in the room's one chair, one leg over the worn
upholstery.
Before her floated the image of the man the T'Raijek had
killed. The blood was very bright and very real, and a gaping,
stunned terror was fixed eternally on the scarred face. Somehow,
in the adrenaline rush of the night, she had been able to ignore
that image. The death had sickened her, but she'd walked away
from it. She'd even gone to drink with this Ardent, who could so
casually kill a person. It all seemed surreal to her now—the
whole night. It didn't make any sense. It wasn't her, it couldn't
40

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
41
have been her. Her stomach churned at the memories, and she
closed her eyes to stop the sudden queasiness.
"You're an ass, Holder," she said aloud.
She sat there for a few moments more and then called out
loudly: "Room Service."
"What can we do for you, Holder?" a voice responded after
several seconds. The ancient speaker crackled; she could hardly
understand the query.
"A newspaper and coffee."
"Yes. Holder."
The order was delivered within ten minutes by a bored-looking
young man. In the meantime, Jemi had dressed and donned her
k'lyge. The busboy's jacket reflected the malaise that gripped
humanity: worn, spotted with old food stains that no amount of
washing could have erased. Jemi overtipped the teenager with
Strickland's money, and sat down to leaf through the paper.
Fifteen minutes later, half the pot of coffee gone, she threw the
paper down.
There was nothing in it.
Nothing about a man killed in the East River district. She
hadn't expected that to make the front page, but she'd gone
through every column of the local section and found nothing. She
couldn't believe the body hadn't been found; not when it had
been left in plain sight near the warehouses, not after she'd
phoned. Even if the police had somehow missed the body or
thought her call a crank, at shift-change before dawn this morn-
ing the area would have been swarming with people. An obvious
murder, no matter how unimportant the victim, would have
gotten some press coverage.
And it was important to her. She'd never been party to death
before. Yes, she'd been on the edges of society's laws. She'd
smuggled, she'd cut corners that shouldn't have been cut, she'd
even been in physical confrontations before, situations fraught
with danger. Yet none of them had come to such a bloody and
final conclusion. Her attacker's death left her shaky, thinking of
it—she couldn't believe her calm of the night before. That had
been false emotion, a numbness caused by all that had happened
to her in the past several days.
She remembered pawing through the scar-faced man's pockets.

42
Stephen Leigh
remembered the heavy limpness of his arms when she moved
them. Her stomach heaved with the thought.
Jemi ran into the bathroom, barely making it before the coffee
came back up.
Sitting on the cold, broken tiles of the bathroom, hugging her
knees to her chest, she was suddenly very afraid. You touched
him. You must have left fingerprints all over the body. They
couldn't miss them . . . You've got to get out. You've got to leave.
Jemi remembered telling the T'Raijek that she would hire him.
She remembered that she was supposed to meet him back in the
bar where they'd met the night before and go from there to
Uphill to see her ship. Jemi no longer wanted to see the alien.
She wanted nothing to do with last night; all she desired was for
it all to go away. She stood, her decision made. She would leave
her room here and go directly to Uphill. She'd stay aboard
Starfire, wouldn't see anyone. She wouldn't mention the attack,
the death, the T'Raijek alpha male named Ardent. None of it.
She had nothing to pack. She plucked the keycard from the
dresser and left the room. Down in the lobby, she tossed the card
to the clerk and signed the bill. She turned away from the desk,
ready to board one of the transports to the Uphill shuttles.
She nearly walked into Ardent.
He grinned up to her. " 'Morning, boss," he said. "You
don't have to worry about avoiding me—there wasn't anything in
the papers at all, was there?"
"Do you always know what people are thinking?" The ques-
tion was only half in jest.
"Not always," he answered, the grin still splitting the hairy
face. His teeth were broad and wide-spaced. "I just know how
I'd react if the situation were reversed." Around them, people
stared at the T'Raijek, and Ardent gestured at them. "Anyway,
it's too late now. You've already made the association with me.
I'm not exactly the type that people will forget seeing, eh?"
Jemi took a deep breath. She felt hemmed in. trapped, lost in a
web of circumstance that she didn't understand. Uphill. Starfire.
Those were her only thoughts. Get back to the ship, to the
familiar. "I'm going Uphill," she said, tersely. Her k'lyge bil-
lowed with her breath, the death-beads chattering like teeth.
"Come along if you want to."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
43
Starfire hung in a webbing of monofilament lines, the firefly
sparks of welding torches playing around her. She was beginning
to look like a proper ship again, but parts of her hull were still
scorched and a great rent in her cargo hold was still open, the
steel plating curled back like blackened orange peel. Still, Jemi
could look at her limned in blue-white earthlight, and see she was
restored. That was good—she'd wondered if she'd ever be so lucky,
after the sight of the wrecked ship in Admiral Strickland's screens.
Under her k'lyge, she smiled despite herself. She switched off
the screen that showed the outside view.
At her side, Ardent growled. "You people get too damn
attached to machinery. You'd think you used a hammer instead
of semen to make babies."
"That's crude," Jemi told him.
"It's true."
They were in the pilot's compartment, where most of the
cosmetic repairs had been done. In the room, workers still hud-
dled before open cabinets, repairing the wiring relays to the rest
of the ship. One, a petite woman, hung upside down near the
ceiling, her head poking into an access duct. Ignoring Ardent, Jemi
floated gently over to her. "What's wrong in there?" she inquired.
The woman's body jerked, and the head came quickly out
from the duct. Her startled dark eyes were impossibly wide. Then
the woman laughed, though the amusement sounded forced, as if
Jemi made her uncomfortable. The k'lyge, Jemi thought.
"Holder," she said. "You surprised me. I was checking for a
blockage in the duct. I was told—"
"There can't be a blockage or we'd all be dead. That's the
main air supply duct—I know my ship, after all."
"Yes, Holder, but—"
"I wouldn't argue with the Holder. You won't find anything in
there, believe me," Ardent drawled behind them. His words
were tinged with an amusement that Jemi didn't understand, and
the worker's eyes went wide again for moment. "This was the
Holder's first child." Ardent added. As the worker drifted off
toward the knot of other laborers. Jemi turned on Ardent, raging.
"You've no right to say anything like that, bastard." she
hissed tersely.

44
Stephen Leigh
"You're wrong, Holder. 1 can say whatever 1 like to you—
we've a dead man in common, remember?" His words were a
soft threat, and then he shook his head, sighing. The small alien
hung in the chilly air like a stormcloud, one hand clutching the
back of the pilot's seat. He toyed with the ends of the umbilical,
the joints of his fingers looking arthritic as they bent strangely to
the side. "Look at this crap," he said. "This'll rust out in a
decade. Less. Inferior materials."
Behind the mask of the k'lyge, Jemi frowned. "She's mine.
She's my home even more than Highland. 1 put years of myself
into her. 1 raised my son here. Inferior materials or not."
"I'm awfully impressed," Ardent said dryly.
"The ship is Kenis. The ship is the years I spent paying for the
freedom to work for myself. It contains my life—do you under-
stand that?"
"I can understand it," Ardent replied. "I just think it's a little
sentimental. It's steel and plastic: it's not real—not flesh and
blood. Well, not most of it."
He pulled himself downward a little, prodded the cushion of
the seat with a thick-padded fingertip. Jemi watched him. and
saw the stain there, an irregularly shaped blob, ugly reddish
brown in color. That made her inhale sharply. She looked away
abruptly. Ardent made a sound that she couldn't decipher, almost
a half-laugh.
"I don't find it funny," she said. She pretended to study the
repair work and saw nothing of it. She let herself drift in the
air-tides of the room, and turned her head back to glance at him.
The beads clashed together on the k'lyge, a soft percussion.
"It's not your blood. What should you care?"
"I liked Doni. He was a good pilot. He was part of the
family."
"He was a vivicate." Ardent scoffed. "1 thought Highlanders
considered vivicates somewhere above dogs and below small
children. He was a possession: you owned the man."
"He could pay off his life-debt. Then I wouldn't have had any
legal right to his body." It was an old argument, one that always
was raised when talking to non-Highlanders. They didn't under-
stand the economic realities of Highland—they needed all the
hands they could get: to mine the ore, to keep Highland together,

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
45
to do everything that had to be done. Without the vivicates, there
wouldn't be enough people to do the menial labor, the basics.
You died, and you left your body. If it could be revived, then it
was only fair that you have to pay off the corporation for
bringing you back. You had to pay your debt to Highland. And
most vivicates could not remember their past lives, anyway. Doni
had been a good companion but he hadn't been entirely human.
But you couldn't just say that to someone—they had to experi-
ence the vivicates and live with them to know.
Kenis liked Doni. They were the best of friends, I think. Ken
would go to Doni as much as to me or Harris. Like the rest, the
thought seared her mind as if someone had poured molten lead
over it. She could feel the burning in her eyes as well, and she let
herself drift away from the chair, away from Ardent.
The sharp, acrid smell of welding came to them and the air
currents suddenly pushed her toward the ceiling of the room. One
of the interior doors opened and someone floated through, a
pressure suit and visor hiding the face despite the fact that the
hull was airtight. "Holder Charidilis?" A man's voice. He pushed
against a wall, turning his body. Jemi could see the insignia at
his breast then: two stripes over an eagle's claw: UCN security.
"Here, Corporal," she said.
"Commander Nys would like to see you in his office as soon
as it's convenient, Holder." The glossy expanse of the visor
glittered as the soldier's head swiveled to regard Ardent. Without
the facial expressions, Jemi could not be certain, but the man's
stance seemed to indicate hostility. To be able to read emotions
from stance and attitude was a social skill on Highland, where the
faces were camouflaged behind the k'lyge. Jemi wondered at the
distaste the man showed, but if Ardent noticed, he only smiled.
"Does convenient mean right now?" Ardent asked.
"The Commander didn't say."
"He probably thought he didn't have to," Ardent said before
Jemi could speak.
"That would be my assumption," the corporal answered.
Through the pressure suit's body-speaker, his voice was profes-
sionally bland.
"Tell Commander Nys that I'll be right there," Jemi said,
interrupting them quickly. Irritation with the T'Raijek burned at

46
Stephen Leigh
her, banishing the pain of memory, turning her neck scarlet under
the shield of the veils. She stared at Ardent, who shrugged his
shoulders innocently.
When the corporal had gone, Jemi turned on him. "What the
hell right do you have to speak for me?" she demanded. "1 hired
you. If you're going to do as you damn well please anyway,
then you can get off my ship now. You can tell anyone about any-
thing you damn well please. I won't be blackmailed by you or
anyone." With another Highlander, she might have pulled down
the upper veil to take the edge from her rage. But she let him
see the fury glittering there.
He didn't seem to care.
He bowed deeply in the middle of the air, hanging before her
like a ludicrous puppet. His deep, gravelly voice intoned. "Yes,
mistress." with such oversincere apology that she could say
nothing more without displaying her anger to all the workers.
Then he seemed to collapse, all his barriers suddenly down.
When he spoke again, his voice was utterly sincere: "Holder,
about my saying that the ship was your first child—I didn't think
before I spoke. I didn't intend for that to hurt you as it did."
There was a vulnerability in him that she'd never glimpsed
before, an openess to that old-man gaze.
it took the fire from her anger. "1 have to see the Com-
mander," she said.
Jemi turned and left the ship, leaving Ardent to follow if he
wished.
He didn't. He stayed aboard the ship.
Commander Nys was Oriental. His office reflected his ances-
tral past, hung with ink and watercolor landscapes. Jemi recog-
nized one as a view of Fujiyama, with delicate trees etched
before the brooding mountain. A flat, black-and-white photo
hung on the wall behind him—two people in white martial-art
uniforms with what looked to be black skirts. A man recogniz-
able as a young Nys was captured in the midst of throwing
another. Nys's opponent was blurred by motion, upside down and
perhaps three feet off the floor. Jemi wondered how the man
could have possibly hit the ground and survived.
The other furnishings were few—a desk, two chairs, a low

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
47
table on which sat a vase with blue flowers and vines on a white
background. Nys himself was small and dainty, his hands and
face as finely drawn as the details in the landscapes. He didn't
look as if he were capable of throwing anyone at all. He bowed
to them as he opened the door to his office, smiling.
"Holder Charidilis," he said, his alto voice tinged with a light
accent. "Please come in. 1 can offer you tea, or something
stronger if you like. Whatever your pleasure."
"Nothing for me, Commander," Jemi answered. She took the
seat before his desk, and Nys eased into his own chair, folding
his hands on the desk's highly polished finish. A reflected Nys
seemed to gaze at her upside down.
"Your ship's progress satisfies you?" the Commander inquired
softly.
"Yes and no," Jemi answered honestly. "1 won't be totally
satisfied until she's completely repaired. I'm impatient to see the
work completed. But yes, 1 think the work being done is fine."
Nys steepled his hands before thin lips, nodding his head
almost imperceptively to her words. "Most of the ship's sealed
now. and the circulation system's completed. I understand that
some of the drive controls still have to be traced down and
replaced, but you should have Starfire back to you within a few
weeks. What will you be doing then?"
"I've already made some contacts here—there's a company
that has wheat to be hauled to Highland. 1 think I'll contract to
take it up. though wheat's not very profitable. It'll be something,
though, and 1 want to go home first. There're things I need to
know there."
"About your son?" the Commander prompted. His expression
was impassive. Jemi couldn't tell if the man was sympathetic or not.
"About Kenis." she agreed. "About the two years of life
we've missed. About Harris, Ken's father, too. There'll be
answers there."
"1 hope you find them." Nys answered, but there was no
warmth in his voice at all. He blinked, the epicanthic folds at the
corners of his eyes prominent. He was looking away from her
now, his gaze focused on one of the drawings, though he contin-
ued to speak. "Are you considering hiring the T'Raijek known
as Ardent as your secondary pilot. Holder?"

48
Stephen Leigh
Jemi had never cared to deal with Earthers in general or the
military in particular. They asked questions too bluntly; they
were rude and all too convinced of their own right to treat other
people in that manner. To that extent, Jemi could understand
Salii's continuing war with the UCN. Being forced into this type
of confrontation always brought to the surface a latent paranoia.
Nys's question sparked that reaction and Jemi found herself
answering with a question of her own. Her voice sounded hostile,
and she struggled to keep the tone neutral. "Is there a problem
with that, Commander?"
Nys blinked again, still looking away from her in that discon-
certing manner. "Not necessarily, Holder. There's no regulation
that says you can't choose whomever you wish, though one
might wonder why a Highlander would hire a pilot rather than
buying the services of a vivicate. And the T'Raijek alpha is of
Clan Hlidskjalff, not Njialjiad. His people are not in favor even
among the T'Raijek at the moment. A vivicate—"
"Vivicates are damned expensive on Earth, for one," she
interrupted. "Earthers don't regard the dead in the same way as
Highland. And 1 still may do that, once I'm back on Highland.
That's an advantage to hiring—you can always fire the person
just as easily. I'd have a lot more invested in a vivicate; I
couldn't dispose of it so easily. Ardent is qualified, isn't he?"
A faint nod. Nys pulled his attention away from the painting.
His gaze found her eyes for just a second, then dropped to the
part of her face hidden by the k'lyge. He watched the swaying of
the beads along the hem, the faint image of her mouth behind the
cloth. "He's qualified, though this is the first time that any
T'Raijek has deigned to be employed by a human. Odd that he
would pick you, isn't it?"
The Commander's gaze came up, and the stare was far more
intense than she expected. Jemi found that she had to consciously
avoid looking away. Her feeling of paranoia increased; she didn't
know what the man wanted her to say. "I resent the implication I
think I hear, Commander," she said at last. "If you're hinting
that I'm hiding something from you, you're wrong."
"I didn't mean to imply that. Holder," Nys answered. "Though
I always find quick protests fascinating. They make me wonder
what the pefson has to hide."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
49
If she felt that she could, Jemi would have left then. But she
couldn't, not with Starfire here in the docks of Uphill, not with
the help that Admiral Strickland had given her. The Commander,
at least, had been helpful. When he had questioned her, she had
felt the sympathy in his voice at the necessity. She remembered
his warning about others within the navy, as well. "I've said
what I've needed to say, Commander," Jemi answered stiffly.
"Admiral Strickland had asked me to report only to him, and
that's what I intend to do. If I have anything to say—and I don't,
at this point—I'll give him the information, not you."
Nys smiled at that, showing small, even, white teeth. "I'm
currently the ranking officer on Uphill, Holder," he said. "Ad-
miral Strickland is aboard Strolov, now somewhere outside Luna,
I understand. And, of course, anything you say to me will be
passed along to the Admiral."
"I have nothing to say," she insisted. Nys was hiding some-
thing. Jemi could feel it. There was an arrogance to his face that
told her. His eyes had a dead, dark blankness, but she could see
the mind working behind it. He was waiting for her to make a
wrong move, stalking her like a patient cat.
"You don't find it curious that a T'Raijek would come up to
you while in New York and offer his services as pilot, Holder?
You don't think that strange? You don't wonder at the fact that
this would happen after your ship is so mysteriously attacked by
a Family Jardien pirate and your mind altered? You don't find it
odd that a Salii agent would be murdered in New York yesterday
as well?"
Jemi was glad for the k'lyge, glad that she had seen the thrust
coming, even if she'd not known exactly what information Nys
was holding back. The scarred man. The one Ardent killed. She
knew who Nys referred to with a dread certainty, and the ques-
tions hammered at her while she forbade her eyes to reveal
anything, while she held her body in check lest it reveal her
shock. She longed to pull down the upper veil of the k'lyge and
hide entirely from Nys's inspection, but knew that she dare not
do that. She took a shallow breath and spoke as calmly as she
could.
"I wonder at everything but the last. Commander. Anyone
with intelligence would do the same. But I'd've had to hire

50
Stephen Leigh
someone as pilot, in any case. I consider myself lucky that
someone was so quickly available, and 1 can understand someone—
even a T'Raijek—wanting to get away from Earth. And I'm sure
that 1 never asked that my ship be attacked. Commander. These
things just happen; ships have been attacked before by Family
Jardien pirates, as you know. I'm certain that I was as surprised
as anyone." Jemi took a deep breath, dimpling the fabric of the
k'lyge. "As for the Salii agent, 1 don't know what the hell you're
talking about."
"Her body was found near the area you were in last night."
Her body? She almost spoke, then saw the cant of Nys's head
and the lie he'd just spoken—he was waiting for her to correct
him, to make any comment that revealed surprise or relief.
"I noticed several women in the area last night," Jemi said.
"I hope that's not a crime."
Disappointment creased the man's face. She saw the slight
relaxation in his shoulders; he slumped back in his chair a touch.
"Not a crime. Not at all," he answered. He frowned, staring at
her, and then his gaze left her once more. "I'd advise you not to
hire the T'Raijek, Holder. I, for one, wouldn't put my life in the
hands of someone I didn't trust."
"I can well understand that. Commander," Jemi said. She
rose to her feet and went to the door. "That's why I'll be quite
happy to get Starflre repaired and away from here."
She thought that would get a reaction from him, but she was
disappointed. He regarded the painting to his left as if the deli-
cate leaves of brushed ink held his fascination. In the drawing, a
crane was spreading its wings to take flight from a pond. "For
your information. Commander, I'd nearly changed my mind
about Ardent until I talked to you just now. Your anxiety to get
him away from me makes me want to retain him instead."
"It's your choice, Holder," Nys replied blandly. His thin,
sallow cheeks were hollowed, as if the words tasted sour in his
mouth. "I would only remind you that Highland and Earth are on
the same side of this battle. You are a citizen of the UCN, as I
am. We all oppose Salii and her pirates, and none of us knows on
which side the T'Raijek might be. Still. I suppose you should
consider yourself lucky to have the alien, as you say."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
51
"I suppose so, Commander Nys," Jemi answered.."When it
comes to my ship, I tend only to think of my side."
"Ardent?"
The T'Raijek was still in Starfire's navigational section, though
the work crew had gone elsewhere in the ship. Jemi had put on
deck boots, keeping her on the "floor" of the area; to her
orientation, the alien seemed to be standing on his hands across
the room, his head poking into the ventilation duct where the
worker had been earlier. The view made her momentarily dizzy.
His voice came to her muffled. "You know, if 1 were going to
hide something, it wouldn't be here. It's too obvious." He
levered himself out of the duct and hung floating in the middle of
the room, grinning at her. "It's clean, though—they're doing a
good job."
Jemi ignored Ardent's clowning. "Can you really pilot this?"
His grin faded. "Easily. It's a toy," he said, and he tugged at
the fur on his chin with long, slender fingers.
"Then you're hired."
"I never thought there was a question about it."
"There was before. Not now," Jemi answered, her voice taut.
Ardent sensed her distress, for he grinned again and tumbled
slowly in midair until he hung upside down before her. "I love
people who make decisions from logic and not emotion," he
said. And he spun away from her before she could retort, won-
dering how much he knew of what Nys had said to her.
Jemi felt trapped. She could feel the presence of unseen walls.
She could not see an easy way past them.
So she'd wait. She'd wait. She watched the dwarfish alien dart
about her control room and thought of Kenis, of the life she'd
lost in an attack she could not remember.
They think I'll do what they say. They think that they can ask
questions and not make me wonder. They think I'll mourn and
forget about this.
She knew that they were wrong.

Of humanity's accomplishments, Highland should have been
one of the grandest—a city wheeling its way through space
without being anchored to the overwhelming presence of a
parent world. We should have made it a marvel, a wonder, a
fantasy. Instead, we succumbed to economics and utilitarian-
ism, foreshadowings of the Bust. We made Highland drab.
We wanted a monument to our future, yet we took the
uncut marble, set it on a plain base and said: "This must
suffice."
Small wonder that Highlanders are considered to be so
private and sour.
—from "The Aesthetics of Poverty" by
William Salchow, in Architectural
Digest, Fall 2170.
CHAPTER FIVE
For two weeks, Jemi fretted over Starfire as she had over
Kenis when he'd been ill. She moved into her old rooms aboard
the craft despite the protests of the work crews, commandeering
the cabin as soon as it was airtight and sealed. Ardent remained
at a hotel in the tubes of Uphill. He was with Jemi for a few
hours every day, going over the progress with her. His presence
seemed to make the workers edgy; Jemi was happy that Ardent
didn't seem compelled to stay longer than he did.
Nys avoided her, which also pleased her. As for Admiral
Strickland, she heard nothing from him personally, though on the
day that Starfire was handed over to Jemi fully sealed and ready
to be released from dock, a package arrived for her from the
Admiral's office in Uphill. In a nest of packing was a k'lyge of
raw, ivory-colored silk. The attached note said simply; For better
times. Jemi smiled, holding it up. Then she touched the death-
52

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
53
beads along her own k'lyge and put the Admiral's present back in
the box.
"Thank you, Admiral," she whispered. "But I'll save it for
later." His thoughtfulness made her suddenly optimistic. In two
months you'll be home. Back on Highland you can begin to put
all this behind you. You can find out about Kenis, you can begin
to pick up the threads of your life again. It will all be better then.
Two months, a little more or less. Jemi did not feel entirely
comfortable until Uphill and Earth were dwindling behind her
back.
She had to admit that Ardent seemed to be as good a pilot as
he'd boasted. She let him take Starfire out of the dock. If he was
not as adept as he claimed, it would be better to know immedi-
ately while Starfire was still near the repair docks. But Ardent
adroitly and delicately nudged the ship away from Uphill, look-
ing like some ugly, orange wolf-child in the human scaled pilots
chair. When they had made the orbital shifts and were away from
Uphill, he set the ship's nose directly on the course bearings to
intersect Highland's position in the Belt, and then he sat back.
He leered at Jemi without saying anything. His smirk was mes-
sage enough. Jemi nodded to him and went to her cabin.
Three weeks out from Earth, as Jemi was taking her daily shift
in the pilot's seat, checking the status boards, Ardent spoke to
her from across the room. "This is about how far you were
when you were attacked, isn't it?" Jemi had taken spin off the
ship to readjust the ailing, old gyros of the ship. He was gliding
through the compartment, a food-sphere filled with some pasty
green mess floating along before him. He cooked for himself in
the galley, professing to detest human taste in cuisine. It was
another indication of how little Jemi had come to know the alien
in the time she'd spent with him. She'd found the T'Raijek to be
solitary, not wanting to be disturbed when he was working, and
keeping to his own cabin when he was not. She had thought they
would talk, had thought that she might come to understand some
of the shadowy relations of the T'Raijek—how the great Clans
formed their alliances among themselves, or even the way the
three sexes merged and mated. Yet Ardent volunteered nothing,
and Highlanders were taught to respect privacy—it was as much
a part of her as the rituals of the k'lyge.

54
Stephen Leigh
She told herself that it was just as well. Had they become
friends, she would have had to talk about Kenis, and she didn't
know if she could do that yet. There were times, moving through
Starfire's corridors, when she thought she could hear Ken's
giggle, and she'd turn, expecting to see him.
He was never there.
"I don't know where the attack took place, exactly. It's in the
computer but I haven't checked," she said finally, realizing that
Ardent was still waiting for her answer. "I don't remember."
If he heard the sarcasm in her voice, he didn't respond. "They
hit you at precisely this distance out from Earth," he said. "I
checked Strickland's report and it's in your navigational records."
He caught a stanchion as he drifted, pulling himself to a halt.
The food-sphere bounced against the far wall and rebounded back
toward him.
"Do you expect me to stop and look?" Jemi asked him.
"Even if this were the exact area—and it's not likely to be
anywhere near it—it wouldn't look different from any other.
There's not much in the way of landmarks out here, you know."
Ardent caught the sphere as it slid by him. His bearded face
turned to Jemi. "A Jardien ship would have come from Salii and
Mars. I just wonder how far we are from Mars orbit, and where
the planet was located when the attack occurred."
"I don't know," Jemi said again.
"Aah," the alien replied, nodding. Long fingers curled around
the sphere, slid the opening back and dipped into the viscous
mess inside. He pulled the finger out, the gellid stuff clinging,
and licked it clean. "Not bad, if I do say so myself. Want to try
some?"
"No," Jemi said. Under the k'lyge, she frowned.
"Didn't think you would. No sense of adventure. You judge
too many things by appearance." With that, Ardent kicked off
again, leaving the room.
Jemi sat there for a moment, the blinking lights of the status
boards hanging before her eyes. With a stab of her finger, she
canceled the display and called up the ship's com-system. "Query,"
she subvocalized. "Give me the coordinates of Mars relative to
ship's position when we were attacked. Do you know the date?"
A green light flashed before her eyes. "Good. Visual display."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
55
In a moment, a shimmering image of the solar plane hung
before her, viewed from above. Highlighted in bright red was the
fourth planet. The area of the attack was a yellow dot. A glowing
line connected the two, cutting across the orbital planes and
grazing the circle that represented the sun. Figures were printed
there: 2.42 A.U. (3.61 X 10s kilometers). The colony of Salii,
circling Mars, had been nearly in opposition to the attack, which
had taken place well outside that world's orbit.
Jemi stared at the display. Her jaw clenched. "Query," she
said tightly. "Practical range of Condor class ship."
The display shimmered, dissolved. A new set of numbers
gleamed in its place: 2.5 A.U. (3.73 X 108 kilometers).
Jemi found herself holding her breath. It's possible, but it's
cutting it so close. So close. No Family Jardien pirate would be
sitting there waiting for a random freighter to pass by, not when
Salii was so near the edge of its range. If it was Jardien, they
had to have good reason to be waiting. It couldn't have been
random. They wanted me. They wanted me. Me and nobody else.
"Why?" she whispered aloud. "What did I have? What did 1
know?"
She had no answer for that.
She wondered why Ardent had hinted so heavily concerning the
point.
For the next few days, she waited for the T'Raijek to bring up
the subject again, but he never did. He performed his tasks. He
made polite, if edged, conversation with her when they passed,
but he never gave her an opening, a way to lead the conversation
toward his comments about the attack.
Jemi, for her part, found that she couldn't bring it up herself.
Something held her back, an unvoiced distrust in the T'Raijek.
He saved your life. Kenis would have liked him; he always liked
hearing about the T'Raijek . . . You even gave him a book about
them. Talk to him. Yet she didn't. She told herself that she would
replace Ardent when they arrived at Highland. She would buy
another vivicate. She would get rid of Ardent because he was
connected with this strangeness. Get rid of him and this will all
pass, she told herself. The voice in her head wasn't overly
convincing.
It was a long two months.

56
Stephen Leigh
Highland was a wide, dirty white ribbon looped on end,
glowing in the darkness with a myriad pinpricks of light. Here, in
the asteroid belt, the sun was a paler, distant disk that sent
sharp-edged shadows rolling along the spokes of the linktubes.
Jemi set Starfire spinning in concert with the colony's inner hub,
until the huge wheel of Highland seemed to stand still while the
stars spun around them. To one side, a fleet of mining ships
gnawed at a captured asteroid; to the other, a processing platform
blazed, a stream of waste spewing outward from it into the
depths of space. Highland itself looked handsome until one ex-
amined it more closely and saw the stains, the repairs, the signs
of age on the huge colony. Some of the warning lights were out
on the perimeter, one of the docking doors was buckled and
warped by an old collision—it had been that way in Jemi's
memory as well, two years ago.
Highland, like Earth, like Salii, did what she needed in order
to survive. Repairs that could wait, did.
Jemi was in the pilot's chair. Ardent had buckled himself to a
temporary seat beside her, watching. With the ship's spin, the
corridors of the ship coalesced into definite ceilings, floors, and
walls. Ardent looked unhappy. He stared at the flatscreen in front
of Jemi and scowled. "Don't your people ever get tired of
garbage?" he muttered.
"The processor?" Jemi asked, her voice light. Home. Not
even the damn T'Raijek can make me irritated at this point.
"You think it's going to fill up the solar system before we find a
way to get rid of it?" she scoffed. "If the T'Raijek are bothered,
why don't you tell us how to refine the ore without waste—I'm
sure we'd appreciate the information."
Ardent looked as if he were about to retort, but the flatscreen
shimmered and a translucent face materialized in the air before
them: a dark-haired man, a k'lyge fringed with metallic flecks
covering his face from the bridge of the nose to the jawline.
Cloth swayed with his words. "Hello, Starfire. This is Highland
Port, Comptroller Tyler speaking. How was your flight in,
Holder?"
Jemi recognized the man, one of the usual controllers at the

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
57
port. Jemi keyed on her visual link and nodded to him. "Per-
fectly ordinary. Comptroller. And it's good to be back."
"Good," the man said. His voice was flat, expressionless,
though the eyes seemed somehow angry. "I've been told to
instruct you to move to Examination Sector Five. A Customs
crew will board your ship."
"What?" Outrage filled Jemi's voice, and she struggled to
hold it back. "Comptroller, Customs should be aware that I ran
empty on this trip out. Starfire was attacked and I've just had
repairs—"
"Customs is aware of your situation, Holder," Tyler inter-
rupted her harshly. "I'm just relaying my orders. If you wish to
protest, I'll put you through to the Customs office."
His voice told her that the situation was hopeless, but the sense
of unfairness still fueled her irritation. She shrugged at the heavy
weight of the nervelinks draped across her shoulder, leaning
forward as if she could physically confront the man. "I don't
want the office, Comptroller. I just want to be treated like any
other citizen. Since when does Highland search a Holder's ship
when they damn well know she deadheaded it?"
"I'll put you through to Customs," he repeated, more sharply
this time. Sparks of silver light glinted from his k'lyge. "In the
meantime, Holder, your ship is delaying traffic. Please move to
Sector Five. My vivicate will give you coordinates." Tyler glanced
down, and his shadowy image dissolved. After a moment, an-
other face coalesced in front of Jemi—under watery grey eyes,
the aquiline nose, thin mouth, and bearded chin seemed naked
without a k'lyge. There was a slight sheen of drool at one corner
of the mouth, and the eyes blinked too rapidly: Tyler's vivicate,
waiting patiently for Jemi to acknowledge him.
"Damn it," she muttered.
Ardent had said nothing during the exchange, but now she
heard low chuckling and turned in her seat to see the T'Raijek
smiling. He cocked his head at her. "Home sweet home," he
said softly, still laughing.
"Do you know what's going on here, Ardent?" she demanded.
"Why do you find this so funny?"
"I'm simply amused by the wonderful show of trust among
humans," he answered. "And as to what's going on, you'll have

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Stephen Leigh
to tell me, since I've never been here before." He gazed into her
glare with affected innocence. "Surely you know the answer,
Holder?"
"No, i don't," Jemi said. "But I'm damned well going to get
it."
It took three hours for the crew of five to go over the ship.
Jemi fumed, pulling her upper veil over her eyes because she
knew that they could see her anger too visibly. She hid it
especially from the crew supervisor, a woman who sat in the
pilot's compartment with Ardent and Jemi, sipping the bitter
Earth tea that Jemi had offered her. Her k'lyge, inset with the
tiered-wheel symbol of Highland, also covered her entire face—as
was proper in the situation: those in sensitive positions did not
show their faces. When the last of the crew had bowed to her and
left the deck, the woman set her cup down and nodded to Jemi.
"Thank you, Holder Charidilis," she said. Her voice was profes-
sionally warm, a contralto. Jemi could just see the outlines of
round cheeks and a full mouth behind the thin cloth. The eyes
seemed dark and large; a face that would match the plumpness of
the hands. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Jemi knew that the woman was waiting for Jemi's own apol-
ogy, and Jemi took a deep breath. "I'm sorry as well. Holder
Weber. I hope you and Comptroller Tyler will forgive my irrita-
tion. but ! think you can understand the reasons. Does Highland
now search all ships for contraband?"
The woman's veils swayed with the faint shake of her head.
"No, Holder. But we've always made spot checks of freighters.
You've encountered them before, I'm sure. This was just a
random search."
Politely. Always politely. Yet Jemi could hear the hardness
behind Weber's voice, and that told her the woman was lying.
Yes, Jemi had been searched before, but never this thoroughly.
They thought I had something, but what? What?
Ardent never gave her the chance to ask that question, even
had she wanted to do so. He sniffed loudly, causing the two
women to look at him. "Are we done now?" he growled. "I'd
like to go breathe air that's a little less tainted than this."
Weber's veiled head turned fully to the T'Raijek—Jemi knew

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
59
that the woman stared. "The air here seems fine to me—" She
hesitated, a breath, as if she didn't know how to address the
alien.
"Call me Ardent, or if you insist on Highland propriety, use
my Clan name: Hlidskjalff." The name sounded vaguely Ger-
manic or Norse, with deep gutturals. Ardent's eyes narrowed as
he said the word. "That would translate loosely as Staff-That-
Cuts. My ClanMother once was in residence at the embassy
here."
"I've seen your honored Mother, before she was ... de-
posed," Weber answered. The hesitation, so obviously intended
to accentuate the last word, surprised Jemi.
"I'll be seeing the ClanMother Njialjiad as soon as you let us
out of here. I'll convey your preference for ClanMother Hlidskjalff
to her." His voice bordered on insult. "You are done, aren't
you?"
For a moment, Weber continued to stare, her k'lyge unmov-
ing. Then she glanced back to Jemi, and nodded once more.
"I'm finished here, Holder Charidilis. You're free to move your
ship to the cargo berths and disembark." Weber sipped again at
her tea, draining the cup as custom dictated and then setting it
down. "Thank you for your hospitality. Holder," she said,
rising. "Enjoy your return home. And I hope you find a proper
pilot for your next trip. Clan Hlidskjalff is out of favor among the
T'Raijek now. Perhaps that's why they must beg for a vivicate's
job."
Weber left the room at a slow pace. Before the door could
close behind her, Ardent's voice spoke loudly: "Huh, I guess
I've been put in my place." He snorted.
The door slid shut.
Jemi glared at him. "You don't have a place here. Not any-
more. I want you out of here—all you get me is trouble."
Ardent snorted. "You mean you're letting that bitch intimidate
you? I saved your damned life."
"And I gave you a job. That'll have to make us even, T'Raijek.
You're fired."
"You're making a mistake, Holder."
Bright spots of color flared high on Jemi's cheeks. She pointed,

60
Stephen Leigh
overdramatically, at the hatchway through which Weber had
disappeared. "Out."
"Out it is," Ardent repeated, spreading his hands wide. "But
don't say I didn't warn you. If you change your mind, I'll be at
the embassy, sucking up to the new ClanMother."
Tari Harris knew that Security Adjunct Michaels was a pleas-
ant enough fellow—a man of later years whose body showed
much time spent behind a desk, much of it in the lowered gravity
of the Inner Hubs. Harris doubted that the Adjunct could walk
more than a few meters along the rim of Highland without
becoming winded. The portly old gentleman greeted Harris, dis-
missing the secretary who'd ushered him in with a wave of a
rope-veined hand. The Adjunct wore a k'lyge that looked as if it
had been in style when the veils had first become customary,
back during the bleak time all of Highland referred to as "the
Infection." The cloth was heavy and thicker than the polite and
fashionable veil Harris wore, as if the Adjunct still feared the
airborne virus that had killed a good portion of Highland's al-
ready low population six decades before. He gestured toward a
plush chair. "Sit down, Provost Harris. Pull that thing over here
a bit so we can talk easily. Drink?"
"No. thank you, Adjunct."
The Adjunct's eyes smiled over the lower veils, bushy white
eyebrows drooping over the baggy lids. "No need to stand on
ceremony, Tari. I'm not given to unnecessary politeness. If you
want a drink, say so. I'm going to have one myself."
Harris laughed, a little too harshly, he thought, and forced
himself to cut the laugh short. Don't make him think you're a
fool—how often does a Provost get summoned to see the Ad-
junct? He's used your first name: that's a good sign. "Thank
you. Adjunct. I will, then."
"Scotch do for you?"
"It would be a great pleasure. Good scotch is too rare up
here."
"Unless you can afford it on the black market, eh, Tari?" The
question sounded innocent enough, and the Adjunct wasn't look-
ing at him, yet it confirmed Harris's suspicions about the subject
of his summons. He'd known that it must have something to do

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
61
with Jemi. Like the rest, he'd seen the news reports about the
attack on Starfire—he'd even been interviewed once or twice
himself during the day or two that the news was topical, and he'd
seen the small report in the Highland faxsheet that said she was
on her way back to the colony. The Adjunct poured them each a
small glass of amber liquid from a small stand near his desk. He
slid Harris's glass across the slick desk top—in the reduced
gravity of the Inner Hub, it seemed to drift lazily. Harris reached
for it clumsily, nearly spilling some of the scotch. He clutched at
the glass nervously, looking up to see the Adjunct watching him,
his own glass now hidden behind the k'lyge as he sipped.
Harris lifted his veil and sniffed at the scotch. He took a sip;
the smoky liquor seared his throat satisfyingly. "That's excel-
lent, Adjunct. Thank you."
"One of the perks of my job, Provost," the Adjunct said
jovially. "I never lack for material niceties. You'll learn that
yourself, I think. You're a rising young man yourself, as I was
once. Maybe one day you'll sit here, eh? Sit here and get to
watch Highland spin below you."
"I don't aim quite so high."
The Adjunct shook his head, setting his scotch down on the
desk and leaning back in his chair, his hands laced behind thick
gray hair. "I think you do. And ambition is fine, Tari, so long as
it's well directed."
As Harris hesitated, wondering how to reply to that, the Ad-
junct let the chair come forward again, fixing Harris with his
intent stare. "I could use your help. Provost."
"I'd be happy to oblige. Adjunct. What is it?"
"You were married to Holder Jemi Charidilis for a time."
Even having expected the words, they still stung Harris like an
electric shock. He felt suddenly and ridiculously guilty, as if
having been with Jemi for that short time had somehow contami-
nated him in the Adjunct's eyes. He hoped the k'lyge hid the heat
he could feel in his cheeks. "It seems like a long time ago.
Adjunct. It's been, what, nearly three years or more since we
split up. It was a poor match, and we both were glad when it was
over."
"You've had no contact since?"
The blush rose, and Harris fidgeted in the thick embrace of the

62
Stephen Leigh
chair. He sipped again at the scotch, then held the glass in his
lap, his fingers stroking the smooth surface. "We had a son,
Kenis, as you probably know, and so we saw each other occa-
sionally. Once, a year and a half ago, we—" Harris stopped; the
memory was painful. "We spent a night together. Mostly we
found out how much better off we were alone."
Talking about it had brought back vivid memories; lost in them
momentarily, Harris was startled back into reality by the
Adjunct's words: "That's a pity."
"Sir?"
The mane of the Adjunct's eyebrows lifted and gathered. The
lower veil swung lethargically. "Has she contacted you at all
since her ship was attacked?"
"No, Adjunct, she hasn't. There wasn't any reason to, 1
guess."
The Adjunct nodded. He seemed to sink into his own reverie,
and Harris waited, wondering where the man was leading. He
glanced down, noticed the scotch, and drained the last bit of it
from the glass. He set it down on the edge of the desk.
"She had an unfortunate experience, your Holder Charidilis,"
the Adjunct said at last, his voice a low rumble. "I'm not at
liberty to say much here, Provost. In your capacities, you've
come to understand some of the precariousness of Highland's
political situation. You know that we tread a delicate balance
between placating Earth and pursuing our own eventual indepen-
dence. As Provost, you've no doubt seen how close we some-
times come to overbalancing: it's only through hard work and the
exploitation of all our resources that Highland manages to stay
even partially self-sufficient. We need the ore, we need our
people, we need the vivicates that the Corporation provides. We
can't afford to antagonize anyone—not Earth, not the T'Raijek
embassy here, not even the bastards of Salii—for fear that one of
them might withdraw their support of our economy and cause
that fatal imbalance.
"Most of my job as Adjunct is to see that the interplay
between those factions doesn't affect Highland. I'm afraid that
your former mate has become involved in a political situation—
mostly by accident, I'm convinced. I was hoping that perhaps
you could convince her that she would do well to be less curious

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
63
about certain things. There might be repercussions if she persists.
We might be forced to take actions I'd regret."
"Persists? Actions?" Harris almost laughed, shaking his head.
"Are we talking about the same person, Adjunct? Jemi—Holder
Charidilis—might have a temper, but she's not the type to lift her
k'lyge unnecessarily. She'd prefer to avoid trouble if she could. I
have trouble seeing her in the midst of an intercolony situation.
She can barely afford the fuel for the damn ship she runs."
"That's not what certain people within the UCN navy seem to
think. But perhaps it's the company she keeps, Provost. For
instance, she's hired a T'Raijek pilot, of the Clan Hlidskjalff. As
you might know, the Clan Njialjiad has newly taken over the
T'Raijek embassy here. I don't know exactly how the T'Raijek
operate, but I do know that the Hlidskjalffs are barely tolerated
now. We also know that T'Raijek bodies were taken from the
embassy and placed aboard one of the star vessels to be returned
to their home world. Humanity can't afford to offend a race that
has the capabilities of the T'Raijek—we need their technology if
we're ever to get out of our own solar system.
"And there's the admitted mystery concerning the attack on
her ship," he continued. "Tari, I've heard rumors concerning
that attack from Admiral Strickland himself. If she's hiding
something, you'd do well to convince her to bring it out in the
light here, where people understand her. If she's innocent, then
you would be doing us and her a service by convincing the Holder
that there's nothing further to learn about her amnesia."
"She was always devoted to Kenis. However she and I dis-
agreed, Adjunct, we were alike in that. I can understand how
she'd be upset at losing half of her life with him."
"I know, Provost, and you both have my sympathies at losing
him—I know how I'd feel if I lost my own children. And that's
where you can help: give her the support she needs, give her
what you can of Kenis, of the past she lost." The Adjunct
nodded, as if to some inner voice. His fingers, like sticks in loose
bags of skin, drummed the desk top. "I can assure you that your
efforts in this would be appreciated, Provost. From me, and from
the UCN."
Harris could hear the warm promise in that voice. Jem, I never
thought you'd ever do me any good. It looks as if I might have

64
Stephen Leigh
been wrong. "Then tell me how you'd like me to proceed.
Adjunct."
The Adjunct's smile, hidden, could still be seen in the folds
around his eyes. "All you need do is keep her out of trouble,
Tari, or inform me if that looks to be impossible. Tell me.
Provost Harris, do you still love her?"
"Adjunct, I don't think I ever did. It was just one of those
strange attractions. We're incompatible. Had she died in that
attack. I would have been sad. yes, but I would have gotten over
it quickly. She's not a part of my life anymore, especially since
Kenis has died."
"That's what I thought. Provost." The Adjunct nodded. "That's
what I thought, and that's what I'd planned on. That's good,
that's good." The Provost lifted his k'lyge slightly and quickly
drank the last of his scotch. He put the glass down with a loud
thump and smacked his lips. "I'll count on your cooperation
then, Provost. We all want what's best for Highland and for
ourselves, eh? You won't be sorry that you decided to help."

What do we know about the T'Raijek after their three-plus
decade presence here? Very little beyond the fact that they
are tri-sexed, the female of the species is dominant, and while
mammalian, their ancestors were more similar to our own
canines than apes. We have a smattering of knowledge about
their society, their technologies, their way of life. We know
even less about the other races that dwell beyond our sun—
the T'Raijek acknowledge that they exist but give no details.
For those who read and believe stories such as "Alien Mon-
ster Born to Unwed Mother Is Reincarnation of Mozart," such
things might lead to a certain paranoia, but frankly, their
secrecy makes a certain amount of sense. Would you teach
your two-year-old child how to start your car or to operate a
vibrosaw? Of course not.
—from news holocast editorial, UBC,
New York, June 21, 2170.
CHAPTER SIX
"My name is Holder Jemi Charidilis. I'd like to apply for
permission to speak with Ruth Diesen."
The man to whom Jemi spoke glanced up. Above his smoke
gray k'lyge, one pupil gazed back in pale blue. The other flick-
ered greenly, tiny characters scrolling across the lens—a terminal
implant. He blinked slowly and constantly, rubbing pudgy fin-
gers over the transmitter plugged into his wrist socket: the trans-
mitter's steel surface was polished to a worn, satin sheen. Jemi
could smell an unsubtle cologne.
"Are you a relative of the prisoner?" he asked.
"No, I . . ." Now that she had begun, Jemi didn't know how
to tell the man the story—it was all too complicated. Ruth Diesen
had been the creche-mother convicted of negligence in Kenis's
65

66
Stephen Leigh
death. Like all prisoners on Highland, she would be here in the
Ministry of Justice, behind the forbidding walls and performing
"social work." For most prisoners, that meant supervising one
of the teams of vivicates owned by the government. "1 have
business to conduct with her," Jemi told the attendant. "Personal
business." There were perhaps ten of the jail supervisors in the
room, all the desks separated by cubicles. To her left, she could
hear someone else's muffled voice. I want to talk with her. I
want to ask her about that day, that's all. I want to see her; I
want to see the person who let my child die. I want to ask her
why and look at her face as she answers.
I want to see pain there.
A blink, a caress of fingertips over the transmitter. "And what
might that business be, Holder?"
"Forgive my impoliteness. Holder, but that's between the two
of us. Is one Highlander not allowed to see another, even when
one's social responsibility is being corrected?"
The man sniffed, but the way he sat behind his desk seemed to
indicate boredom more than anything else. He closed his eyes
momentarily, and tapped at the transmitter with a fingernail.
"That would be up to Holder Diesen. I would think—" Bright
letters flowed across the emerald eye. His eyebrows lifted, the
lower veil of the k'lyge billowed with an exhalation. Jemi caught
a glimpse of pursed, fat lips behind the cloth.
"You wish to speak with Ruth Diesen? Formerly creche-
mother of the Port Creche?" he asked, peering at her again.
"Yes, that's the one. Is there a problem?"
He chuckled softly, and his amusement confused Jemi. "You
might say so, Holder. Ruth Diesen has been dead a year and a
half. If you want to talk business with her, I'd seek out her heirs.
If you want to be social, my records tell me that Vivicate
Corporation bought the body—if you like to play around with the
Rekindled, you might go ask them what her name is now, and
who bought her."
He stared at her: weak blue, brilliant green. She knew a sneer
was there, even if she couldn't see it.
She might have left then. Evidently it was what the attendant
expected her to do, for he looked away after that slow examina-
tion and shuffled papers on his desk. Jemi began to rise from her

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
67
chair, then sat again. You can't get answers that way. If you want
to know, you'll have to ask.
"What happened to her?" Jemi knew immediately that the
question had been a mistake. The attendant looked back up, and
lines had appeared in his forehead. The k'lyge lifted slightly with
whatever emotions were twisting his face. "What does it matter,
Holder?" he replied, his voice no longer neutral. It held a
distinct undertone of menace, something in the terminal eye
flared and died. "She's dead. She's a vivicate—she has no rights
except the right to privacy."
"She killed—her negligence killed my son. She was the creche-
mother." The words choked her. The explanation died as Jemi
swept the upper veil across her face to hide her eyes. You still
can't say it. You still don't believe that he's dead. How can you
believe it when to your mind it was only a few months ago that
you held him or changed his diapers?
As most Highlanders would have done, the man looked away
from the display of grief, allowing her privacy. He slid papers,
blinked. "Ruth Diesen was attacked by another prisoner—an
accident. He went berserk one night in the exercise yard, took
out a knife filed from some metal bar he'd managed to pilfer. She
was just one of three. Fate, Holder: that's all."
"It doesn't make sense—"
"Holder." His voice was an admonishing bark. "There's noth-
ing you can do about it. I'd advise you strongly to leave it alone.
This is Highland, not Salii. We all have our responsibility to do
what's best. I'm sure everyone here did his job. There're some
things you can't help."
Jemi stared at the man. his features blurred by her eyeveil as
an inner fury welled in her, fueled by grief and frustration. "He
was my son," she raged back at him, not caring that her voice
sobbed with her anger. "How can I forget him? Every time I try
to find out what happened to me, every time I try to get back to
Kenis, someone blocks me. I want to know why. Holder. I want
to understand."
But he wouldn't answer, wouldn't reply at all. He simply
stared at her, stared as if she were a madwoman, stared at her
until she finally turned her back and fled the cubicle and the hall.

68
Stephen Leigh
Behind her, when she had gone, he spoke softly into the steel
gray box confining his wrist.
She stood there in the middle of the walkway with tears
tracking slowly down her cheeks. Jemi's weeping was silent and
hidden behind the k'lyge, but those that moved around her could
see her slumped shoulders and her lowered head.
The spot looked ordinary. There was nothing to show that only
six months ago a four-year-old boy had died here. It was just a
place, a section of concrete as anonymous as the next one up the
street. Jemi could not even be sure that this was exactly the spot.
There were no markers, no signs, no trace. There was only the
plasteel and concrete of Highland's walkways, wavering behind
the shim of the k'lyge and the tears that filled her eyes.
It should have been a special place. It should have spoken to
her soul. Instead, it was simply another noisy space in a loud
colony, scuffed and coated with the dirt of a million shoes. The
buildings around her were dingy, the light facades grayed with
age—Highland was nearly two centuries old, and parts of the
artificial worldlet were beginning to deteriorate. There were never
enough funds to repair them, to finance the upkeep that should
have been done. Highland's leaders shrugged and said that even
the colonies of mankind must have slums.
Kenis had pinwheeled down from the linktube into a slum of
Highland.
She cried as much for that as for her own loss.
Jemi looked up, taking a deep, sobbing breath. One always
seemed to be looking up here. With gravity replaced by simple
centrifigual force, a person stood in an eternal, moving valley
with Highland looping up before and behind. Above, she could
see the maw of the linktube where Kenis had been climbing, well
to spinward. It seemed faraway and insignificant. She brought
her gaze down again, to the graffiti-scrawled walls that hid
Center Park and Kyle's River. Garbage pooled around the central
curb. To those coming here from Earth, Highland stunk, no
matter where they were inside the colony: even near the port, in
the high-class hotels that glittered around that fashionable area,
no filtration could disguise the stench of humanity, cycled and

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
69
recycled endlessly. For them, it was a nagging odor, a reminder
of man's presence that one never quite got used to.
To Jemi, to all Highlanders, it was simply the way a world
should smell. She only noticed its absence when she was away.
Nearby, a vivicate wheeled a cart and broom, slowly gathering
the worst of the debris. The vivicate was female—it could have
once been Ruth Diesen, for all Jemi knew. She watched the
vivicate continue down the street as she tried to rein in her
emotions once more.
Around her, veiled Highlanders judiciously ignored the woman
standing in the middle of the busy lane. The manner in which her
k'lyge hid her face told them enough.
What do / do? How do I make a start at this? She took a slow
breath, feeling very alone among the crowds. It was Highland's
evening. The lamps overhead were beginning to dim; in a few
minutes, the dayshields would slide back, revealing the transpar-
ent canopy and allowing the remote suns to peer in—dispassion-
ate observers hidden behind the veils of distance. She'd spent the
day trying to uncover more information concerning Kenis's death.
After leaving the Ministry, she'd tried to contact Harris—he'd
not been in his apartments and she found herself unable to leave a
message with his vivicate. She'd called Harris's parents then—
they'd been cool and distant toward her, as they'd been since she
and Harris had parted ways. If they'd heard what had happened
to her, they said nothing, and she quickly terminated the conver-
sation. In the nearest library, she'd looked up the same news
articles that Admiral Strickland had given her, finding that he'd
given her everything that seemed connected to the incident with
the exception of Diesen's killing. Her own parents were dead,
her brother had returned to Earth a decade earlier—she'd never
felt close to him in any case. She wasn't friendly enough with the
rest of her family to feel like contacting them.
She felt more lonely than she'd thought possible, here in the
place she called home.
"The creche-mother was killed while awaiting trial. Another
prisoner went berserk. He had a knife that the guards had
overlooked."
Jemi knew the pleasant voice, the tone that always seemed on
the edge of laughter no matter what the subject. Harris. He spoke

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Stephen Leigh
her thoughts. She didn't turn around, but stared up at the roof as
the long tubes of sunlamps went out completely and the shields
petalled back. "They turned her into a vivicate," Harris contin-
ued. "Isn't it nice to know that someday you might hire her to do
your housecleaning?"
His jocular manner made her want to turn and rage at him.
That feeling banished the sorrow at last, hiding it behind anger.
Same flip bastard as always, eh, Harris? Figured out yet that
that's one of the reasons I came to hate you? "I couldn't reach
you, Tari," she answered, still looking away from him. Her
voice was shaky yet; she paused for a moment before continuing.
"I thought maybe you'd gone to the Outer Mines on business.
Your parents didn't want to talk to me." Overhead, sunlight sent
fingers of shadow to stroke the bow of Highland's far side.
"How'd you know I'd be here?"
"Connections," he answered. "I'm Provost for my district
now. I can find out things. I could also guess where you might
go, Jem. You were quite a news item for a day or two; I figured
after what happened that you'd want to see everything. As for my
parents—well, after the row last time, what'd you expect?"
"The last time I was here—at least, the last time I remember
being here—we got on well enough. I let Ken stay with them
against my own better judgment while I took a shipment to the
Outer Belt," she said wearily.
Behind her, there was a lengthy silence. She heard him shift
his weight, felt the warmth of his presence move slightly away
from her. "You had a large fight with them last time. They
thought you should have had Kenis stay with them instead of at
the creche. You hadn't wanted to do that. You told them that you
felt they tried to turn Kenis against you. They said that if you'd
left him with them, he wouldn't have died."
Jemi closed her eyes, took a deep breath as a quick vertigo
seized her. She opened them again and turned. Harris stared back
at her, his eyes gray over the rim of his k'lyge, the lower veils
imprinted with the insignia of the Provost office. He wore a suit,
as usual, cut in a more modem style than Jemi remembered his
wearing before. She wondered who he was seeing now that made
him dress that way—left on his own, Harris had no taste in
clothing. "I don't remember the fight, Tari," she told him. At

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
71
another time, she might have shouted her reply, but her mourning
had left her simply tired. "But I can imagine it, if they said
something as unforgiving and cruel as that."
"They didn't mean it the way it sounded," he told her. His
thick, dark eyebrows wrinkled with his reprimanding look. Jemi
could imagine the thin-lipped mouth behind the veils, one side
turned down. "They never tried to turn Kenis against you. They
were only trying to correct the bias that Ken seemed to have
against me."
"Still an apologist for your family, Provost?" Her tone was
sharp, and she started to blunt the edge with some other remark,
but bit back the words. No, it never changes. Even with two
years of your life lost, it hasn't changed. You can start in with
the arguments as if you'd never left here.
"I loved Kenis, Jem. 1 didn't like him looking at me like some
vaguely remembered uncle."
"You endured Kenis, Harris. How did you phrase it? 'He's
hurting us, Jem. He's coming between our relationship.' Yes,
you were such a good father." Jemi wished that he'd not ac-
costed her here, in public, in the open, in this place. He soiled it
worse than the dirt in the street, and her tears threatened to come
back.
"You remember it worse than it was," he insisted, his voice a
little louder, the eyebrows knitted together now. Around them, a
few people stopped to stare—public arguments were rare in
Highland. On a world the size of one of Earth's larger cities, it
was already too easy to know everyone else's business.
"Harris—"
"I mean it, Jem. You're twisting my words, making it sound
like more than it was—you did the same thing with my parents.
All they wanted was a chance to help raise their grandchild."
"Tari, please." There were furtive glances in their direction
now. people pretending to stop and gaze around them as an
excuse to eavesdrop on the confrontation. A shirtless man in a
tattered, slate blue k'lyge and stained black pants actually took a
step closer with gross rudeness. "Come with me, Harris," Jemi
said. She began walking away.
"Where?" he demanded.
"Does it matter? Tari, please. Let's try to talk. You wanted to

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Stephen Leigh
see me," she said again. Damn you, Harris. Just get off the
streets. We're making a scene. "If you want to know what I've
done, talk to me where we can be more private."
Finally, he loosed an exaggerated sigh and went with her down
the street toward the glow of a hoversign: dino'S. The gaze of the
crowd followed them. Jemi ducked into the restaurant. As with
all Highland public houses, there was no common dining room.
The building was divided into small private rooms, with a tiny
public tavern in the center. There seemed to be no customers in
the place. A waiter showed them to a vacant cubicle. In a better
establishment, the waiter would have been professionally bland;
this one stared rudely at them, with open boredom. The man
threw the menus on the table and left them to seat themselves.
"Your server will be here in a minute," he said tonelessly. The
door clicked shut behind him.
Harris tried to turn it into a joke: "You could always choose a
good restaurant." Neither of them smiled.
Here in private, it would have been permissible to open her
k'lyge fully, but she left both veils shut; she knew her eyes
would be red and puffy from the crying, and she didn't want him
to see that. "Why did you come looking for me, Tari?" she
asked without preamble.
Harris squirmed slightly in his seat, toying with the raveled
plastic edges of the menu without looking at it. "I thought I'd
see what you remembered," he said. "I thought maybe I could
help."
"When did you become so altruistic?"
He flinched at that, leaning back in his chair and running his
fingers through stubbly brown hair. "You lose your manners
every time you go off Highland," he said. "That's what I always
hated about seeing you leave in that damned ship of yours."
"At least I don't stand in the middle of streets and argue," she
retorted. Then, realizing that the conversation would just deterio-
rate into another argument, she cut off the rebuttal. The death-
beads clattered along the hem of her k'lyge as she shook her
head. Harris's gaze followed the movement, snagged on the
beads. She sniffed, wishing she could move the eyeveils aside
and wipe her eyes but not wanting to let Harris see her. "Harris,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry this happens every time we see each other."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
73
"Not every time," he said. His voice was a shade too soft, too
low.
"What?" she prompted when he said nothing else.
"You don't remember, Jem? Damn, I must be losing my
touch."
His voice mocked her, an undercurrent of distaste that told her.
"We haven't been to bed for a year, at least not that I remember.
God, Tari, are you saying that I made that mistake again?"
He gave a quick, bitter laugh. "We both made the mistake,
Jem. It wasn't very good, for either of us. I'm actually glad that
you don't remember; it started out so well—" His hands slashed
air.
"Then I'm sorry for that too, Tari." She could not put any
sincerity in her voice, but he nodded as if he hadn't noticed the
lack.
There was a soft knock on the door. It opened slightly and a
server tilted her head into the room. Her features had the bland,
neutral smoothness of the vivicate, that undistinguished plainness
that was the stamp of the revived dead. Her face was naked, and
there was a twitch to one side of her face that made viewing the
woman an uncomfortable experience, like staring at a crippled
person. She would have been cheap, this one; that, as much as
anything, spoke of the fare likely to be found here. "Coffee,"
Harris snapped at the woman. The vivicate nodded, though Jemi
thought she saw irritation in the woman's phlegmy eyes. Then
the server's flat gaze swiveled around to Jemi, staring at her too
long. "The same," Jemi said. "Thank you."
"I'll bring it right in, Holders," the vivicate said, inclining her
head. Her speech was slurred, imperfect.
As the vivicate left the room, Harris muttered in disgust,
"God, that one should have been scrapped. Jemi, do you know
that a group of vivicates actually had the gall to challenge
Vivicate Corporation? They tried to sue for wages and compensa-
tion, as if the company should provide its services for free.
They've forgotten that they owe their existence to the company
and Highland. There's actually talk among them of striking, of
demonstrating for what they call their rights. How you managed
to live with Doni—"
"I liked Doni, most of the time," Jemi answered. "It wasn t

74
Stephen Leigh
his fault that he'd died. Highland's always been too intolerant of
the vivicates we create."
"You're away too much, Jem. That's your problem. You
don't see things like a Highlander, half the time. You don't own
your body after you die—that's basic to Highland's existence.
Sometimes you sound so damned self-righteous."
"Is that another thing you hate about me, Harris?"
He sighed at that and his tone changed, hardened. Jemi told
herself that she didn't care. "Okay, Jem. Have it your way—
you've been given a chance to remake the last two years of your
life. Throw away the chance if you want."
"You mean throw away the chance to come back to you."
He stared at her over his k'lyge. "Yes," he said flatly. "Yes,
I do."
Jemi felt her nerves souring her stomach, the bile rising in her
throat. She swallowed it back. "All 1 want from you or your
parents are things that I lost with the attack on Starfire—pictures
of Kenis, for instance, recordings of him: 1 lost all that when
Starfire was destroyed." Her voice wavered; she plowed on
despite it. "Give me that much, and I'll be happy, Harris. That's
the only part of those last two years I regret losing."
"I can give you that," he answered, but something in his
voice made her glance at him sharply.
"What are you going to charge me for it, Harris? What's the
hook you have buried in this? You're not the type to be charitable."
He tapped his fingers on the table, staring at her. "You went
to see Ruth Diesen today," he said slowly.
"She's dead. Like half the other people who are connected to
my past."
"Then let her stay dead," Harris continued. Under the k'lyge,
he cleared his throat. "I'll get you the pictures, the recordings;
I'll get you everything I can. But after that you'd be best leaving
Kenis's death in the past."
The words, the tone of voice, his obvious nervousness: they all
told her that there was something deeper here. Jemi felt a slow
burning in the back of her throat, and she knotted her hands into
fists on the table. What is going on here? He's trying to hide
something for someone else. "That sounds like a threat. It also

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
75
doesn't sound like you, Harris. Who's talking through your dirty
little mouth, and why?"
He shook his head, the surprise coming into his eyes a fraction
too late, alight with falsehood. "You make it more than I'm
saying. It's for your good, Jem. Your mental health. It's hap-
pened, it's over, there's nothing you can do to change it. You've
grieved once and gotten over Ken's death, and I know how hard
it must be to have to do it again, but you must. You have to put
the grief aside."
"I don't believe you, Tari. These aren't your words—you're
just parroting a speech you've been given. What's so important
about this that you're getting pressured into making this overture
to me?"
"Jem—"
"I want to understand what happened, Harris. That's all. And
every time I make a move, it's beginning to seem like there's a
boulder right in front of me. I don't like that—I'm wondering
what's being hidden. I'm wondering who's trying to crawl under
the rocks I seem to be turning over. I want my son back, that's
all. It doesn't seem like too much. If it is, that's just too bad. I'm
not going to stop looking."
"You've a paranoia complex, Jem. You've always blamed
your troubles on other people. When you and I had problems, it
was always my fault, never yours."
A sobbing rage filled Jemi; she rose to her feet, slapping the
table as she leaned forward toward Harris. "Paranoia?" she
cried. "Is that what you think?"
"Jemi, listen to me. I'm only trying to help. You have to
believe that. I'll do what I can as Provost for you. I'll do some
digging myself."
"You'll sit on your ass, Harris. You'll do what whoever's
pulling your strings wants you to do."
The door opened; the vivicate entered with a tray. Both of them
fumed, tight-lipped under their k'lyges. Then, with a choking
gasp, Jemi whirled around and left the room. Harris shouted after
her, the vivicate gaping. Jemi did not stop until she reached the
crowded streets again.
In the central tavern of Dino's, a shirtless man watched her
leave. He waited a few seconds more after Jemi had stormed

76
Stephen Leigh
from the establishment, sipping at his drink. Then he set the
drink down hard on the bar and rose. Harris came out from the
private room. He shrugged, nodding to the man, who returned
the nod and left.
On the street, he could see her, to his left and moving away at
a half-trot. He pushed himself into a casual lope and followed.
The ClanMother Njialjiad lay half-submerged in the nutrient
pool, deep within the maze of twisting passages that was the
T'Raijek embassy on Highland. There were perhaps twenty of
the blind younglings in the pool with her, chasing each other
around her floating body and occasionally coming up to suckle at
the long rows of teats dotting the front of her sleek, furred body.
An infant omega male was there now, and she cupped a large
hand around his head, smiling and rolling over on her back,
floating. The ClanMother's narrow face, like that of a long-
muzzled, earless fox with startlingly large and expressive eyes,
looked over to the curtained entrance of the room. The curtains
were still swinging—Lurief had arrived at her summons. The
large oval tympana of skin at either side of her neck vibrated with
the sound of his breathing, and she throated out a rumble of
greeting,
"He sucks like you when you last had me, Lurief," she said to
the omega male standing near the side of the pool.
Lurief inclined his well-groomed head to the ClanMother,
smiling in return. Tall, slender, he bowed to her. "Then perhaps
he's mine. Mother. That thought is most pleasing."
"I think not," she replied. "That one is from two seedings
ago, before I allowed you to partake." The racket of the young-
lings was constant, echoing in the vaulted ceiling of the room as
they splashed and shouted. The light was ruddy, the room deli-
ciously warm, the nutrient pool almost gelatinous with
microscopic life. Two more younglings swam over and took
nippies—alphas this time—the precious rare ones, with wide,
heavy bodies that moved clumsily in the thick, salty Waters-of-
Peace. "You've confined the alpha Hlidskjalff to his room?"
A slow, frowning nod. "Yes, Mother. He awaits your decision—
should I ready the DeathMaster? The Hlidskjalff should freshen
the Waters as did his ClanKin."

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77
"No, Lurief." The ClanMother smiled at the obvious disap-
pointment that crossed Lurief's face with that pronouncement.
"You're too eager, Lurief. That's why you're still Third Tier
when someone with your skills should be Second or First. We
still have need of this Hlidskjalff, and he is an alpha. The
YoungBearer Charidilis is here as well, and I expect that she will
come to see our Hlidskjalff in time."
"The ape tired of him. She sent him away," Lurief persisted.
He waved a long, thin arm in protest.
The omega infant blinked at the ClanMother and let go his
nipple. He paddled away from the ClanMother as she stroked his
fur lovingly. A female, her eyes just beginning to open, came up
to take his place. The ClanMother crooned to it. "Softly, softly,
darling," she said as the infant began to suck. "Charidilis will
think that a mistake," she told Lurief. "She's too intelligent not
to realize that the T'Raijek are a part of all this, and she'll come
looking for answers."
"We can't let him go. He's a danger to Clan Njialjiad."
"We must let him go if she wants him, dear Lurief. First, he'll
claim to follow the death-oath of the old ClanMother Hlidskjalff.
Second, Njialjiad must recover the crystal that was lost—that's
imperative. The information can't be given to the apes—that's
our order from GreatMother Ktainias. Fail in that, and Clan
Ktainias will do to us as we did to Hlidskjalff. Ktainias is already
having to fend off questions from the Overlord about our interests
with these apes." The ClanMother made a face. "If those bas-
tard Traal ever find themselves in a war with us, if they ever
realize what Hlidskjalff did ..." The ClanMother sighed, her
face bleak. She sunk lower in the water. The younglings, protest-
ing, squirmed to stay with her, and she hugged them to her
furiously. "Can you imagine our world as a blackened, barren
wasteland, Lurief? I can. I can see it all too well. I saw the holos
of the ships that first met the Traal. The Traal frighten me,
Lurief."
The ClanMother sank so that only her muzzle and eye ridges
were out of the pool. "Let the Hlidskjalff go if she wants him,"
she whispered. "Let him go. I understand her. I know how she
feels at the loss of her youngling—it would be like losing an
alpha. That will drive her to find our crystal. She will come."

78
Stephen Leigh
The ClanMother sank entirely below the surface of the pool.
Through the murky waters, Lurief could see her shimmering
form, stroking the younglings each in turn. Ripples chased them-
selves from one side of the tank to the other. When the ClanMother
did not emerge from the pool after a few moments, Lurief sighed
and bowed in her direction. Then he turned and left the room.

The Bust was a slap in the face of humanity. Ideologies and
national borders crumbled with the realization that none of
us are isolated. We were all indeed one people, even if we
realized it only through suffering. All over Earth, millions
starved, died in the rioting, froze to death in unheated homes,
committed suicide. Billions were deprived of the simple luxu-
ries they'd taken for granted. Salii, our foothold on the planet
Mars, was given up for lost, with the thousands there flatly
abandoned. The funds that powered Highland were cut off,
and here our life was extremely difficult'—thousands on our
own colony succumbed to simple disease.
But perhaps it taught us a lesson. We know now that by
each of us trusting the other, we can pull through. We know
that those who point out the way have our best interests in
mind. We who lead our society will never allow ourselves to
be simple pragmatists. We must listen to ail voices. What any
one of us does today will affect someone else tomorrow.
That is a weighty responsibility. None of us can take it
lightly.
—from a campaign speech by Tari Harris.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jemi fumed as she left Dino's, blindly angry with Harris.
Angry with nearly everything. In her fury, a suspicion clicked in
her mind. She ignored the temptation to look behind her and
turned toward the Inner Hub where the government buildings
gathered. Moving from the poorer sectors to the business and
administrative areas, anyone following her would be more con-
spicuous. Still, she saw nothing, taking furtive glances behind
when it seemed safe. She tried to correlate the veiled faces
behind her, but none of them seemed to be the same any two
79

80
Stephen Leigh
times. Eventually she gave up the effort, chiding herself for her
paranoia. You're home. Stop acting like a fool.
As Jemi approached the Inner Hub, near the band of Center
Park, waiting for a ground transport to pass, she happened to
glance back a last time. She made sudden eye contact with
someone a few meters behind her, who immediately turned away
to look into a shopwindow, but not before Jemi felt a start of
recognition. At another time, in another place, she might have
simply wondered at him and passed off the familiarity as coinci-
dence. But the day's events—learning of Diesen's passing, talk-
ing with Harris—had sensitized her. She turned quickly away
with an inner gasp, hoping that she hadn't given herself away.
The shirtless man where Kenis had died, and the glimpse of what
she now realized was that same man in Dino's: it was him. He
wore a flowered shirt now, but she was certain that this was the
same man. His build, his height: they were all the same. That
was the reason his face and k'lyge and brought on this feeling of
strangeness.
Yet she knew that there was nothing she could do about it at
the moment. Go on, do what you intended to do. Let him give
himself away. Just be careful. The transport passed with a lurch-
ing rumble. She moved in a knot of people toward the park.
She turned right at Main Street toward the Port Authority.
Entering the tall building attached by linktube to the hub of
Highland, she went to the Records department and signed out the
old loading slips for Starfire. It didn't take her long to find what
she was looking for. She sighed under the k'lyge, and handed the
flimsies back to the bored attendant. She went outside again,
knowing what she needed to do. Adrenaline made her hands
tremble. She made certain that she looked neither right nor left as
she left the building. When she could, she stopped at a store
window and used the dim reflection in the glass to look behind
her, feeling foolish, like a child playing at spy. It won't work.
This isn't a vidshow drama. You're overreacting. He won't be
there.
Yet he was there. Yes, that was the same man, the same
dirt-streaked k'lyge and shirt, two storefronts down.
Suspicion turned to cold fear.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
81
Highland was always the same moderate temperature. Despite
that, she found that she shivered. Let him watch, then. She
would do what she had to do.
Jemi moved on. At the first corner she turned abruptly and
found a recessed storefront. She put her back to the wall and
waited. Her pursuer came down the street a few seconds later, his
eyebrows knitted above the soiled k'lyge as he moved his head
from side to side, walking quickly. Jemi stepped out in front of
him, her anger overriding caution. She could feel her heart
hammering against her ribs as she accosted him. "You," she
half shouted. She pulled at the sleeve of his shirt. "What do you
want with me? Why are you following me?"
His eyes widened, dark pupils in a light face. He gasped,
throwing up his hands to knock her back. Jemi thought that he'd
strike her, but the man turned and fled back the way he'd come.
"Damn you, leave me alone," she shouted after him. She
started to pursue him, but thought better of it after a moment.
Her breath was racing; she could feel her pulse throbbing at her
temples. Around her, Highlanders had stopped to watch this odd
confrontation. Now, with curious glances back to her, they started
to move again. As they passed her, they stared from the corner of
their eyes or through suddenly pulled eyeveils. Jemi hesitated,
and her gaze caught that of the shopkeeper into whose doorway
she'd stepped. He watched her from behind windows stacked
with electronic equipment. His eyes accused, and Jemi pulled her
own eyeveil over guiltily, dropping her gaze at the same time.
The watcher was gone, at least; she'd gotten rid of him, even if
the questions remained.
The storekeeper still peered through the windows. With sudden
bravado, Jemi gave him an obscene gesture and moved on. Yet
she'd not gone a block before she started shaking and had to lean
against a building to steady herself.
Highland had changed for her in the past few hours. She no
longer felt comfortable here. The walls, the ever-present ceiling
were confining and threatening. She knew she could not stay here
very long, and that if someone wanted to find her, she could not
hide.
All 1 want is Kenis. Tell me what happened to my child and I'll
go, she wanted to shout.

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Stephen Leigh
She took a breath, a tentative step. She began to move again.
The T'Raijek embassy on Highland was an anamoly, an ugly,
rambling building that more nearly resembled a pile of boulders
splashed with bright colors than the sleek, plastic, white lines of
most of the Highland buildings. Set in the midst of one of the
larger free plots of ground near Highland Center and backing
onto Kyle's Park, from a distance the embassy appeared to be the
rubble of a broken toy castle, with round-windowed minarets
sticking out at odd angles. Harris had once told Jemi it was
because the T'Raijek lacked "the tyranny of the right angle."
She'd argued instead that the embassy reflected a preference for
natural growth rather than constructed, artificial things: it looked
more "grown" than "built." She may well have been right.
Certainly none of the other various T'Raijek embassies—Earth,
Luna, or Salii—were exactly the same, though all had the same
basic structural basis. The place was a maze, a warren of rooms
and corridors intersecting at odd angles and elevations. It was not
a place built for human sensibilities, but then, its builders hadn't
much cared about human aesthetics.
There were no guards at the embassy gates, which were swung
back. On the grounds, a few Highland children, too young to be
wearing k'lyge yet, played while parents watched and talked.
The place might as well have been part of the park. The sight of
the children reminded Jemi, as too many things did nowadays, of
Kenis. To force her mind away from that path, Jemi concentrated
on the building itself, wondering about the T'Raijek young and
why they were never seen playing on the grounds.
The pea-gravel path she walked led into a bare wall. She stood
under an overhanging lip of the building, one of the lopsided
towers angling toward the distant roof above her. Out of the
corner of her eye, she watched the park's entrance. With a
shudder, she saw the thin form of her watcher slip into the park
and wander toward Kyle's River at a discreet distance; there were
two other men with him now, and Jemi felt the beginnings of an
overriding panic. She turned her attention back to the embassy
building, knowing that she had no choice now.
The wall was knobby and a bright, improbable blue. An
irregular oval crack marked the outline of what might have been

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
83
a door, but there was no one there, and no call buttons to push.
Jemi hesitated, and was about to knock on the wall itself when a
sibilant, pleasant voice called, "May I help you, Holder?" The
question seemed to come from the air around her, with a discon-
certing lack of focus.
"I've come to see Ardent," she answered. "Ardent Hlidskjalff."
There was no immediate answer; Jemi wondered if she'd given
enough information. Ardent would have simply been a name the
T'Raijek had chosen to call himself, one that humans could say
easily but that none here would know. "He's an alpha—"
"We know him, Holder," the voice interrupted. "A moment—■
will you place your right index finger in the small niche just to
the side of the door, please?"
Jemi glanced there—she'd not -noticed the smooth, concave
depression before. She placed her fingertip in the groove. A
bright light swelled around the finger, pulsed once, and was
gone. "Holder Charidilis," the voice said, "please enter."
"Enter what?" Jemi began, but then the wall before her was
simply gone. No noise, no flickering, no warning. An interior
she'd glimpsed in pictures beckoned her, everything glowing like
iridescent mother-of-pearl under a dimmer and far more reddish
light than that of the sun that warmed Earth. Behind her. High-
land children stopped playing to gape and point. Jemi stepped
inside.
She knew that the wall snapped back into place behind her; she
could feel the slight difference in pressure and her nostrils twitched
under the k'lyge, suddenly lacking the scent of Highland. The
hallway in which she found herself was humid and almost too
warm. This place smelled like oily lavender; floral and a bit too
sweet. It was as if Highland did not exist, outside. She wondered
if this was the way the T'Raijek home world smelled.
She could not wonder long, for a shrouded form strode toward
her from around a corner: an omega male. He was the antithesis
of Ardent—-slender, tall, and if too different to be called hand-
some, he nevertheless had a distinct bearing that translated as
sophistication to Jemi. He bowed to her from a meter away,
inclining his body from a waist that was set too low on the body.
His skin seemed the same golden orange as Ardent's, but his
head was entirely hairless, without the downy carpet that covered

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Stephen Leigh
the alpha below the bare skull. The eyes were large and wide set,
a little bulbous and turned to the side in a nearly reptilian
fashion. The nose was a small mound slitted three times, the
mouth a tight, lipless gash. The alien was clothed in a long gown
that left his arms free but hid the thin body and the legs and feet
completely, trailing behind him on the slick floor of the building.
"Holder Charidilis," he said, and his voice was the one that
had spoken to her through the wall: soft, pleasant. "Welcome to
the T'Raijek embassy."
"Thank you—" Jemi stopped, not sure how to address the
Omega.
His mouth widened, opened in a brief smile. His eyes glittered
with some inner amusement. "My apologies, Holder. 1 didn't
intend to hold back the usual courtesies. I am Third-Tier Diplo-
mat Lurief, of the Clan Njialjiad. Our ClanMother rules here."
Jemi nodded to him; he bowed again, with a precision strangely
like an old-world diplomat of Earth. When Jemi had last remem-
bered Highland, two years before, the ClanMother had not been
of Njialjiad; Jemi was certain of that. Perhaps the T'Raijek
simply rotated their representatives, or it reflected changing polit-
ical situations back on their home world—anything. She remem-
bered Ardent mentioning something, but she'd not really paid
attention.
"Your embassy is more beautiful than the pictures I've seen,"
Jemi told him. It was true enough; the walls seemed to glow with
their own fire, and shifting bands of light ran upward from the
walls toward a shadowed ceiling. "Is it like your world?"
"Like parts of it, Holder," he answered. He inclined his head
to the walls. "Our sun is older and would be dimmer to your
eyes. T'Raijek eyes are sensitive to lower wavelengths of light
than yours—-to us, this place is fairly bright, and Highland itself
rather too glaring and blue. For you, a lot of the light is felt as
heat, perhaps; didn't you notice that it was warmer here than
outside?"
"Yes."
"Our building's heat is also to some degree our light, though
our world overall is colder than your home world. We are
suprisingly similar despite our differences though, I think.'' Lurief
gave an oddly human laugh, smiled, and offered her his arm.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
85
"Would you come with me, Holder? I'll take you to a private
room where you can meet with the alpha Hlidskjalff. He has
been"—he gave a tilted smile and paused—"summoned."
His skin was cool and soft. Jemi found that she liked the feel
of it. He guided her along the twisting passageways. After a few
turnings, Jemi was totally lost. The intersections never met at
right angles or with equal numbers of offshoots. The hallways
sloped, rising and falling steeply so that she was no longer sure
whether she was above or below ground. Lurief kept up a
constant chatter as they walked, pointing out oddities of construc-
tion that she might have otherwise missed. He told her that the
embassy was, indeed, grown. "The walls were once a living
organism, perhaps much like the coral of your Earth, though the
remains are much stronger than the bones of that animal. My
ancestors once huddled in caves like this against the predators
outside, Holder. As we evolved, we kept the housebuilder orga-
nisms and improved upon them. I'm afraid that if my people had
to build a city the way you built Highland, we'd be lost. But we
could grow it like a plant in airless space, twist it into the shape
we needed and place all the mechanisms that hold the life inside—it
comes to the same thing, I suppose, and we find our way easier. I
suppose that's not surprising. There are stranger things in this
little arm of the galaxy, I suppose."
"You've seen other races?"
Lurief smiled gently. "Myself, no. And there are some things
it is better simply to avoid." The hairless face twisted, as if there
were more to his words than she understood. "But strangeness
can be found here, as well. We found it odd, for instance, that
the alpha Hlidskjalff became your pilot."
The transparent change of topic nearly made Jemi laugh. "You
weren't the only one," she said, glad the k'lyge hid her weak
grin. "Were you less surprised that I fired him, or are all the
alphas so rude as Ardent?"
"It's been my experience that most alphas tend not to know
when they should be quiet. It comes of their being so few—they
tend to think that no matter what they do, they are not expend-
able. Alphas are violent children who have never grown up. In
addition, the one you call Ardent has the passion of his misplaced
convictions."

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Stephen Leigh
"Misplaced?"
"He still mourns the death of his ClanMother and the omega
Hlidskjalff who was betrothed to him. Holder. He is volatile and
dangerous, I'm afraid. Distraught. You did well to rid yourself of
him. You are rid of him?" The way Lurief said it made Jemi
wonder if perhaps he suspected why she was here. She didn't
answer.
They turned a corner into a small alcove set apart from the
corridors by a hanging cloth of soft, bright silk. Inside, in a room
dominated by what looked to be a large stringed instrument on a
stand in the center, Ardent sat on a three-legged chair that
appeared to grow from the floor. The omega bowed Jemi into the
room but didn't enter himself. The glossy fabric of the curtain
fell back with a swishing hush.
The bald-headed, bearded alien glanced at her with his aged
eyes. "You show up in the strangest places. I thought you were
done with me."
"I thought I was, too."
"Change your mind and come crawling back?"
"1 still need a pilot."
"Buy a vivicate. You'd own him, then. You wouldn't have the
overhead and expenses."
"You won't make this easy for me, will you."
Ardent grunted something that might have been a laugh and
swung down from the chair. He went over to the device in
the middle of the room and stroked the array of strings: a discor-
dant, percussive trill shimmered in the room. "You're asking me
back?"
Jemi nodded. "I am. You were a good enough pilot. I have a
cargo that's due on board tomorrow. I could buy a vivicate, but
that'd put me pretty deep in debt. I don't feel comfortable about
that now, and you know the pilot's guild prices. You were . . .
cheap."
Ardent snorted. "At least I have some good qualities." Then
he canted his head back and spoke to the air, as if to an unseen
listener. "You see, she asked me. I had nothing to do with it. I
still claim a death-oath." He brought his head down again, and
his mahogany, old-man eyes fixed on her. "Are you going to

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
87
change your mind again before we leave, or can I assume 1 have
the job?"
"A lot's happened to change my mind," Jemi said. "Too
many strange things have happened to me. The woman who was
convicted of Kenis's death is dead herself, and Harris—"
"I don't need to hear about your little troubles, Holder,"
Ardent cut in, almost angrily. His hand slashed air, the snout of a
nose pushed out. "I'll help pilot your ship, so let's go see about
your cargo." With a glare up at her, he began to move toward the
entrance. As he passed her, he growled in a low whisper: "You
should learn when to keep your mouth shut." Jemi could only
follow him, angry herself at his attitude. But he was part of what
was happening: she was certain of it, and she was not going to let
this part of her past slip away. She followed.
As Ardent flung the curtain aside, they could both see Lurief
standing in the corridor. The omega male bowed to Jemi as she
passed, a strange expression on his face. "Hear anything interest-
ing, Diplomat?" Ardent growled at him.
"You misjudge your importance, alpha Hlidskjalff," Lurief
replied softly. "I was waiting to escort Holder Charidilis back to
the entrance. Clan Hlidskjalff has an unfortunate history of in-
competence and poor judgment of late. 1 had hoped to convince
the Holder that she's made a mistake."
"It wouldn't be the first, Diplomat Lurief. But it's mine to
make," Jemi replied, and Ardent laughed.
"You see, Lurief? I had nothing to do with it. Tell the Clan-
Mother that." Then he turned his back to the omega and spoke
loudly to Jemi. "Omegas think with their cocks, not their heads."
he said. "When one of the Bearers cuts herself, the omegas bleed
for her. He'd love to carry my seed to one of them and croon his
little love songs while he puts it in her." Ardent grinned back at
the tall, shrouded form of the omega. "Wouldn't you, Lurief?
You'd love to have me bury myself in you, just once, so that you
could impregnate your BearerMate with a decent set of genes."
Ardent's fingertips flicked along the fabric of his codpiece, and
he laughed when he saw that Lurief's eyes had followed the
motion.
The omega's voice was polite but cold. "As I said, alpha

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Stephen Leigh
Hlidskjalff, you misjudge your importance. I assume that you'll
be going with the Holder?"
"I assume the ClanMother has no objections to my voluntary
withdrawal from the embassy? It was a request, after all."
"You're within your rights to do so, as you know. I'll tell her
that you're going and leave you to escort the Holder out."
He bowed to Jemi, staring at her with an expression she could
not decipher. In a person of her own race she might have been
suddenly apprehensive, for there seemed to be violence in his
gaze, but she could not be sure. The omega straightened and left
them without another word. In a few steps, he turned aside into
one of the twisting passageways and was gone.
"I don't understand," Jemi said, half to herself.
"You understand jealousy, don't you, Holder?" Ardent re-
plied. "The T'Raijek aren't so different as that. Follow me;
they'll have my bag ready at the entrance."
She almost told him of the three men waiting for her outside.
But Jemi remembered his low warning of a minute ago. She only
nodded. They won't bother me as long as the T'Raijek's with me.
They won't dare. They can't. She tried to convince herself that
she was right, but the reassurance seemed hollow. She had
confronted them; she'd let them know that she knew—she didn't
know how they might react now.
There's nothing you can do about it anyway. There isn't
anyone you can be sure that you can trust. No one at all. The
only one was Kenis. Only Kenis. And they took him too.
When they left the embassy, the three men were still gathered
at the entrance to the ground. As Ardent and Jemi passed them,
they openly stared over their k'lyges. Jemi avoided looking at
them, but Ardent gazed steadily back. If he thought anything of
them, he said nothing to Jemi.
Aboard Starfire, Jemi let Ardent put his few belongings in his
room, telling him to meet her in the pilot's compartment, and
then went there herself. She opened her locker and took out a gun
that Harris had bought on their first trip together, an ugly,
squat-snouted device that fired charged glass pellets with pressur-
ized air. Harris had always taken it with him when they left the
ship, but Jemi had never used it. She'd insisted that he show her

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
89
how to use it, and when she'd kicked him off the ship in that
final argument, he'd left it. She was almost surprised to find it
still there, after all that had happened since. Jemi checked to see
that the thing was still charged, then tucked the unfamiliar weight
into her belt. She sat in the control seat and attached the umbili-
cal of the support system. Closing her eyes, she let the readouts
flicker across her mind: yes, the hatchways were all sealed, except
the door through which Ardent would come. Once again, she
reviewed this step in her mind, asking herself if this was really
something she wanted to do. Of course it is. What other options
are open to you? Who else can you ask?
When she heard him enter, she closed the hatch behind him
and swiveled in her seat. She pointed the gun at him.
He tried very hard not to stare at it. The T'Raijek blinked
heavily, drifting awkwardly in midair. "Something I said?" he
asked in a soft voice.
"I've had enough jokes, and I've had enough evasions," Jemi
answered. Behind the k'lyge, she licked dry lips. "I'm tired and
very scared, and I'm going to ask you some questions whether
you like it or not."
"That's nice. Is that supposed to get you answers as well?"
Ardent gestured at the gun with a long, thick-jointed finger.
"I think it might," she answered. "You're part of everything
that's happened to me. You're part of it all."
He blinked rheumy eyes snagged in wrinkles. He rubbed at the
fur of his chin with a hand. "It sounds to me like you're a
paranoid schizophrenic," he replied thoughtfully. "Maybe you
should talk to someone in one of the psych-health clinics. It's a
damn serious delusion when you think the whole universe is
against you. Before you know it you'll be thinking you're the
next messiah."
"It's not a delusion!" Jemi snapped, and the gun wavered in
her grasp. Ardent sucked in a deep breath. "You're a bastard like
all the rest of them," she continued. "But I know things that I
wasn't supposed to remember."
His eyes narrowed at that, his lips thinned, and Jemi could see
the sudden alertness. "Your memory's returned?" he asked.
For a moment she thought to bluff him, to say that yes, she
remembered it all. But it seemed too flimsy a ploy; if he truly

90
Stephen Leigh
knew what was happening here, she'd be easily caught in the lie.
"No," she admitted. "I don't remember any of it. But they
didn't destroy all the records. I'm not stupid. I can check things
myself. They didn't dare touch too much, or it'd look like the
cover-up it was."
" 'They,' " Ardent repeated contemplatively and with a hard
edge of sarcasm. He rotated slowly in midair; a hand grasped a
stanchion to stop the motion.
Jemi ignored him. "I carried another T'Raijek in Starfire.
Another alpha, another Hlidskjalff, needing transport from Earth
to Highland. Six months ago. You may call that coincidence, if
you like, but I think it awfully unusual. Ruth Diesen, the creche-
mother who should have been watching Kenis when he was
killed, was killed herself while jailed here on Highland. Another
coincidence, T'Raijek? My former spouse Harris meets me in the
street today and as much as tells me that I'd be better off keeping
my nose out of Kenis's death. Coincidence again? Then I'm
followed around by a man, and when I confront him, he runs
away. I see him and two others at the gate to your embassy—
remember them, the three by the gate? More coincidence?" Jemi
laughed bitterly, the gun lifting to center on Ardent's chest again.
The weapon's sights trembled in front of her eyes. "Tell me
again about my delusions, Ardent. Better yet, tell me some of the
truth."
"I've nothing to say to you." Ardent's wizened face was
crumpled, lined like an old piece of leather. Muscles clumped at
the jaw under the short growth of hair.
"I'm getting desperate, T'Raijek. I'm getting frustrated." Jemi
took a deep breath, swallowing hard. She touched the death-
beads on her k'lyge, lifting them slightly to display them to
Ardent. "I'm willing to take some chances now that I wouldn't
take before. If I have to hurt you to find out something, I will."
Her laugh was bitter, tinged with resignation. "All I'd have to do
is tell them that it was the madness of a bereaved mother.
Everyone knows what's happened to me; any jury would be
sympathetic."
"I saw you in New York, remember. I saw you trying not to
vomit because there was a dead man in front of you. You're
bluffing. I still don't have anything to tell you."

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91
"You do, you must." The words were ragged with emotion.
A wild desperation seemed to fill her—she let the straps fall from
her shoulders and pushed off from the pilot's seat, drifting slowly
toward the alien.
She would shoot him, if he forced her to do so, if he would tell
her nothing. She would, she told herself.
Rasping, she flourished the gun. "1 don't want to do this,
Ardent. But I will. Please, you must tell me."
He shook his head. Sadly, Jemi sighted along the short, stubby
barrel. Not toward the chest, but Ardent's legs.
They were no longer there. Ardent shouted as his wide, short
body twisted with surprising agility and kicked off against the
stanchion. He caromed into Jemi, the impact throwing her back
against the wall of the compartment and knocking the breath
from her. She felt his fingers clamping on her wrist and twisting
the gun hand. She cried in sudden pain, her fingers letting go of
the weapon involuntarily. Then he moved away, halting with his
back to the pilot's seat, facing her. She cradled her injured hand
in her lap. She bit her lip to hold back the tears of pain and
frustration that gathered in her eyes.
Ardent's face was a mask, unreadable, the eyes narrowed to
dark slits, the long fingers wrapped awkwardly around the little
gun. He was dwarfed by the bulk of the massive acceleration
chair, looking like an overweight child but for that odd face. He
began to speak, softly at first, then slowly rising to a shriek.
"You seem to think you're the only one who's ever lost any-
one," he told her. "Holder, you haven't the slightest idea of the
scale of things. I've lost friends, Clan-kin, and both of my
TriadConsorts. I saw my ClanMother dismembered—right in
front of me. And for what? For nothing! For a failed attempt to
bring you people out of ignorance. Because they thought they
could trust you. And you think that I'm going to be impressed by
your asinine stunts? You think that because you wave a weapon at
me that I'll plead for my life and tell you things you've no right
to know? You're wrong. You've got your head up your ass. It's
more likely that I'll kill you—I wouldn't be bothered by con-
science. I wouldn't hesitate and give you the chance you gave
me. I wouldn't heave my guts up because I had to spill a little

92
Stephen Leigh
blood. The alphas aren't like the rest of the T'Raijek—we'll
attack and not give you the warning of aljceri or kinjtha.
"I'll tell you this, Holder, and it's all you need to know:
you're involved in this accidently, wrongly, and the best damn
thing I can do for you is to tell you nothing. One other thing: you
need to learn who you can trust and who you can't. Think again
about who saved your fucking life. Realize that while I'm with
you, your own people will be slow to do anything to you because
they fear an interspecies incident."
During the tirade, Jemi could only stare, watching the emo-
tions run across that old-man, wizened face. His barrel chest
heaved, the cords in his neck stood out like thick steel cables.
"You apes are like children," he said at last, in that throaty
rumble. "You threaten the very people that protect you. All you
care about are your own interests." He shook his bald head with
disgust. He snorted disgust. "And my people ... my people are
exactly the same. Sometimes I think we all deserve the deaths we
look for."
He let go the gun. It drifted in midair, pinwheeling slowly.
Ardent pulled himself over the top of the chair. Without a glance
back at Jemi, he kicked against the cushion and launched himself
toward the hatch. In a moment, he'd gone through.

The vivicate is the new nigger. The vivicate is an economic
cipher, nothing more. To you, we don't have minds, we don't
have rights, we don't have wills. We're ugly, misshapen blobs
of meat you tolerate because we do the menial jobs. Vivicate
labor does anything too dangerous, laborious, or mind-numbing
for the rest of you to do. We're cheap—why put precious
money and materials into a factory for robots when you can
just buy a vivicate? Why budget for research funds for better
Thanatos-Vivication when the flawed creatures that current
technology gives you will suffice?
Damn you all! Don't you know how it hurts to see the rest
of you? Can't you imagine the agony of having shadowy
memories of a time when you too had not yet died? 1 tell
you—when you die and wake again as a vivicate, you will
wish you had listened now.
—from a suppressed pamphlet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jemi did not see Ardent for the rest of that day. He stayed in
his rooms, and she made no attempt to draw him out.
The next morning, Jemi felt much the way she had when she
and Harris had quarreled. There was a guilty uneasiness hanging
like a curtain between the two of them, the specter of the
argument. Jemi was already in the outer hatchway, making cer-
tain that the hatch lock was cycled and there was air in the
linktube between Starfire and the port. She had on street clothes
and wore the k'lyge that Admiral Strickland had given her. Jemi
felt strange wearing a k'lyge without Kenis's death beads, but
after the confrontation of the day before she thought it time to set
aside the mourning k'lyge. Jemi wondered if Ardent noticed.
She turned away from the gauge and glanced at him, knowing
93

94
Stephen Leigh
that each of them was waiting for the other to say something.
Harris had always been that way, too, but he would have only
paused a few seconds before opening up the wound again. Tari
would have pretended to be joking as he ripped off the scab. The
T'Raijek only stared at her until she shrugged at him and said
" 'Morning."
He wore only pants, his feet and chest bare—the growth of
dark fur that began at his cheeks continued on down his body and
disappeared under the waistband. The feet were covered as well,
though he looked to have pads like a canine's. Ardent scratched
at his chest; Jemi noticed that he had no nipples. "Where are you
going?" Ardent asked.
"Doni had a friend, a lover—another vivicate that lived in the
Rekindled House. I thought I'd go see her."
"You're not giving up, then. You think that she might know
something about Kenis."
Jemi shrugged. "I won't deny that's part of it. But I also
thought she might want to hear about Doni."
"What are you going to be able to tell her that she doesn't
already know? After all, you've forgotten the last two years." He
said it more gently than he might have; it stung, despite that.
"I can tell her what Strickland told me. That's probably more
than Vivicate Corporation or the news gave her."
"What about the people that followed you yesterday?" Ardent
reminded her. "This time you won't see them, Holder. This time
they'll be ready. It won't just be one person; they'll change
shadows every few blocks so that you'll never know who might
be watching. If they need another accident, they'll arrange it.
Maybe they'll just arrest you, and let you get killed the v/ay
Diesen did. Is that what you want?"
"I thought you said that was all paranoia."
He grimaced at that; the expression somehow made her feel
smug. Jemi turned back to the lock—the pressure was up. She
could go through. She started to flip the switch that would open
the hatch, but Ardent's hand caught her wrist. The ligaments
he'd strained in taking away the gun the night before were still
painful: Jemi gasped. She twisted around to find herself uncom-
fortably close to the small alien's face. She could smell a faint
spice in his breath, not at all unpleasant. "You still don't appre-

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
95
ciate what I told you last night, Holder," he said. "I meant it
when I said that you need to know whom to trust. And it's also
true that anyone who'd want to harm you will be slow to do
anything if I'm also involved. You'll be safer with me."
"You wanted me to stay out of this, didn't you? 1 can't do
that. I can't sit here, Ardent, not while I might still learn some-
thing here. If that's self-interest in your book, then that's the way
it'll have to be."
"It won't do you any good to see her."
"You can stay here, then—I'll take my chances."
"You could ask me to go with you," he said.
Jemi took a deep breath. She looked down at his hand; his
fingers loosened on her wrist and released it. For a long moment,
they hung there, drifting slightly in the air currents of the ship.
Then Jemi nodded. "Come with me, then."
Ardent seemed to smile. "Give me a minute to get dressed."
The Rekindled House was near where she had been the day
before, well away from the better sections of Highland. The
building was butted against Highland's outer walls, as far from
the main passages as it was possible to be and lost in a maze of
warehouses used to store shipments to and from the port. The
squat, ugly structure of gray stone stood in an improbably open
space, as if the nearby buildings declined to get too near it. That
space had been turned into a small, well-tended garden in the
center of which they could see a man kneeling, weeding with a
trowel in hand. His arms swung with the jerky, erratic motion of
the vivicates. He plunged the trowel into a small bucket of peat,
began to lever the trowel up, and pressed too hard; dark earth
sprayed. The vivicate sighed and scooped up the scattered clods,
patting them into place around a small ornamental evergreen. He
didn't look up as the two approached him, but remained kneel-
ing, carefully mounding the dirt around the shrub's roots.
Standing over him, Jemi said, "I'd like to speak with Mari
Coyle."
The vivicate didn't answer. His fingers, trembling with palsy
and stained with soil, continued their slow work.
"I owned Doni Rowe," Jemi said. "He was a friend of
Coyle's."

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Stephen Leigh
Slowly, still kneeling, the man turned his head to glance up at
Jemi, then at the T'Raijek, nearly at eye level for him. For a long
time, his gaze lingered on thai alien face, then he looked again at
Jemi. One smudged hand shielded his eyes from the daylights on
Highland's roof. His face was a ruin, one side of it looking as if
it had been wax melted in sun. The right eyelid sagged, that side
of the mouth turned down in a perpetual, helpless frown. A trail
of moisture drooied over the chin from a corner of the frown. His
voice was slurred and slow. "You owned Doni, eh?" The em-
phasis was unmistakably droll, despite the blurred sibilance of
the misshapen mouth. "He was yours. You did a good job by
him. Holder."
Jemi blinked at the man's tone. "You've no right to talk to me
like that, vivicate," she said sharply. She could feel the heat of
her breath against the k'lyge.
He shrugged. "Why, Holder? You going to buy me too? And
for your information, Doni and Mari weren't friends. They were
married. They were lovers. No matter who owned them, eh?"
He turned, giving his back to them and returning his attention to
his gardening.
Jemi glanced at Ardent. He looked blandly back at her, silent.
Jemi looked around—from an upper window of the Rekindled
House, a face glanced out from curtains. A few people walked
the narrow street near the garden; none of them seemed to be
watching the scene unduly closely. "I want to talk to Mari
Coyle," Jemi repeated at last, loudly and deliberately.
"She's in the house, Holder. Go on in. Who am I to stop a
Holder from doing what she wants to do?" He would not look at
them.
As they walked up the path to the door of the building, Ardent
spoke, nodding his bald head back to the gardener. "Are they all
that way?"
"No," Jemi answered curtly, then realized that her annoyance
was all too visible. "Doni was nice, polite; a decent companion."
"What's the Rekindled House?"
"Vivicate Corporation provides it—a place for vivicates who
have yet to be sold, or for those released from service for one
reason or another."

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97
"They've no money of their own? The vivicates can't stay
where they please?"
"Their wages go back to the Corporation to pay for the
rekindling. When that debt's paid off, they can apply for
Holdership. Until then, no."
"Uh-huh," Ardent answered. "And it never, ever gets paid
back, does it?"
Jemi knocked on the door. "You're wrong. Ardent. Some-
times—" The door opened. The interior was dim; a woman stood
there. Behind her, they could see a reception hall, the furniture
well used but clean. "Holder," she said. She ignored the T'Raijek.
" 'Your Shortness' will do for me," Ardent said. The woman
finally looked at him; he grinned at her, showing wide teeth. A
half-smile tugged at one corner of the woman's wide mouth, then
disappeared. "What can I do for you?"
"I want to speak with Man Coyle," Jemi said. At that, the
woman's face went hard, her eyes cold.
"You here to buy her? Corporation send you?"
"1 . . ." Jemi didn't want to say the rest, but she could think
of no other way to say it. "I owned Doni Rowe. I wanted to talk
to her, that's all."
The stony face nodded once, letting the door swing open.
"Come in," the vivicate said. "I'll see if she wants to talk to
you." Her voice had the same puzzling belligerence as that of the
man in the garden.
Jemi bit back a reply, her hands fisted at her side. She wanted
to strike back, to turn the woman's words back on her. Jemi
stepped into the hall, ignoring the woman. She took a seat on one
of the chairs. "I'll wait for her here," she said. She pulled her
eyeveil across, hiding her face.
"Whatever you want, Holder." Her tone verged on insolence.
Another nod, and the woman went through an inner door, closing
it behind her.
"It stinks in here," Jemi said. Ardent closed the outer door
and leaned against it, his muscular arms folded across his wide
chest.
"It does now," he said.
Jemi's veils swayed as she turned her head. "I don't deserve

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this kind of treatment. Not from vivicates. I'll admit that some
Holders treat them badly, but not me."
"They were once Holders themselves. They were just like
you. Don't you think they resent being Rekindled and given this
low status?"
"We all know that we might become vivicates. We need
vivicate labor to keep Highland alive. And you lose your memory
of your past life as a result of the process. They can't remember
much." She knew what he would say then, heard it even before
he smiled at her and whispered the words.
"How upset are you at losing some of your past. Holder?"
She had no chance to reply. Jemi recognized the woman who
limped through the doorway; Doni had shown her holos of her.
The dark, wild hair seemed more shot with gray than Jemi
remembered, and the still pictures hadn't conveyed the assort-
ment of tics and twitches that afflicted her body. She had been a
poor job of regeneration; it was no wonder that, as Doni had
mentioned, Mari had always lived at the Rekindled House. She
might have once been handsome enough, though the Vivicate
Corporation was careful to alter the appearance of the body to
protect the sensibilities of those who might remember the person
in life. Still, the bone structure was fine, the skin smooth. Mari
had an undeniable presence, even as a vivicate. She hobbled to
the center of the room, using a cane for support. Her gaze snared
Ardent, then swept over Jemi's veiled face. Mari lifted her chin.
"Holder Charidilis," she said. "You killed Doni." The last
word was a spray of helpless spittle.
That brought Jemi out of her chair. She spread her hands wide
in denial. "That's not fair and it's not true. Mari, I came here
because 1 thought it might be good for us to talk. I came because
I knew Doni's feelings for you. I came because I liked Doni.
Kenis loved him like an older brother."
"You liked Doni the way a person likes a puppy. He wasn't a
person to you, he wasn't real."
"Then you never talked to him about me. He would have told
you."
Mari tilted her head back and laughed, the muscles stretched in
her thin neck. The laugh was harsh, a cackle. "1 use his own

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words. Holder. Do you want to read the letters? Do you want to
read about how much he hated his servitude to you?"
"He played with my son. They were friends," Jemi retorted
hotly. She was glad for the k'lyge, glad the woman could not see
her face. She knew that it bumed with her anger and embarrass-
ment.
"You son isn't you. Your son isn't a Holder who wears the
k'lyge, who can't treat a vivicate as human because that's against
society's rules. Your son's dead, same as Doni's dead," Mari
spat. "Tell me, Holder, how would you have felt if Kenis had
been older when he died, if he could have become a vivicate like
Doni? Would you have looked at us differently then, or would
you have been like the rest? Knowing that you could never
recognize him, would you have ignored us as you did before?"
Mari stood her ground, her palsied hands trembling as she leaned
on her cane, her body inclined toward Jemi. Tears gathered in the
dark eyes and slid down the curve of her cheeks; her voice
ragged with emotion, she nearly screamed the words: "I loved
him, Holder." Mari struck her own chest with a fist. "Just me.
I'm the one who has to feel the grief. You, you can just take
another pet from the Corporation's pound. Don't worry, you'll
come to love him just as much as you loved Doni."
"You're being unfair to the Holder," Ardent's gruff voice
interrupted. Both of them turned to look at him, still with his
back to the outside door. Jemi was surprised by the T'Raijek's
sudden defense of her. "The two of you are more alike than you
think."
"Are the T'Raijek experts on human psychology?" Mari scoffed.
"Look at me." She indicated her frail body. "Do I walk like the
Holder? Does my body move in the same ways? 1 died, T'Raijek.
I died and paid the price for death in this society. Holder Charidilis
still owes her debt."
"She lost her son, and she lost part of her past life," Ardent
insisted, his bass voice low. "How many Holders would have
bothered to come to see you at all? Give the woman credit."
"Give her credit? Credit for what? For having a guilty con-
science she thought she could ease by talking with me? Doni died
three months ago, and until today all I'd gotten was notification
from Vivicate Corporation that your compassionate friend's last

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payment for Doni would be credited to my account." Mari
turned back to Jemi. "Would you want to embrace me. Holder?"
She spread her arms wide. The front of her blouse was splattered
with tiny droplets, wet with the saliva that flew from her mouth.
"Should we weep together?" Her voice was freighted with sar-
casm; a hand jerked up spasmodically. "I've done my weeping
for Doni. All I have of Doni is a few letters, a holo or two, and a
lousy paperweight he gave me the last time he was here. That's
all he could afford out of your wages—the cheapest damned
thing. Still, he gave me all he could, more than you'd believe. I
don't want or need anything from you, Holder."
"Then why did you even come downstairs to see me?" Jemi
asked. Man's face went blank for a moment at the question;
through the silken barrier of the k'lyge, Jemi could see the
vulnerability and fright that lay behind Man's anger.
The vision dissolved her own rancor. "Ardent, let's go," she
said. "Mari's right. You're right. I didn't come here because of
Doni." Jemi shrugged. With a deliberate motion, she pulled the
eyeveil back, letting Mari see her openly. She wanted to com-
plete the gesture, to take Mari's challenge and embrace the
woman. Jemi even took a step, and then stopped, uncertain. She
started to speak, and found that she could not. She had no words
for Mari, didn't know what she wanted to say.
In that moment of hesitation, the mask of defiance slipped
back over the vivicate's face, and Jemi knew that any chance of
understanding was gone.
"Get out of here," Mari hissed. "Take the dwarf with you
and go. Doni hated you, Holder. That's the solace I'll give you.
He once told me that he hoped you'd die on Highland so that the
Corporation could do to you what they did to us. That's what all
of us vivicates pray for, Holder. That's what lets us keep our
anger inside when the firstlifers ignore us or spit on us or strike
us. We laugh because we know that one day they'll be just the
same as us." Her voice had risen again, shrieking. There was the
sudden odor of sour urine; both of them could see the dark stream
that soiled Mari's pants and ran down the legs. "Oh, damn you!
Damn you all!" Mari shouted, and she fled the room, her cane
loud on the tile floor. The door slammed behind her.
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back over with a harsh gesture as Ardent chuckled dryly. "You
people should spend less time hiding yourselves away," he
commented. "Maybe then you'd know each other better."
Her veiled head swung toward him. "The way the Njialjiad
know the Hlidskjalff, Ardent?" she asked. Unwittingly, she saw
that she had struck a nerve with that. For a moment she thought
that he actually might strike her. Ardent's ruddy skin darkened
with a rush of blood and long muscles bulged in the thick arms.
"Ardent, I'm sorry. 1 didn't mean it—I'm just disappointed. I'd
hoped for more." Jemi sighed. She wanted only to be away from
here, to be back on her ship.
"You came here and got nothing," Ardent told her haughtily.
"You can't make me feel guilty for that—it's your own problem."
He shoved himself erect with his shoulders, turned, and left
the building without waiting to see if Jemi followed.
She caught up with Ardent within the yard of the house. The
gardener was still there, though he didn't look up. She fell into
pace alongside the T'Raijek, neither of them speaking. Ardent
glanced up once at the glare of the daylights, but otherwise kept
his head down, staring at Highland's floor as they moved through
the perpetual valley of the colony, toward the more crowded
streets near the park. They were only a hundred meters or so from
the Rekindled House when two men and a woman stepped from a
warehouse doorway directly into their path. Here, on the outer
paths of Highland, there were no others around—the buildings
were mostly for storage and unmanned.
"Holder Charidilis," one of the men said, nodding to her but
continuing to block their path. "Is this the alpha male known as
Ardent Hlidskjalff?" Jemi was frozen into silence—she could see
the glowing dot of a hologram implanted above the left eye of
each of the three: a circle enclosing a stylized sun—the sumbol of
Highland's security force. Their k'lyges were thin and fashion-
able, little more than wisps of cloth barely covering the lower
half of their faces, and the same circled sun insignia was printed
on the sheer cloth. Behind it, faintly, she could see the grim, set
lines of their mouths. Jemi's stomach knotted queasily.
"That's me," Ardent growled beside her. "Who are you?"
The man touched the hologram with a finger. "Highland

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Security. We were sent to find you," he said, looking down at
Ardent. "The ClanMother Njialjiad has requested that you return
to your embassy."
Ardent looked at Jemi, who shrugged back to him, then at
each of the security people in turn. "It takes three of you to give
messages?" he commented. "It must be great fun when one of
you has to take a shit. Do you take turns wiping?"
The strip of k'lyge did nothing to hide the flare of color on the
security man's face. He balled his fists and took a step toward
Ardent, but the woman put her hand on his shoulder. "Mark,
no," she said urgently. "Michaels'll have your job if you touch
him without provocation."
"Yeah, that's it, Mark," Ardent taunted. "Put your machismo
back in your pants where it belongs."
"Shut up, T'Raijek, or we'll make sure that there's sufficient
provocation in our report to explain your broken bones," the
woman told Ardent before Mark could answer. Her hand stayed
on the burly man's shoulder, and her other hand slid under the
flap of her loose jacket. "Just tell us whether you'll obey your
ClanMother Njialjiad and return to the embassy."
"What about the Holder?"
Mark's gaze flicked over to Jemi, and she felt the animosity
boiling there. "She's all grown up, T'Raijek," he snarled. "But
we'll make sure she gets home safely. You going or not, alpha?"
"Maybe." Ardent turned slowly around until he faced Jemi.
He looked up at her, his wrinkled face blank, as effectively
masked as if he wore a k'lyge. "You have to tell me now.
Holder," he said. "You have to tell me whether you trust me or
not."
Jemi could feel the tension in the moment. She knew that she
stood at a crux, balanced. Her thoughts raced uncontrollably for
what seemed minutes, though she knew that it was only a second:
the bitter words from Mari Coyle, the wheedling half-threats of
Harris, finding that Ruth Diesen had died . . . Deep inside, Jemi
had become afraid of Highland, afraid of her past. If Ardent was
gruff and irascible, at least he seemed to genuinely care. She
couldn't say that about Tari, about anyone else here.
The decision was easier than she expected. She simply nodded.
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challenge—"Aljceri!": a startling bellow that froze the three
security people for an instant. In that moment, Ardent kicked
back and up, spinning. His booted heel caught Mark solidly in
the groin; with a thin scream, Mark collapsed backward into the
woman, knocking her to the pavement. Ardent had already turned
on the remaining man, leaping up with surprising speed, fingers
stiff as he shot his hand toward the man's windpipe. Choking,
gasping, the man went down.
Jemi watched, her mouth and eyes wide with shock. She saw
him strike Mark, saw him take out the other man before the
security man could pull his weapon from under his jacket. She
also saw what Ardent could not: the woman had recovered her
balance, letting Mark collapse writhing to the pavement. On her
knees, she pulled her stunner from its holster. She brought the
weapon up, pointing it at the T'Raijek even as he began to turn
away from her downed companion.
You have to tell me now whether you trust me or not. Jemi
took her cue from Ardent.
She kicked the woman in the head as hard as she could.
The sliver of the gun's dart went arcing away, the stunner
itself clattering across pavement. "Nice," commented Ardent.
He'd reached into his boot, pulling out a slender, crystalline
blade.
"What are you going to do?" Jemi asked.
"Kill them," he said matter-of-factly. "We need time, and
that'll give us the most."
"No," Jemi said firmly.
"Dead people don't tell the authorities that the fugitives got
away, and that's what we are." He gestured at the last man he'd
downed, who lay silently with his hands cupped around his throat.
His face was a dusky purple. Looking at him made Jemi want to
retch, made her remember the man sprawled in the New York
alley. She forced down her gorge and looked away. "He's
already dead," Ardent said. "What's two more?"
"No," Jemi repeated. She inhaled deeply.
Ardent sighed. "You got a better idea?"
Jemi picked up the stunner Deliberately, she fired a dart into
the unconscious woman, then into Mark, still curled into a
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Stephen Leigh
"There's an access road there," Jemi said, pointing between two
buildings. "The two I stunned will be out for hours. Dump them
in there and we'll have the same amount of time as if you killed
them." When Ardent still hesitated, turning the blade in his
hand, she shook her head. "I've had too much death associated
with me already, Ardent. It makes me sick—I don't want any
more. Please. I trusted you. Trust me."
"I don't understand you, Holder." He grimaced, but he put
the knife back in his boot. Together, they dragged the limp
bodies to the access road, piling loose crates around them. At any
moment, Jemi expected someone—a guard patrolling the area,
perhaps, or one of the vivicates on the way to or from the
Rekindled House—to come across them and raise an alarm.
Miraculously, it never happened. As quickly as they dared, they
walked away from the area. Jemi could feel a prickling at her
back, as if someone were about to shout behind them and point
them out.
"Back to Starfire?" Jemi whispered as they walked.
"Not much of a choice left, is there?" Ardent grumbled. "Do
you think that you'd last any longer in jail than Ruth Diesen?"
"You could stay."
"Not now," he said shortly. "I'm a little too fond of living
myself. We're leaving. And in our situation, there's only one
place we can go."
Jemi knew. She gave him the answer before he could speak it:
"Salii."
On Starfire, Jemi quickly made preparations to leave, strap-
ping herself into the pilot's seat and hooking the umbilical to the
spinal plugs. The status lights for the ship's functions danced
before her as she made the checks, running quickly down the list.
Ardent had pulled an acceleration couch from the wall, latching
it down and fastening the straps. "We don't have time for this,"
he urged.
"They don't know about it yet," she answered. "We have
time."
"Your confidence is admirable. I'll be sure to mention it to
Highland security when they come through your locks."
"Shut up," she said, and was amazed when he did so. "Let

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me handle it. Highland Port," she barked, opening the intercom
link. "Starfire requests immediate departure vectors."
"This is Comptroller Tyler, Starfire. What's your rush. Holder?"
"My cargo's aboard, my relief pilot's here, and I've taken
care of everything else. Why stay, Comptroller?" She tried to
make it sound casual, hoping that the link's mediocre sound
would mask her anxiety.
Tyler chuckled at that, and the sound eased Jemi's nervous-
ness. "Fine, Holder. You traders are always getting itchy. Let
me see what I have—give me a minute."
A wave of static hissed in her ears as the Comptroller cut the
link. Jemi took a deep breath, glancing over at Ardent. The
T'Raijek shook his head at her. "Don't give him long," the alien
said. "He could be stalling."
A click midst the pink noise, and Tyler was back. "Got your
vectors, Starfire," he said. "I've fed them shipboard." Jemi
closed her eyes, opened the proper channels: green lines of
numbers sped across the back of her eyelids. "You'll have to
wait a bit, though," Tyler continued. "I've a UCN liner coming
into dock now. You're scheduled for 09:54."
"That's thirty-five minutes, Comptroller," Jemi said. She could
feel the tension pulling at her face, drawing lines across her
forehead. "Can't you do better than that?"
"Christ, you are in a hurry, aren't you? Sorry, that's the best
slot."
Jemi took a deep breath. Ardent's shadowed eyes would not let
her go. "Thank you, Comptroller. We'll wait," she said. Then,
to Ardent: "Well?"
"You think you'll like the jail here? Can you imagine what a
knife will feel like slicing into your back? Are you looking
forward to the time when you'll drool all over your blouse like
Mari?"
"Tyler said there's a liner in bound."
"Right. And Highland Security's after us."
"Maybe they don't know yet."
"Uh-huh. And how long ago do you think that trio of clowns
was supposed to check in?"
There was no need for Jemi to reply to that. They both heard
the distant, metallic boom of the portside linktube hatch being

106	Stephen Leigh
opened, reverberating through Starfire's hull. "Strap down,"
Jemi snapped. She leaned back in her seat. She closed her eyes
again, opening the shipboard systems. A high whine began to
cycle upward, followed by a low roaring. The ship seemed to
strain for a moment, then they were both pushed back in their
seats as Starfire began to move.
The ships docked at Highland port were tethered to the linktubes
by magnetic cables. As Starfire's main engines fired, the cables
tautened, straining. The linktube to the ship began to buckle:
throughout the port, alarms began to shriek and the board before
Comptroller Tyler flashed red. "Shut down!" Tyler screamed
into the intercom. "Damn it, Starfire, shut down!"
Only ten minutes ago, Highland Security had called to order
him to stall Holder Charidilis. Tyler didn't know what was going
on and didn't much care—he knew that Security had sent a party
to board the ship. He assumed it had something to do with
smuggling—that happened often enough. He'd never had anyone
crazy enough to try taking a ship out while still docked. He
stared at his screens in utter bewilderment and a morbid fascina-
tion, half convinced that everything the screens told him had to
be wrong.
The cable tethers were designed with such an emergency in
mind: a ship leaving the docks with the tethers still attached
could conceivably cause great damage to Highland simply by
altering the rotation of the colony. They'd never had to use such
precautions before; the releases were simply a safety measure
built in with the expectation that they would never be used.
When the pressure on the cables reached a certain parameter,
explosive bolts fired, releasing the ship. Everyone in the port
heard the horrible thwang as the cables parted from Starfire like
guitar strings under too much tension. In the viewing screens,
they could see the ship drifting away, the main engine pulsing
brilliantly, the sparking cables flying away like long, coiled
serpents. The cables lashed once against the port hull; the linktube
to the ship broke apart, sending debris careering among the
docked ships and dropping the air pressure in the port momentar-
ily before fail-safe shields went up. "Jesus!" Tyler shouted.

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"Get a crew down there now!" His ears had popped; he could
feel blood running from his nose behind his k'lyge.
"She's fucking crazy," he screamed. In the viewscreens,
Starfire began to pick up speed. The heat from her engines
washed over the docking stations—more lights went amber, then
red. The ululating sirens continued to howl, joined now by
others, as the phone to Tyler's station began to ring insistently.
Tyler keyed the line open absently, his attention still on that
impossibly moving ship. "Yes, sir," he said to the shouting
voice in his ear, "I did try to stop her . . . No, sir, I don't know
why she did that . . . Yes, I'll contact the navy, but there're no
cruisers in dock at the moment. There's not a thing I can do . . .
Yes."
Absently, while his supervisor's voice went on insistently,
Tyler collapsed back in his seat. Starfire had turned. Her engines
pointed straight back at the port as she moved away. Their
brilliance overloaded the screens.
"The woman's stark raving crazy," he muttered to himself.
"Absolutely insane."

Most of the women I seem to come across have the same
qualities as our energy resources. They're either beyond my
means, dangerous, or used up.
—from a comedy routine.
CHAPTER NINE
For long hours, Jemi stared back through the rearward screens
to the dwindling wheel of Highland. When it was certain that
there had been no naval ships near Highland and that pursuit was
futile, she turned her attention back to the ship. She plotted in a
course for Salii that would evade the patrol routes of navy ships.
Luck was with her there as well, for Earth was on the far side of
the sun from Salii. Even a ship dispatched to intercept them
would deplete its fuel reserves before they made Salii. An un-
manned missile under enormous acceleration might be able to
reach them, but that was unlikely—Jemi could not imagine their
being that important. It would do no good to worry over that
possibility. There were a few small naval bases between the orbit
of Highland and Mars, but most of them had no ships, being only
tracking stations.
The course fed into the navigational systems, there was little
else to do. She rechecked the status of the ship and found no
structural damage resulting from the hurried departure. The bay
cameras revealed that the cargo of raw ore was still lashed down,
though it would now never reach its intended destination. Salii
was a short jaunt from Highland at the moment; Jemi shut down
the engines, putting them into free-fall. She would have put spin
on the ship, but she was too drained to flick the toggle to do it.
Jemi closed her eyes, taking a long, deep breath as her body
drifted upward against the embrace of the straps. Her head lying
back against the cushion of the pilot's seat, she looked over to
108

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109
Ardent. The alien seemed lost in a trance, his hands folded in his
broad lap as he reclined in the acceleration couch.
"You have to tell me now," she said. After the shrill bellow-
ing of the thrusters, her voice seemed small. "You don't have
any excuses. Not anymore."
He didn't look at her. His eyes were still shut. Only the mouth
moved. "I suppose so. What do you want me to tell you?" He
sounded resigned, almost sad.
"The truth would do." The k'lyge veil drifted upward with
her breath; she brushed it back down and secured it.
"I'm not sure I know it all. And that's the truth."
"Do you know what happened to Kenis?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. Some of it. Not all that you'd want,
I'm afraid."
Her silence was an invitation. "Single-minded, aren't we?" he
muttered, and then he shrugged again. "Fine. I'm just not sure
where to start."
"With Kenis. That's all I care about."
The comment sparked anger in him. His eyes opened; glisten-
ing, narrowed. "It can't be that way anymore, Holder. Not after
what you've done. There's much more involved."
"Start there anyway," Jemi insisted. He can't give Kenis
back, you know that, she cautioned herself. "Then you can tell
me whatever you want."
Ardent unfastened the couch straps. He pushed himself into the
air and drifted until he hung in front of Jemi. He gripped the arm
of her seat with strong fingers, holding himself still. His dark,
gold-flecked pupils were level with her own; they seemed to
penetrate the gauze of the veils. When he spoke, his voice was
low, a stony growl.
"The T'Raijek alpha that was aboard Starfire on your last trip
to Highland was Cardik Hlidskjalff," he told her, then he shook
his head. "No, that's not where I have to begin. I have to sketch
out the background for you, Holder, or you won't understand at
all. At that time, the ClanMothers of Hlidskjalff held the embas-
sies: Highland, Earth, Salii. The government of Earth had
been badgering the GreatMothers on our home world via the
ClanMothers."
Ardent laughed at the remembrance, scoffingly. "They wanted

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Stephen Leigh
the technology for extrastellar flight, they wanted us to tell you
how to fold the space-time continuum. The GreatMothers said
no, but my ClanMothers, in their folly, had decided to give
humanity those plans. But they weren't going to give them to the
UCN. For several reasons, they had decided that Salii was the
better choice." His fingers lost their grip on her chair; he began
to slide away from her and up. "You see, Holder—I try to talk
about Kenis and end up at the beginning. There's no other way.
You're going to have to be patient."
"Then go on with it." Despite herself, she found this pream-
ble compelling; it gave her a glimpse into the lives of the
T'Raijek, which had only been speculation.
"The T'Raijek are no more peaceful than humanity," Ardent
continued. "We fight among ourselves just as you do. Perhaps
that's why the GreatMothers of Clan Ktainias chose to reveal our
presence to you and open the embassies. For myself, I think it
was a mistake, considering what's happened since. It doesn't
matter, though—the Clan Njialjiad betrayed us, and whispered to
Earth of our plans. By that time, Cardik was already on his way
to Salii with the information, locked in the matrices of a crystal
infostone. He sensed that something was amiss. He'd been in-
tending to take a normal liner to Salii—there was still some
casual traffic between Salii and Earth then. I suppose that he
couldn't take one of the embassy crafts because the ClanMothers
Hlidskjalff were afraid that Njialjiad would suspect something—-
they didn't know that the BeastClan was already aware of it. In
any case, he sought another way; he went to a trader craft that
was in Uphill at the time. He went to you, Jemi, and paid for
passage."
"He put Kenis and myself in danger, without telling us? Or
are you saying that he told me and I agreed?"
Ardent scoffed. "You? You wouldn't have been willing to
take him if you'd known. Until your ship was attacked and you
lost your memory, you were like the rest of the apes, hiding
behind the veils of your fears. You were like the UCN, wanting
to gain knowledge without having to pay for it, as if simply by
your existence you deserved it. That's bullshit. You wouldn't
have taken Cardik knowingly." He paused, as if waiting for her

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to retort, but Jemi said nothing. After a moment, he took up the
tale again.
"I don't know what happened to Cardik. All I can tell you is
what happened on Highland about that same time. Our embassy
became a battleground, first in words and then in fact. ClanMother
Hlidskjalff Highland was formally challenged by BearerMother
Njialjiad. That's what we call aljceri: equal combat. I watched
them fight in the Deep Pits, and I saw Njialjiad tear out my
ClanMother's throat in a gout of blood that sprayed and discol-
ored the lower seats. Many of my kin refused to swear allegiance
to the new ClanMother and died in the Pit that day. Others were
purged in the weeks that followed for small infractions of Njialjiad
rules. Most of the rest of us knew that we would suffer the same
fate—we've all expected our time would come. We heard from
the Earth embassy that Njialjiad had won there too. Only the
Salii embassy was still Hlidskjalff.
"Cardik arrived on Highland three days after our ClanMother
died. He was immediately arrested and questioned. Before he
died, he told Njialjiad that he'd hidden the crystal, suspecting
that Njialjiad would declare aljceri. Njialjiad never intended to
give Earth the contents of the crystal—the information they'd
leaked to the navy spoke only of 'important technical informa-
tion,' though I don't doubt that some suspected. Njialjiad was in
agreement with the GreatMothers. They wanted to quickly re-
cover the crystal and thus bolster their clan's standing on our
home world. Failure to do so would indicate a weakness. I don't
know how much Earth knew of what had happened, but I would
assume that Starfire was heavily searched by Highland Customs,
ostensibly for smuggling, and that the crystal was to be handed
over to Njialjiad in return for other favors. They didn't find the
crystal. It wasn't where Cardik had said it would be—I heard the
new ClanMother's screams of anger when she was told. You
were aboard the ship; you were searched as well, I know. The
crystal didn't seem to be anywhere on the ship.
"Your son died that afternoon, Jemi. Probably no more than
four or five hours later. The conclusion's obvious that his death
was somehow tied with this, though I can't say what happened.
The T'Raijek had nothing to do with it—Earth and Highland
authorities were involved."

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"Kenis was four." Jemi's voice was shrill, keening with the
pain that Ardent's words gave her. Her voice trembled. "He was
still a baby. Why would they kill him?"
"I can't answer that, Holder. 1 don't know how it happened. It
could even have truly been an accident, as much as I doubt that. I
don't know."
"And the attack on Starfire—that was because someone thought
the crystal was still aboard. They thought they'd missed it, or
that I'd hidden it aboard."
"I'd suspect so."
"They'd have killed me to find it."
"What's one life to the freedom to escape the trap of this solar
system, Holder? You know now that the resources here are finite.
You've already nearly ruined your home planet, and you're
plundering the rest. It's costing you so much to do that that
you've wrecked your economy, stuck in an endless cycle of
depression and inflation. Some of your people starve. You know
that there are other races out there in the vastness that you can't
reach. You know that there are riches enough for everyone and
that if you wait too long, you'll die here, another species like the
millions in your own past that could never make it past the next
state of existence. To many, that's worth one death—worth a
thousand or a million deaths."
"They killed Kenis for it."
"I don't know that. Not for certain."
"I do," Jemi said flatly. "I do. And I hate them for it."
Ardent stared at her strangely, with an odd, almost violent pity
in his eyes. "You know," he said, "I wish you'd stop feeling so
damned sorry for yourself. It makes me want to gag."
She gaped at him, incredulous. "I lost my child," she told
him.
"You act as if you were the only one to have lost anything."
His words held a challenge, and Jemi reacted to it, stung.
"Where in the hell do you get the right to criticize me for
that?"
Ardent thumped himself on the chest; the motion made him
drift further away from her. "I get the fucking right because I've
lost as much or more as you. / lost Csaal, the omega male who
was my lifemate; he was one of those purged in the Highland

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113
embassy. I lost children of my seed as well—I don't know how
many, since Csaal was one of those omegas who was always
with more than one BearerMother, but 1 know that our merged
seed had given life to at least a few of the Hlidskjalff younglings
at the embassy. I never knew exactly which children might have
been ours—that's not the way of the T'Raijek. I simply loved
them all, because any one of them might have been mine. And I
loved Csaal, Holder. 1 loved him as much as you loved Kenis,
and I lost him. 1 don't weep for Csaal anymore, though. I'll do
that after I've done something to pay his blood-debt. My own life
doesn't matter unless I throw it away uselessly. That's the way I
would feel if I were you, Jemi Charidilis."
Jemi could see the pain in Ardent's face. He didn't bother to
hide it. A Highlander would have pulled the k'lyge over his face,
an Earther might have turned away so that she wouldn't see the
range of emotions that tugged at him. He let her watch. Let her
watch as the tendons of his jaw knotted under the soft fur of his
face, let her watch the dry-eyed rancor that pulled down his
mouth and plowed deep lines in his forehead. His hands were
fists clenched at his side, trembling with the force of his words.
She did not care for his lack of understanding toward her own
emotions, but she understood. She understood and forgave.
"Now what do we do?" she asked him.
Slowly he relaxed, and his usual sarcastic smile returned. The
fingers uncurled, though she could see the six prints of his nails
in each of his palms. "There's only one path left to us, Holder.
The UCN isn't safe. We go to Salii."
"And talk to Family Jardien," Jemi added.
"Exactly. If they don't just kill us on sight."
Salii should not have existed. It was an anomoly. Salii proper
was an orbital platform crossing the Martian poles just inside the
orbit of Phobos, 9,000 kilometers away from the planet's sur-
face. The original inhabitants of Salii—named after the Roman
priests of the war god Mars—had been a multinational scientific/
exploratory crew sent to determine what resources the fourth
planet had that Earth could steal. They had the station, mining
equipment, several fairly sophisticated laboratories, and shuttle
craft—state-of-the-art equipment for that time, and better than

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what might be found in a comparable situation now. They also
had a fair amount of determination, for the men and women of
Salii knew that with worsening conditions at home, they might
never make it back to Earth unless it was worth Earth's while to
come and get them. Their diaries reveal that the majority of the
team felt that Earth would be engulfed by war and famine. Some
of them thought Earth would die entirely.
It was 2050 then, and the first signs of what would be called
the Bust were just beginning to appear. The Great American
Drought was in its third year, and the new dust bowl was
encroaching ever further over the plains. Europe was caught in
what was called the Endless Winter, when show fell through June
in the south of France and the mountains never lost their snow
peaks. The Soviet Union was dealing with its own internal
rebellion as the masses slowly starved.
By '55, Salii had been left to its own devices, though Earth
still kept contact with Highland and thus their mining factories in
the Belt. They remained in radio contact with the colony and a
few unmanned ships were sent with supplies. The U.S. offered to
take the people of Salii back to earth on one of the ore ships
coming from Highland. When that offer was flatly (and, frankly,
rudely) rejected, Earth gave a mournful shake of its collective
head and made no further attempts.
It was expected that Salii would die. Those who had begun the
project would say that the failure wasn't their fault: it had simply
been the economy that killed the people there—something that
couldn't be helped. It would be sixty-four years from the last
direct contact until the next, after the establishment of the United
Coalition of Nations gave Earth its first halfway effective global
government.
In those six-plus decades, the Families of Salii arose. Salii did
not die. Salii, with bullheaded stubbornness, flourished. If Earth
was lost to them, they would take the planet that sat under them:
Mars. They dug into that stony, gritty soil; they braved the
200-kilometers-per-hour winds; they dug into the subsoil to find
the trapped water and tapped the water ice that lay under the
frozen carbon dioxide of the poles. Knowing that they needed
more hands to help with the work, they abandoned the social

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
115
mores of home. The children born of that new order grew up
quickly, grew up hard and serious, grew up strange.
Salii gave itself the long task of making Mars a new home.
The underground outposts on the Martian soil became small,
domed towns poking cautiously above the ruddy soil. They found
deposits of iron and began making steel. They built factories and
laboratories. Clean thermonuclear devices were manufactured and
set off in the polar regions, melting the caps and bringing on a
rise in temperature and atmospheric pressure. They made ma-
chinery to break up the Martian rock and release the carbon
dioxide trapped there. Mars began to change under their hands.
Salii, the orbital station, remained the center of government,
but now there were six cities on the face of Mars under Salii's
control. They were not named with the same classical fervor as
those who had christened the original laboratory, but with the
raw, gruff humor of the Families: Hard Work, And Taxes, Foul,
The Pits, Underneath, and (ironically) Xanadu.
In 2119, the T'Raijek came. They contacted Earth and the
UCN; they also contacted Salii. When Earth said via the T'Raijek
that they were sending a representative to explain to Salii its
duties to the UCN, then-Governor Wallace Jardien said that Salii
owed Earth nothing, that Salii and her cities were independent of
Earth and the UCN, and if Earth insisted on sending a representa-
tive, Wallace would send back only selected portions of that
representative.
He made good his promise, as well. All that returned of the
representative was the right hand, all the fingers closed in a fist
but for the second one, which stood straight up in an ageless
symbol of defiance. That act began the erratic, sometimes violent
conflict between Earth and Salii.
Which was, of course, entirely the other side's fault, depend-
ing on who you asked.
Salii contacted Starfire when they were still two days out from
the red planet.
Ardent was in the pilot's chair, taking his usual shift, as Jemi
frittered about the navigational compartment. The static-filled
broadcast hissed in the ship's speakers: "The border is once
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Navy, we ain't afraid of the big bad wolf, so huff and puff all
you want. You've an hour to comply with our request, at which
point it won't be a request."
Ardent looked at Jemi, who shrugged back at the alien. "This
is the free trader Starfire, out of Highland via a slightly hasty
departure," Ardent growled. "The owner's a fugitive, and the
other person on board is a T'Raijek alpha—Clan Hlidskjalff,
which should mean something to you if you've half a brain."
Jemi frowned at that, shaking her head at Ardent. Ardent scowled
and continued. "We can't turn around, Salii. There's nowhere
for us to go."
There was a lag of a few minutes, most of that due to distance.
Then the drawling voice crackled again. "That just about breaks
our hearts here, Starfire. Are we supposed to be impressed or are
you just counting on our goodwill? By the way, you still have,
oh, fifty minutes or so to comply with the turnaround order. It's
hard to read the clock with only half a brain—you might have
less."
"Ass," Ardent commented to the air.
"Tell him that we've a cargo of iron ore," Jemi said. "It's
theirs for docking permission."
"You want to bribe this idiot?"
"Is there a choice?"
"No." Ardent gave the man the information, then keyed off
the transmitter. Neither of them said anything in the long wait for
an answer.
"Plenty of ore on Mars," Salii said. "Forty minutes."
"Let me talk," Jemi insisted, seeing the tight fury in Ardent's
face and fearing what another of his outbursts might accomplish.
She leaned over the transmitter. "Salii, this is Holder Charidilis.
Tell the HeadFather of Family Jardien that I need to speak with
him. Tell him it's about the T'Raijek crystal—tell them that."
Jemi let go the switch even as Ardent's hand swept up to
knock it away. "Are you crazy, Holder?" he raged. "You think
that the navy isn't listening to this, or Jardien, or my embassy
back on Highland? Are you trying to set off an interworld
incident? If Njialjiad thinks I have the crystal—"
"It's a bluff we had to take. Where else are we going to go?
What other way is there for me to find out what's going on?"

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117
"You're bluffing in a high-stakes game, woman, and you
don't have crap in your hand."
"I don't have any other way, and nothing in the pot to lose."
"Just our lives."
"My life's my own, and you said that you didn't care about
yours."
Ardent shook his bald, wizened head. The thick joints of his
fingers flexed on the arm of the pilot's chair. "You've more gall
than I credited you with," he said grudgingly. "I just hope they
make it quick when they turn us into a meteor shower. If we get
lucky, we might even look pretty when we—"
The speakers spat; the familiar voice hissed at them. "You've
permission to dock at Salii, Starfire. HeadFather Gavin Jardien
will meet you there." There was a pause, though the white noise
pounding the speakers told them the line was still open. "Better
make it a good approach, Holder. If anything looks even vaguely
wrong, we'll take your ore from the pieces of your ship."
"Just stick your butt out the port window so we'll have a good
target, Salii," Ardent said before Jemi could respond. He grinned
at her as he cut the transmission lines. "Only a bluff, Holder,"
he said.
The BearerMother Njialjiad came into the room with a casual
insolence that ClanMother Hlidskjalff Salii could barely tolerate.
If she thought that she could have enforced it, she would have
ordered the BearerMother to drown herself in the Waters. But
this Njialjiad would only have smiled and called for aljceri, and
ClanMother Salii knew that she could not win this time, not so
soon after the last fight. For as long as she could, ClanMother
Hlidskjalff ignored the Mother's unbidden presence, pretending to
be listening to the stringclaw music that wafted through the room's
sound system.
The piece was the "Solace of Time," the favorite piece of
GreatMother Ktainias, who had composed it after her ascension
battle. ClanMother Salii saw the smile on the Njialjiad's face,
and wondered if she was merely amused at the choice, or whether
this was the time when Clan Njialjiad would issue another
challenge.
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Stephen Leigh
knew that the BearerMother had been nursing her younglings in
the nutrient pool. The ClanMother's own offspring were in a
nursery pool in one of the hidden passages of the embassy,
guarded by four Hlidskjalff omegas. That was more a ritual
precaution than anything else. ClanMother Salii was well aware
that Bearer Njialdjiad would follow the customs to the letter, as
her predecessor had done. ClanMother Salii's sides still ached
with the deep cuts that the old BearerMother Njialjiad had gouged
out when they fought in the Deep Pits before all the embassy.
The scabs matted her fur with a discolored brown and pulled at
her sides when she moved. She forced herself to remain still in
her couch and growled a barely civil greeting to the Njialjiad.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, ClanMother," the BearerMother
purred. "But I wondered if you had composed a reply to
ClanMother Njialjiad Highland concerning the alpha Hlidskjalff
who is with the renegade ape Charidilis. They will be here
shortly, you know."
"1 receive the reports well before you, BearerMother,"
ClanMother Salii answered as haughtily as she dared, and was
pleased when the Njialjiad bowed her head in apology.
"Forgive me, ClanMother. I did not wish to appear so stupid.
Still, ClanMother Highland wishes to know if you will order the
alpha to return to her embassy. He is of Highland, and under her
rule."
ClanMother Salii lay back on her couch, closing her eyes for a
moment and listening as the stringclaw wailed and trembled. Of
course I won't do that. I can't, and ClanMother Highland knows
it. This is only to give an excuse for the second challenge.
ClanMother Salii opened her eyes again. She looked at the
BearerMother before her, seeing the sleek fur and the strong,
young muscles rippling underneath the sheen. She saw the tips of
the curved, retractable claws masked under the satin fur of her
fingertips and wondered how they would feel as they slashed at
her, laying her skin open and taking her life.
This time you'll die. This time you won't be the one that walks
from the Pit. All for the decision of GreatMother Hlidskjalff . . .
"He knows to come here," she answered.
"That is the answer you give?" The Njialjiad said it as gently
as she could; both of them knew the comment for what it was.

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119
You will die when you finally defy us openly, the BearerMother
was saying. Your Clan has made its choice, and it was the wrong
one.
"That is my answer for the moment, BearerMother," Hlidskjalff
said sharply. She thought that the Njialjiad would withdraw then,
but the Bearer only nodded and rubbed her muzzle with a hand.
"All alphas act so impulsively—they can't be trusted. They
ignore customs," she said.
"That is their gift, BearerMother," ClanMother Salii replied
tiredly. The stringclaw recording sobbed like a lost thing. The old
argument again. "Perhaps if we had listened to the alphas among
us when we met the Traal, we might not have lost that fight. The
alphas said that the Traal would ignore the rituals of war, and
they did. That is why so much of T'Raijek resources have gone
into finding ways to hide from the Traal."
"The Traal are beasts. The GreatMothers have declared them
nonsentient. There's no shame in our defeat to beasts, and the
next time we meet them, we'll not be bound by the rules of
kinjtha."
"There's shame if we ignored counsel that would have turned
defeat into victory."
"Ignore our customs and we are lost, ClanMother. When we
disobey GreatMother Ktainias, we destroy all that we are."
The ClanMother closed her eyes tiredly, expecting the quiet
lecture to continue, but the Njialjiad's voice drifted off. She
knew then that Njialjiad was tiring of the game, that the chal-
lenge would come very soon. She hoped that there would be a
few more days at least, a little more time to heal and rest. Maybe
she could even begin to feel some hope.
"Why did GreatMother Hlidskjalff trust the apes?"
The question, unexpected, brought ClanMother Salii out of her
reverie. She opened her eyes to look at the Njialjiad, expecting to
see defiance in the Bearer's stance, but there was only curiosity
there. The ClanMother shrugged. "It's not obvious? She saw in
them some of the traits of the alphas. She saw hope and an ally."
Njialjiad scoffed. "The apes can barely move within their own
system. They scrabble in the dirt and fear the night. What good
are they?"
"Perhaps none. But look at Salii—look how they managed to

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survive when they should have died. They have managed to
move forward while the rest of their race stagnates. Look at this
Holder Charidilis—you or I, BearerMother, would have obeyed
the rules of our society. We would have bowed our heads and
submitted—but she struggles against that. And she has learned
more than you or I would have learned."
"You deify stupidity."
"I don't agree."
"Then you think your GreatMother correct?"
"I think she made a valiant, courageous decision," ClanMother
Salii said, "one that you or 1 would not have made. When the
moment comes that you challenge me, BearerMother, we will
both obey the customs and do as we must. Maybe if we were less
predictable, we might both survive."
Njialjiad shook her head. "GreatMother Hlidskjalff more likely
has made a choice that could destroy T'Raijek and the apes. If
the Traal think that T'Raijek would plot and scheme behind their
backs, they will retaliate. It will have been your clan's fault, but
they won't care. They won't differentiate between Hlidskjalff and
Njialjiad, T'raijek or ape. I don't find that a pleasant thought."
"I know you don't," ClanMother Salii replied softly. "Leave
me for now, BearerMother. You'll want me strong enough to
give you full challenge when we meet in the Deep Pits."
At that, the Njialjiad smiled and bowed. She withdrew from
the room as the mournful sound of the stringclaw trilled a soft
lament.

The only one that objects to a necessary pruning is the cut
branch.
—Saliian proverb.
CHAPTER TEN
Salii was far smaller than Highland. The four-spiked wheel of
the base had facilities for barely 50,000 people. Still, the silvery
framework of that structure looked over a much grander scene
than Highland. Mars was a red-faced giant, pockmarked with
craters in the southern hemisphere, riddled with old lava flows in
the north. Olympus Mons, the tallest known mountain in the
solar system at thirty kilometers and a still-active volcano, lay
there under the haze of new clouds. Argyre, a mammoth crater
holding the city of Hard Work, slid under the band of the day-
night terminator as Starfire made its approach to Salii. By the
time they had completed docking, Vallis Marineris, a canyon
gouged in the giant's cheek that would have stretched from San
Francisco to New York if placed on the Earth, lay directly
underneath.
Jemi had been to Salii only twice before. That may have
contributed to the fact that, while Earth was a spectacular view
itself, she felt somehow Mars was exotic, grander. The sight
almost made her forget, for a moment, the events that had driven
her here.
Jemi and Ardent had no trouble recognizing Gavin Jardien
when they emerged from the linktube into Salii proper. Jardien
himself was not an imposing sight: short and greatly overweight,
his hair receding well back from his sallow forehead. He wore
the bulky, synthetic furs of the Families, his gray-bearded face
half buried in the fluffy pile, and his hawk nose penetrated by the
121

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Stephen Leigh
thin loop of his oxygenator. Weak, colorless eyes squinted at
them myopically.
What made Jardien imposing was the quartet of guards around
him, two men and two women, all quite muscular underneath
their furs, and all with close-range automatic weapons pointed
directly at Jemi and Ardent. There was no one else in the
area—this section of the port was conspicuously deserted except
for the seven of them. "You have a crystal that belongs to me,"
Jardien said without preamble. "I would like it."
His voice was nasal and high. His eyes did not blink, and were
far more powerful than Jemi had thought initially. His flat,
arrogant stare made her want to drag her eyeveil over and hide.
She did her best to ignore the guards, confronting Jardien
directly. "I don't have the crystal," she said.
Jardien's reptilian gaze moved slowly from Jemi to Ardent and
back. "Then you made a poor choice in coming to Salii. Liars
die here, and only fools would have mentioned such a thing
openly. Everyone has enemies, even Family Jardien—even here
among the Families. You wasted my time and put me and my
people at risk." Jardien looked down at Ardent. "And T'Raijek
promise what they can't deliver. They become beggars in their
own embassies." He began to turn away, his guards grinning,
until Jemi called out.
"HeadFather Jardien, I didn't lie. I told them that I wanted to
speak to you about the crystal. That's true." Jemi didn't care that
they could all hear the pleading in her voice. "My ship was the
one on which the crystal traveled. The T'Raijek with me is of
Clan Hlidskjalff. He escaped the purge in the Highland embassy.
HeadFather, I became a criminal and a murderer to come here.
Kill us and you lose the last link to the crystal."
Jardien had stopped a few paces down the ramp that led into
the main corridors of Salii. The glossy tips of his furs lifted with
what might have been a sigh. "I listen," he said, facing away
from them. "For a moment."
"Then contact the T'Raijek embassy here on Salii," Ardent
said before Jemi could speak. "The ClanMother must be
informed—"
"Shut up," Jardien broke in. "I don't listen to you. Let the
Highlander speak."

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123
Panic made her stutter. Jemi didn't know what to say to the
man, didn't know what might make him turn back. Ardent
seemed content to simply wait after Jardien's rebuke, silent. She
stole a glance down at her companion. Ardent spread his hands
wide, tilting his head in a quick shrug. She contemplated lying to
Jardien, to tell him that she knew where the crystal was and that
they could lead him to it—then she remembered that Gavin
Jardien was the man who had destroyed Starfire, who had stolen
her memories and half of her life with Kenis, all for this crystal.
Jardien and those of his family had been responsible—this inso-
lent man in front of her.
He took away half of Ken's life, and he acts as if he's doing
you a favor by listening to you.
An anger rose in her. With that rage, went any sense of fear:
she didn't care about the guards, about his threats. She took a
step toward Jardien, pointing her finger at his back as the guards'
weapons tracked her. "You owe me more than a few minutes of
your time, HeadFather, so you needn't be so haughty or act as if
you don't know why I've come here. You damn near destroyed
my ship. You drugged me and stole the last few years of my life
for that crystal," she said caustically.
"Holder, shut up," Ardent whispered desperately. She
ignored him.
"I believe that my child died because of that crystal as well,"
she continued. "If you want my life as well, you can have it.
What I know you can have, freely. But you owe me answers,
Jardien. You owe me for what you stole."
In the midst of her tirade, Jardien had swiveled back. His
unblinking stare impaled her. Jemi could see the guards' fingers
tightening around their triggers. Ardent tensed beside her. Briefly,
she wondered what it would be like to feel the bullets tearing into
her body. She wondered if dying hurt.
"Family Jardien stole nothing from you," Jardien said. His
eyes narrowed slightly, a twitching of small muscles. "We owe
you nothing. That's not a way to bargain with me." He began to
walk away again, and Jemi felt her stomach turn. She didn't
believe in an afterlife, so she couldn't even comfort herself with
the idea that she might soon be with Kenis. She would die here.

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Her part in life would be over, the same as those she'd helped to
kill. An end with no answers.
But as Jardien reached the hatchway leading into Salii, he
paused. "On Salii and the Six Cities we don't waste resources,"
he said. "Even the poorest rock might have unsuspected value."
He nodded, as if reaching a decision.
"Bring them with you," Jardien told the guards.
The seat of Family Jardien was Underneath. Only those di-
rectly concerned with intercity governmental affairs lived on
Salii: the bureaucracy was there, the embassies of the T'Raijek
and the UCN were there—the last currently deserted. Salii was
the world of paperwork, the world of law, the buffer between the
changing landscape below and the rest of humanity.
The gritty, real work of Mars was done onworld, and it was
there that most of the Families lived, in earnest and sometimes
dangerous competition. Six cities, six extended families; each
charged with the generations-long task of molding this harsh, dry
planet into one that would shelter mankind.
Jemi had never been on the surface. Her other trips here had
begun and ended at Salii and the docks there. Tourism on Mars
was discouraged, if not actively forbidden. She'd never been
there long enough to find a shuttle pilot willing to take her
downport, nor were there hotels on the Martian surface at which
she could stay. Onworld, you had to know someone who was
willing to give you shelter.
Mars was gritty. A fine, abrasive dust scrunched underfoot.
She and Ardent had both been fitted with nasal plugs and tubes
leading to oxy-packs; the plugs itched and made her nostrils sore.
In another three or four generations, she'd been told, the air on
Mars might be breathable for short periods—at the moment, it
was far too thin. Without the packs, a person would be asphyxi-
ated within a few minutes. Collapse would follow after a few
steps, the lungs heaving and starved.
And it was cold. Even through the furs she'd been given on the
Jardien shuttle, the chill stole their body warmth as they walked
from the shuttle landing strip toward the dome of Underneath.
Jemi gazed at the landscape around her—the rust-colored, flaking
rocks, the pebbly soil, and the impossible few flecks of green

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from the transplanted earth grasses that were just beginning to
change the face of this world, it was much as she had imagined it
might be. She didn't think she could ever come to love this
place.
Ardent, far too short for any of the coats, grimaced beside
Jemi, his jaw clenched. The wind was ferocious, buffeting, a live
presence so strong that it staggered Jemi more than once. One of
the women guards kept a strong grip on her arm as they walked
toward the city.
Inside, even though the temperature rose above 0° centigrade,
it was still cold. But at least the air pressure was higher, and Jemi
could remove the annoying nasal plugs and breathe normally.
Jardien nodded to the workers near the locks and led them to a
large lift nearby. He touched the lowest button, and the lift began
a quick, whining descent. Rock walls moved past the open sides
of the compartment. The stone was marbled with a rusty hue.
When the lift stopped, they stepped out into a short corridor
that led into a huge natural cavern. Jemi could hear the drip of
open water here: a pool of dark water held the reflection of the
room in its mirrorlike surface. People moved under the immense
vault of stone, dwarfed by the scale of the cave; buildings of
native stone clung to the walls. Jardien led his group toward one
of the buildings—as they drew closer, Jemi could see the intri-
cate scrollwork on the stones and the gleam of crystalline win-
dows. This was no casual, rough affair—the city was affectionately
made and detailed, created by people who had come here to stay.
Jardien led them through a high archway topped by fanciful
gargoyles and into an inner courtyard. There, a young man
hurried up to them.
"Sorry to disturb you, HeadFather Gavin," the youth said,
"but we need you to give judgment. First Brother Aaron was
caught pilfering from the stores again—his third offense against
the family. You'd asked to be informed."
Jardien nodded. "There's no doubt about his guilt?" he asked.
"He was caught in the act, and has freely admitted it," the
young man verified. "He has begged for your pardon."
Jardien gave an audible sigh. He frowned, one small hand
stroking his stubbled chin. "Since Aaron has no sense of Family,
he should not be Family. I take his kindship from him, Christos.

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Tell the boy that he is no longer Aaron jardien, but Aaron
Nameless. He'll work as a menial in the ore factories for five
years, for any of the Families that need his body. If he's still
alive after that time, we'll see whether he's learned responsibility."
"As you command, HeadFather." Christos nodded, glanced at
Jemi and Ardent, and hurried off again, his furs flying behind
him.
"A harsh justice, HeadFather," Jemi commented.
"Harsher than you might think, Holder," Jardien answered.
He did not look at her but at the doorway through which Christos
had disappeared. "Aaron is—was my own son. But a HeadFather
can't treat his own seed any differently than the rest of his
Family. Salii bred realism into her children, Holder. Earth forced
it on us, and Mars demands we keep it. There's no other way to
survive. We are harsh in our judgments here, I don't deny that.
When we believe in something, we tend to be quite violent
defending it. You should remember that." He gestured harshly to
his companions. They began to move again, across the courtyard
to a bank of huge double doors. Jardien swung them back with a
abrupt shove—they crashed loudly against their stops.
Jemi thought of Kenis. I can't imagine being able to do the
same with him, no matter how he might disobey. She wondered if
Jardien hadn't somehow arranged this as a demonstration, an
object lesson—if he hadn't seemed so visibly upset by his deci-
sion, she might have believed it. No, he's exactly as he paints
himself to be. This isn't a man who'd pretend.
They went into the building and entered a low meeting hall,
where Jardien seated himself on a stone stool at the head of a
table that was one slab of polished black-and-red rock. Like
everything else here: hard, heavy, and unyielding. Jardien mo-
tioned to the two of them to sit on either side of him at the table,
then ordered one of the guards to bring them refreshments. Jemi
noticed that the rest of the guards stayed, and that their guns had
never left the two of them.
Jardien was staring at Jemi, at the veils that covered her mouth
and the nasal tubes. "Take off the k'lyge," he said.
"A Highlander doesn't reveal her face to anyone but inti-
mates," Jemi replied.
"There's no infection to catch here," Jardien told her. "Nor

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do we let measures taken in one situation become unnecessary
habits. I didn't phrase it as a request, Holder."
His stare was intense, the washed-out pupils dilated in the low
light of the room.
"You're not going back to Highland as a Holder, Jemi,"
Ardent reminded her. "Not now. You threw your old life away
when you persisted in finding out about Kenis."
Still, she hesitated, knowing that Ardent was right, that the
strip of cloth was no longer part of her. Jardien waited. At last
Jemi reached behind her neck to unfasten the straps of the k'lyge.
She pulled the mask of thin wire and cloth away from her head
and, laying it down on the table, ran her fingers through her hair
roughly.
She was surprised at how naked she felt. She hadn't known
until that moment how irrevocable her decision had been. The air
seemed impossibly cold on her cheeks, on her mouth. She lifted
her chin to Jardien, defiant. Jardien nodded, as if her action had
pleased him, but there was no hint of pleasure in his padded face.
His thick lips were set.
The guard returned with a tray of three goblets and a crystal-
line decanter holding a clear liquid. He set the tray down in front
of Jardien and moved back to his position with the others. Jardien
picked up the decanter and poured. "Water," he said. "The life
of Salii. There is nothing better, and no need to disguise it. This
came from the Northern Pole. The great-grandchildren of Jardien
will see rivers running on the face of this planet. They'll see Salii
become nothing more than a curiosity. They'll visit it as a
museum of the past, the place of our origin, rather than a refuge
needed when the dust storms make it impossible to live here."
Jardien placed a goblet in front of each of them, filled his own,
and sipped at the water as if it were a venerable wine. "The
children of Salii will tame this world," Jardien continued. His
eyes were half-closed, contemplative. "If we can, we'll leave
Mars to tame other worlds in this system or away from it. We
have dreams, we of Salii." He tilted his head and drained his
goblet, bringing it back down to the table with a crash. "Do you
have dreams, Holder, T'Raijek?" he roared, and then he leaned
back in his chair with a chuckle, one arm draped over the back.
"Other T'Raijek dream." Ardent's bass rumble took Jardien's

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gaze away from Jemi. "Not Clan Hlidskjalff. Dreams take away
your ability to act. They blind you to the present and what needs
to be done at this moment."
"Yes," Jardien scoffed. "Everyone knows the effectiveness
of Clan Hlidskjalff."
Ardent scowled. On his stool, he looked like a petulant child
before his parent. "Hlidskjalff was giving Salii the ability to
leave this sun behind," he pointed out.
"So you say. But the Families who wanted that gift never saw
this crystal, though we lost some of our people in making the
decision. Hlidskjalff has lost the embassies of Earth and High-
land. Salii's embassy was stripped of anything of importance.
Your ClanMother has only a title, no authority. A Njialjiad
watches every move she makes, and she waits for word to come
from your home world that even this embassy must be given to
your clan's enemy. I'm very impressed with your ability to judge
present situations." His blunt sarcasm tore at Ardent.
"What happened wasn't our fault."
Jardien shrugged. "Put the blame wherever you want. I know
only that Salii doesn't have the technology you promised us.
That's all I care about. That's the only reason you're here now."
He turned to Jemi. "You carried the Crystal, Highlander?"
Jemi looked up—she'd been staring at the k'lyge on the table
in front of her, only half listening to the exchange between
Ardent and Jardien. She inclined her head toward the T'Raijek.
"That's what he told me. I don't remember carrying an alpha
male myself. You would know—you were the one who took that
memory from me with a drug," she said bitterly.
"You accused me of that earlier," Jardien answered. "From
your description, it sounds like Scloramine, and that is a drug we
make on Salii. But the UCN has it, too, no matter what you've
been told. Your story's not true. Your ship wasn't attacked by a
Family Jardien vessel."
"It was. I don't need to hear any more of your lies, HeadFather.
You were there, and you ran because the Strolov showed up."
Jardien's voice held a chill as abiding as that of the room.
"You should think before you talk and you'd sound less like a
fool," he spat. "Why would 1 lie to you here? Salii is at war
with the UCN. They call us pirates, but we take what should by

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rights be ours. If one of my captains had attacked your ship, I
would say so—without any apology. I tell you that such is not
the case. You're mistaken, or someone else lied to you."
"Maybe it was another of the Families. The ship that attacked
me was your Condor class."
"For this orbit of Mars, Holder, only Family Jardien is charged
with offworld matters. It could have been no other Family.
Salii's ships are ours for the time being. Condor ships have been
disabled or lost—one of those could have been used. Strickland
either lied or was told wrong."
"I'm supposed to believe the word of a pirate over that of a
naval commander?"
Jardien leaned forward in his chair, his hands steepled under
his chin, the fingertips lost in his beard. "Pirate," he repeated.
"That's only a word the UCN uses to bias their citizens against
Salii. We're not pirates, Holder. We're a people doing what we
have to in order to survive. We're a colony that Earth left to
starve. We survived, instead. It's only their guilt that makes them
call us pirates."
"Are you saying that you wouldn't lie if you thought that it
would gain you the crystal?"
"I would," Jardien admitted. "What that crystal contains is
priceless to humanity. Anyone with any sense of perspective can
see that. I also know that Njialjiad hasn't told the UCN exactly
what was lost, for that very reason. And I know that Hlidskjalff,
despite their protestations of altruism and brotherhood between
races, had a price for that crystal. Everything has a price—does it
not, Hlidskjalff?"
"You phrase it as a question, HeadFather," Ardent replied,
"but somehow I think it's just part of the lecture."
"Tell me you had no price tag attached to that crystal,
Hlidskjalff."
"I'm not a ClanMother. I'm not even an omega. All I know is
that we asked nothing of you in return for the crystal."
"You asked nothing yet" Jardien snorted, slapping the table
with an open hand. "You see, Holder? We all lie, we all hold
back information. This T'Raijek's probably lied to you, as well. I
doubt that he told you the T'Raijek had insisted to us that the
couriers of the crystal must be killed. You see, we were to

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disguise the technology and present it as an independent discov-
ery of mankind's own. It was to appear to be an outgrowth of
Saliian technology. To guarantee silence, you would have been
eliminated, even though you might not have known what you
carried. You and your son. Did he mention that to you?"
Jemi glared at Ardent. "Is that true?" she asked him, but he
didn't need to answer—she saw the truth of it in the T'Raijek's
angry face, in the look he shot Jardien.
"We had no choice," Ardent told Jemi. "We knew what
would happen if the GreatMothers learned what Clan Hlidskjalff
had done. We were giving humanity priceless knowledge against
the will of our own people, after all. We had to keep the secret
for as long as we could. We weren't aware that Clan Njialjiad
already knew."
"You goddamned bastard," she hissed. "You're no better
than any of the others, are you?"
"I saved your ass, Holder. Do I have to keep reminding you of
that?"
"Then you did it because you needed me alive. If you'd found
that I had the crystal, you've have killed me then. Or maybe I
was never in any danger at all. Maybe you arranged the whole
thing to impress me, to convince me to take you along—you
wouldn't care that someone had to die to guarantee that, would
you? Maybe the two of you planned it out, you and HeadFather
Gavin."
"You won't believe anything 1 tell you, so why should I bother
saying how stupid that sounds?" Ardent grumbled.
"Don't blame him for his feelings, Holder Charidilis," Jardien
broke in. "That's the way of sentience—you do what you must
to survive. And I tell you that to survive, we must be able to
compete with the rest of the races that the T'Raijek tell us are out
there. We have to be able to leave this sun if we need to do so.
We're trapped here otherwise, held in bondage by our own sun.
There are only two responses to subjugation: you either despair
and give up, or you fight until you're dead or have been released.
Most of the UCN has given up; Highland has given up. That's
why the crystal is so important, no matter what the eventual cost
the T'Raijek would have charged. A few of the Families don't
agree with Jardien. Family Cole and Family Shiolev want only

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Mars as the world of Salii. There was and is a price to pay for
this world, and we continue to pay for it with our lives. Cole and
Shiolev think the Families of Salii have already given enough of
themselves, but they're wrong." He turned from Jemi to Ardent.
"We'll pay your price, too, Hlidskjalff. Just give me the crystal."
"The cold must slow down your brain processes, Jardien. 1
don't have the crystal, Jemi doesn't have the crystal. If 1 had it,
Fd've made you eat your threats back on Salii."
"Then what good are either of the two of you to me? Perhaps
my best move would be to let the two of you work in the ore
mines with my son, eh? At least then you wouldn't have been a
total waste."
"You can't do that to me, Jardien," Ardent said. "Even if
Hlidskjalff isn't in favor, I'm still T'Raijek. Touch me and you'll
lose any chance of help from my people. I'm not afraid of you."
"If that's true, then you simply demonstrate your stupidity. As
you recall, your clan is not in any position to help or hurt me
now," Jardien replied. The two of them stared at each other for a
moment, then Jardien slowly looked back to Jemi. "There's no
more protection for you than for him, Holder. Why shouldn't I
make use of your body as I will?"
"I don't have an answer for you, HeadFather. I came to Salii
to see if I could find out why my son was killed. I wanted to
know what you'd done to me and why. I wanted back the two
years you took from me." She could feel the burning moisture
gathering in her eyes as she spoke. Jemi reached to bring the
upper veil over her eyes. Belatedly, she realized that there was
nothing there, nothing to hide behind.
Jardien had seen the motion as well. He reached out with his
thick, callused fingers and snatched up the k'lyge on the table.
"You still don't believe me, do you?" he said. He rubbed the
lacy cloth between his thumb and forefinger. "I tell you only the
truth of things, Holder. Let me ask you another question. What
would you do if I let you leave now? Where would you go if
there were no answers here?"
Jemi blinked hard, forcing herself into calmness. "I'd try
another way, HeadFather. I'd try another way to find out what
happened to me. I'd do whatever I needed to do. I'll still do
that, no matter what you do."

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One side of Jardien's mouth lifted in a half-smile. "Defi-
ance," he said. "Good. You would have made a better Saliian
than Highlander, Holder. You see, you understand exactly what I
was saying."
Jardien rose, still holding the k'lyge. "You give me problems
that I'd rather not have," he told them. "I have to think about all
this. You'll stay here tonight. Tomorrow I'll tell you what I've
decided."
He started to leave the room, taking all but two of the guards
with him. "HeadFather," Jemi called to him. "My k'lyge—"
He looked down at the cloth and wire apparatus in his hand.
With a violent motion, he crumpled it into a ball in his fist.
"Whatever I decide, you'll not be needing this again. Holder.
Get used to being without it—it only allowed you to hide away
from yourself."
The door closed behind him.
Ardent and Jemi were put into separate rooms on another level
of the building. The doors were left unlocked, and the woman
who'd escorted Jemi to the room began walking away, obviously
not caring that no guard was set. When Jemi remarked on that,
the woman grinned and shook her head. "Where would you go,
Holder? Do you know where the oxy-packs are kept? Can you
drive our vehicles? Do you think you'd survive ten minutes
outside the dome?" She chuckled, touching the surgically im-
planted tube in her nose. "Mars herself is quite an effective
jailer, Holder. Leave the room and we'll find you or your corpse
eventually."
The room was spartan—a gelbed and a stone table the only
furnishings. There were no windows, the only light coming from
a weak glowtube set in the ceiling. Jemi lay on the bed with her
hands behind her head, letting the slow waves rock her. After a
time, not realizing how exhausted she was, she drifted from the
reverie into a dream-filled, restless sleep.
Kenis was there, as he always seemed to be, an older Kenis
than the one she remembered, the pudginess of his toddler stage
gone, the lines of his body thinning out to reveal a wiry, athletic
child. Ken and Doni were playing some game in the corridors of
Starfire: chasing each other, giggling and laughing the entire

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time. Jemi watched from the control seat as they darted in and
out of the navigational compartment. "Ken," she called out.
"Be careful, please. I don't want you falling."
The blond head turned to her. "We're not on a world, Mom,"
he said, his voice incongruously that of Gavin Jardien. "I can't
fall here."
"The boy's intelligent," said someone with the accent of a
T'Raijek, and Jemi turned to see an alpha male floating in the air
alongside her, one younger in appearance than Ardent. The
T'Raijek lofted what looked to be an smooth chunk of quartz
from hand to hand, his long, knobby fingers swaying. "You
should be proud of him."
"1 am." He handed her the crystal. Jemi took it. It felt warm,
smooth; when she peered into one of the facets, there were
swirling, tiny lights flickering in its depths. "So much pain for
this," she murmured.
"It contains knowledge, and that's life itself." The slurred,
lisping voice could only be Doni.
"Your job is to take care of Kenis and help me run the ship,"
Jemi scolded the vivicate.
"You still don't see what it means," Doni answered. His
features seemed to slide from that of the T'Raijek and back—
Jemi could not tell which was which. The vivicate/alpha held up
the crystal, then slapped it down into his open palm. There was a
faint click, as if the crystal had struck a ring on one of his
fingers, and the dream faded away into darkness.
She came from the dream feeling troubled and upset. There
was an undertone of threat as well, as if adrenaline were being
pumped into her. She blinked, but that changed nothing. The
room was totally dark, the ceiling light extinguished. Her other
senses gave her a sense of place: the sheets rustling softly, the
faint gurgle of the gelbed, the sheets cool under her hands. Jemi
lay still, wondering what it was that had awakened her. She held
her breath, trying to pierce the murk, trying to find what had
taken her from the dream.
She thought she heard the softest scrape of a footstep near
where the door would be. "Ardent?" she whispered. Her feeling
of dread increased. With a sudden move, she rolled from the
gelbed to the floor.

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Stephen Leigh
The motion saved her.
Blinding violet light cut a swath over the bed, leaving shim-
mering afterimages and a smell of scorched plastic and acrid
steam. Jemi shouted and flung herself to where she thought her
attacker might be, knowing that he must be able to see in this
darkness, knowing that in another moment he'd find her. She
collided with someone who flung her aside despite her clawing
hands, slamming her hard into a wall. The impact knocked the
breath from her. Jemi struggled to rise and move.
The door was flung open, throwing a wedge of illumination
into the room. Shadows moved in that light, someone shouted.
The laser fired again—a voice cursed, and the odor of burning
flesh filled the room. Jemi felt hands under her arms, and she
struggled even as they tried to lift her.
"Holder," a voice said. With the dream's vision still in her
head, she thought first of Kenis, then realized that the speaker
was Gavin Jardien. "Please. It's over. You're safe."
Jemi leaned against the wall and shaded her eyes against the
light. The laser still threw shifting lines across her vision, fading
slowly through the colors of the spectrum. The room was crowded
with Jardien and two other guards. There was a dark form
huddled on the floor which she deliberately avoiding looking at.
"The laser—" she began.
"He's dead. He killed himself when we came in," Jardien told
her. "He's from one of the other families, probably Shiolev from
the look of him."
The overpowering odors in the room nauseated Jemi. With the
k'lyge, she could have hidden her disgust; without it, she could
only clench her jaw as she glanced at the crumpled form on the
floor of the room. The man was young, perhaps in his twenties,
with a vaguely Slavic look to his broad face. The muscular arms
were sprawled out, the stubby tube of the laser gun lay over his
legs. There was a long, irregular burn line through his dark
clothing, beginning at the left side of his chest and trailing
diagonally down to his right hip. There was no blood, but the
scene was no less gruesome for that.
Jardien was looking at her appraisingly. "You should be dead,"
he said gruffly.
"Are you disappointed?" She didn't bother to hide the sarcasm.

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He grunted. "You're more resilient—or luckier—than 1 thought,
Holder. I'll tell you again that you should have been of Salii."
He reached down and look the laser from the assassin's body. He
held it as if he were used to its heft. The man's colorless,
unblinking gaze went from the weapon to Jemi. Small muscles
twitched under his eyes. "You saved me from a great shame,
Holder. I owe you for that. Family Jardien owes you. If you
would ever want to join us, we would welcome you. This should
not have happened—1 don't know how this man found you."
"Here's how, HeadFather," a voice answered from outside
the room. Another of Jardien's guards stood there. Her arms
supported a pasty-faced man, bleeding from cuts on his forehead,
the oxy-tube torn from his nose, one eye socket a ruin, and the
puffy face a mass of bruises. She shoved the man forward, and
he stumbled into the room, going down on his knees before
Jardien. The man stayed there, his head down. "I found Enrico
in the south elevator," the woman said. "The assassin killed two
guards at the south entrance to get into the city. Then he found
Enrico in one of the computer stations and subdued him. He beat
him, trying to learn where he could find the Holder." The
woman glanced down at Enrico, and Jemi was surprised to see
disgust in her face. The raw hatred in that look startled Jemi:
there was no sympathy there for the man who was obviously in
great pain, only utter scorn. "Enrico told him," she spat out.
The kneeling man's shoulders shook as the guard said the
words. "HeadFather," he said, "he—he took my eye. He seemed
to enjoy my pain. He said that he would do worse if—if I didn't
tell him. I—" The head started to come up, didn't. "I'm sorry,
HeadFather. I was weak."
Jardien suddenly kicked Enrico, who groaned and fell to his
side, clutching his stomach and retching.
"No!" Jemi shouted as Jardien's foot came back for another
blow. Jardien stopped, looked at her.
"He almost caused you to be killed. He failed to do what he
was supposed to do. He knows it, he expects punishment." There
was little inflection in his voice, as if he were simply telling her
the obvious.
"You don't need to cause him more pain."
"Would you have felt that way if you'd been wounded in the

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Stephen Leigh
attack? Would you feel that way toward the persons who caused
your son to die?"
"1 don't know," Jemi answered honestly. "But I wasn't hurt.
There's been enough pain and death tonight. I don't want any
more."
Jardien shrugged. "As you wish, Holder," he said. He ges-
tured to his guards. "Get him up." Two of them shouldered
their weapons and pulled the man to his feet. He swayed in their
grasp, facing Jardien, who grabbed Enrico's chin and pulled his
head up.
"You owe your life to the Holder," he told the man. "She
owns you now." He let the head drop. "Get him out of here.
Clean him up and take care of his wounds. I want him healthy so
he can best serve the Holder. Get rid of the body too—put it in
the processor; it'll be good fertilizer."
As people moved to follow Jardien's command, he nodded to
Jemi. "We waste nothing here, Holder. Everything is precious."
"I don't want your Enrico."
Jardien shrugged. "That's your choice. We can make other
uses of him—we don't kill here unless we have to." He sighed,
stretched under his furs. "You'll be safe now. I'll see to it or
take Enrico's place myself. Sleep, Holder. We'll talk in the
morning, you and I and the T'Raijek."
He turned to one of the guards. "Cara, show the Holder to
another apartment."
With that, he turned and left.
After a glance back into the chaos of the room, Jemi followed
Cara out into the corridors.

The only trouble with this future of ours is that it looks iust
like the past. It's hung around so long it's gotten all shabby
and dirty, and there ain't any money to buy it a new fancy
suit. So much for vision. About the only good thing we can
say is that we haven't blown ourselves to kingdom come yet.
1 suppose we'll get to that sooner or later.
—an aside from UCN Head MacWilliams
to U.S. President Hughes at a banquet,
February 27, 2170.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Holder, I think we can offer you some of the help you
need." HeadFather Jardien told her over breakfast.
Across the table from Jemi, Ardent glowered. "Just be sure
that you see all the strings attached to his offer, Jemi."
"I'm in the Holder's debt, T'Raijek," Jardien answered
smoothly. "There aren't any strings. All I'm offering her is fair
payment."
"What do you have in mind?" Jemi interrupted. Since she'd
awakened this morning and been ushered into this dining room,
she'd heard little but Ardent and Gavin Jardien's sparring. She
was tired of it. She had no stomach for the food before her; the
violence of the night before had destroyed any hunger.
Gavin Jardien ate with a huge appetite. He put a large forkful
of what looked to be eggs into his mouth, stuffed toast in after it.
He swallowed, and touched his lips with a napkin, brushing
crumbs from the ever-present furs. He reached for his glass of
water. "We have no answers for you here. Holder. You'll have
to trust me in that, I'm afraid—there's no other way. By your
own admission, you can't go back to Highland, and in any case
Highland is far too small for you to stay there unnoticed." He
137

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Stephen Leigh
shrugged. "You've hardly touched your food, Holder—is there
something wrong with it?"
"I'm not hungry," Jemi told him. "It happens every time
someone gets killed in my room."
"That sarcasm makes you sound like your T'Raijek compan-
ion, Holder. You've spent too much time with him."
"I'll grant you that, HeadFather," Jemi answered. She pre-
tended not to notice Ardent's scowl. "And you don't seem to be
leaving me much of an option here."
"You want to discover the truth?" Jardien asked, and Jemi
nodded curtly. "Then you have only one path. Highland is
closed to you. Salii is innocent." Jardien raised a hand as both
Jemi and Ardent began a protest. "I know; that last statement
can't be proven, but it's still true. I rule here. None of the other
Families had the ships, either at the time of the crystal's loss or
when your ship was attacked. Going to Family Shiolev or Cole
wouldn't gain you a thing, and the other Families support me
entirely. You must go back to Earth."
He tucked a muffin oozing butter into his mouth, looking at
them expectantly.
Ardent was the first to react. His laugh was a disconcerting, high
cackling. "What's she supposed to do, Jardien? Paint her ship a
different color and dye her hair? You think they won't recognize
the welds they put in? You know they'll get her. She'll be caught
thirty seconds after she docks, if they don't simply blow up her
ship beforehand." The little alien leaned back on his high stool,
roaring.
"You're not saying anything, Holder," Jardien noted.
"I'm waiting to hear the rest," she said.
A slow grin spread over his face at that. "Good. I like you
more and more, Jemi Charidilis. What the T'Raijek suggested
would, of course, be suicide. I wouldn't be so stupid as to
suggest it. You remember our talk of yesterday—to gain, you
must pay a price. There is a price for you to pay here, as well."
"I'm still listening."
Jardien pushed a forkful of yolk around his plate but did not
eat it. The clatter of steel on pottery accented his words. "You
must give up your ship—she's far too easy to spot, no matter
how much we did to alter her, and the navy will be watching

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Salii for any ships leaving. They know your ship is here—it must
stay here."
"The ship is all 1 have, HeadFather. It's everything." Jemi
was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. Inside, that lost part
of her railed at the thought of losing Starfire, but she knew that
what Jardien said was true.
"Your ship will become Family Jardien's, because it has no-
where else it can go. In return, Holder, I'll have you taken to
Earth."
"You're no more welcome there than she is," Ardent broke
in.
"You know Salii better than to think we'd come openly,
T'Raijek," Jardien said. "Beyond that, I won't dignify your
objection. We have our own people operating on Earth—we can
get her down safely." He turned back to Jemi. "We can alter
your appearance here. It needn't be much, mind you. Just enough
so that you're not immediately recognizable. We'll have false
papers drawn up for you in another name. I will give you
contacts on Earth in various cities. You'll be able to use them at
need. You'll take my former brother Enrico with you: he knows
computer systems well enough to be of use to you in tracking
down the information you want and his life is forfeit to you
anyway. It's a good offer, I think."
"I'm supposed to trust you?"
Jardien smiled. His laugh was deep and genuine. "Holder, do
you have a choice?"
"You could just happen to tip off the navy that this ship of
yours was coming in. You could sell me to them in exchange for
other favors. You could give me a list of what are supposed to be
my contacts and I'd find that none of them exists. Enrico could
be less than useless to me. Even if I did succeed in finding out
something, I'd be on Earth, stuck."
Jardien seemed unflustered. "I don't betray my own. I wouldn't
waste a ship to harm you, and you overestimate your worth to
the UCN. I'm putting my own people at risk by giving you their
names. And I wouldn't leave you without a way back."
"All for my ship. In payment of this debt you feel that you
owe after last night." Disbelief colored her tone.
"Not just for the ship," Jardien answered. He smiled. "You'll

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Stephen Leigh
also be a courier. You'll be carrying back information our people
have gathered."
"I'll be a traitor to the UCN, in other words."
Jardien laughed. "Highland's not known as a home of patri-
ots, Holder. You use vivicates despite the UCN's outward dislike
for that type of slavery. And I've already noted that your loyalty
to the home world isn't so great that you'd give yourself up to its
justice."
She wouldn't debate that point. "What else, HeadFather?
Certainly you needn't put your undercover agents at risk merely
for the sake of bringing some information back—you must have
courier systems already in place. What else am I supposed to
do?"
Jardien let his fork clatter to the plate. He shoved the dish
away from him and leaned his elbows on the table. He stared at
Jemi; she wished she had her k'lyge to reduce the intensity of
that gaze. "I see a great potential in you, Holder. I see a person
who will not let go of her goal. I see someone who will have
answers no matter what the cost. You will eventually have your
answers, Holder. You'll know who destroyed your life and why.
When you learn that, you may well learn where the crystal
is—and / want that crystal. It's simple enough. I'm gambling that
the crystal's worth the price of a few of our agents within the
UCN." He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands on his
ample lap.
Jemi knew that she'd made her decision long ago. Still, she sat
silent for a moment, glancing first at Jardien, then at Ardent.
Finally, she nodded. "Deal."
Jardien smiled broadly, Ardent scowled. The T'Raijek slapped
the table with an open palm, causing silverware to jump. "Then
I'm going with you."
"Now who's being foolish?" Jardien scoffed. "You think that
we can change your appearance enough? Go sit with your
ClanMother in the embassy, Hlidskjalff." He laughed and glanced
pointedly at the bulge of Ardent's codpiece. "Go screw your
omegas while you still have a chance," he said.
Ardent's face flushed at that, the orangish tone going darker
and the wrinkled skin of the bald skull smoothing. His body

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141
tensed, as if he would spring for Jardien. "Hlidskjalff made a
mistake thinking that they could ally with you," he said.
"Alliances are the whores of diplomacy, T'Raijek. One uses
them if one must, pays the price, and conveniently forgets them.
I know you well enough to suspect that it's the same with you,
eh?"
They glared at each other. Slowly, Ardent sat back down. He
canted his head toward Jemi, his angry, dark gaze fixed on her
face. "Do you agree with him?"
"I don't know."
"1 did save your life, in the beginning."
"You keep reminding me of that."
"Then give me the chance to do it again. I'm chasing the same
past."
Jemi sighed. "All right," she said. Ardent's sidelong glance at
Jardien was triumphant.
"Holder," Jardien said, "what good can the T'Raijek do you?
He's a liability."
"I won't stay with her," Ardent answered for Jemi. "I have
my own resources. She has to go into the cities to find what she's
looking for. In the cities, even I can stay hidden."
"They'll catch you and take her down with you," Jardien
insisted.
"They won't," Ardent retorted.
"It's my decision," Jemi broke in angrily. "Mine. Do you
understand that, both of you?" Jemi pushed her chair back from
the table and stood up, pacing the room. "I'm tired of it. I'm
tired of being caught up in these damn games. All I want is to
know what happened to me and to Kenis. The rest—" She
swung her hands in resignation, swiveling to face them again.
"Maybe I can care about all the rest later."
She shook her head at Ardent. "If you want to go with me,
you can. Or stay. I don't care which. How soon can your ship be
ready, HeadFather?"
"A few days," Jardien replied. "No more than that."
"Fine. Find me at that point. Until then, I'd rather not hear
anything about it." Jemi swung open the doors to the dining
room, startling the ever-present guards, and slammed them shut
behind her as she stalked off.

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Stephen Leigh
"She has a wonderful power in her," Jardien commented to
Ardent as the reverberations died. "She's like the winds of this
planet—they rage and sweep away anything that tries to stop
them."
"You'd better hope that you've told her the truth then, Jardien,"
Ardent replied. "Because if you haven't, she'll be back and
you'll have to pay her price."
Within a few days, Jemi's hair had been drastically shortened
and straightened in a close-cropped style fashionable on earth.
Her hair color was lightened, the shape of her face accentuated
and exaggerated with makeup. Contacts altered the shade of her
eyes; her eyebrows were trimmed to slim, high arcs. Jemi found
that the change, oddly enough, didn't have a great deal of effect
on her. The Jemi she was used to seeing in mirrors was always
hidden behind a k'lyge. Her true face, naked and reflected back
to her, would have been no less startling than this one. It was quite
easy to come to think of this altered Jemi as the only one.
She only wondered what Kenis might have thought of the
alteration, whether he might have cared. Beyond that, it made no
difference to her; in some ways, it symbolized her break with her
old life. By the time they were ready to depart, she was quite
used to the new image that stared back at her in the morning. It
was harder, more sharp-edged than her former self, but somehow
it seemed to suit.
They left Mars and Salii in a licensed trader ship taking ore to
the processors of Highland. Two days out from Salii, the freighter
dumped some of its garbage—in that mass was a small lifepod,
which began transmitting a pulsed signal after several hours.
Within another day, a small and fast Saliian cruiser had picked
up the pod and its occupants. The cruiser immediately set course
for Earth, refueling once at a secret rendezvous several days out
from Earth. Within two weeks, the cruiser was nearing lunar
orbit, slowing and probing with sophisticated sensors at the area
before it. Evading the routine naval patrols was simple enough—
the cruiser was packed with electronics to scramble incoming
signals and render her transparent to radar and other detectors.
But she could not land in Earth's gravity well and leave again.

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For that, Jemi, her two companions, and a pilot were placed in a
tiny airfoiled scout and dropped from the cruiser. The scoutcraft,
painted satin black and difficult to see against the backdrop of
space, blinked its running lights on and then off again in a quick
salute to the cruiser. Then the ferocious kick of its engines
pinned the occupants to their seats as the tiny ship darted toward
Earth.
It was more difficult to pass the screen of orbital defense
screens erected two centuries earlier and added to sporadically in
the last century. Originally, the web of defense satellites had
been intended to be used against weapons and ships in a global
war. With the coming of the UCN and a cessation of national
hostilities, that screen had been turned to an outward defense
against Salii or any unknown aggressor. Admittedly, the system
was antiquated and in bad repair. The T'Raijek openly mocked
it—the first T'Raijek vessel to arrive in Earth orbit had, in a
completely offhand manner, entirely disabled the network within
fifteen minutes before proceeding leisurely on its course.
It was not so easy for the Saliian scout. The pilot put them
through a series of high-g turns, twisting and accelerating as he
plummeted toward the blue-and-white sphere beneath them. With
the nose of the craft pointed directly at Earth, he cut the engines,
leaving them in an aching, fearful silence. Then there was noth-
ing, only a straight run at the planet as the craft's electronics kept
up a blinking display before them. The Family Jardien pilot
watched the readouts carefully, his hands on the controls. "A bit
of useless reassurance for me," he told them. " 'Cause if one of
the suckers decides we're something that needs to be taken care
of, we'll be gone before I even start to light the torches again."
"That's a pleasant thought," Ardent commented.
"Ain't it," the pilot drawled. "Keep it—if they do see us, it'll
be the last thought you'll ever have."
As the first touch of the atmosphere began to transform the
forward shields into a glowing orange inferno, the pilot heaved a
sigh of relief, the relief in tension visible as he rubbed knotted
shoulder muscles. "That's over," he said, looking back at his
trio of passengers. "None of the satellites bothered to turn us into
scrap metal, so I don't expect company on the ground. I'm

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Stephen Leigh
letting her come in like any piece of junk: a dead drop until we're
under the defense umbrella, then I'll shift her away. We're
coming down nightside—if anything, they'll see us as a meteor."
"You do this often?" Jemi asked the man.
"Two times—this'n's the third."
"Do the other pilots say it gets easier the more often you try
it?"
"Don't know," he answered dryly. "Nobody's done it more'n
me. Eventually, there comes a time when you don't make your
rendezvous with the cruiser." He shrugged.
There seemed to be nothing else to say to that.
LEDs went from red to orange to green on the console before
the pilot. The pilot kicked in the engines once more, making a
slow looping bank. They could feel the tug of the world's gravity
as he flattened the craft's glide. "I'll be dropping you near the
coast. Make sure you have all your papers. After I get rid of you
folks, I'm going to go to ground with this hunk of metal, and I
won't be back until I get your call or you go beyond the last day
for pickup. I ain't gonna wait for you beyond that, either. If you
call, make sure you're somewhere remote—I won't come near
the cities with this crate. You get to me, call, or make up your
minds that you like it here on this mudball. Okay? You've got
about five minutes. Make sure your chutes are ready." He
grinned at them. "And thank you for flying Salii Airways."
"Yeah. Great," muttered Ardent.
The scoutcraft slowed, ever closer to the night-shrouded ground
below, until the engines cut once again as it swooped below the
level of clouds. Jemi, Ardent, and Enrico gathered at the hatch,
their possessions in backpacks, the chute packs bulky around
them. The pilot touched a switch on his console and the hatch
opened in a rush of cold wind.
A spray of stinging droplets lashed their faces.
"Wonderful," Ardent muttered. "It's raining. I'd forgotten
why I liked worlds so much."
The address given to her by Jardien turned out to be a modest
home in Mamaroneck, not too far from the harbor and with easy
access to the old north-south direct monorail to New York that

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
145
the older residents still referred to as 95, though there had been
no ground traffic on the route in a century.
"I'm Alicia Colter," Jemi told the pleasant-looking young
woman who answered their knock. "And this is William Ruther-
ford," she added, using the names on the false papers given to
them by Gavin Jardien. "I think you're expecting us."
"Yes, we are." The nonchalance of the woman's voice sur-
prised Jemi. She sounded as if she were greeting her neighbors,
and the smile she gave them seemed natural and easy, though it
wavered at seeing the patch over Enrico's eye. She was a little
overweight, wearing a shabby pantsuit. She looked as if there
were no guile or violence in her at all. "Please come in."
The woman stepped back from the door, giving Jemi and
Enrico a view of a small living room with well-worn but comfort-
able furniture. "I'm Helen Martelli," the woman said, brushing
strands of wispy, dry brown hair from her eyes and smiling at
them with obvious nervousness. "My husband George and I . . .
we've been waiting to hear from you."
A older man appeared in the archway leading into the next
room, holding a faxsheet in one hand and attired in an old plaid
dressing gown. Below the hem were bare legs and felt slippers.
He was tall, a little stooped, almost professorial. He went over to
Helen and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her once.
They smiled at each other, kissed with the familiarity of old
lovers. The affection gave Jemi a twinge of regret. She may have
had lovers in the last two years. If she had, they were gone, lost
with the rest of her life. After she had kicked Hams out, she'd
retreated into herself, letting only Kenis inside the armor around
her emotions. She had many times thought that she might have
missed something, cutting herself off from love in that way.
George sat next to Helen on the couch and put his arm around
her. His fingers idly rubbed her shoulder. As agents of Salii, they
seemed uncommonly meek. Jemi wondered if there'd not been
some mistake.
Following the identification procedure that HeadFather Jardien
had given them, she went to a bookcase and examined the titles
there—-real books, the spines crinkled from reading, the paper
smelling of dust and time. "I see you read Burroughs," Jemi
said.

146
Stephen Leigh
The woman flashed that nervous smile again. "We especially
like the Tarzan series," she answered, following the pattern.
"We don't get the chance to read much anymore, though,"
the man commented.
"It's that way for all of us," Enrico said, completing the
exchange. George hugged Helen again and tossed his faxsheet
on one of the chairs. Some hidden tension seemed to have
dropped from the air. Helen nodded to Jemi. "You've come a
long way," she said. "Can 1 get you coffee or something? Then
we'll see what we can do for you."
The smile she gave Jemi was genuine and unplanned. Slowly,
Jemi felt the tension of the last several days easing. She was
here; she would find what answers she could. For Kenis, for
herself.
She sighed, running her fingers down the spines of the paper-
jacketed books.
"That would be nice," she answered.
They discovered that George and Helen had been on Earth for
twenty years, in New York for fifteen. George taught at New
York University; Helen worked as an office manager in one of
the myriad departments within the UCN administration building
in Manhattan. Throughout the chatter that accompanied the cof-
fee and snacks that George brought out from the kitchen, Jemi
had the increasing feeling that this was hopeless. These two were
small couriers, but little else. They seemed comfortable with
their lives here. Jardien had given her no help at all. The Martellis
were nice, they were almost normal; that was the problem.
"We actually like it well enough," George said. "We've
occasionally done a few things for The Cause"—his voice added
the capitals—"but mostly we've been left alone. It surprised us
when the message came that said you'd be arriving, that we
were your primary contacts."
You've been given the aid of amateurs. You've been aban-
doned again. "You've been here all that time?" Jemi asked.
"Yes," George answered. "We have our friends here; we do
what everyone else does."
"Children?"

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
147
A shadow passed over both of their faces at that, freezing the
polite smiles they wore. "No children," George answered at
last. "Not now, not here." Jemi could see that she'd touched a
raw nerve with that, and empathy made her want to ask more. I
can see your grief, I can understand it. Tell me so we can cry
together. Let me understand. But she couldn't say it. She could
only nod when Helen quickly changed the subject.
"I'll take William and you in with me to work tomorrow
night," the woman said. "I have papers identifying both of you
as consulting programmers—that'll be enough for the night guard,
along with my authorization. You can do what you need to there,
but it'll have to be done quickly. When we get home, we'll get
ready to leave—we'll be going with you to the pickup." Jemi
could see the unasked question beneath the words. They're blow-
ing our cover for this one. We were deep-buried, we were safe.
HeadFather Jardien must feel he's getting value for our loss.
What is it? Why are we being sacrificed for you?
She wanted to answer them. They seemed to be genuinely
caring. There was sympathy in the way Helen looked at Jemi, at
the sisterly way in which she touched her arm as they talked over
coffee. Maybe it's for nothing, she wanted to tell them. Most
likely you're being sacrificed to placate the T'Raijek, so that
Jardien can stay in good with them. We're all pawns here,
overpowered and weak in comparison to the other pieces on the
board.
But she said nothing. She made her excuses and stood up to go
to George's study, given to Jemi as a bedroom for the night. She
felt a gnawing sense of loss, of frustration. Before, she might
have called Kenis when she felt that need, might have hugged
him until he pushed her away with an exasperated "Mommy!"
But there was no Kenis, was no Harris, no Doni. Only herself.
As Jemi left the room, Helen called out to her: "Alicia." Jemi
didn't immediately tum, as she would have at the sound of her
own name. She hesitated, then smiled back to Helen. "Yes?"
"You're a Highlander, aren't you." It was phrased more as a
statement than a question.
For a moment, Jemi was dumbfounded. She could feel the
false nonchalance of her shrug. "How did you know?"

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Stephen Leigh
"You did this as we were talking." Helen moved her finger-
tips across her face as if sliding a veil across the k'lyge. "You
have faint calluses in either side of your temple from where the
k'lyge sat all the time, and you have their way of averting your
eyes at any hint of emotion. Small things, Alicia, but you should
be aware of them. Remember that we're all in the business of
being more than we seem. HeadFather usually knows what he's
doing."
Jemi knew there was a second message being given. She could
only nod. "I'll remember," she said. "Good night."
She was still awake, lying in the darkness, when she heard the
soft knock. She pulled the covers over her and whispered,
"Come."
The door opened, spilling light from the hall into the room.
She saw Enrico silhouetted against the glare, then the door closed
again, leaving the image moving across the back of her eyes. She
felt the bed move as he sat down near her feet.
"They're taking quite a risk for us," he said without preamble.
"I know."
"They lost parents to the navy, both of them, in childhood.
They were on a freighter that the navy mistook for a cruiser.
HeadFather Jardien had them sent here not long after. They were
raised by agents we'd had here for years, and they were never
allowed to forget what the UCN did."
"And you Saliians never kill any parents when you blow up a
ship, is that right? You have missiles that only hit single people."
Jemi could sense Enrico's shrug.
"It'd be easier to hate an enemy who was utterly evil, or to
choose sides when the choices are black and white, but that's
never the case, is it? All you can do is choose for yourself, as
best you can. Saliians are brought up to be loyal. We're a small
community with a shared ideology. We're taught it from birth;
it's not something we question. Overall, I think we're probably
more in the right than the UCN. I think the Clan Hlidskjalff made
the right choice deciding to trust us, even if that hasn't worked
out."
Jemi felt something land on the bed. She reached out to touch

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149
a small plastic cube. "That's something I stole from the Jardien
computers," Enrico explained. "I thought you'd like to see it,
but I can tell you what's there. There wasn't a Saliian ship
anywhere near you when you were attacked. There wasn't even a
Saliian cruiser out at that time. The craft that attacked you wasn't
one of ours. Look at the data—there's a terminal on the desk in
here."
"You tell me that after your little speech about loyalty and
expect me to believe it?"
"I was given to you, remember? My loyalty's yours now.
Believe it or not, Jemi, it's true. And I'll find out what I can
tomorrow as well."
The bed jiggled as Enrico rose. She heard him pad across the
floor and turn the door handle. The patch was a darker shadow
on his face. Warm yellow light moved over the bed. "Look at
the data," he said. "I stole it just as it is—HeadFather Jardien
doesn't lie. If you were his enemy, he'd do what he had to do,
but he wouldn't hesitate to tell you that." He waited a moment.
Jemi said nothing, her fingers still clutching the cube. "One
other thing," Enrico added. "The man who attacked you last
time you were in New York—he was one of our agents. But I
couldn't find anything to indicate that he'd been ordered to kill
you or even to contact you."
"HeadFather Jardien didn't bother to mention that to me."
"You didn't ask. I said he'd tell you the truth. I didn't say he
wouldn't hide what he could, and I didn't say he was perfect."
Jemi nodded. "I'll look at it, Enrico."
"Uh-huh." The door started to swing shut. The night moved
across the wall, and Jemi felt a hopeless emptiness.
"Enrico," Jemi said with a sudden impulse.
"Yes?"
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
"I owe you, Holder. I almost caused your death. This is only
interest on the principal, huh?"
"You don't owe me anything. Not really."
"You got a raw deal in the last year or so, Holder. If I can
make up for some of that, I will."
Jemi didn't know how to respond to that. She sat on the bed,

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Stephen Leigh
cradling the cube to her and staring at the blank darkness in front
of her. "Enrico," she said before he could close the door.
"Would you . . . would you want to stay with me tonight? I
think I could use the company, someone to hold. I'm not asking
for anything more than that. Just companionship."
He didn't reply. The door closed; she could see nothing. For a
second, Jemi thought that perhaps he'd already gone. Then she
heard his soft breath. "Sometimes I think I can't feel anything
anymore," she whispered. "I'm so damn out of practice."
She felt the bed move as he came in beside her. There was a
warmth at her side, though he didn't touch her. His voice was
rough and pleasant. "I could use the company, too," he said.
"We're both a little lost, huh?"

There isn't a nasty, horrible inhumanity we can think of
that we haven't already done to one another. Maybe that's
one of the reasons we have such a hard time conceiving of a
truly different and better world. None of our images of Uto-
pia match those of our neighbors. Hell, look at the T'Raijek—
for all their technological superiority, do they seem any happier
than us?
We're much better at constructing hell rather than heaven.
—comment by amateur sociological
analyst on "Open Forum Holo."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Commander Nys glared at the report in front of him as if his
scowl could erase the words printed there. He looked up to find
an amused expression on the face of the Office of Internal Affairs
lieutenant who'd brought the report; that expression vanished
when Nys's stare fixed on him.
"You're certain that Charidilis is back in the UCN, Lieutenant
Perez?" Nys snapped.
"Her ship was tracked heading toward Salii, Commander."
Perez cursed the impulse that had made him smile as he'd
watched Nys skim the report. You'll catch it now, as if the fact
that I wrote the damn thing makes me personally responsible for
the content. "She was monitored talking with Salii Port, request-
ing to be met by Gavin Jardien—OIA sent you a transcript of that
conversation, as I recall." There. Maybe that'll placate the cold
bastard and make him realize that we're doing what we can.
"Our agents within Family Cole confirmed her arrival there.
Charidilis was escorted to Jardien's city on the surface. We know
that she hasn't been seen in the two months since then. Starfire
151

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Stephen Leigh
has remained empty and unvisited, guarded by Family Jardien
members. That's unlike the woman."
"That doesn't mean she's here."
"Commander, we have reports that a Jardien pirate ship was
lurking in near lunar orbit a few days ago. They don't come in
that close unless there's good reason, and two months is about
how long it would take Charidilis to come from Mars under high
acceleration. We both know the fallibility of the satellite defenses—
the orbital fence can be penetrated."
Nys snorted. He punched a contact on the side of his desk and
part of the wall slid back to reveal a viewscreen, with the
half-globe of a shadowed earth hanging there. The North Ameri-
can continent was beyond the umbra now. Dawn raced eastward
across the Urals. " 'The orbital fence can be penetrated.' " Nys
snorted, throwing the lieutenant's words back at him, laced with
sarcasm. "That's the understatement of the day, Lieutenant Perez.
The defensive screen's a huge, expensive, and outmoded joke.
We're trying to hold back tanks with muskets and spears, and we
don't have the budget to fix it. A halfway smart ape could figure
out ways around it. And none of this speculation by your depart-
ment has any proof to go with it, does it?"
Perez allowed himself an inward sigh, keeping his
features locked in neutrality. Exaggerating as usual, aren't we,
Commander? "That's not all, sir. We had a report of a large
meteor from several radar tracking stations in the southern hemi-
sphere. By all indications, portions of it should have reached
ground, but we can't find any fragments at all. We've looked.
There should have some grounding of a rock that big."
"You're saying it was a Jardien shuttle?"
"Possibly, Commander. Add it together, and it all makes
sense. Charidilis can't go back to Highland, and while it's con-
ceivable that she's been kept on Mars by Jardien, I think that it's
more likely she's continued on after she's learned what she could
from the HeadFather. Which leaves her only one option."
"To come back here."
Isn't it nice to know that your superiors can state the obvious,
too. My two-year-old daughter could have done the same. "Yes,
Commander."
"And what are your orders regarding this report?"

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
153
"The Office of Internal Affairs has alerted all civil authorities
onworld. The description of the woman's been circulated, and all
governmental agencies are on a stage-one alert. We've told the
T'Raijek embassy here, and they've furnished us with a list of
the names and locations of all their alpha males onworld who are
not within the embassy itself. If she's found, she's to be appre-
hended. She's listed as armed and dangerous since the incidents
on Highland."
Nys nodded. Perez wished he could read the man. He'd known
the Commander since his assignment to Uphill Port. In that time,
he'd rarely seen the man show much outward emotion—that was
most of the reason he'd been pleased to see the obvious chagrin
on the Commander's face when he'd first read the report on his
desk. Now the Commander had bottled himself up again, sitting
stiffly at his desk with his hands laid primly before him, as
proper and formal as the flower arrangement that sat on the file
behind him, as stylized as the Japanese prints on the wall. "Tell
me. Lieutenant, do you have any theories on why the Charidilis
woman has been so, ahh, elusive?"
"1 suspect that she's a trained agent, probably Saliian all
along, Commander. We know that they have some deep-cover
operatives within the UCN."
There was nothing readable on Nys's face. He might as well
have been wearing a mask. "I wonder, Lieutenant," he said
softly. "I think you might overestimate the situation. She may be
nothing more than she's claimed to be—a woman trying to find
out what happened to her son. It could simply be that she's tired
of being manipulated."
"An innocent. Commander?" Perez nearly gave vent to an
incredulous laugh, catching himself at the last moment. "You
can't believe that, Commander, not after all this."
"There's a power in innocence. Lieutenant. Those who have
never had such a quality tend to forget that axiom."
Which means what. Commander Inscrutable?
Despite his thoughts, Perez nodded dutifully. The Command-
er's gaze was directed at the wall behind Perez, and it did not
move. The fixed meditation on nothing seemed almost eerie to
Perez, making him very uncomfortable. "With your permission,
sir?"

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Stephen Leigh
"You may leave. Lieutenant." Softly; a whisper.
As Perez was about to leave the office, Nys stopped him.
"Lieutenant, one more thing, if you please. Has Admiral Strickland
asked for this same report, by chance?"
Perez didn't bother to keep his puzzlement from showing. Now
why in the world would he want to know that? "Why, yes, sir,
he did. He's asked OIA to keep him appraised of anything
pertaining to the Charidilis woman."
Nothing showed on Nys's face. He merely nodded, his hands
folded neatly in the exact center of his desk top, his wide Asian
features composed and neutral. "Thank you, Lieutenant. That
will be all 1 require at the moment."
Jemi was surprised at the ease with which they entered the
UCN building. Only a few lights were on in the offices of the
tower set in the center of downtown Manhattan—mandatory
budgeting measures precluded night hours for the staff unless
absolutely necessary. There were two guards in the lobby: a
balding, rotund man lolling in front of an array of flatscreens
showing various hallways within the building; a much younger
woman leaning back on a battered wooden chair. Between the
two of them stood a small table littered with disposable cups of
coffee and the crumbling remains of pastry. Seeing their ap-
proach, the female guard let the chair drop forward, the metal-
tipped legs scraping against tile. "Evening, Ms. Martelli. Late
night again for you?"
" 'Fraid so, Kathy." Helen smiled at the woman. Jemi tried to
smile as well, nodding. "Mark should have given you the autho-
rization chit."
"He did. Who'd you bring with you?"
"Alicia Colter and William Rutherford. Programming consul-
tants from ICC. They're supposed to get rid of the bugs that have
kept me here at these awful hours."
"Miracle workers, huh?" the guard said, looking at them. Her
gaze was more intense than Jemi had expected, and she had to
resist the compulsion to bring her hand up to the k'lyge that
wasn't there. Think, woman—you're not allowed to have those
old reflexes anymore.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
155
"We hope so," Jemi said. She handed the guard the leather
case Helen had given her that evening. "Here's my ID."
The guard flipped it open, glanced at the holographic image
there and then quickly at Jemi. She did the same with the one
Enrico gave her, then gave his eye-patched face a long, second
look. She tapped the two cases together for a moment. For a
heart-sickening instant, Jemi thought that something had gone
wrong. She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs.
Then Enrico touched a forefinger to the patch. "Infection," he
said. "The doctor said I have to keep this on for another week or
so."
The guard nodded at that and handed the cases back. The
woman gave each of the three of them a plastic clip. "Here's
your building passes—there're only good for your particular
floor, so don't let yourself out of Ms. Martelli's sight, eh? And
I'll need you to sign yourselves in."
Alicia Colter—Jemi scribbled that strange name in the pass-
book ana followed Helen to the elevator in the center of the
lobby. A minute later, having shown their clips to the guard at
the floor desk, they were in the offices. Enrico quickly put on the
temple contacts of the computer and accessed the main program
with the pass-code Helen supplied. "Archaic stuff," he com-
mented, tapping the keyboard and terminal in front of him. He
looked up at Helen with his disconcerting, one-eyed stare. "You're
not using mind-interfaced imagery yet? We've had it on Salii for
years. Saves all the damn keyboard work."
"Not in the budget," Helen answered. "Not for the last
twenty years. Or the next twenty. You don't realize how bad it's
been here."
"Just as well," Enrico commented. "This'll be easier, then.
Except that 1 haven't typed in years." He pulled the keyboard
toward him, and flipped up the screenfoil. "Just so the two of
you can watch, too," he said. The screen filled with code-
strings, and as Enrico tapped the keys, they began to shift and
move. "Hexadecimal," he commented. "I hate it. This stuff
belongs in a museum, not an office. Helen, tell me if you see
something I should know about."
Over the next half hour, they watched as Enrico made his
initial incursion into the system. Bored with watching the endless

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Stephen Leigh
display of meaningless figures, Jemi wandered around the office.
The large room, full of desks and chairs, seemed lonely and too
quiet in the night. The ghosts of the people who worked here still
seemed to lurk—she expected to see someone in one of the chairs
as she passed. The tension bumed in Jemi's stomach; she felt
entirely helpless. She wanted to do something, to have some task
to perform, if only to take her mind off the possibilities.
Brushing against the back of one of the chairs, Jemi felt an
unaccustomed bulge at her hip, and she touched the flat, hard
shape under her waistband. Helen had given her a compact,
plastic-cased gun; now that Jemi had noticed it once more, the
gun's weight dragged at her waist like an accusation. To take her
mind from the possibilities the gun represented, Jemi stared down
at the lights of Manhattan, wondering how the city must have
looked in its glory before the endless economic struggle had
dimmed her lights and made her filthy.
"Okay, that's got us into the part of the net we're after."
Enrico pulled a small flat case from a briefcase he'd brought
along and attached it to one of the ports in back of the terminal.
"Virus program," he said as he connected it. He talked without
looking at them, his gaze on the screen. "Just a bundle of
information. It'll move into residence in the mainframe memory
and start taking out the password cues to the restricted menus and
files, reproducing itself in the files as it goes. At the same time,
it'll be keeping a running tabulation on the content in those files
so that I can make the choice of whether to go in or not. Our
job's mostly to sit and wait—and to hope that our little intruder
doesn't set off alarms buried in the system. Alicia, you have that
list of questions you wanted to ask that weren't on HeadFather
Gavin's list?"
Jemi still gazed out at the panorama of the city. "Alicia?"
Enrico repeated, and Jemi started. You can't even have your own
name now. She slid her hand into a pants pocket, pulled out a
rumpled sheet of paper. "Here," she said sourly, walking over to
him.
"Don't look so pleased that I managed to break in for you,
huh?" Enrico's soft smile took away the sting the words might
have had. Jemi shook her head self-deprecatingly and tried to
smile in return.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
157
"Sorry."
"It's okay, lady. Let's see what we can do for you."
Enrico typed as data scrolled across the screen. Helen and Jemi
leaned over Enrico to watch, Jemi putting her hand on his
shoulder. As she did so, she thought she heard a muffled noise
and jerked away.
"What's the matter?" Helen asked.
"Did you hear that?"
"I didn't hear anything."
Jemi listened for a moment. It was quiet, with only the clatter
of Enrico's fingers on the keyboard. Jemi shook her head. "Noth-
ing. Just jumpy, I guess."
Helen smiled nervously at her. "I can understand that. I feel
the same way. I'll be glad when this is over and we can pick up
George and leave." She shrugged at Jemi. "We don't really
remember Salii; it'll be good to be back there again after—-"
"Here's some of what we're after," Enrico interrupted. "This
is the log of communications from the T'Raijek embassies to the
UCN naval headquarters on Uphill Port. There's rarely anything
coming in from Highland. Yet there's a record of three messages
on April fourth of this year—that's the date you left Highland
before the attack, right?"
"Yes," Jemi confirmed. She leaned closer. "Who did those
go to?"
"Let's see." Enrico touched a key and lines scrolled across
the foil. "There." He pointed. "Admiral Strickland, Eyes Only."
His dark brown eyes glanced back at Jemi. "That say the same
thing to you it says to me?"
Jemi remembered Strickland, recalled how kindly and gentle
the man had been and how softly he'd broken the news of the
attack to her. She remembered the pain in his eyes, the sound of
his voice. Jemi shook her head. "Not him," she insisted, "not
Strickland. It can't be. Maybe someone in his office intercepted
it. Isn't Commander Nys assigned to Uphill? I'd believe it of
him. He tried to keep me away from the T'Raijek. Can you
check to see whether or not the Admiral ever received the
reports?"
Enrico shook his head. "Not from this."
"Then did the messages go to Uphill, or some other way?"

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Stephen Leigh
"Uphill, definitely," Enrico said. "That's the normal route,
I'd think."
"Then Nys or someone else could have intercepted or copied
the communications. Maybe they were never intended for Strickland
at all." That explained it, she was sure. Nys was there, always
there between Strickland and the messages from Highland. Uphill
Port was the hub of the UCN wheel: everything passed through
there. He could see it all.
"There's no way of telling. All 1 have here is a log—we can't
get to the message itself without accessing Uphill, and I don't
dare try that. That's going to be too well protected for my
virus." Enrico's fingers stroked keys; the foil flashed and the log
disappeared to be replaced by another menu. "Any other ideas?"
"Let's try another tack," Jemi said. "We know the T'Raijek
don't have the crystal or Clan Njialjiad wouldn't have bothered
telling the UCN anything. We also assume that the UCN doesn't
know exactly what they're looking for, that all Njialjiad told
them was that it was something of importance to them—they'll
have given the UCN a description of the crystal and they'll have
some minor reward for the UCN if they turn it up, but the crystal
itself is going to have to be returned."
"Fine—and where do we go from there?"
"I know someone's trying to cover up Kenis's death—they
don't want me to look too closely at it. So that's somehow
connected with all this as well. Kenis died in December '69, just
after Njialjiad took over the Highland embassy. Are there any
records of messages between Strickland and the embassy then?"
Again letters danced across the screenfoil. Enrico shook his
head. "No."
Jemi scowled. "Damn. I thought ..." She sighed.
"It would have been a civil matter," Helen commented. "Some-
thing between the Highland authorities and the navy. What about
checking that?"
"You' re right," Jemi said. "Njialjiad wouldn't have necessar-
ily known. Enrico?"
"Already checking." The wait seemed interminable, but after
a few minutes, he leaned back in the chair and gestured at the
screen. "There it is," he said softly. The words glowed softly on
the screenfoil.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
159
To: Commander Nys, Uphill Port—Eyes only
From: Adjunct Michaels, Highland Security
Re: Arrest of Stroiov Shipman Louise Martel, suspicion
homicide
For a moment, Jemi was literally dizzy. Homicide. Without
knowing, she was certain that the murder referred to was Kenis's.
The screen seemed to waver, and she clutched Enrico's shoulder
tightly. Then she took a deep breath. "Nys again," she said,
despite the certainty in her mind.
"You're thinking that it's about your son," Enrico said. His
hand touched hers. "You don't know that."
"It could have been on some other matter," Helen commented.
"Easy enough to find out," Enrico said. "We can access navy
files—if this Martel was accused of killing a Highlander under
normal circumstances, it should be on public record. All we have
to do is check naval court-martial proceedings—it shouldn't even
be classified if it's a routine matter. I might even be able to find
out from here."
He leaned forward, but as he did so, the door to the office was
suddenly flung wide. The three of them whirled around to see a
quartet of men. The gleaming muzzles of automatic weapons
were aimed directly at them.
"Don't move," one of them said tersely. "You're all under
arrest."
But Helen was already reaching under her jacket. In a motion
that surprised Jemi with its suddenness, she brought out her gun
and fired. Jemi cried out.
Then the racket of the guns deafened her.
Ardent had found it easy enough to move within the city. In
any large population center, there were shadows enough and
cover enough to move at night. An alpha male was humanoid
enough and might be taken for a short, fat child in darkness—
from a distance. Yet caution was needed as well. If reports
reached the T'Raijek embassy here that an alpha had been seen,
they would know who it was. There couldn't be more than one or

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two Njialjiad alphas on Earth at any one time. Ardent himself had
killed one of the Njialjiad alphas the night before he'd met
Jemi—a private quarrel. Since then, alphas would be stringently
accounted for, especially since Ardent's escape from Highland.
Have to stay undercover until Jemi and the rest of the apes
makes their move. If the ClanMother here knows for certain that
I've come back, the purge of Hlidskjalff will begin again. More
of the clan will die. Damn ClanMother Hlidskjalff for deciding to
trust the apes. This crystal's been too expensive for all of us.
Ardent moved through the twilight of New York toward the
bulk of the UCN tower. There, he found a convenient alley and
waited. It was two nights later before he finally saw them: two
days of hiding, of cold and hunger, always staying out of sight of
the drunks and derelicts who used the alley as a refuge, passage-
way, and latrine. Two days of dealing with the stench of urine
and decaying garbage. Two days in which he came to hate the
dirt and filth of humanity and yearn for the clean, open dwell-
ings of his home world.
Giving the apes the crystal was supposed to save them, to give
us an ally in the war that will inevitably come. No wonder
Njialjiad thinks that the apes are useless—they see this and
wonder if every world the apes touch will become like this one.
Ardent pulled the knit cap he wore tighter over his head,
staring dourly toward the UCN offices. Two more days. Two
more days and then he'd have to try to make his way alone to
where the Jardien scoutship waited for them. He wondered if he
could really hope to make it there before he was discovered.
Njialjiad wouldn't let him live, not this time. He'd never know if
there were children of his alive within the Clans.
He'd die here on this stinking, polluted, crowded planet. The
humans deserved their death—it was only just. They'd already
proven that they couldn't cope with their own evolutionary suc-
cess. Left alone, evolution would weed them out as it had a
million other species throughout the vast universe. But the T'Raijek
... We deserve to live. We haven't made the stupid mistakes.
We haven't been the aggressors in that war out there. We knew
enough to run.
A familiar walk, a shape he recognized brought Ardent out of
his reverie. Jemi, with Enrico and a woman who must have been

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161
their contact. They went into the UCN building. Ardent brought
a pair of gel lenses from his coat pocket, bringing them before
his eyes and adjusting them to full magnification, peering through
the wide glass windows of the lobby. He watched the trio move
past the guard. As Jemi and her companions nodded and left,
Ardent continued to watch. He frowned as he saw the guard
reach down and speak into a phone. At the same time, the
woman nudged the other guard, who immediately began scanning
his array of camera views. But nothing further happened. The
guards remained in the lobby; from his limited view, Ardent
could see no further action.
By the ClanMother's eggs, what did all that mean? Coinci-
dence, or are they waiting for something to happen? There was
little he could do but wait. He watched the flank of the towering
building, but no new lights flicked on—the Saliian contact's
offices must be on the other side of the building. Ardent settled
down beside an overflowing trash container, ignoring the smell
of rotting fruit. He waited, tapping his feet impatiently.
Half an hour later, he watched as a black groundcar pulled up
in front of the building and parked. Four men got out of the car
and moved quickly into the lobby, where they spoke for a
moment to the guards, flashing their identification. The guards
pointed; the men nodded and moved quickly toward the ranks of
elevators. Ardent pocketed the lenses, exhaling sharply.
They knew, then. Somehow they knew. They waited long enough
to let Enrico get into the system so they could find out what
Jardien was after, and then they made their move. At least it's
UCN Intelligence and not a thousand local cops.
Another car pulled up to the front of the building—one man
went inside the building, four others moved quickly toward the
rear of the building. Ardent grimaced—the odds were suddenly
looking worse. Once Jemi was taken away, there'd be little
chance to get her back, and he didn't care to think of the
consequences. At best, the crystal would simply stay lost, with
whatever unknown consequences that might have. At worst, the
apes could find the crystal and use the knowledge there without
the guidance of the T'Raijek. Perhaps nothing more would hap-
pen; or perhaps the apes would stumble across the Traal and tell
them where to find the T'Raijek. Njialjiad's fault. If they'd let

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Hlidskjalff do as we wished, we'd have had an ally against the
Traal in time. We might have been able to stop worrying about
them.
Ardent waited until the men had gone around the side of the
building. Then he ran quickly across the street. He had no time
for preparations, for stealth. The apes wouldn't be expecting a
frontal assault—they'd think that stupid, and they were probably
right. Instead, they were concentrating on keeping Jemi and her
friends in. Fine. He'd hit them while they were looking the other
way.
The two building guards and one of the UCN people were
watching the elevator—he could see them through the lobby
windows. He crouched low and reached out to touch one of the
street doors, pushing softly with his fingertips: it moved slightly,
unlocked. Still, as soon as he opened the doors, they'd turn—
he'd only have an instant before they reacted. Their tension was
evident in their stances, in the fact that their guns were already
out; he'd be surprised if they didn't simply fire on him. Ardent
took his own weapon in hand—the neural disruptor that had
killed Jemi's attacker the last time he'd been in this city—and
checked that its charge was full and the trigger-contact on the
most sensitive setting.
So you kill a few more of the apes without giving them the
courtesy of aljceri. So what? You're playing it by their rules. Let
that bother you and you'll be the one dying on the floor. They're
beasts, most of them.
Ardent exhaled as deeply as he could, calming himself. When
he was ready to take the next breath, he leaped to his feet. At full
running speed, he pushed through the doors and into the lobby.
He fired even as he dove and rolled across the tiles. Glass-
tipped darts from the disruptor shattered against the wall along-
side the guards. One of them screamed thinly and collapsed as
the other two whirled around. Shots were fired wildly, but Ar-
dent had rolled clear and come up on his knees, steadying his
aim. He pressed the contact twice, quickly. The disruptor coughed
in response. The guards slumped to the floor.
Ardent knew he had to keep moving—the guards' noisy weap-
ons would have alerted the others. He scanned the list of names
by the guard post, found Jemi's alias and a floor number. One of

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163
the elevator doors was open—he slid past the bodies and into it,
punching the button savagely. The doors hissed shut and acceler-
ation pushed against him. As the elevator began to slow, Ardent
dropped flat on the floor, his hands wrapped around the disruptor
and pointing the muzzle at the doors.
Yes, the floor guard was waiting. Ardent could see the man as
the doors began to open—a glimpse of a uniform, a pallid face,
and the gun aimed toward the elevator at what would have been
chest level for a human. The guard looked as if he were about to
shout, his face half-turned toward the right.
Ardent dropped the guard before the man could readjust his
aim, and was out of the elevator before the man hit the floor. Ardent
could feel a tense, silly grin widening on his face—it was almost
too easy. The apes were so damn stupid. They'd underestimated the
possibilities from the start.
A long corridor ran from the floor lobby toward the back of the
building where the Marteili woman's office was located. Ardent
bent low as he looked around the corner. He could see the four
Intelligence people gathered in the hallway just outside the office
door. They had automatic weapons out. As Ardent watched, one
of them kicked the door open and they went in. Ardent surged to
his feet, racing down the corridor even as he heard them shout to
Jemi and the other two, as he heard the chatter of weapon fire.
Another gun—a small one, by the tiny sound—barked from
inside as Ardent reached the door: he saw one of the UCN quartet
go down. Ardent bellowed as he came up behind them, trying to
distract them. Two of them turned, their weapons swinging
around. Then there was nothing but confusion.
Ardent fired, but then something impossibly strong threw him
back against a wall. He saw his own blood spattering the front of his
jacket as everything shifted into aching slow motion. There was
Jemi, her mouth open in a soundless scream, and one of the UCN
people bringing his weapon to bear on Ardent. The T'Raijek tried
to lift the disruptor, but his right arm would not move. He could
only watch, helpless, as that blackened death centered on him.
He could see the eyes of the man that held the weapon: there was
only blind fury and hatred in them.
There was no time for surprise. Everything was lost in confu-

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Stephen Leigh
sion. Jemi could not think—only stand there numbly. The bullets
tore Helen Martelli apart before Jemi's eyes. The woman ex-
ploded in blood and bits of cloth and flesh, dead in an instant,
though her body still moved with her last defiance. The eyes
were open as she fell, and then Jemi felt the concussion as
Enrico, beside her, returned fire. Jemi screamed with the shot.
She saw Ardent in that moment. Impossibly, the T'Raijek
plowed his way into the confusion as Enrico grunted in pain
beside her. Jemi stood frozen in panic.
Only one of the intruders was still up, and that one had turned
to Ardent. She saw him fire at the alien, saw Ardent flung back
against the wall by the impact of a bullet even as he tried to leap
away. Jemi knew that the man would fire again, knew that
Ardent would then die as Helen had died and that Jemi's turn
would be next. She fumbled for the small pistol Helen had forced
her to take, somehow got it out and pointed it toward the man.
Incongruously, she found herself wondering whether the man
might have a family, if he'd kissed his child good-night that
evening.
The gun seemed impossibly small and light—a toy. All she
had to do was pull the trigger.
She did. There was a percussive roar and the plastic grip grew
warm under her fingers. The man yelped like a wounded dog,
one shoulder dropping as a circle of red spread over his shirt
sleeve. He began to turn toward her and she pulled the trigger
again, deafened by the sound of the thing, but surprised that there
was so little recoil. The man went to his knees as a spot of red
appeared on his chest and he sprayed a wild path of destruction
across the wall nearest Jemi.
She pressed the trigger again, and yet again, not realizing that
she was screaming wordlessly at the same time, watching the
man crumple and die before her even as she kept firing. The
horrible thing of death in her hand clicked softly several times
before she realized that it was empty, that this was over.
She looked at the carnage in the room. A stomach-wrenching
nausea took her and she doubled over, vomiting again and again
until there was nothing left in her stomach.

We always have to have something to worry about. Back
in the end of the twentieth century, we worried about the
rapid changes of society. Now, a little more than a century
on, we're worried because we're not changing enough. We
think we might have become stagnant. 1 feel, instead, that
we're just at a long, necessary pause. 1 think we stand on the
brink of a new age.
—from a speech by UCN Head
MacWilliams, July 6, 2170.
Shit, we've been pushed off the edge. We're waiting to hit
bottom.
—response of a heckler to the above.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Jemi?" The voice was a rough growl, comforting in its
familiarity. "Jemi, come on. We have to leave here."
She spat dryly, on her hands and knees. The room smelled of
blood and hate and her sickness. She turned her head, her hair
drooping over her eyes. Through the tangled strands she saw
Ardent. One of the T'Raijek's arms hung limp and useless,
cradled in his other hand. Thick brown-red fluid turned the
tattered sleeve there dark and ugly, but the blood flow seemed to
have somehow stopped. "Helen, Enrico . . ." Jemi said.
"Dead," Ardent answered tersely. "We'll be, too, if we don't
get out of here now. From here on in, they won't wait to see if
you'll stop first."
"Helen pulled her gun," Jemi said slowly. Her mind was
numb, ice-locked. She kept seeing images of the last few minutes
165

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Stephen Leigh
before her, Helen's body arcing back, broken. She struggled to
sit up and fell back again heavily.
"Helen was a fool, then, and deserved what she got. Look, I'd
love to sit here and chat but there's this little group of people
who aren't going to be excessively happy about what just hap-
pened here. Get up."
"I'm not sure I can yet."
"You'll have to, and I can't help you. Look at me, damn it."
Ardent took Jemi's head by the chin and forced her to regard
him. "I just got shot for you. You also saved my life and I'm
very grateful, but you can't sit here and mope about your deci-
sion. It's over. The people that are dead are going to stay that
way no matter what you do, so you might as well save your own
damn skin." The T'Raijek's sarcasm tore at her shock, and she
slapped his hand away, struggling to her feet.
"Get away from me," she raged at him suddenly.
"With a hell of a lot of pleasure. Just as soon as we get out of
here."
"Wait a minute." Jemi went to Enrico. She touched his neck,
feeling for a pulse. "He's still alive," she told Ardent.
"Fine. I'm ecstatic. Let's go."
"We can't leave him."
"We don't have any damn choice. You think we can take him
to a hospital? You think that moving him's going to do him any
good? You think your staying here will help him at all?"
Ardent grimaced suddenly, clenching his teeth, the wrinkled span
of his wide face tightening in pain. "Make up your mind, Jemi.
I'm leaving while I can."
Jemi watched Ardent pick his way over to the door. When the
T'Raijek reached the door, he turned back. "I'm sorry for you,
Jemi." he told her gruffly. "I wish things could be more the way
we'd both like them to be. Sometimes we don't get that choice."
He looked as if he were about to say more, the bald dome of his
head smoothing, but then he shrugged. He stepped out of the
room.
Jemi glanced down at Enrico. She smoothed his hair, touched
his cheek. "Any debt you had to me is paid, Enrico. I wish . . ."
She shook her head. "Thank you. I'm sorry."

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167
Jemi stood up. Trying not to look at the gore that littered the
room, she followed after Ardent.
Ardent limped badly as they moved down the corridor toward
the floor lobby. The elevator was still open, the sprawled body of
the guard lying there. Jemi's breath hissed as she saw the body.
"Don't look at it," Ardent grumbled. "Come on; we'll take the
stairs."
"No," Jemi said. "They'll bring the elevator down to the
lobby first, so that we 11 have to take the stairs. We 11 take it
down before it's too late to use it."
"And you think there's no one in the lobby waiting for the
damn thing to come down? You're worse than a blind youngling,
woman, and an omega at that. They'd have us cornered in that."
"Not if we're not there. Get in." Jemi had already stepped
over the body of the guard and into the elevator.
"No," Ardent said sharply.
"You can hardly walk now, Ardent. You'll collapse on the
stairs."
"Better than getting shot in that contraption."
"Trust me," Jemi said urgently. "Hurry."
Ardent spat; she could see blood in the spittle. "You were
heaving up your guts back there, and all the sudden you're a
tactician?"
"I want to live, too, T'Raijek. Are you coming?"
Ardent muttered, but he came. Jemi pointed to the access
hatch above them. "I'll hoist you up to that—you open it and get
on the roof," she said quickly. "I'll send the elevator down and
follow you up."
"They'll check there."
"They'll be in a hurry. What would you think if the elevator
came down and when the doors opened, it was empty?"
Ardent's mouth lifted in a half-smile. "That it was a diversion.
That we'd done it to make them wait while we took the stairs."
He shook his head. "They still might look."
"You got a better idea?"
"No," he admitted. "Lift me up."
The alpha was heavier than Jemi had thought. She could barely
lift him, and he groaned in pain as she did so. Still, they

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Stephen Leigh
managed it. Ardent lifted up the hatch and clambered through as
Jemi pushed him from below. Then she punched the button for
the ground floor. As the doors began to close, Jemi leaped for the
roof of the elevator. With Ardent hauling her up with his one
good arm, she reached the roof of the elevator. Standing in the
noisy darkness of the shaft, she closed the hatch door. The place
smelled of grease and steel, and the walls moved by disconcert-
ingly fast. She remained on her hands and knees as the elevator
lurched to a halt.
They heard the doors open, then the compartment shook be-
neath their feet as gunfire rattled deafeningly, tearing holes in the
rear wall. "Not taking chances, are they?" Ardent whispered.
They waited. Nothing happened—the compartment remained
steady underneath them and no one seemed to enter it. There was
a faint shouting that might have come from the lobby, then
silence again. The shaft was utter blackness. Jemi reached out
and touched Ardent's hand, giving it a questioning squeeze—it
was the first time they'd touched. She was surprised at the
softness of his skin, like touching one of Kenis's toy bears.
"Yes," Ardent whispered back. Jemi began to lift the access
door. Light flooded the shaft, but then Ardent forced the hatch
back down. In the darkness, he pressed the strange shape of his
weapon into her hand.
"You'll have to go first," he told her, "and you'll have to
make sure that you take care of anyone who might be there. I
can't do it. When I drop down, it's going to be all I can do to
stay on my feet. I'll be one easy target. You can't hesitate as you
did upstairs."
"1 hate what you're forcing me to become," Jemi answered
harshly.
"Hate it all you like," he spat. "I'm telling you what your
choices are. You can give up anytime you like. Just walk out
there with your hands up—maybe they won't shoot first."
"Is there a way this can be set just to stun a person?"
She knew that Ardent looked at her as if she were a madwo-
man. She heard his mocking, quick laugh. "Not a chance," he
said.
Jemi took the alien weapon. She juggled its strange lightness

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169
in her hand for a moment, then wrapped her fingers around it. "I
hate it," she repeated. "You've made me into a murderer."
"Yeah. And incest and rape are next on the list," he hissed.
"You're trying to survive, that's all. Don't you see that?"
Jemi lifted the hatch again. She could see Ardent's eyes
glistening in the light, like an old gnome hidden in a cavern.
Taking a deep breath, telling herself that she would not let herself
think, she crouched above the access and dropped through. Some-
where in the time it took to reach the floor, the last part of her
that was still the cold, reserved Highlander died. She could feel
the emotions tearing through her gut like a sword.
She was crying when she hit the floor-—deep, gasping sobs full
of her own pain.
The shock buckled her legs. Through the shimmer of tears, Jemi
could see one guard nearby, already turning at the unexpected
sound: the woman Helen had called Kathy. Weeping, Jemi brought
up the spiraled tube of Ardent's disruptor and pressed the tiny
contact on the base of the cylinder. There was no sound, no
feeling of anything happening, but the guard's eyes rolled back
into her head and she fell. Jemi gave a moan of pain for her
death.
The T'Raijek fell into the compartment, striking the floor with
a muffled cry and falling to his side. He tried to lever himself up
with one hand. Jemi reached down and helped him to his feet. He
stared at her tearstained face and said nothing.
They half ran, half stumbled to the doors of the building.
Impossibly, there were no guards there. Jemi flung the doors
wide. The wind outside was cold on the wetness of her cheeks.
They fled like apparitions from some nightmare. They ran across
the sidewalk and into the stream of light traffic as people stared
at the sight: the weeping, gasping woman; the stumbling, wounded
T'Raijek, their clothing disheveled and stained with blood. They
goggled, they pointed, they shouted, but no one stopped them.
They darted between the cars and into an alleyway between
buildings across the street.
"I've had enough death. I don't want your ghost howling at
my soul when it's my time. There are already too many of
them."

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Stephen Leigh
"When did you get religion, woman?"
"It's not religion. I can already hear them, Ardent."
The doctor's office, in a Greensboro, North Carolina, clinic,
was dingy and oppressive. The walls, once white enamel, were
now a nondescript shade of mottled gray. The cabinets that held
the assortment of medicines were the same shade of age, with
flimsy sheet-metal doors that, bowed, would not close entirely.
The doctor looked as if he had grown old with his clinic; a
balding, paunchy man with stooped shoulders, his stained gown
open over a frayed sweater. A nervous fear wobbled his jowls as
he worked on Ardent's wounds. A frozen, meaningless smile
curved his chapped lips and he muttered idle reassurances as he
swabbed the cuts with antibiotics.
The doctor owned a vivicate, a thin, plain-faced man who
stood in one corner, gibbering soft words. Jemi couldn't tell if
the shivering of the vivicate's body was the legacy of the rekin-
dling or simple fear. She ignored the vivicate and turned to the
doctor.
"How soon can the T'Raijek move?" Jemi snapped.
The doctor glanced over his shoulder at him. "I don't know.
He's—he's not like you or me. I'm doing what I can, but—"
The man's voice had the twang of the South.
"You'd better be. If something happens to him, you'll pay for
the mistake." Jemi brandished Ardent's weapon at the old man,
who shivered and turned back to his work. Ardent's eyes
narrowed as he looked at Jemi, trying to ignore the doctor's
prodding.
There had been a change in her, deep inside. She'd cut off part
of herself, locked it away to leave only this hard, brutal woman
behind. Ardent had seen it ever since they'd left the UCN
building. She'd hauled him stumbling alongside her when the
blood loss had threatened to take his consciousness; she'd bad-
gered him, refusing to let him give in to the beckoning oblivion.
Two blocks away from the UCN building, Jemi had come upon a
woman and a man fondling each other in a parked car. She'd
yanked open the door, hauling the man out with pure adrenaline
strength. When the man tried to resist, she'd used the disruptor
on him and ordered the frightened, hysterical woman to drive
them north. They'd left New York that way, leaving the woman

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171
behind after crossing the bridge. She'd continued north for sev-
eral miles, then abandoned the car as well, parking it on a public
street in Stamford. There, she'd commandeered the hoverflit of a
teenager returning from a late date.
It had not been so easy with the kid, who was obviously a little
drugged and full of foolish heroics. He grabbed for her; she flung
him back with a warning. The kid didn't listen. Jemi used the
disruptor on him when he'd tried to take it from her. She'd left
the body slumped in the backseat and flown them south for
hours. By that time, Ardent had been only semiconscious from
his wounds, and Jemi had left him in the 'flit in deep woods
south of Greensboro. She'd come back hours later with this
doctor in his own 'flit. With the help of the doctor's vivicate,
they'd hauled Ardent in and gone back to the clinic. Ardent had
regained consciousness to find the old man working on him at
gunpoint.
Jemi looked ravaged, like some demonic thing, her hair filthy
and matted, her clothing soiled with dirt and blood. Deep circles
of exhaustion ringed her bloodshot eyes. And those eyes them-
selves: they blazed with a ferocious intensity. Looking at Jemi
made Ardent uncomfortable. He did not like the being that stared
back at him. I hate what you're forcing me to become. Ardent
remembered her words from the elevator, and he knew the truth
of them. She had indeed become something else.
For the first time, he began to wonder if GreatMother Hlidskjalff
had known what she was doing—if the apes were all like this, if
they all had these monsters inside, they were more dangerous
than anyone suspected.
"Oow! Damn you!" Ardent howled as the doctor probed at
the shoulder wound.
"I'm sorry. My hand slipped. It's your friend. She makes me
nervous."
"She should. She does the same to me."
"I don't know what I can do to help you," the old man
muttered. "I'd give you an anesthetic or a sprayskin solution, but
I don't know how your metabolism would react. I don't even
know if the antibiotics will do any good."
"Just do it and worry about it later," Jemi told the man. She
fiddled with a dusty foilscreen in the corner, flicking across the

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channels. Colored light from the screen threw changing hues over
her face. "Treat him like he's human-—he's enough of a son of a
bitch for it to work."
The doctor sighed. He looked at Ardent's wizened, bald face.
"I'll do what I can."
"That's very comforting." Ardent's voice was full of over-
done sarcasm. He closed his eyes and lay back on the table,
trying to ignore the pain.
"... two of the dead were Saliian terrorists. That was con-
firmed by UCN Intelligence only a few minutes ago." The
newscaster's voice made Ardent open his eyes again. He pushed
the doctor aside and sat up. Jemi was watching the screen
intently.
"It's not known how many more were involved in the action,
but at least two others were seen leaving the building and are
being sought by the authorities," the newscaster continued. "One
of them is a woman who signed the register of the building as
Alicia Colter. The other, according to witnesses, may have been
a T'Raijek alpha male. The last, we repeat, is still only a rumor.
The T'Raijek embassy has made no comment on this, though
contacts within that embassy have hinted that there is a possible
link between this sighting and a murder on Highland two months
ago in which a Highland woman and a renegade Clan Hlidskjalff
alpha male are being sought. Commander Nys of the UCN navy
confirmed today that Jemi Charidilis, the Highland woman, and
Ardent Hlidskjalff fled Highland and were known to have sought
asylum on Salii—"
Jemi reached out with a curse and flicked off the foilscreen.
The doctor stared at the two of them; the vivicate huddled deeper
into his corner. She ignored both of them, speaking to Ardent.
"Nys again," she said to the T'Raijek. Then, to the doctor:
"How soon?"
"I've done what I can. He needs to rest. So do you."
Jemi's haunted eyes closed for a moment, opened again. "I
can't rest yet. Not here. Doctor, what do you have that'll put
someone out for several hours?"
He shrugged. "Ten cc of Isonir would do it, I suppose."
"Then get the injection ready." As the doctor began to rum-
mage in the disarray of his shelves, Jemi turned to Ardent. "We

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173
can get to the west coast, lie low there for a few days, then fly
from there to the rendezvous," she told him. Ardent saw the plea
in her pain-filled eyes, and understood: I don't want to kill again.
Let the lie go through and I won't have to kill this one. No more
ghosts. Ardent simply nodded.
The old man filled the syringe. "Fine," Jemi told him. "Lie
down on the floor. Then give yourself the injection." They both
saw the hope that flared in the man.
"You're not going to kill me," he breathed.
Jemi gestured with the gun. "Lie down," she ordered. "Do as
1 said." She watched as the doctor plunged the needle into his
arm, as his eyes slowly closed and his breathing relaxed.
"Good," Ardent rumbled as the doctor's breathing deepened.
But in that moment, the vivicate gave a thin scream. He lunged
for Jemi, and Jemi cuffed the vivicate down with the handle of
the disruptor. She aimed the weapon at him; Ardent thought that
she would kill him, as she'd killed the others.
But she stopped. Muscles moved across her face in indecision.
"It's just a vivicate," he told her. "It's already dead. Do it."
Jemi glared at him. "It shouldn't be that easy," she said. "No
matter what, it should never be that easy. They shouldn't have
killed Doni, either." The vivicate moaned, staring up at her
silently. "Get the Isonir," she told Ardent.
He groaned and hopped down from the table, stretching his
arm tentatively and grimacing as the newly stitched wound pulled.
He did as she asked, holding the filled syringe out to her. "Inject
him," she said.
Ardent did so. When the vivicate's eyes had closed, Ardent
threw the syringe across the room. "Now we tell our hotshot
pilot to come get us tomorrow night while they're all looking for
us across the continent. Is that what you're thinking?"
"Most if it," Jemi said. "We call the Saliian, right? Only
you're the only one going with him. I'm staying here. I'm going
to Uphill."
"Don't be stupid. You can't do anything there."
"It's where I have to go to get the rest of the answers. With
what Enrico found, I know that the navy was involved with
Ken's death. I'm sure that Nys, especially, knows more than he's
saying. I'm going."

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Stephen Leigh
"You couldn't possibly do anything alone," Ardent growled.
"I'm supposed to take you along? I might as well wear a sign
saying 'Come get me.' There's no way we can disguise you.
Shut up and think, T'Raijek. You can't do me any good now,
and I need you to tell HeadFather Jardien what we learned—tell
him what happened."
"I'm not going to let you do this."
Jemi sighed. She sat in a chair, leaning back and closing her
eyes while she continued the argument tiredly. "Ardent, listen.
Once the UCN realizes that a Saliian ship left from this area,
they'll think we're both gone. Security'll relax. I still have the
names of Saliian contacts here—I can get new ID. At least this
way I have a chance. There's no way to get you to Uphill, and no
way to learn anything from here. You go back to Salii; I'll meet
you there afterward."
Ardent rubbed his shoulder and grimaced. "Not likely," he
told her. "You go on to Uphill and the only place I'm going to see
you again is during the footage of your trial."
"Don't be so pessimistic," Jemi told him. her eyes still closed.
Ardent could hardly hear her.
"Where do you get the idea that I'm being pessimistic? I
actually think it's far more likely that they'll kill you outright,
especially after the bloodbath yesterday. All I'm going to see are
the pictures of your shrouded body on some port floor."
Jemi was too tired to even shrug. "If that's the way it has to
be, fine."
Ardent glared at her, resisting the temptation to shake her
awake, to cause some reaction in that haggard face. "I'll never
understand the things that turn you apes into fanatics," he said.
"Somebody sure pushed all the right buttons for you. Listen,
we'll give the pilot the signal tomorrow night—the delay won't
matter much. That's reasonable, Jemi."
She didn't answer. "Jemi?" Ardent said again.
Ardent looked over at her. Her head back against the chipped
paint of the wall, she was asleep. Ardent sighed, groaning as he
hobbled over to her. He took one of the lab coats from a hook on
the wall and covered her with it.
Commander Nys stared unsmilingly at the woman facing him

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across the tatami mat. Both of them were dressed in a white,
judo-style gi; each of them wore black hakama, the skirted
trousers of the samurai, and their feet were bare. Nys was
empty-handed, the woman gripped a boken—a wooden sword—in
her left hand, holding it at her side as if it were in a scabbard.
Except for the mat and changing screens to one side, the room
was empty. On one wall, there was a black-and-white photograph
of an elderly Japanese man—O'Sensei, the Great Teacher. Around
the picture were arranged a few banners and a shelf with a simple
arrangement of flowers.
Nys took a deep, slow breath, and then the two bowed to each
other. The woman gave Nys no chance for another breath. There
was no pause. Even as they straightened from the bow, the
woman quickly drew the boken in a fluid motion, raising it for a
strike as she shouted, rushed toward Nys, and struck for his head
with full force.
But Nys was no longer there. As the woman's blow came
down, he'd moved aside, his hand coming up as he'd pivoted.
His right hand snaked between her arms, grasping the long
handle of the boken between the woman's own hands. Nys
moved with the motion of the strike, continuing it, and then the
woman was flying through the air. She flipped easily, rolling
across the mat like a wheel down the length of her arm and
across her back. Her free hand slapped the mat with a resounding
noise, and she bounded back to her feet. Nys had laid the boken
on the mat and backed away a few paces. The woman took the
boken on the run and attacked Nys once more, this time with a
side cut.
Nys moved as if in a dance, circling and moving inside the
circle of the blade. He grasped the boken's handle, pivoted—his
partner was flung head over heels and crashed into the mat. Nys
laid down the boken; the woman sprang to her feet immediately
to attack again. Again and again the pattern was repeated: the
woman would attack; Nys would evade the blow and throw her,
taking the boken in his own hands only to give it back to her
once again. They continued until they were both running with
sweat, Nys's short, dark hair plastered to his head.
After another of the throws, Nys dropped to his knees, nod-
ding to the woman. She stopped in midcharge, relaxed, and sank

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Stephen Leigh
into the same seiza position. They bowed to each other, then
turned to the picture on the wall and bowed to the photograph.
For several seconds, Nys merely sat there, his eyes closed,
droplets of sweat rolling down his face as he breathed in deep,
long breaths through his nose. Then he opened his eyes once
more.
"You were very focused today, Akira," the woman said to
Nys.
"Thank you, Carol," Nys replied. He still had not smiled, but
his voice was warm. "Can you stay for a while longer? It's your
turn to throw me around."
"Fine—-1 don't have to be back on duty for another two hours.
1 want you to show me that Shihonage throw." Carol lay back on
the mat, brushing away her short bangs and wiping her forehead
with a cloth taken from under her gi top. She closed her eyes.
"God, that felt good. How were my attacks?"
Nys didn't allow himself to relax as Carol did. He sat stiffly in
seiza. "They were exactly what they should have been," he said.
"You gave me all your energy."
"What kind of attack are you going to make with all the
information OIA's feeding you, Akira?"
The only visible sign that the question had registered with Nys
was a slow blinking of his eyes. "Perez mentioned that you
asked him about the Charidilis woman again yesterday," Carol
persisted.
"Your lieutenant can't control his mouth, Carol."
"That's why he's a clerk and a lieutenant and will stay that way
for the rest of his career. Still, he's useful—I always know where
my sensei's interests lie." Carol sat up, the hakama draped around
her. "You don't think that she's gone back to Salii, then."
"I didn't say that."
"But you suspect it, despite the fact that the alert's dropped
two stages since the shield detected the Saliian cruiser leaving
Earth a month ago."
"Carol, when we bow, we always place our left hand on the
mat first. Then the right follows. The right will come off the mat
first as well, after the bow. That custom dates back centuries to
when the samurai carried swords. That way, even if you were
attacked during a bow, you could quickly draw your weapon. It's

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unlikely such a treacherous thing would happen, but unlikely
does not mean impossible."
"1 think it's even less a possibility than 'unlikely,' Akira,"
Carol insisted.
"Put yourself in her place. Think like your opponent. We
interrupted them in the process of retrieving information. The
program they used to invade the system hadn't dug down into the
highly classified areas yet, though it managed to wreck the
hierarchy of files rather thoroughly. They were looking for infor-
mation pertaining to naval communications. They didn't get all
they were after, mostly because they would need to access the
mainframe here in Uphill. So—where would you go next?"
"That doesn't mean they have to come here. They could go
anywhere where there's a computer tied into this network—"
Carol stopped. Her lips curled in thought. "Their computer
wrecker's dead," she said. "And Charidilis . . ."
"... doesn't have the expertise." A faint smile ghosted
across Nys's face. It looked alien there. "Good. Part of respond-
ing to an attack is knowing from what direction it is likely to
come. Understand your opponent and you begin to understand
yourself. In some ways, I think I might like this Charidilis."
Carol gave him a shocked look that he ignored. "Now—-let's
work on that Shihonage," he said.
"I'm in charge of Uphill security, Aki. Tell me if I should be
watching for Charidilis."
"I've been training you to always be aware, Carol."
"And that's all you're going to say?"
Nys bowed to the picture of O'Sensei. "You should talk less
on the mat," he told Carol as she swung to seiza and bowed with
him. "Learn by watching and by doing."
Nys took up the boken and rose to his feet as Carol did the
same. Again, they bowed to each other. "Now," he told her,
"I'll attack—you do the Shihonage to me, and then we'll start
taking it apart."
"And Charidilis?"
"Worry about the attack that is coming at you now. The rest
can wait an hour."

If the T'Raijek demonstrate anything, it is that no matter
how different the bodies, there is likely to be an evolutionary
similarity between all intelligent species. Despite the physical
differences, despite the varying instincts, despite the (to our
minds) bizarre social habits of the aliens, they still obey the
one prime code of us all: you do what you have to do to
survive.
—from The T'Raijek: An Analysis by
R.M. Jordan; Darwin Press, 2169.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time Jemi reached Miami, she was a skinhead—the
latest new/old renegade fashion of the young. If Jemi was per-
haps too old to truly be one of them, at least her age was hidden
behind the look. She'd gained the anonymity of the bizarre. The
ridge of her skull was lined with small twinkling lights in the
shape of a star. She'd lost weight, twenty pounds or more, and
her face was stark and hollow-cheeked. Her cheek was rounded
with a plug of jimsa, the mild narcotic of the skinheads, and she
kept her gaze averted from the more normal-looking people
around her, as the skinheads also did. The skinhead rebellion was
one of passive defiance. They did nothing to anyone; they avoided
confrontation except by the way they looked. The jimsa helped
that: Jemi had tried the actual narcotic only once, and found
herself in a semi-stupor for hours. After that, she simply chewed
licorice, and spat out the black fluid as if it were the bitter jimsa.
In Miami, she contacted one of Jardien's people and arranged
for a flight to Paris. Within the UCN itself, there were no longer
tedious border checks. Her identification had been in her purse,
but no one asked for it. In Paris she'd stayed two weeks with
money lent her by the Miami agents, then contacted one of the
178

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
179
locals who owned a cosmetics/hairstyling shop. There the severe
skinhead "died," to be replaced by a more fashionable version—
still hairless but far more elegant. She'd moved on to Rome at
the advice of the Parisian.
In Rome another of the contacts had been made, and she'd
booked passage with them to Uphill as their niece. The papers
were made by a London contact and shipped to her in Rome.
In truth, Jemi didn't expect to pass through the gates from
Rome Port to the Uphill shuttle. The Parisian contact had assured
her that the detection devices in Rome dated from the terrorist-
dominated times of the early twenty-first century. The Susan
D'Etrang documents held up as she purchased the tickets. The
clerk there glanced idly at her ID, looked up for a moment to be
certain that the face was similar enough to that in the ID's holo,
and stamped the gate pass. She went back to her "family" with
the tickets. Moving through the gate security was just as simple,
though once again she separated from her companions in case
there was trouble. No one noticed the presence of Ardent's
disruptor, strapped to her thigh underneath her full peasant skirt.
The gates were built to detect metal and explosives—the plastic,
electrically charged disruptor did nothing to the sensors.
When the shuttle finally taxied down the runway and climbed
into the air, Jemi began to relax. Her "aunt" patted her hand. As
the sky outside the window turned from blue to deep blue-black,
the knot inside Jemi's stomach began to slowly relax.
At Uphill, the passengers were herded through the microgravity
central port into the spun sections, where their documents were
once again checked. That was expected—Uphill was partially a
military installation, and the procedure was routine.
Uphill was as grimy and bustling as ever—like Highland, an
installation well past its prime, built during the brief outward
push of humanity a century before. New coats of paint did little
to hide the worn look of Uphill—-the same look that all of the
UCN's holdings shared. There were perhaps more uniformed
guards about than Jemi remembered, but that in itself wasn't
unusual—during the times of crisis between Salii and the UCN,
that was normal enough as well. She handed her documents to
the clerk at the check-in line, watched him examine it, stamp the

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Stephen Leigh
ticket, and hand it back to her. Jemi smiled back to her compan-
ions and walked through the gate into the lobby.
Lulled by the ease with which she'd made it to Uphill, Jemi
was too surprised to react when a woman stepped in front of her.
At the same moment, two guards materialized on either side of
her. The woman stared at Jemi and nodded as if to herself. "Jemi
Charidilis," she said, "I'm Carol McGinnis, head of Security for
Uphill. You're under arrest."
Entirely naked. Bearer Njialjiad stood on the sands of the Deep
Pit with the population of Embassy Salii arrayed in seats around
her. Her feet were planted in the middle of a discolored oval of
red-brown, the sands there stained by the blood of a Njialjiad
female youngling, whose spirit would now be watching above to
judge the match. Across the wide pit, ClanMother Hlidskjalff
stood in her own bloodcircle. Bearer Njialjiad smirked at the
ClanMother's appearance: Hlidskjalff's fur had grown dark over
the cuts inflicted during the fight with Njialjiad's predecessor,
and the ClanMother was lean. Her fur lacked the healthy sheen of
Njialjiad's, and the twinned mounds of flesh that covered her
vaginal opening were a weak pink, not the gleaming, brilliant red
of Njialjiad's own. Hlidskjalff looked old and tired. Her elon-
gated face drooped; she did not even bother to look up as the
omegas filed into the chamber to take the seat in the upper tiers.
In the heat of the lamps, Njialjiad could sense a quick victory.
She would win this aljceri. ClanMother Hlidskjalff might have
recovered physically from her last battle, but the ClanMother's
spirit had fled. Even her youngling's spirit could not support her.
Hlidskjalff knew that she was the last, Njialjiad was certain. The
ClanMother must know that after this night, Clan Njialjiad would
hold all the apish embassies.
Already the Bearer was planning her first decrees. First she
would have Hlidskjalff's younglings killed, along with any of the
omegas that asked to share in that death. She would send the
ClanMother's two alphas to her own omegas' chambers. The
alpha Hlidskjalff with Charidilis would be told to come here for
his death. She would make certain that the crystal was found and
destroyed, no matter what that cost.
With unanimity assured, Njialjiad could end this foolish rebel-

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lion of Clan Hlidskjalff. Together with the ClanMothers of High-
land and Earth, the ClanMothers Njialjiad would petition the
GreatMothers for the embassies to be removed. Then the
GreatMothers would meet and declare all the works of the hated
Clan Hlidskjalff forfeit. The new GreatMother Hlidskjalff would
be forced to recant all the deeds of the renegade GreatMother
before her, and the embassies would be closed.
Then . . . then all the mounting fears would begin to ease. The
T'Raijek could deal with the apes as they should have been dealt
with from the beginning. There would be no worry about their
becoming like the Traal. The GreatMothers and all the clans
would be safe again.
It would all be over. She had trained since birth for this
moment. She'd nurtured on the hatreds of the old Bearer Njialjiad,
she'd suckled on the bitter taste of her fears.
The brass horns sounded from the last tier—the eldest omegas
had been seated. Njialjiad took a deep breath. The lights around
the sloping sides of the pit dimmed, leaving only the two comba-
tants in light. Njialjiad held up her hands, palms toward herself.
She let her curved talons slide out from the padded fur to tip the
wide, fat fingers with deadly natural knives. Across from her,
Hlidskjalff had done the same. As challenger, the ritual de-
manded that Njialjiad make the first move. She did so now,
attacking with no feint all, charging across the pit toward Hlidskjalff
as blooded sand kicked up under her.
Hlidskjalff, unexpectedly, did not move. In the brief instant
before contact, Njialjiad thought that perhaps the ClanMother
would simply bare her throat as if already conquered and let
Njialjiad rip the life from her.
But in that last instant, Hlidskjalff turned aside. The ClanMother
moved with a quickness and determination that unnerved Njialjiad.
Hlidskjalff's strength surprised the Bearer. Njialjiad's twisting
blow caught only air, but Hlidskjalff's claws tore fur, ripping
away one of Njialjiad's nipples on the left side. Warm blood
began streaming down Njialjiad's body as she danced away from
another slicing blow from Hlidskjalff. The ClanMother let the
Bearer retreat: Hlidskjalff still had not moved from her bloodcircle.
Njialjiad knew that if it weren't for the draught of bloodbane
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be screaming in agony. She refused to look down at the wound,
knowing that if she did so she might be sick. The females might
be the ones to die in aljceri, but none of them were BeastCaptains
like the alphas, accustomed to fighting. Hlidskjalff, two meters
away, flicked her claws at Njialjiad, spattering the Bearer's face
with her own blood in mockery.
For the first time, Njialjiad saw the deception of Hlidskjalff,
and she was furious. She should have known—the T'Raijek
were all caught in the web of Hlidskjalff's machinations, and
she'd been duped as well, thinking that the ClanMother was tired
and already defeated. Njialjiad scowled at her own stupidity; the
expression evoked a short bark of laughter from the ClanMother.
Hlidskjalff hissed at Njialjiad in a whisper that the lower ranks of
the gallery could plainly hear. "Did you think I'd give you my
throat that easily, Bearer? If you did, then Njialjiad is still going
to be Second Clan in Salii, and it will be one of your daughters
that will have to revenge you."
Njialjiad knew better than to respond to the taunt. She began to
circle, the ClanMother turning to keep her in front. Because of
your stupidity, you're going to have to end this quickly, she
thought. By the eggs, I'm already stiffening up. She knew exactly
where to cut me. Hlidskjalff cuffed at Njialjiad once, but other-
wise let her circle without reaction. "Didn't you learn the lesson
of your mother. Bearer?" Hlidskjalff scoffed. "Didn't you know
that she was as overconfident as you?"
Njialjiad paced around Hlidskjalff, a full circle. She could see
the stain of her blood where it dribbled, staining the sands of the
pit. Her mind was racing. Any thoughts she'd had before the
combat were useless now. She had never visualized that Hlidskjalff
would strike so quickly, so deeply. You can't rush her again; it
didn't work last time and you're even slower now. Njialjiad
burned at the deception of the ClanMother, and with that thought,
the glimmering of an idea came to her.
Deliberately, the Bearer staggered, then caught herself; she
saw the ClanMother begin to move with that motion, then hold
back. Njialjiad knew then that the CianMother's slowness was
only part deception. She saved herself for one blow, hoping it
would weaken me. She'll wait until she sees her opening. Njialjiad
let her breath become audible. A rustling had gone around the

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183
gallery as Njialjiad staggered, so she knew that the raking of
Hlidskjalff's claws had done terrible damage to her front. Njialjiad
staggered again as if unable to keep her feet any longer, letting
one clawed hand fall in the sand. As Hlidskjalff leaped from her
circle to attack, Njialjiad flung a handful of sand toward the
ClanMother, blinding her for a second. With the same motion,
the Bearer slashed at the ClanMother. Hlidskjalff howled as the
talons opened up new furrows in her flesh. With fury, Hlidskjalff
struck back, and then the two closed. They tore at each other in
rage—as the gallery rose to their feet in a strange, tense silence;
as new blood darkened the ground beneath them.
It was difficult to tell which of them fell first. Both were torn
and battered, their fur matted by a gritty mixture of blood and
sand. Only slowly did the watching T'Raijek realize that it was
Hlidskjalff who lay panting and glaze-eyed on the floor of the
pit, that it was the ClanMother who keened the cry of sorrow to
her kin and laid her head back so that Njialjiad could, with one
brutal slash, rip her throat open.
A torrent of scarlet gushed out to form a new bloodcircle.
Njialjiad raised her hand in triumph and let the claws slowly
retract. In the glaring quiet, the gallery bowed to her. Those of
Clan Njialjiad gave a shout in unison. Clan Hlidskjalff merely
stared.
Commander Nys had not been certain how he'd felt about
Charidilis after his first meeting with her. Then, he'd come away
with an impression of a person under great mental strain, after
the loss of her son and the attack on her ship. The reports in the
tabloids painted her as some kind of rabid, hard-edged fanatic.
They did all they could to make the woman seem bloodthirsty,
short of saying that she filed her teeth and ate her victims. Nys,
though, could understand how a person might be driven to do
things that she wouldn't otherwise have considered possible.
He'd certainly done things himself that a younger Nys would
have considered totally out of character.
He suspected that he was about to do another.
The woman Carol shepherded into Nys's office was hardly
recognizable as the same Jemi Charidilis that Nys recalled. That
one had been a definite Highlander, k'lyged and coldly distant

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even when angry. She'd borne little resemblance to this Jemi—
emaciated, shaven-headed, and still defiant despite her capture.
There was a molten quality in this one's eyes, an inferno fueled
by some depths in her spirit that Nys had not suspected. He'd
thought the old Highlander simply pitiable. Strangely, he found
that he felt more kinship with this one. He had more sympathy
for her now.
And more caution.
Carol sat the prisoner on the chair before Nys's desk. Her
hands were bound in static-charged cuffs and she was clothed in
ugly, ill-fitting green clothing. She stared, her eyes sunken into
her hollow face but still extraordinarily vital, not at all beaten. He
could see the tension in the muscles of her arms and knew that
the woman fought against her bonds, that if at any moment they
were suddenly released, Charidilis would be moving at the same
time. The hatred in her gaze told Nys that she would not flee, but
hurl herself at him, as if he were an enemy.
She's been turned into a strange dual-faced monster. She is
rage and yet she is softness. She would kill and yet weep at the
same time. It is not fair that this was done to her.
Nys kept his face stiff and neutral, his hands folded precisely
on the desk in front of him, the right hand under the left. He
turned to Carol. "Captain, you may leave us."
The security chief's face revealed her surprise at that. "Com-
mander, my orders—"
"Your orders have just been countermanded," Nys told her.
"I'll take any responsibility for that. You may leave the key for
her bonds."
He could see the curiosity in his student's face, and he could
also see that she knew him well enough—as commander and as
instructor—to know that protest was futile. She gave a shrug and
then a more proper salute. "As you wish, sir." She hesitated.
"It will have to go in my report, Commander."
"I'm aware of that, Captain. I expect you to follow procedure."
"Yes, sir. I'll be outside, then, to take the prisoner back to her
cell." Carol laid a small plastic case on Nys's desk, which Nys
slid to one side. The Commander glanced back to Jemi as Carol
left the room. He was still composing his opening statement
when Charidilis spoke in a surprisingly strong voice.

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"I know what you've done, Nys. I know you've intercepted
messages intended for Strickland from the T'Raijek embassies. I
know that it must have been you who ordered Starfire attacked. I
know about shipman Louise Martel. 'Suspicion Homicide,'
wasn't it, Commander? That wouldn't concern my son, would
it?"
Nys felt the jolt deep inside, as if the woman had punched him
in the kidneys. None of it showed on his face, but the pain was
there. She knows more than anyone thought she ever would. And
she doesn't realize how explosive all that information is, or she
would have already used it. He took a deep, calming breath.
Blend with the attack.
"You've found the outlines of truth, Holder Charidilis," he
told her. "I'd caution you to realize that truth is a very deceptive
concept."
"You would," Jemi spat out. She wriggled in her seat. Mus-
cles tugged against her restraints. Nys took his gaze away from
her, looking instead at one of the drawings on the wall: "Crane
and Pond." He'd done the ink drawing himself, back when he'd
first embarked on this course he was following, when he'd
accidentally seen the first communique between Strickland and
the Clan Njialjiad. The crane was caught in the first moment of
flight, as if startled by something hidden in the shallow waters of
the pond. Nys had often watched the cranes in his native Japan;
he knew that when frightened they would take flight. A fright-
ened crane would circle in watchful silence for a time; some-
times, as if certain that the threat was real, it would sound an
eerie call over the waters, and the others of its kind would take to
the air, filling the sky with their splendor, a magnificent array of
wide, white wings and long bodies.
Looking at the picture forced Nys to recall the night he'd done
the drawing and the emotions that had driven the bamboo brush.
"I'll tell you what is true, Holder Charidilis," he said without
looking at her. "I've seen messages for Commander Strickland. I
do know that shipman Martel was implicated in your son's death,
and that the entire incident was"—Nys paused—"hidden." He
heard the sudden intake of breath and knew that his words had
stunned Charidilis. "I had nothing to do with the attack on your
ship, however. Holder Charidilis, you have several parts of the

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puzzle. But you draw the wrong conclusions about the entire
picture."
Now he looked at her. The pain inside the woman was very
near the surface now. The wound in her soul had never healed
after the death of her son. It had only just begun to scab over
when the rape of her memory had torn it open again, gouging it
even deeper. Nys could feel her agony as if it were his own. He
wished that he could show her that he felt her inner pain, but
knew that she would reject any such admission.
"The picture I see tells me that you were responsible for my
son's death, Nys," she told him. "The picture I see tells me that
you'd kill an innocent child to get what the T'Raijek I ferried
had. That picture tells me that you're a goddamn bastard that
deserves to die the way Kenis did."
Jemi spoke with such quiet force that Nys trembled. Her
softness enhanced the power of the words far more than any
shout might have. "I would feel the way you feel in your place,"
he told her. "Despite that, you are mistaken."
Jemi spat. The globule landed on his desk just before his
hands. Nys stared at the thick puddle. "A Highlander would not
have done that," he said.
"I've changed a lot since then, Nys. You've taught me a lot of
nasty things."
"Tell me what else you've learned."
"It isn't obvious enough for you?" Jemi shook her head;
shiplight gleamed on the bare skin over her skull. "You tell me
something, Nys. What did Njialjiad offer you for my son's life?
What would they give you in exchange for the crystal?"
"Technology," Nys answered calmly. "Safe, cheap power
and new materials. Energy to rekindle our society. That's what
the T'Raijek offered—a chance for mankind to get back on the
path we lost a century ago. But they didn't offer that to me,
Holder Charidilis. They offered that to those with more power
than the commanding officer of Uphill Port. The offer was made
to the UCN and the naval heads. To Admiral Strickland."
"Admiral Strickland is one of the few people who have shown
me any kindness at all, Commander Nys, and he warned me that
there were people under him that he couldn't trust. I hope you're
not trying to turn me against him."

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"Louise Martel was a shipman on Strolov, Holder."
"I saw the log of a communique to you from the Highland
Security chief concerning Martel, Commander. Are you telling
me that I shouldn't draw the obvious conclusion about why the
whole affair was hushed up?"
"You didn't see the communique itself, Holder," Nys re-
minded her. "Let me ask you a few other rhetorical questions.
Doesn't it seem strange that an Admiral of the navy would spend
as much time aboard a cruiser instead of at his desk? Since you
confirm to me that the ship that attacked you wasn't a Jardien
pirate, doesn't that cast immediate suspicion on the ship that was
so readily within range of your distress call? Doesn't that make
you wonder if perhaps Strickland didn't have advance knowledge
of the attack—that the entire episode was designed to make you
trust him so that if you found this missing crystal you'd contact
him immediately? Doesn't it strike you as strange that there have
been so many messages between Strickland and the Clan
Njialjiad?" Nys hammered home the points with quiet force. The
woman's eyes narrowed as he spoke, and he knew that she had
the same doubts, despite her words.
"I've followed this matter for two years, Holder," he contin-
ued. "I've checked on many things concerning Admiral Strickland.
When I learned of the incident on Highland with Martel and your
son, I simply asked for the details from Highland."
"It was Kenis," she whispered, and he knew then that she
hadn't actually known, only guessed. Her eyes filmed over, and
he looked away from her pain, giving her some privacy. With her
hands cuffed, she couldn't hide the grief; still, she made no
attempt to disguise it, sitting stiffly in the chair as tears gathered
in her eyes.
"I'm sorry for you, Holder," he said. He let some of his
empathy show in his voice, and she looked up, her eyes more
angry than sad.
"What happened? Tell me how it happened," she insisted.
"1 wish I knew. I tried to find out. All I learned was that the
creche-mother said that your son disappeared from the creche not
long after a naval shipman had come by asking for him. Beyond
that, everything is surmise. Martel was indicted briefly, but the
charges were dropped."

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Stephen Leigh
"Then let me talk to Martel," Jemi said.
"Martel's dead. An accident aboard Strolov two months later."
Jemi's eyes were dry when Nys glanced back at her. The
hardness had returned to her. She stared at him flatly. "Why
doesn't that surprise me?" she said. "Do you know why Martel
wanted Kenis and not me?"
"I don't," Nys admitted. "The T'Raijek alpha you'd ferried
was killed the day before—perhaps that was also Martel. Then
Kenis suffered his accident the next day. Perhaps you would have
been next if Martel hadn't been arrested the next morning. After
that, Strickland couldn't afford to have anything happen." Nys's
eyes went back to "Crane and Pond": What was in the waters
that startled you so much? he wondered. What's hidden there?
"Strickland had your movements traced. He even went so far as
to try to retrace the steps of your vivicate. He pulled the Customs
reports for all of you."
"You say all this so well that it sounds rehearsed, Com-
mander. 1 haven't seen one bit of proof for it, though."
"I have it all locked away."
"Convenient."
"1 hope to use it against Strickland and his supporters in the
UCN. They violated our laws; they destroyed people to gain
power. 1 wonder, if they were given this gift of the T'Raijek,
how they would use it."
"When do you apply for sainthood, before or after the trial?"
Nys grimaced. "I'm not at all a saint, Holder. I've too many
faults of my own, and I admit that I wouldn't mind my chance to
wield some power. 1 like to feel that I might use it better than
those who have it now, but I don't deny that I'd be willing to
fight for my position. But I'm not a casual murderer. I'm not one
who would kill your son—not for this crystal or anything that
the T'Raijek offered. I wouldn't sell my soul for power."
"You make pretty speeches, Commander." Jemi shook her
head. "It's a pity I can't believe them."
Nys stared at the woman, measuring her. At last he nodded.
He swiveled his chair around, rose in a lithe motion, and went to
the back wall. Under the photograph of himself on the mat, he
opened a small, long drawer that Jemi had not noticed before.
From the compartment, he took a long bundle wrapped in velvet.

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189
He laid it on the desk. Pulling the wrapping back, he revealed a
scabbarded katana, a long, curved sword. He drew the blade
from the scabbard. The wicked, thin edge gleamed in the over-
head lights. He put the sword on the desk before Jemi, the handle
to her right, the edge facing the Commander. Then he sat again.
He reached over to the case Carol had left behind and pressed a
contact on its surface. The steel bracelets encircling Jemi's wrists
parted, leaving her hands free. Nys folded his own hands on the
desk.
"The katana is nearly five hundred years old," he told her. "I
bought it from a dealer in Japan who gave me a long, detailed
history of the blade. Most of it was almost certainly fanciful,
however entertaining. Still, every time I hold this, I can feel the
many hands that have used it in the past, and I delude myself
with the thought that perhaps they were also people like me—
frail, imperfect, but wanting to obey what we feel is right.
Please, pick it up."
Jemi took the sword, gingerly, holding the unfamiliar weight
of water-hardened, layered steel.
"It's an archaic weapon," Nys continued, "but one that I still
revere. I wish that all fighting had to be done with swords, so
that when we killed, we would have to be close to the person
whose life we take. Then we would deliberately have to make
our choice. Fighting with ships, fighting with guns—it's all too
easy, too impersonal. We've both killed, Holder Charidilis. I
fought in the last open battle with the Family Jardien pirates, and
the ship I commanded destroyed one of their cruisers, so I know
that people died at my hand. It might have been that if I could
have seen their faces, if I could have listened to the tales of their
lives, could have talked with them about our grievances, I could
have done nothing to harm them. But I wasn't given the choice. I
give it to you instead. You've heard what I said. 1 tell you there
is evidence, and that I will show it to you. I ask you to believe
me. I can see that you desire revenge. I can understand that. I
think I'd want it myself. If you think that I'm the one who hurt
you so badly, then take your revenge now. You hold the blade in
your hands and I won't resist. The edge is honed. Swing it at my
neck and it will be done."
Nys closed his eyes. He waited, wondering if he had taken too

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Stephen Leigh
much of a gamble, if he had misjudged the woman. He could
hear her labored breathing, heard her rise from the chair. He
waited, but the stroke never came. He opened his eyes again after
a minute. Jemi stood in front of the desk, the sword grasped
awkwardly in trembling hands. She was crying. Great, silent
sobs shook her body. Slowly, she lowered the katana, laying it
back on the desk. The steel rang against the scabbard as she put it
down.
Nys nodded. "The Admiral is already on his way here," he
told her. "I'll show you the documents that I have, and we will
go to meet him."
Nys took Jemi aboard a naval cruiser, ostensibly after an
alleged threat against her. As they stepped aboard the vehicle in
free-fall, Jemi looked out at the curved desks and tables of the
interior, at the seats arrayed around the ship's sides and control
consoles which would be "down" once the ship was under way
and given spin. Despite the free-fall, all of the naval personnel in
sight were aligned to the up-and-down positions the ship would
have when it was given spin. The sight made her squint her eyes
in thought, as if there were some import to the scene that she was
missing. She stopped, and the guards on either side of her
nudged her along.
Locked in a cabin, Nys himself brought the files against
Strickland to her. She spent the day reading them, going over the
logs and intercepted messages, the memorandums that Nys had
ordered sent to him concerning Strickland's actions. Reading
them made Jemi physically ill. If what she read was true, Strickland
had gone to much trouble to hide himself, and Nys's accusations
were well founded in circumstantial evidence. Strickland had
gotten everything. Jemi reached to the pile of papers, pulled one
out and scanned down it: Customs Declaration, Vivicate Doni
Kyle. Poor Doni. He'd had so little, only the scant extra money
Jemi usually gave him because his employment checks went
directly to Vivicate Corporation. He'd had only a few credits and
a cheap gift for Mari. Yet Strickland had bothered to dig all that
up later, when Njialjiad had asked for help in finding the lost
crystal.
Jemi was drained, emotionally and physically: the killings in

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191
New York, the flight away from the city, coming to Uphill to
confront Nys, the arrest, the strange meeting with Nys this
afternoon. "God, Kenis, if I could just have you back and start
all over again ..." She lay back on her bed. Fantasy? Is that
what it has to be? It's done, it's over; you can't have him back.
All you can have is the weregild—the payment for his death.
Strickland, if that's who it is, or even Nys, if all his talk this
afternoon was a lie. That's all you can ever have of Kenis again.
Too damn little. Too damn little. Her musings floated her into
sleep.
There, Kenis played in the wardroom of Starfire with Doni and
a T'Raijek alpha. They were playing hide-and-seek. The ship
was in free-fall, in dock: Jemi lost sight of Kenis and the T'Raijek
as they slid behind a table. The alpha was nearly the same height
as Kenis, and both were hidden to Jemi and Doni, who called out
from his post in the pilot's chair, oriented in the same way as the
table. "Okay, Kenis, come on out, we can't see you."
"1 know. I'm under the table," Kenis called.
Jemi grinned at Doni and floated out herself. Hanging over the
table, she grasped the edges and pulled herself toward it, her feet
sticking straight up. Jemi experienced the brief moment of ver-
tigo she always did when she violated the spinward arrangement
of the ship's furniture. "Mommy, you're upside down," Kenis
said. Huddled beside Kenis in the shelter of the table, his thick
arms wrapped around the boy, the T'Raijek alpha also grinned at
Jemi. Jemi reached out for the two of them, but Kenis darted
away, streaking over to Doni. "Look what I found, Doni," he
said in his little-boy lisp. He held out a blue and yellow stuffed
toy to the vivicate. "I found it under the table. You're my friend.
I'll give it to you."
. . . give it to you. The words still echoed in Jemi's mind. She
sat upright in the bed, the dream shattered. She was sweating, as
if waking from a nightmare. Her hands shook as she steepled
them before her face.
You should have realized it sooner. It was all there. An alpha
the same size as Ken, wanting to hide the crystal from the
inevitable Customs search, Kenis always prowling all over the

192	Stephen Leigh
ship . . . Strickland realized it was a possibility, too, and that's
why Kenis died.
Jemi knew. She knew where the crystal was.
The only thing she didn't know was what to do about it.

A good lie is like a good politician's speech: just convincing
enough that for lack of a decent alternative people believe the
promises it makes, but with enough slack in it that you can
always say that you were completely misunderstood.
—written on a bathroom stall.
Hell, a lie is a politician's speech.
—written below.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gavin Jardien grinned. Ardent didn't like that expression at
all. It was the wide, meaningless grin of a barracuda circling a
floundering swimmer.
"Welcome back, Hlidskjalff," the HeadFather said to Ardent
as the alpha swung down the alleyway into a corridor of the Salii
colony. Ardent glanced at the ubiquitous guards flanking
HeadFather Jardien. He grunted a wordless reply.
"You seem upset. Is it because you couldn't convince the
Holder to let you tag along with her to Highland to be arrested?"
"Jemi's been caught?" Ardent's surprise pitched his usual
growl higher. "How'd you find out?"
"We received a high-gee capsule to that effect a week ago."
Jardien gave Ardent another amused glance. "Now, you want to
try to convince me that I received value for expense in this little
jaunt? It seems to me that I've lost one programmer, two agents,
and the person who might have been able to dig up the crystal. For
that I've learned nothing that I didn't already know. Charidilis
■night have to be convinced that the UCN caused the death of her
son—I didn't. And now I'm left with the decision of what to do
with tom, Hlidskjalff."
193

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"You may give the alpha to me, HeadFather Jardien," said an
accented voice behind them. Jardien turned, and Ardent peered
past him with a puzzled scowl on his face. Between two other
attentive Jardien guards, a T'Raijek omega male came toward
them. In robes the color of jade, a head taller than the guards, the
omega seemed lordly. He inclined his head politely to Jardien,
one of his thin, long hands fluttering at his low waist. "I beg
your indulgence, HeadFather, but this is in many ways only a
T'Raijek matter." His words were tinged with a guttural heavi-
ness, telling Ardent that the omega was newly imprinted with this
language. He began to feel a slow dread building within himself.
He knew this one was Njialjiad: only Njialjiad would have to
imprint one of its omegas—the ClanMother had long ago done
that with her own.
The Njialjiad looked at Ardent. He sniffed audibly, as if in
contempt. "The ClanMother Njialjiad Salii demands your pres-
ence," he said ponderously. The dread exploded within Ardent,
leaving only a sagging resignation. It's over, then. She couldn't
keep them off and Njialjiad has won. Ardent summoned the last
shreds of bravado and folded his massive hands over his barrel
chest. At least make it good for Jardien. Let him see how Clan
Hlidskjalff acts in defeat.
"Did ClanMother Hlidskjalff leave any final instructions for
me?" Ardent demanded, knowing that the omega would be
bound by T'Raijek custom to tell him the truth.
"Her death-oaths were read to all," the omega answered. "To
you she gave the command to follow the path given you by the
death-oaths of ClanMother Hlidskjalff Highland."
Ardent laughed scoffingly, feeling no amusement inside, only
an empty bitterness. "Then you're spending your seed in an
empty hole, Njialjiad. The death-oath of ClanMother Hlidskjalff
Highland refused me the privilege of joining my people until all
hope was gone—I get to keep on playing this useless charade."
"You refuse the order of the new ClanMother?"
"I follow a death-oath, Njialjiad."
"Even when the reasons for the oath are now gone? Surely
you see no hope at this point?"
"I follow a death-oath," Ardent repeated. That was all he
needed to say. The omega drew himself up to full height. Ardent

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could see the offended dignity of the Njialjiad—at another time it
might have made him want to laugh. All omegas were haughty
and self-important; it had always pleased Ardent to deflate their
egos. Not now.
The omega turned to Jardien, his face serious. "You see why
it is said that alphas should not be given death-oaths to fulfill.
They are too stupid to understand when an oath has been ade-
quately followed. The self-centered youngling that he once was
never leaves any alpha; the older they get, the more sour and
pitiful that childish spirit becomes." Now his voice became
honeyed, and he leaned toward Jardien as if in confidence. "Will
you give him to me, HeadFather Jardien? He will have kept his
oath if you hand him over to us as a captive."
Ardent could see the barracuda gleam of Jardien's eyes. "And
if I don't?" the HeadFather inquired.
"Clan Njialjiad rules the embassy now," the omega answered.
"The mistakes of the Clan Hlidskjalff are being unmade. Our
ClanMother has declared the alpha Hlidskjalff renegade. She has
decreed that his death-oaths are now void. We will take him as
we must. HeadFather, no matter where he would hide himself or
who would protect him."
"Indeed?" Jardien purred. "Am I to interpret that as a threat?"
A brief puzzlement washed across the omega's face at the
HeadFather's words: no T'Raijek would have asked that—they
would have known. They would have known and either submitted
or given formal challenge. "I simply tell you what will happen,
HeadFather Jardien," the Njialjiad said at last.
Jardien turned to Ardent. "What do you think, Hlidskjalff?
Do you think it'd serve me to keep you alive?"
For an instant, Ardent felt a resurgence of hope. This is why
the GreatMother wanted the apes—they don't follow the rules of
the group, but look only to their own survival. Like the Traal,
very like the Traal. "You no longer have Charidilis. Njialjiad
won't give you the crystal. I still would, and I know Jemi's mind
better than anyone else."
"But you don't know where the crystal is."
"No," Ardent admitted. "But I've other things 1 can tell you.
Things you should probably know—things Clan Njialjiad won't
tell you. Things Clan Hlidskjalff never mentioned either."

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The omega was glaring at Ardent in fury. "You betray all of
us, alpha—your own clan as well as the others. Your new
GreatMother will die like the last for this."
Ardent shrugged. "I follow my death-oath."
Jardien glanced from one to another. He scratched at his chin
thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what," he told the Njialjiad omega.
One pudgy forefinger rubbed his neck, his lips pursed. "I'll hold
on to the Hlidskjalff for the moment. I'll let you know what I
decide . . . later."
The omega's nostrils flared. "That's not acceptable."
"I'd be curious as to how you intend to stop me." The dead,
flat grin was back again: a mask. Jardien fluttered a thick hand.
As the omega watched, the guns of the Jardien's guards came to
bear on the T'Raijek.
The omega's eyes narrowed, his lips stretched thin. "I protest
this treatment, HeadFather."
"I've done nothing to you. I've simply told you what I'm
going to do—take this alpha back to Underneath."
"You make a decision that could affect all of your people on
this world, HeadFather, not simply your own Family. ClanMother
Njialjiad might well consider this affront severe enough to call
for kinjtha." The omega lapsed in his own tongue. Jardien
glanced at Ardent. "Satisfaction," Ardent said. "War. By our
rules."
Jardien nodded. "Tell your ClanMother that I send her my
regards. You might also mention that you didn't see too many
people here on Salii. That's because they're all downworld. You
may also mention to her that war doesn't have many rules for
Salii. We've fought too hard to get where we are. Tell her that at
the first sign of any attack, I will blow up Salii—and her. I had
the explosives placed beneath your embassy when you first came.
They'll rip the whole damn place apart and every last Saliian will
walk out on the sands to see the meteor shower as the pieces hit
the atmosphere."
The omega's skin had gone dark. He seemed in shock, unable
to say anything. He gaped at Jardien for a moment, then turned
stiffly and walked away without another word. Jardien's guards
chuckled at the sudden retreat. "Let's go," Jardien said to his
people as the alien left. "Tell the staff here to go to Family homes

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except for the minimum. And you"—he turned to Ardent—
"had better have something interesting to say."
"1 do," Ardent told him, "I do. But tell me, would you really
blow up Salii just to get the embassy?"
Jardien snorted laughter. "What do you think?" he asked.
"What are you going to do with Strickland?"
Commander Nys had asked Jemi the question over a week ago
now, before the ship on which she found herself had left Uphill
to go meet Strickland aboard the Strolov. "You had better decide
whether you want revenge or something else. To a point, I can
help you, but your interests aren't mine. We have a common
enemy, but perhaps not a common goal, eh?"
Jemi was still held under ship arrest, locked in a room of the
small vessel that Nys had somehow commandeered from the
naval docks at Uphill: a packet cruiser named Inverness. "1
thought that I was a prisoner of the UCN, not the navy," she'd
said. He'd replied with an amused smile.
"And you are. But your Admiral Strickland was entirely right.
There are those within the UCN and the navy who have won-
dered at his abuses. Captain Burgess, who commands this vessel,
is one who has seen the files you've seen. She's willing to take
the risk."
"Then I suppose I can trust you a little further yet."
Nys had given her a strange smile then. He'd touched her
shoulder with an odd affection, holding the contact a moment too
long. "I admire you, Jemi Charidilis," he'd told her. "You've
bent under the pressure, but you haven't allowed it to break you.
You force it to compromise." Then he let his hand drop. She
didn't see him again for two days.
For two days, Jemi stayed aboard Inverness. Nys boarded
then, and they left Uphill for the rendezvous with Strickland.
"I'm sorry, Admiral," Nys had told Strickland, "but my security
chief tells me that Uphill is not safe, and that Saliian threats have
been made. It would be better if you simply ordered her to be
brought to you."
Surprisingly to Jemi, Strickland had agreed.
Jemi waited for him now in Nys's quarters. The room seemed
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ship's room. A low table of polished wood had been bolted to the
floor; a ceramic vase holding two silk flowers was attached to it.
An ink-and-brush sketch hung from a wall, a row of Japanese
kanji streaming below it. Jemi sat in one of the three chairs in the
room. Nys knelt seiza before the table, his eyes closed, looking
oddly wrong in his naval whites. Captain Burgess was there as
well, a young woman looking worried in her dress uniform,
seated across from Jemi. Jemi noticed that when Burgess caught
Jemi staring at Nys, the woman frowned but said nothing. She
wondered if perhaps Nys and Burgess weren't more than fellow
officers. Then Burgess looked away from Jemi with a sudden
intake of breath.
"What is the matter, Captain?" Nys asked without opening his
eyes.
"He's here. I felt the shuttle dock."
Nys opened his eyes and nodded. He rose smoothly to his feet.
"What are we going to do, Commander?" Burgess asked.
"We are doing our duty, Captain. We've brought a prisoner to
the Admiral at his own request. Beyond that"—Nys shrugged—
"we'll simply have to see. This isn't our confrontation at all, but
the Holder's."
"Mine?" Jemi asked, surprised. "What can 1 do, Commander?"
"1 don't know," Nys answered. "But it would surprise me if
you have no resources left. You have surprised me a number of
times already. Holder Charidilis. 1 fully expect you to do so
again."
They all heard the ring of steel-clad boots in the corridor
outside, and there was a quick knock. "Come," Commander
Nys called. An ensign stuck his head into the room. "Admiral
Strickland to see Commander Nys," he said.
"Tell the Admiral to come in," Nys told him.
Jemi didn't know what she expected to see. In one scenario,
she had thought that Strickland would enter with his head bowed,
looking guilty. In another, he would be angry and furious, deny-
ing everything. Somehow, she'd never conceived that he would
look exactly as she remembered, like someone's kindly old grand-
father. The Admiral limped into the room, the stiff leg dragging a
bit. His white hair was softly combed, the dress uniform perfect.
His sad eyes belied the soft smile he gave them as he entered. He

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nodded to Nys and Burgess. "Commander, Captain," he said,
then glanced at Jemi. As a Highlander, she had years of practice
reading the subtleties of faces. She would have thought that his
guilt would have shown, in his eyes at least. Yet she couldn't see
it. He gave a small nod. "Holder Charidilis," he said, and his
voice was gentle, understanding. "1 wish we could have met
again under pleasanter circumstances."
"Ensign," Burgess called out to the officer still in the door-
way. "Please bring some coffee for the Admiral—1 believe you
prefer Colombian, do you not, Admiral?" Strickland nodded.
"The Commander will have tea. I would like coffee myself.
Holder?"
"Nothing," Jemi said. Her voice husked from a dry throat.
Burgess nodded; the ensign fled. The four of them sat in
uncomfortable silence until he returned a few minutes later with a
tray. As Strickland measured and stirred sugar into his coffee
with the same precision that Jemi remembered from the Strolov,
the Admiral turned to Nys. "1 would have thought your security
better than to require moving the Holder to a ship, Commander,"
he said. "Holder Charidilis is simply an unfortunate woman
caught up in a trap, not some beast that must be caged. I assume
there's a reason." Said any other way, Strickland's comment
might have been scathing, but there seemed to be genuine sympa-
thy. Again, Jemi began to wonder. She knew that it was possible
for Nys, figuring that she would come to Uphill, to have faked
the documents she'd seen. All he wants is an indictment of
Strickland, and he thinks I could help with that. One of them
killed Kenis. One of them wants the crystal so badly that he
would do whatever he needs to do to get it.
And I know where it is .. .
That's the only weapon I have left. What does Nys expect me
to do, attack Strickland with my bare hands?
With the Admiral's words, Captain Burgess rose and took her
mug from the tray. She saluted the Admiral and Nys. "If you
gentlemen will excuse me, I have business on the bridge."
"Certainly, Captain," Strickland answered. Jemi saw a quick,
odd glance pass between Burgess and Nys, then the woman left
the room. "Commander?" Strickland queried.
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told, by you, not to pass information to any other naval person-
nel." Nys's lack of inflection made him sound insolent. Strickland
sighed as if very tired and turned to Jemi.
"You've been very active since we last met. Holder Charidilis,"
he told her. "1 told the Naval Secretary that there were extenuat-
ing circumstances relating to the charges against you, that much
of what was attributed to you can instead be laid at the feet of
Salii. I hope that's true, Holder." Always gentle, like her father
had been when he'd scolded her. Jemi, why are you being such
an imp? / know you aren't usually that way. Something must be
bothering you. Tell me what it is. "You seem to have changed a
lot in that time, and not for the better. You've lost weight, you
look malnourished and frightened. I'm very sorry for that. I feel
responsible."
Jemi shrugged. She glanced at Nys, but the small man was
watching Strickland.	N
"1 want you to know that I've not let the matter of your ship
simply drop," Strickland continued. "I've continued the investi-
gation into it." He groaned under his breath as he shifted his
weight on the chair. "I have my reports aboard Strolov. You're
welcome to examine them."
With a feigned irritation, Jemi shook her head. "You're
being awfully kind to a prisoner."
"/ would not have treated you as a prisoner had you come to
me, Holder. I don't blame Commander Nys, however. He was
simply doing as he thought he must. You've been through quite a
stressful time, Holder. You were plunged into matters that had
little to do with you directly, and it's not surprising that they
overwhelmed you. I doubt that anyone within the UCN is looking
to punish you for that."
"Are you offering me amnesty?"
Strickland smiled wearily. He chuckled, sipped his coffee, and
set it down. "I'm saying that I'll do what I can to see that the
charges against you are dropped or minimized. I won't lie to you,
Holder—some of the charges are serious, and I can make no
promises. But I'll try. A person in my position isn't without
power, after all."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Is this where I'm supposed to turn into an ogre, Holder?"

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Strickland smiled, and his glance toward Nys completed the
sentence for Jemi: as the Commander told you to expect. "I'm
not one," he said quietly. "I doubt that you know anything I
don't know at this point, so I've nothing to bargain for here. I'm
simply trying to do the right thing."
Jemi shook her head, now more confused than before. She
wanted to tell Strickland yes, see what you can do. Let me go.
Just let me return to Highland and forget this thing. I'll even give
you the crystal. Just let me out of this. Alt I ever wanted was
Kenis, and I can't ever have him again. She wanted to turn and
rage at Nys, to scream that she knew that it was all lies, that she
knew the Commander had been the one to hide Kenis's death,
perhaps even to order it. A year ago, she would have hidden
herself behind her k'lyge. Now she could not. But before she
could say anything, Nys spoke.
"Do you think, Admiral, that she could still lead you to the
crystal?"
Strickland's face went quickly red, and his hands fisted at his
thighs. Jemi watched the hot flush climb the older man's neck
and glow like a live coal in his cheeks. "Commander, you're
discussing sensitive information for which you're not cleared.
You are ordered to cease—"
"This room is verified secure. Admiral," Nys interrupted.
"And I know about the crystal because the prisoner talked quite
freely with me after her capture. She—and I—know what her
attackers were looking for aboard her ship."
"Commander, I don't much like you or your ways. This will
be noted in your report, and if you've made any statements to the
Holder, you'll be held accountable for those as well. I trust you
understand that."
"Perfectly, Admiral."
"Good," Strickland grunted. He turned away from Nys and
his voice softened. "Holder, you know about the crystal?"
"Yes."
"Are you aware of what it contains?"
"The alpha Hlidskjalff told me that ..." Almost, Jemi told
him. Yet a certain caution held her back. She hoped her hesita-
tion would be attributed to nervousness. Another lie, another
deception. ". . . that they were T'Raijek diplomatic documents.

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something about the feud between Clan Hlidskjalff and Clan
Njialjiad."
Nys stared, but Strickland nodded. "We thought that might be
the case. It was on our list of possibilities."
"But it doesn't explain why Family Jardien and the Saliians
would want the crystal so badly they'd attack her ship, does it,
Admiral?" Again, Nys spoke with his curious flatness, so that no
meaning could be implied beyond the words themselves. Still,
they hit Jemi like a blow. She immediately saw the implication
behind Nys's comment: a double-edged sword. First, Nys wanted
to remind Jemi that she had claimed no Saliian ship had attacked
her before Strickland's rescue. And second, it begged a question:
wouldn't Strickland be puzzled about why a Saliian pirate would
be trying to rescue T'Raijek diplomatic documents? Yet it was
obvious that Strickland was satisfied with the explanation. He
had reached down to pick up his cup again, and the flush was
beginning to fade from his cheeks. Jemi glanced at Nys, but he
was still paying her no apparent attention. So that's to be the
game—like the one in your office. Give me the sword and see
what I do with it.
All right. This time I'll use it. For Kenis and for me.
"Admiral, that doesn't make sense," she said. "Why would
Jardien attack my ship to recover documents? No one would do
that unless they thought that they had a lot to gain from finding
that crystal."
Strickland seemed to puzzle over that, and the flush began to
creep back upward. "Perhaps they had allied themselves with
Clan Hlidskjalff for some reason. Holder. 1 don't know—
HeadFather Jardien would have to be the one to answer that
question for you. 1 have no idea why they might be driven to
that."
Liar. Watching for it, she could see the evasion in his face.
Jemi knew that he could have told her what she already knew—
that the Clan Njialjiad had offered a reward for the return of the
crystal. If Strickland thought that the document contained diplo-
matic information, then Njialjiad could have made the same offer
to Salii that they had made to the UCN. That might have ex-
plained the attack. But no—Strickland instead chose to lie and

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keep Jemi in the dark. That said nothing about his guilt, but it
told her that she could not trust the man's sweet words.
And you're no better than he. The thought pained her. Her
eyes were suddenly very bright, stinging with salt. Deliberately,
she lied again—a lie laced with truth to use the edge that Nys had
freely given her. Jemi remembered what Highland had taught
her: The liar tries to trap you with the lies so that you can see
nothing else. The eyes don't care about truth, but the mouth hates
the taste of a lie. Watch the mouth and don't get snared by the
eyes. "I've learned something during all this. I found that Kenis
had found the crystal. He had it." Talking about Kenis made the
tears gather and spill over the rim of her eyes, but that only made
the lie more effective. "He had it when he was killed—I'm
certain a Saliian agent killed my son, but didn't find the crystal."
The Admiral's eyes were full of moist sympathy, but Jemi
didn't look at them. She watched the other muscles of his face,
his mouth, his hands. She saw him shaping the words before he
spoke, and she saw their falseness. "That's my conclusion as
well. Holder. We think Ruth Diesen, the creche-mother, might
well have been that agent. Tell me, do you suspect where your son
might have hidden the crystal?"
Strickland was smooth—there was no eagerness in his voice at
all, only a slow concern. Yet he leaned forward slightly in the
chair, and the fingers clenched. Jemi could feel Nys's gaze on
her and she turned to look at the Commander. He stared at her,
and she knew that he was asking her a question. She also knew
that she had reached a decision. Still looking at Nys, she nodded.
"I think I might have an idea," she said, knowing that Nys
would not realize that she spoke the truth. "Take me to Highland
and 1 might be able to find it."
There was no mistaking the joy in Strickland's voice. "I'm
afraid that's not possible, Holder," he said to her with that
gentle, friendly sympathy. "After all, you are under arrest, and
in any case, it would be dangerous for you. All you need to do is
tell me—I'll take care of the rest."
"Take me to Highland," Jemi insisted, and Strickland's mouth
turned down as if in irritation, though the eyes regarded her with
pity.

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"1 can't do that, Holder. It's not necessary, for one. Give me a
general idea of where to look and I can have my people go there.
They'll find it—with the crystal's recovery, I can easily plead
your case to the UCN."
"And if I refuse to tell you?"
"Please, Holder," Strickland said, his voice pained, pleading
with her to be reasonable. "There are other ways—drugs,
primarily—to get the information from you. I'd rather not have to
use them. Please don't force me to do that."
"It's happened to me before." Jemi paused, took a breath.
"And you were responsible for that time as well, Admiral."
He shook his head as if to a hopelessly errant child. "Holder
Charidilis, as I told you then, a drug such as the one used on you
isn't available in the UCN, and in any case, I was on Strolov at
the time."
Jemi was not listening. She had turned back to Nys. "You
were right," she told the man. "And 1 do know where the crystal
is. Exactly."
"You're certain?" Nys asked.
"I am. It's on Highland."
She didn't say that she also knew what it contained. She
reserved that, waiting to see how Nys reacted. You've given the
sword back. Now Nys faces the same test. Nys rose to his feet
with a sigh and went over to the wall, standing near the Admiral.
Strickland followed his movements with a puzzled glance.
"Commander Nys, I will be taking Charidilis back to Strolov,"
the Admiral said. "Please tell Captain Burgess to prepare my
launch."
Jemi thought for a moment that Nys would simply nod and
follow orders. But instead the Commander came up to stand
beside Strickland in his seat. He stared gravely at the older man.
"I'm afraid that's not possible, Admiral," he said.
"Not—" Strickland began, blustering, the flush returning to
his face. He turned, half rising. "Commander, I won't tolerate
your insubordination."
"You've no choice, Admiral," Nys said. "At the moment,
Captain Burgess has the guns of Inverness trained on the drive of
Strolov. She did so when she left here, not knowing if this was

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an option we would need to take. 1 would have preferred to let
you go and bring charges against you later, but the Holder has
forced my hand, as I think she intended." Nys glanced at her and
nodded. "When I tell Captain Burgess to do so, she will inform
the captain of that ship that you have been taken hostage and will
be killed at the first sign of hostility from Strolov. At that point
we will disable Strolov and make our way to Highland."
"You're a fool, Commander. You've nowhere to go but Salii,
and if they take you in, that action will precipitate a full-scale
war."
"I don't think so, Admiral. Please, I'll take your service
revolver." Strickland's hand had gone to the pistol grip. But now
the fingers opened and dropped limply to his lap. Shaking his
head, Strickland unfastened the holster belt and handed it to Nys.
Strickland remained silent. Jemi rose from her seat and went
over to the Admiral. She stood directly in front of the man,
confronting him. "You killed Kenis," she told him, her teeth
clenched. A slow rage filled her. "You can't believe how much I
hate you for that."
Strickland blinked. "It wasn't me," he said quietly. "I have
children and grandchildren of my own. I wouldn't have wanted
anything like that to happen. I don't know why your son died,
Holder. I don't know anything about it." His chin jutted out
stubbornly. Muscles bunched in his jaw.
He was lying. She knew he had to be lying.
Her rage was a giant's hand clutching her throat, choking her
in a red haze. Jemi wanted to scream. Through the mist of the
fury, she could see Strickland's revolver, held in Nys's hand, the
grip toward her. She knew she could reach for it, might be able
to grab it and fire before Nys could react. The Commander might
not even try to stop her. She could pass judgment on her son's
killer, could exact the punishment she'd wanted for the last
several months, could strike back against the nightmare that she
was caught in.
Her breath was ragged, gasping. Her hands were claws. She
looked at Strickland and hated. The bile was a deep poison
within her. If she had been sure, if she had been utterly sure, she
might have moved then and ended it.

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Stephen Leigh
She screamed. She slapped at Strickland with her open hand,
dragging nails across his cheek.
"Get him out of here!" she shouted. She swatted air with her
palm, backing away. "Get him out!"
She wept, covering her face with her hands, crying for Kenis,
crying because she felt no satisfaction. Nys's hand clenched her
arm and pressed gently. When she looked at him. he nodded to
her sympathetically. Then he ushered Strickland out of the room.

When the T'Raijek came, it was as if some cosmic magician
had suddenly conjured an entirely new reality from the empty
box of space. Some of the effects on humanity were immedi-
ate and public; we all know those. Others were subtle and
hidden. You have to search through the statistics of that time
to see them. For one, our own scientific research died a quick
and painful death. What reason was there to continue devel-
oping our own spacecraft when the T'Raijek ships were so
obviously far better? Why explore the tiny limits of even our
own solar system when the T'Raijek already knew it?
It would be like doing calculus on our fingers when every-
one else has calculators.
And surely a race that is our technological superior is also
our moral superior.
—from "The New Magi" by Ellis Wilson.
New Lifestyle magazine, July 2170.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In his mind, Ardent saw the destruction of Clan Hlidskjalff.
The memory of his act of defiance to the omega Njialjiad before
HeadFather Jardien was a mockery of his feelings. He did not
feel defiant. He felt sick.
It would be aljceri, the fight of authority, or it would be
kinjtha, the fight of equals. Ardent could smell them coming,
like the spoor of some sick beast.
And if they did come, if the T'Raijek warships arrived here,
the humans would feel compelled to fight. They would not
follow the rules of aljceri or kinjtha. They would fight as Ardent
had seen Jemi fight—like a base animal cornered and trapped.
And once they did that, once they revealed that nature, that was
how the GreatMothers would judge them. They would hunt them
207

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Stephen Leigh
down as beasts, not as equals. They would let the alpha
BeastCaptains deal with them in any way they wished. If he lived
long enough, Ardent would see Highland twisting like a broken
toy in the sky. He would see the cities of Earth as burning pits in
the ruined soil. He would see Mars left empty and barren again.
Njialjiad was no different from any of the rest of the T'Raijek.
They would follow the rules of conflict—inexorably, no matter
what the situation. No matter that the more Ardent saw of the
apes, the more he thought that maybe the old GreatMother
Hlidskjalff had been right. The apes would not have reacted to
the Traal as the T'Raijek had. If the apes had the T'Raijek
technologies, the Traal might not be a threat always to be feared,
a reason to look constantly over their shoulders. They might have
fallen, yes, but not so meekly, not so quickly. And perhaps,
perhaps, not at all.
The winds of Mars buffeted the little Jardien shuttle heading
downworld from Salii. Sparks of light in the upper atmosphere,
other shuttles followed, leaving Salii almost deserted. Over the
shrill scream of the jets, Ardent shouted to Gavin Jardien, seated
near him in the shuttle's cockpit. "You put on a good show,
HeadFather. Would you really blow up Salii?" He again asked
the question that had nagged at him since the confrontation.
Jardien grinned back. "Absolutely. Without hesitation. If I
really could, and if I thought it would do any good. Neither of
which is the case."
Ardent's eyes widened. The apes, the damn apes—despite
what the Njialjiad had said, they were far worse than any alpha.
They lied and they deceived, and they laughed about it. T'Raijek
could lie—the lie of omission. Ardent himself might lie; he had
found that he had picked up too many of the apish ways. But not
the Mothers, not the omegas. The only falsehood they knew was
that of simply not saying all. "You were bluffing?"
"All the way. The same way as you, eh?"
"I wasn't bluffing," Ardent said stiffly. "I do follow a death-
oath. T'Raijek wouldn't bluff, HeadFather. They would simply
go ahead and do it."
"Then I want to get in a poker game with you sometime,"
Jardien replied. "The higher the stakes, the better. Now you can
answer one of my questions. Tell me, Hlidskjalff. what would

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your clan have gotten in return for the crystal? You give us a
stardrive—what's your fee?"
Ardent hesitated. He looked at the sandy oxide soil that was
looming up at them. Here and there were specks of green where
nothing had once been, the legacy of Saliian determination: the
apes' determination to survive. Their linked economies in sham-
bles, the initial resources of their solar system failing, still some
of them continued to fight. Ardent would have bet, when the first
reports concerning the apes had reached the T'Raijek, that the
GreatMothers of the time had been convinced that the apes were
ready to destroy themselves. They'd watched. For two of the
apish centuries they'd watched. And they hadn't died. They
hadn't lashed out at themselves in frustration. They'd come close
several times, but each time had lurched aside from the death
waiting for them.
HeadFather Jardien should have never been born. He should
have been a skeleton bleaching on the cold sands of Mars. But he
was alive. He was here.
The death-oath nagged at Ardent. Do not obey the commands of
any ClanMother who is not Hlidskjalff until all hope is gone.
Follow the path the GreatMother set for us. Fine, he would do
that, despite the fact that he could feel the utter uselessness of it.
It would be kinjtha, probably, and the apes were not the Traal.
When the apes met the T'Raijek retaliation, they would die.
Finally.
Ardent sighed. He looked at the surface of Mars, at the meager
holdings the apes had carved in the world's surface, and he began
to tell HeadFather Jardien the tale of the T'Raijek and the Traal.
"You mean that you've never actually talked with the Traal?
You met them only once? Once?" Gavin Jardien nearly laughed
with the unbelievability of it. He had never been so struck by the
true alienness of the T'Raijek until this moment. He had somehow
always had them in his mind simply as odd humans. But this . . .
They were still in the shuttle, which had grounded near Under-
neath. A minor sandstorm was in progress outside, so Jardien had
given the order for the crew and passengers to wait until the
storm passed in a few hours. It had given the Ardent time for his
tale. Jardien shook his head and tapped at the windshield, where

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orange sand collected in the corners. "It was a settlement expedi-
tion, HeadFather," Ardent said. "All our ships were escorted by
fully armed warships. The command ship carried two GreatMothers.
They were fired on without warning. When the GreatMothers
offered aljceri—leader to leader combat—there was no reply.
The Traal continued to attack. Kinjtha—full war between equal
forces—was proposed, but still there was no answer. So the
GreatMother declared them beasts, and gave control of the fight
to the alphas. Our ships swung to attack. But the Traal ... the
Traal destroyed all the warships. Then they began to fire on the
undefended expedition freighters. It must have been utter chaos.
The ships tried to flee—two made it back."
"And you decided to hide from that point on."
Ardent shrugged, his ancient face puzzled. The ship rocked in
the winds. "Don't you understand? The Traal force was far
smaller than ours. Yet they beat us. Their ships were faster than
ours, their weapons were devastating. We hardly hurt them at all.
Can you imagine what that means?"
Jardien scoffed. "Evidently not. You lose one battle and con-
cede the war?"
"The ships that did return brought back a few of the Traal
dead, retrieved from the carnage. From what we can tell, their
evolutionary ancestors were predators. Ours were more like your
herd beasts. And your own ... a little of both. The Traal are
truly warlike, more like you than like the T'Raijek. In aljceri or
kinjtha, we would have become subject to them. But there are
millions upon millions of stars in this arm of the galaxy—there
was only an infinitesimal chance that we would come across
them again, and almost none at all should we expand outward in
the arm instead of inward to where we had found them. Their
worlds are toward the galactic core, on the other side of the
T'Raijek worlds from your sun, and are a well-developed soci-
ety. Still, it was an awesome coincidence, considering the odds
and the number of suns, that we would hit a world that was
theirs. Yet we knew that there was still that possibility.
"We're not at all like you or like the Traal, HeadFather. We
don't understand individual initiative very well. We tend to
follow the rules of our society; when others fail to do that, we

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often don't know how to react. You'd probably say that we lack
imagination."
"It still doesn't make sense." The gale howled, sand scoured
the thick glass of the windshield. Jardien pulled his furs tighter
around him.
"To you. Nor do you make sense to us," Ardent sniffed.
"We're different."
"And you thought you could use us."
"That was the thought of my GreatMother Hlidskjalff. It was a
new thought for us, and new thoughts aren't easily accepted. We
thought that perhaps if the Traal find us, or should we meet them
again, that it would be good to have your people between us and
them."
"You could have asked."
Ardent laughed. "Asked? HeadFather, we stumbled across
you apes not long after the Traal—another cosmic coincidence.
The GreatMother Hlidskjalff who proposed our course did so two
hundred and fifty of your years ago. We simply watched you for
two hundred years, judging and arguing." He shook his head.
"Asked? The other GreatMothers would never have allowed it.
We were surprised when GreatMother Ktainias AllMother per-
mitted contact. Clan Hlidskjalff had been petitioning for it for
fifty years. Now the Ktainias and the other clans may well try to
rectify that mistake."
The ClanMother Njialjiad Salii lolled in her nutrient pool. The
younglings were all sleeping in a far corner of the pool except for
the lone alpha, whom she kept near her. The alpha wasn't of her
body, but of the late ClanMother Hlidskjalff's, the only young-
ling left of that brood. But alphas were too rare to kill for the
sake of aljceri. She stroked the wrinkled face, the pudgy body;
the alpha stirred in his sleep and snuggled closer to her warmth.
"I should have you feed the pool," she said to the omega who
stood near the entrance, waiting for her to notice his presence.
"I will do it if you order it, ClanMother," the omega said,
bowing to her. "As I would do anything you asked me to do. I'm
sorry I've failed you."
"I wasted the imprint on you, omega Sabist. You were sup-
posed to bring the alpha Hlidskjalff here. That was simple enough."

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"He claimed a death-oath."
ClanMother Njialjiad sighed. "1 know that. That's the only
reason you're still alive. You've checked out the HeadFather's
threats?"
"For the last two turnings of this world, ClanMother. I checked
the records of the growing of this building, and we have exam-
ined the foundations. 1 myself personally supervised a crew to
dig under the subfloor. I found nothing."
"And the station itself?"
"As far as we can tell, there's nothing there, either, though of
course the Saliians could destroy the station from a ship—we are
watching for that possibility. Salii itself still has only a minimum
crew of the apes aboard, though."
"And what's your conclusion?"
"That HeadFather Jardien lied," Sabist said, using the apish
word. "That there is no threat to you or the younglings or this
embassy. That the HeadFather simply wanted to keep the alpha
despite your wishes." The omega's face was strained. It didn't
help his discomfiture that the ClanMother stared at him, stroking
the youngling alpha. "The apes are too like the Traal," he said.
"There have no sense of the order of things. That's why
Hlidskjalff's folly was so tragic."
The ClanMother nodded. The omega confirmed what she had
suspected. "They insult us. They beg to have authority shown to
them." The ClanMother began to rise from the pool, the gelati-
nous broth of the nutrients clinging to her fur. The wounds
inflicted by the old ClanMother were scabs across her chest, the
fur just beginning to cover them. The alpha opened his eyes,
found the ClanMother missing, and began to howl. "Get one of
my daughters to care for the younglings, Sabist," she told the
omega. She came very close to him and let one of her claws slip
out from the pads of her hands. She tucked the sharp tip under
Sabist's chin and lifted it so that he looked into her eyes.
"Send one of the fastships," she said. "Tell GreatMother
Ktainias AllMother to come for kinjtha,"
The two pieces of news reached HeadFather within a day of
each other. The first to come was a paper stuffed inside a
high-gee capsule and recovered by a Jardien cruiser. The head-

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lines screamed at the HeadFather when he unrolled the faxpaper:
STRICKLAND TAKEN HOSTAGE, SALII AN/HIGHLAND REB-
EL INVOLVED. That in itself made him draw his breath in.
The story itself was a collection of rumors and speculation—it
was obvious that the UCN would not release precise information.
But it said that the commandeered ship—the UCN small cruiser
Inverness—was on a heading for Highland. Jardien pursed his
lips and decided to wait.
He was glad the next day that he had done so, for that was the
day that a small, unmanned fastship left the T'Raijek embassy on
Salii. Saliian instruments tracked it for three hours, after which
the thing suddenly left all screens. Ardent confirmed what Jardien
already knew—a message was being sent.
HeadFather Jardien nodded. With his authority, he ordered all
Saliian cruisers into orbit and planetary defenses put on alert. He
took command of one of the cruisers himself: the Lowell.
Ardent had only one question. "Where are you going?"
"Highland," Jardien answered. "Why?"
"Take me," Ardent said simply.
Jardien shrugged. "Let's go," he said. "They'll almost be
there."
Her world was locked in night. Boiling, angry clouds threw
lightnings across a swollen sky. In the fitful, aching glare, Jemi
could see Kenis across a wide expanse of water, his back to her.
He seemed to be playing in the sand of the small island on which
he sat. The wind began to rise, lashing Jemi's cheeks with his
hair; rain came pelting down—huge, warm droplets that made
Jemi squint and protect her face with her hand. "Ken!" she
called. "Kenis, I'm here, honey!"
Slowly, he turned to look at her. He smiled, but the smile
made her want to gasp, to cry out. There was nothing there,
nothing behind his eyes and that smile. It was the empty grin of a
death's-head. "Hello, Mommy," he called back. His soft voice
carried impossibly in the wind, and it was as dark and low as the
clouds—an adult's voice, ominous.
"Ken?" she whispered hesitantly, and he laughed, a sound as
vacant as the smile.
"You can't ever have me back, Mommy," the mocking,

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grown-up thing told her. "Not ever. You lost me except in your
head, and all you've done is cover me with your hate." He
smiled again, incongruously, and reached over the sands to dip
his hand in the water. Lightning flared like magnesium. He
palmed a handful of the strange, still lake. The water ran thick
and dark from his pudgy, little-boy fingers, and in the next blue
flash, Jemi saw that it was not water at all. It was blood—black
instead of red in the night, but blood, thick and pasty and
clinging to his hands.
He held his hand over his head. He let it drip down over him.
"See, Mommy, see?" the apparition said under the drooling
flow. The flow was impossibly huge, as if his cupped palm held
an endless pool of the stuff. "It didn't do any good, did it?"
"God," Jemi muttered, horrified. "Kenis—"
And then the thing let his hand drop, and suddenly it was
Kenis again, lost and frightened. "Mommy!" he screamed. The
sound of his voice dragged her to her feet as if shocked. She
began to step into that viscous, obscene water.
"No!" Kenis shouted. "No, Mommy!"
"Kenis, I'm not going to leave you, love. I'm coming, don't
worry."
"Holder?"
A hand pulled her back, and Jemi turned to see that it was
Doni. The vivicate shook his wan, sad head at her. "No, Holder.
I'll go get him," he said in his slurred, pathetic voice.
"Why should you?" Jemi demanded. "He's my son. And
what good did I ever do you?"
"Holder Charidilis, please . . ."
"It wasn't your fault, really," Doni said. "You were better
than most Holders, usually. I liked you. In some ways, you
reminded me of Mari. It wasn't your fault that you responded to
me in the way you were taught to respond. It wasn't your fault
that Kenis died, either. No fault, no need to go looking for
forgiveness." He stepped into the water. His pants went dark, but
it seemed to be only water that he waded in. "I'll go get Kenis,"
he said.
"Jemi, wake up."
The voice dragged her from the dream. Jemi opened her eyes,
feeling a sense of loss and disorientation. Kenis . . . But there

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was no Kenis, no pool of dark, strange water. There was only the
cabin around her and the face of one of the officers of the ship.
The woman's face was grim, her manner hurried. "Holder," she
said, "Major Nys sent for you."
With a start, Jemi noticed that the woman was floating in
midair. The ship was no longer spinning. A dull growl reverber-
ated through the deck plating; the ship shuddered a few times and
seemed to shiver.
"Sorry, ensign. I was—" Jemi grimaced, remembering. "Never
mind," she said. "What's happening?"
"We're near Highland—you can see the colony from the
ports. The naval patrol ships there have ordered us to surrender."
The officer pressed her lips tightly together. "Please come with
me."
"All right," Jemi said. "Let me get dressed."
The ship's bridge was in the middle of Inverness. Flatscreens
gave a view from the ship's hull cameras and instruments. Most
of the personnel sat in front of their stations. Major Nys hovered
near the middle of the room, tethered to a stanchion beside an
empty acceleration seat. He wore a throat mike; Captain Burgess
dominated the room's center in a small booth crammed with
panels. The ensign led Jemi over to Nys and then left.
"Holder," Nys said.
"What's going on?" Jemi asked again.
"Patrol ships," he answered tersely. "There weren't any cruis-
ers in Highland dock, but the naval base, under orders, sent
over what protection they had. I'd hoped that the patrol vessels
would be farther out from Highland, or that they would have
been ordered to avoid confrontation. I misjudged my superiors in
that."
"The ensign said that they'd ordered us to surrender." Jemi
said.
The little man nodded; his dark eyes glittered, mirroring the
pinpoint flecks of light from the panels around them.
"Can they force it?"
"Perhaps," he answered. He gave a half-shrug that moved his
body up. He adjusted his position quickly—Nys moved grace-
fully in free-fall, seemingly comfortable. Jemi slid toward the
stanchion, hugged it to herself. "Please," he told her. "Strap

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yourself into the chair if you're to stay here." Jemi did as he
requested, Nys speaking as she moved the restraints over her
shoulders. "We've told them that if they fire on us, we will
return fire," he said. "That's not a decision I like to make,
Holder. It bothers everyone on this ship. There are probably
those who will not do it in any case."
The dream came back to her momentarily, making her close
her eyes. She clutched the armrests of the chair; she knew Nys
saw the strain it revealed. "God," she sighed. "Do we have to
fight?"
"No," Nys answered flatly. "More to the point, we won't.
I've played my bluff, Holder. I will order the crew to defend this
ship, but I won't make an offensive move first. I don't believe in
that. The crew of this ship has taken enough of a chance already.
They've done so only because they've seen the abuses of Admi-
ral Strickland and others in the UCN, because they've all seen
the documents I've compiled against the Admiral, and because of
Captain Burgess's leadership." Nys indicated the dark-haired
woman, speaking urgently into her throat mike, her eyes worried
as she scanned her instruments. "I won't ask them to kill people
who are, after all, only obeying orders. We're at an impasse at
the moment, each of us circling the other."
Jemi relaxed. "Good," she said. She rubbed weary eyes.
"I'm tired of it. Commander. I don't need to be responsible for
more. I'd rather take my chances with UCN justice."
"It may come to that," Nys told her. "But it also may be more
important that we recover the crystal. That's why I asked you to
come up here." His dark, intense stare riveted her. "You're not
bluffing me as I am doing to these patrol ships, are you, Holder
Charidilis? You do know where the crystal is?"
"I'm fairly certain that I do," she answered wearily. "No, I
can't be sure, but I'll be surprised if it's not."
"You're still holding something back," Nys said, his brows
lowering. "Are you certain that all the crystal holds is diplo-
matic messages? Is there something else?"
Jemi shrugged. I still don't know that I trust you. Commander.
I'm sorry. Jemi could tell that Nys would not let the subject drop.
She could see his frustration with this encounter. He had taken an
immense chance—not directly for Jemi, but because of her. Jemi

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217
had tipped the scales for Nys, moved him into action. / would tell
you, but I may need something of my own to bargain with, nor
am / certain that I want to give the UCN the gift of this crystal.
"I'm sorry, Commander," she said. "I've nothing else to say."
She thought he would continue the argument, but then Captain
Burgess called to him. "Major—screen five."
Nys spun to see a wallscreen behind him, stopping his momen-
tum with a chopping motion of his hand. On the screen, three
dots moved across a grid, a phalanx of numbers moving with them.
"Condors?" Nys asked.
The captain nodded. "Saliian ships," she said. "HeadFather
Jardien is aboard the command vessel and has given a warning to
the ships blocking us. The patrol ships are peeling off. Jardien is
hailing us."
Nys nodded. "Open the link," he said. "Put the cameras on
me, but let him see the Holder as well."
"Aye, sir," Burgess said. "Communications, you heard the
Commander." Another screen flared into life to one side, and
Nys turned to face it. HeadFather Gavin was there, and he
grinned like a cat.
"Hello, Commander, Holder," he said. "I've just come for a
visit. I've always wanted to see Highland, and this seemed like a
good time. It even looks as if we've saved you from a little
trouble. What do you say, Commander? I tell you that it's time
enemies became friends. I've no quarrel with you, and we both
want what's best for our people. I say we should follow the
Holder's example—she's shown me that there's power in follow-
ing her path. Let's say we have a momentary truce?"
"Can I trust you, HeadFather?" Nys queried.
"The Holder's my reference. Ask her."
Nys glanced back at Jemi.
She nodded.
Nys stared at her for long seconds. In older times, she would
have drawn her k'lyge across her eyes at such an intense scru-
tiny. But she only looked back at him. She let him see whatever
it was he wanted to see in her. His lips curled in the slightest
indication of a smile. Then he turned back to Jardien. "Truce,
HeadFather," he said. "For the moment."

We do everything for our children, either the children of
our flesh or the children of our minds. Without some part of
us to travel into the future, there is no reason for existence.
The prime directive is to perpetuate yourself in one way or
another. If there's no chance of leaving your autograph on
the walls of eternity, we might as well go ourselves, for we
face an empty void.
—-preface to My Father's Fault by
Meg Stevens. Lee Books, 2171.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Highland had only minimal defenses other than the navy. She
had originally been, after all, only a colony for mining the ore of
the Belt. Faced with the massed firepower of Nys's cruiser and
the three Saliian ships, the council of Provosts had capitulated
within hours, without much debate at all. The UCN would send
cruisers to save them, but that might be a week, a month, or
more—in the meantime, they would do what they needed to do to
survive.
As Adjunct Michaels told the assembled provosts: "We're not
fools. Why die for useless pride?"
The vote was carried by acclamation.
And aboard the cruisers—the three Saliian ships and the larger
Inverness—an uneasy watch was kept, each on the other, as they
made the final approach to Highland.
The night before they finally docked at Highland Port, Jemi
came to Nys with a request. "1 want to talk with Strickland,"
she said. "Alone."
Nys was wearing his gi. He and Burgess had been practicing in
the cruiser's gymnasium. Both were sweaty; Burgess, seeing
218

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
219
Jemi approach, had gone off to another corner, where she prac-
ticed a solo kata—series of movements—with the boken. Nys
pulled a cloth from underneath his top and wiped his face. Seated
in seiza, he looked up at her.
"I hope you've not changed your mind about revenge, Jemi,"
he said.
"No," she said. She started to say more, then closed her
mouth. She rubbed a hand over her scalp. Her hair was beginning
to come back, a prickly fuzz that reminded her of that on
Ardent's face.
"We need Strickland," he told her. "All of us on this ship
face charges at home. He's our only chance to escape those."
"1 know that. He also killed my son. 1 want to know more
about that, and he might be more likely to talk if I'm there
alone."
Nys closed his eyes. She thought for a moment that he had
slipped into some meditation. Then they opened again, a dark,
nearly pupiless stare. "All right," he said. "I trust your judg-
ment. Go now."
"Thank you," Jemi said.
"We all need to trust each other," he said with an odd
inflection. "Neither of us has had that kind of faith in anyone
else for too long. I'll write you a pass for the guard."
Strickland's cabin was no different from any of the others.
Small, cramped, a tiny desk and chair bolted to the floor and a
bedshelf the only furnishing. A lamp was set in the ceiling, giving
off a sharp-edged light that put the deep hollows of his eyes and
cheeks in shadow. He was stretched out on the bed when she
entered. She nodded to the guard to leave, standing silently until
the door closed behind him.
She thought Strickland might be asleep, but his tired voice
came as the lock clicked behind her. "1 hope you don't think that
I'm more likely to talk without the guard," he said wearily. "I'm
not that much of a fool."
"You won't tell me anything about Kenis?"
"There's nothing to tell, Holder. I don't know what happened.
I wasn't there."
"You thought his life was worth what the T'Raijek offered to
give you. You thought that my memories of him were just as

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expendable, and that Doni's life was nothing." Jemi blinked.
She could feel the cold hatred in her voice, the gall that spilled
out of her with each word. Her arms were folded tightly under
her breasts; her hands were claws digging into the skin. The
Admiral stared at her dully, either not seeing the venom in her or
not caring. Jemi came near him. With a sudden movement, she
pulled a hypodermic from her blouse pocket and with a cry,
jabbed it into his bicep. The Admiral cursed and started to slap
her away. "Don't!" Jemi cried harshly. "Move and I'll inject
the stuff. It's Scloramine, Admiral. Do you know what it is,
what it does?" She felt him fall back, and she knew that he did
know. With that motion, she knew that he had lied to her again.
"I'm telling you that we couldn't have done it," he had told
her back then. He had told her that by UCN technology it was
impossible. He had lied. He had known all along.
"So you're familiar with Scloramine, Admiral. You know
exactly what it is. You know that I could put this in you and peel
back the layers of your memory, let you relive it all for me one
more time. You know that I could take you back in time and see
exactly what the truth is. The only trouble, Admiral, is that after
it was over, you wouldn't remember it at all. It would be as if it
had never happened for you. Wouldn't it?" She nearly shouted
the last words. Jemi's thumb trembled on the plunger of the
hypo, and the Admiral moaned. "Tell me the truth. Admiral,"
she whispered. "Tell me the goddamn truth this time or I'll use
the drug to do it. Did you send Martel for Kenis?"
For a second, he resisted. She thought he would defy her. But
as she watched, she saw his resolve shatter. He slumped in the
bed, all the muscles limp, and his shadowed eyes half closed.
The word husked out from between dry lips.
"Yes," he said. A quiet sibilance.
Jemi shivered with the admission. A moan escaped her, and
she pressed her lips together. "And me and Doni?" she said
through the beginning of tears. "Did you send someone after my
ship?"
He simply nodded. "I thought . . . There were others . . . We
could have used the T'Raijek technology for everyone."
"After you were installed as UCN Head."
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With a wail, she yanked the syringe from Strickland's arm. She
threw it blindly at the wall, sobbing—glass shattered, a clear
liquid darkened the gray paint.
"Holder," Strickland said from the bed, "I'm sorry. But no
one in power can make a decision that doesn't hurt someone.
Quite often, it ends up killing too. That's the way of things."
Jemi fled the room. She could not stand to be near him.
She ran into Nys. His arms came around her as they collided.
When she struggled, crying, he let her go. They stared at each
other for a moment, then Jemi fled down the corridor. Nys shook
his head at the guard who began to pursue her. He went into
Strickland's room. After a glance at the Admiral, he went to the
wall. His shoes crunched against broken glass. He sniffed the
wetness, touched a fingertip to it, and put it to his tongue.
"Sterile water," he told Strickland, and left the room.
This time there was no old vivicate tending the garden. The
Rekindled House seemed deserted and almost ominous, though
that was perhaps more in Jemi's mind than anything about the
way the place looked. With her entourage of Nys, HeadFather
Jardien, Strickland, Ardent, and an assortment of guards, Jemi's
group was far more threatening.
She felt strange walking Highland's streets without a k'lyge,
her hair shorn. She felt odd seeing Harris among the Provosts
who greeted them deferentially at the port; he didn't seem to
recognize her at all. Walking up to the house in company with
the others was just another strangeness among several.
Mari answered the door. She looked the same, leaning on a
cane, her dark hair flecked with gray, wild hairs, the once
handsome face twitching as she stared at the group on the door-
step. Surprise twisted one side of her mouth, though the other
remained slack. A film of saliva sheened her chin. "What do you
want?" she said, with a bravado that Jemi remembered all too
well—the memory of their last meeting stung her, and Jemi
replied as gently as we could.
"We'd like to talk with you, Mari. Please."
Mari grimaced. She let the door open wider and hobbled back
from it a halting step. "Doesn't look like I can much stop you if
the provosts couldn't. Wipe your feet, though.'

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The vivicate waited until they were settled, the guards along
the walls, all the rest except for Jemi seated. Mari glanced from
one to another, standing on a braided rug in the center of the
room. From the archway leading back into the house, they could
hear voices, but no other vivicates could be seen. "What do you
want?" Mari asked again. She tapped the floor with her cane for
emphasis. Gnarled, disfigured fingers clutched the knob of the
cane tightly. She looked at Jemi with a curious sympathy. "1
remember you now," she said. "You're Charidilis. You've
changed."
"More than you'd think," Jemi answered.
"Did you bring this zoo here?"
Jemi nodded. "It has to do with Doni."
Mari's face went slack. She blinked slowly. "Doni again.
What's the matter, Holder? Did you have a thing for vivicates
that Doni never told me about? Did you like dead meat?" She
tottered on the cane, caught herself. "I had enough trouble after
you left the last time," she said. "People asking about you,
about what we'd talked about. I don't know what trouble you're
in, Holder, but I don't want any of it, and I'm glad Doni's
gone—I don't want to see him hurt anymore. Why don't you
leave me alone? I've enough problems all by myself. Every
vivicate does."
"I might be able to help with that," Jemi told her.
Suspicion lifted one corner of Mari's mouth. Her fingers moved
on the cane. "I'm listening."
"Doni gave you something just before we left Highland last
time. Remember it?"
"A paperweight," Mari said. "A crummy, cheap paperweight
he bought on earth. What about it?"
"Would you get it?"
Mari stared at them. Then, with a shrug, she limped from the
room. Jemi didn't look at anyone while the woman was gone,
though she could hear them fidgeting behind her. "He did buy
the paperweight on earth, Holder," Strickland spoke to her back.
"I saw the receipt on the customs manifest. I talked with the
customs official who saw it, and I know there were a hundred
more just like it in the ship where he bought it."
"Kenis would have been about a meter tall," Jemi told him

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223
without turning around. "About the same height as a T'Raijek
alpha male. I kept spin on Starfire as much as possible. Kenis
always prowled the ship, looking into odd corners—he could
have gone anywhere the T'Raijek did. He would have had the
same viewpoint. And he and Doni always played together. Kenis
showed Doni all his toys, all his little discoveries."
Mari came back into the room. She held Doni's gift in her
right hand, clutched against her thin chest. It was a round globe
about four centimeters in diameter, a poor representation of Earth
dappled blue and green and set on a small piece of driftwood.
Jemi had seen them in the stores of Uphill Station—this one was
perhaps worse than most. But she heard Ardent's intake of breath
behind her.
"I won't give it to you," Mari said. "It's all I got of him."
Nys had given her the sword. He had given her the gift of her
own choice. "I wish that all fighting had to be done with swords,
so that when we killed, we would have to be close to the person
whose life we take, so that we would have to deliberately make
that choice." You can do no less for her, for Doni and for Kenis.
"I'm not asking you to give it to me," Jemi said. "Just scratch
it. Scratch the paint with your fingernail."
Glancing oddly at Jemi, Mari did so.
Underneath, there was a lambent glimmer.
Jemi sighed. "That caused Doni's death, Mari. It killed Kenis
too, and more others than I care to remember."
"What is it?" Mari whispered.
"Knowledge," Jemi said. She laughed bitterly. "Just that.
Not everybody here knows exactly what it is. But I'll tell you,
Mari. I'll tell you because it was Doni's. The crystal holds a
stardrive. With that knowledge, humanity can have entire other
worlds. New beginnings, perhaps." Jemi heard the collected
intakes of breath behind her, and knew the words had shocked
both Nys and Strickland. "It's yours, Mari," she continued.
"You can do whatever you want with it. Strike any bargain you
desire. The Admiral thinks it could buy back his freedom and
power. Commander Nys believes he might be able to use it to
change the UCN. HeadFather Jardien would send his people io
find new suns. The T'Raijek might be able to save his clan. I
don't have any use for it at all—it won't give me Kenis back.

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Stephen Leigh
Doni might have suspected that it was worth something. I think
he probably intended to use it, but he never had a chance. It's
Doni's gift to you." Jemi's shoulders slumped; she sighed. She
wanted to sit down—she simply felt weary. She had thought that
she would feel exhilaration at seeing the crystal. Instead, it made
her sick to see it.
Mari's thumbnail scratched over paint, flecks of blue and
green drifted to the rug. Below, a milk white gem gleamed.
Iridescent colors swirled in the surface, moving. Kenis would
have loved it. He held that, he played with it, and he gave it to
Doni. His friend. The thought made her eyes burn with tears, and
she blinked hard. "You can even destroy it. The Hlidskjalff tells
me that it's relatively fragile. Throw it against a wall—it'll be
gone, the way it took Doni and Kenis."
Mari seemed startled, unsure. The others began to speak now,
adding to her confusion. "Salii has never used vivicates," Jardien
shouted over the others. "Give it to me, and I'll make certain
that the research is done that should have been done before.
Vivicates won't be slaves to the Saliian economy."
"I can promise the same," Strickland said.
"Any of us would," Nys interjected. "All of us will."
Only Ardent remained silent.
Mari gaped. She looked at them all, clutching the crystal to her
breast. Her gaze rested longest on Jemi, searing. "I hated you,"
she said.
"I know. I can understand it."
"Doni hated you, too."
"I can understand that, as well. I didn't hate him, but I wish
I'd been kinder to him, Mari. You were right; I didn't know him.
I didn't think of him as a person. Only Kenis did that."
Mari nodded. She stared at the crystal in her hand. "I want
what every vivicate has always wanted," she told them. "I want
Vivicate Corporation dissolved. I want the contracts of all vivicates
destroyed. 1 want money channeled into death research. I want—I
want a second chance, not this mockery of life you gave me."
She pressed her lips tightly together. "Would that be what Doni
would have said, too, Holder Charidilis?"
"I think so, Mari."
"He loved your son, Holder. He thought of Kenis as his own.

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225
in a way. He told me that he wished he and I could have a child
like yours."
Mari held out the crystal to Jemi. "Take it," she said.
Jemi shook her head. "Mari—"
"You'd promise to give me what I asked for?" Mari's rheumy,
bloodshot eyes peered at Jemi, her head tilted to one side.
"Yes. but—"
"Then take the damn thing. If it killed Doni, I don't want it.
And no matter what you do for the vivicates, it's too late for me.
I'll always be an ugly thing, a drooling monster. Doni loved me;
no one else but a vivicate could." Muscles worked in her thin
face. "Take the damn thing."
Jemi held out her hand. Mari twisted the crystal; it came off
easily from the driftwood base. She let the wood fall to the floor
and placed the crystal in Jemi's palm. "There," she said. "Now
get the hell out of here."

Celebrate the common person. Celebrate those who rise
from obscurity to make their mark on history. If you look to
someone to change the world, don't cast your gaze to those
already in power. Those who have made their niche are too
busy trying to secure it. They don't want change; it's in their
best interests to retain the status quo. In a crisis, the changes
will come from a Cincinnatus, a Joan of Arc, or even a Hitler.
Those are the ones who will smash the current order.
Forget the already titled ones. Look instead to the person
next to you on the street.
It was probably no coincidence that Jesus was a carpenter
or Muhammad a merchant.
—from Another Fanfare by Aaron
Bernard. NY University Press, 2171.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GreatMother Katainias had intended to go first to Earth and the
UCN, and there issue the necessary first step of aljceri challenge.
She did not expect the challenge to be accepted. The apes could
have wasteful kinjtha then, if they desired, but the moment that
they ignored the rules of the ritual warfare, she would declare
them beasts and give the alpha BeastCaptains free rein.
The T'Raijek warship blinked into existence near the orbit of
Mars, and the GreatMother used the ansible to contact Salii and
ClanMother Njialjiad Salii. The plans changed on learning that
HeadFather Jardien was on Highland, that the alpha Hlidskjalff
was there as well with the renegade ape Charidilis, that UCN
naval ships were even now nearing that colony. GreatMother
Ktainias could feel the disturbances focusing there like the ripples
spreading outward from her hands as she stirred the Waters of
Life.
226

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227
She hoped that this would all soon be over. The apes were a
threat, she was certain of that. Hlidskjalff had made an enormous
error in judgment. Yes, as AllMother, Ktainias had given them
the formal permission to open contact with the apes, but Hlidskjalff
had gone too far. Too far.
GreatMother Ktainias, as AllMother, would rectify that error.
The GreatMother stirred in the nutrient pool that she rarely left
during spaceflight. Her scarred, massive body moved slowly,
wading the thick waters. The other two GreatMothers, Hlidskjalff
and Njialjiad, watched apprehensively. This had not been a good
or pleasant trip for them. GreatMother Ktainias—old, sour, and
undefeated in her time as AllMother—had been petulant and
savage during this trip. Hlidskjalff's favorite two omegas had
gone to feed the pool after an unintentional slight to GreatMother
Ktainias. The fading memory matrix of the last GreatMother
Hlidskjalff stirred in GreatMother Hlidskjalff's mind as she re-
called the way her two omegas had looked at her as Ktainias
ordered their deaths. Hlidskjalff forced the matrix personality
down and pretended calmness.
Next to her, GreatMother Njialjiad had her own apprehen-
sions. Njialjiad's younglings had been confined to the lower
pools after cavorting too clumsily near Ktainias's huge flanks.
Njialjiad was careful to see that the younglings stayed well away
from Ktainias.
It didn't seem to be a good time to antagonize her.
"It's your fault, Hlidskjalff," GreatMother Ktainias grumbled.
Ktainias had lost an eye to aljceri spans ago. She'd never both-
ered to have it replaced. The empty socket was more intimidation
than an eye could be. Five times in the thirty spans since then, the
GreatMother Ktainias's position as AllMother had been chal-
lenged. Each time, she had been the one to walk from the Deep
Pits. For the last ten spans, no one had had the temerity to
dispute her rule.
The GreatMother Hlidskjalff wished that her predecessor had
possessed the honor and desire to challenge Ktainias instead of
flatly disobeying her and hiding the treachery she had committed
with the apes. Maybe then all this would never have happened.
With that thought, she felt the stirring of the matrix again—that
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clan; the ghost of the last GreatMother strongest among them.
Not my fault, it seemed to say. I couldn't have beaten her. Yet
this had to be done. All the alphas advised it. The apes might
have saved us.
The ruined gaze of Ktainias turned on the young GreatMother
Hlidskjalff.
"It was the GreatMother before me that started this," Hlidskjalff
reminded Ktainias carefully. She pushed down the protesting
matrix, pretending to relax against the pool's stony sides. The red
light of the pools seemed suddenly too cold. "The GreatMother
Ktainias AllMother knows that 1 have followed all her commands."
Ktainias sniffed. Turgid water peaked in slow swells from her
body. "Then advise me, GreatMother. Should we go on to the
ape home world, or should we deal with those on that flimsy toy
they call Highland?"
Hlidskjalff snuck a glance at Njialjiad; all she could see there
was smug satisfaction. She knew that Njialjiad was enjoying this.
"ClanMother Njialjiad Salii thinks the crystal is there," Hlidskjalff
answered slowly. "My alpha is there."
Ktainias nodded. "We can at least pick up the crystal—if
Njialjiad knows what she's talking about," Ktainias added irrita-
bly. From the corner of her eye, Hlidskjalff saw Njialjiad sud-
denly frown and sink lower in the pool. "We can also retrieve
the alpha, though I feel that he's worthless at this point, too
tainted from contact with the apes. Any value he has as seed is
marginal. I will order him destroyed."
At the words, the matrix howled in Hlidskjalff's mind: No! it
wailed. No!
Ktainias reared up in the pool as if she'd heard the mindsob.
She smoothed the fur between the rows of nipples as the splash-
ing echoed in the chamber. Her chest and abdomen showed the
ridged scars of old aljceri wounds; the gleaming tips of her claws
shone through the pads at the ends of her fingers. Hlidskjalff had
no doubt that the display was quite deliberate. I don't care that
the alpha is valuable, Ktainias was saying. / don't care that he
carries all that's left of your apish embassies' lines. Challenge
me now if you must, Ktainias insisted. Challenge me now or
submit.
Hlidskjalff hesitated. The fact that Ktainias insisted on an

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229
alpha's death spoke of her deep displeasure with Clan Hlidskjalff.
GreatMother Hlidskjalff had thought that Ktainias might claim
the alpha as her own in punishment for Hlidskjalff's meddling
with the apes. But she'd not thought that Ktainias would destroy
him outright and lose the genetic bloodline he represented. This
told her that Ktainias knew all too well that the matrix of a strong
GreatMother could sometimes force an unwanted decision on her
successor. Ktainias knew what Hlidskjalff must be thinking: her
empty, horrid eye socket impaled her. The clawtips combed fur
laced with gray.
No! the matrix pleaded. Hlidskjalff shuddered with the feel of
it.
"Whatever the GreatMother wishes," Hlidskjalff said at last.
"1 release the alpha to you. I will follow your decision for the
apes."
"Then you don't share the delusion of your predecessor?"
"No, GreatMother Ktainias."
"Good," Ktainias said. She allowed her body to sink back
into the pool's dark, moving waters. She swam to one of the
deeper ledges, until only her head remained out of the water. The
long, graying muzzle was lapped by wavelets.
"Then we will go to Highland and settle this," she said.
The alarms had begun to shriek over Highland before Jemi and
the rest reached the port. After a hurried consultation with Cap-
tain Burgess, the others, along with Strickland and a guard, went
to the war room off the main navigational compartment of
Inverness. The ClanMother Njialjiad Highland was already wait-
ing for them there.
"GreatMother Ktainias AUMother has asked for aljceri," the
ClanMother said without preamble as they entered. Her gaze
lingered for a moment on Ardent. "The alpha Hlidskjalff is to be
given to me."
"I still claim a death-oath," Ardent said.
"GreatMother Hlidskjalff has released you from it."
Jemi saw Ardent's shoulder slump with that. This was the first
time she'd seen one of the female T'Raijek's in person. The
ClanMother, sleek, in appearance almost like an upright, muscu-
lar otter, stood a head taller than any of them. She wore a loose

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tunic woven with glittering, metallic threads; a faint odor of
musk exuded from her, a pleasant spice. But the ClanMother was
tense and expecting a confrontation: there was enough similarity
between the races for Jemi to see that. It showed in her tight
stance, the uneasy, darting stare as she faced them.
Jemi clenched the crystal tighter in her palm, and the motion
drew the ClanMother's eyes. "GreatMother Ktainias AllMother
has said that the crystal is to be returned to us as well," the
T'Raijek told Jemi. The ClanMother held out her hand to Jemi,
palm up. Jemi could see the tips of long claws nestled in the
sleek umber fur, and she knew that the ClanMother could rip her
open with one cuffing blow.
The old Jemi, the one whose ship had been destroyed by
Strickland's puppets, would have given over the crystal without
hesitation. She would have shrugged and thought nothing of it—
what happened afterward would happen. But Jemi looked at the
tiny sphere in her hand, its surface still flecked with the awk-
wardly painted continents and seas, and her fingers closed around
it again. The crystal was Kenis. The crystal was the deaths she
had caused. The crystal was blood and violence and her own
shattered life; it was a promise made to Mari. Jemi hated the
crystal. She longed to be rid of it because of how much it had
cost her. But not this way.
"No," she said quietly.
The ClanMother's intake of breath was audible to all of them.
The clawtips emerged slightly from the fur. Then the T'Raijek's
hand dropped to her side and she glared at Jemi. "As you wish,"
she said. "We'll have it anyway—it won't do you any good to
keep it. But I will take the alpha."
"Only if he wants to go," Jemi said. The statement was
half-question, her inflection rising as she looked from Nys to
Jardien for confirmation. Jardien shrugged. Nys nodded. The
ClanMother seemed furious, but Ardent ended it. He walked over
to the ClanMother and bowed. "I submit to GreatMother
Hlidskjalff s command," he told all of them. "I'll go."
"Ardent?" Jemi questioned. He seemed entirely unlike the
alpha she had known. All the fire had gone out of him, all the
passion. He was empty, like a scolded little boy. She'd seen

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231
Kenis act the same way after defiance had gotten him spanked.
The alpha shrugged.
"I've no reason to stay," he said. "It's all done now."
"You forced me to keep going," Jemi told him. "You wouldn't
let me quit."
"I did that because 1 had to. I keep my oaths," he said.
"What will you do to him?" Jemi asked the ClanMother.
"GreatMother Ktianias AllMother has called for him," Njialjiad
replied. "She may kill him. 1 haven't asked, but i know she's
angry. That's all I know, and none of our concern. If you stop
me from taking him, you lose all your options. GreatMother
Ktainias will declare you all to be beasts. That will be the end of
it. Your two worlds will be laid waste, the pieces of Highland
will circle the sun like the rocks around it. You can have aljceri,
the fight of leaders; you can have kinjtha, the fight of clans; or
you can have the BeastCaptains leave your cities in ashes. No
one else must be hurt but the leaders or a picked group of
warriors who know they risk death. If you're more than animals,
you'll submit."
"Ritual combat," Jardien muttered. "That's barbaric."
"More barbaric than your warfare, which kills anyone who
gets in the way? That's true barbarism, HeadFather, allowing the
innocents to be killed because of a question of dominance."
"The Traal are the same kind of barbarians, then, but you ran
from them," Jardien shot back.
The ClanMother glared at him. "The Hlidskjalff talks too
much," she commented. "We offered the Traal the same alterna-
tives. Even the stupidest beast can be dangerous, HeadFather.
It's sane to fear and avoid something that can hurt you. It's also
sane to make sure that a potential threat never has the chance.
Even an ape would know that. An ape would run from a tiger,
but you'd crush a wasp that got in the same room with you,
wouldn't you? It's all a matter of relative danger. And when we
have a gun for the tiger, we'll go after it as well."
"And aljceri? Kinjtha?" Commander Nys pronounced the
alien terms slowly.
"If the wasp could talk and agree to accept your terms for life,
would you give it that chance? We would. Commander Nys."

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Stephen Leigh
"We have no GreatMothers," Jemi told the T'Raijek. "We
don't have one leader."
"We will deal with your clans separately or at once, it doesn't
matter. Or if you wish kinjtha, the AllMother's ship will fight
one of your own. As the challenged, it is your choice."
Ardent laughed at that, jarringly. "You haven't seen a true
T'Raijek warship—the jthacalin," he said to the three humans.
"The ships that brought the embassy was only a transport, yet it
wrecked the UCN's orbital defenses. You think one of your
cruisers will fare better against a full jthacalin? That would be
your wasp against an eagle. It would swallow you whole."
The ClanMother gestured, and Ardent fell silent at the com-
mand. "GreatMother Ktainias AllMother has said that she would
accept Holder Jemi Charidilis as your representative for aljceri,''
she told them.
"What?" Jardien scoffed. "The Holder-—"
"First, she is female," the ClanMother interrupted. "That in
itself is more pleasing to the GreatMother—it is not soldiers who
fight aljceri, but the representatives of the clans involved. Sec-
ond, the Holder has been the one most affected by the manipula-
tions of the Clan Hlidskjalff; if there was any truth in that Clan's
speculations, she will show it. Third, she was able to find the
crystal against all the plotting of all of you, even the efforts of
Clan Njialjiad." The ClanMother made a sour face with that
admission.
"She doesn't represent any of us," Nys interjected. "And
even if HeadFather Jardien and I were to agree to this, that's still
only Salii and a rebellious UCN officer. Not the UCN itself,
which is still the majority."
"GreatMother Ktainias will accept your acknowledgment of
Holder Charidilis as your representative in aljceri. She will do
the same with Admiral Strickland for the UCN. If you fail to
keep your word afterward, then she will declare you beasts."
"And what does this gain us?" Jemi asked quietly. The
ClanMother turned to her.
"Acceptance will tell GreatMother Ktainias that the apes are
sentient and not beasts. You will tell her that there is a chance
you can be trusted. You will return the crystal to us. Your people
will be watched, you will be confined to these worlds around this

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233
sun, but you will live so long as you do as GreatMother Ktainias
AllMother asks."
"And if I would win?"
The quick smile the ClanMother gave told Jemi that she thought
the possibility unlikely. "You would then have proven that Clan
Hlidskjalff was correct. GreatMother Hlidskjalff might well use
that advantage to become AllMother herself. As for your own
people, GreatMother Ktainias has said that her death-oaths will
tell the Clans to leave you as we left the Traal. You may keep the
crystal—we will show you the way to unlock its matrices. In
time, you'll be able to build your own drives. If you should find
us again, we will see what will happen then. Or perhaps it will be
you who find the Traal. You will be left to your own destinies."
"We can't trust you to stick to any of that," Jardien said.
"No GreatMother would tell you that and fail to abide by the
death-oath," Njialjiad answered. "That is truth. If you don't
wish to believe it, that's your choice. But if you feel that way,
then you had best prepare to be treated as the beasts I think you
are."
Jemi had listened with a growing sense of despair and resigna-
tion. The old Jemi, she found herself thinking once more. The
old Jemi would have sat here and said nothing. She would have
let the others handle this.
"I'll do it," she said. She spoke the words without con-
sciously thinking them, without mulling it over. They came from
a compulsion in her. It was not that she felt she had nothing to
live for. In one sense, the decision was more an affirmation of
life. Yes, she fully expected to die, having heard Ardent's de-
scription of aljceri, having seen the ClanMother Njialjiad and
knowing that only one person would walk from the combat. But
it would also be some small payment for the debt of life given
her by Mari, by those that had died along the path she'd been
forced to walk. "I'll do it," she repeated forcefully before she
could think about it, before she could convince herself of the
stupidity of saying the words.
HeadFather Jardien roared his disapproval, but Nys only shook
his head. "That's the way the branch is being bent," he said
softly. "I will give you my acknowledgment of the Holder,

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Stephen Leigh
ClanMother Njialjiad. I want to find another way, but if it hap-
pens, I accept her."
"You're crazy!" Jardien bellowed. In the heat of the UCN
cruiser, Jardien was sweating under his furs. The fringe of his
hair was plastered darkly to his forehead. "What's your word
worth, Commander? You can give the T'Raijek nothing but a
cruiser."
"A cruiser and its people," Nys answered calmly. "At least
it's something. HeadFather Jardien. I've seen films of the day the
T'Raijek arrived. I am—was—an officer of the UCN navy. I
know that no ship of ours will be likely to stand against them.
Yes, I'll trade one life for several."
"Easy to say when it's not your life, isn't it?" Jardien retorted.
"If the GreatMother Ktainias would take me, I'd gladly be the
one to go. I can't prove that. You'll have to accept it for what
it's worth. The ClanMother Njialjiad has said that there are no
soldiers allowed in aljceri."
The ClanMother nodded, and Jardien gave a scoffing bark of a
laugh. "I'll tell you what," he said. "This beast"—he spat out
the word—"will let the Holder represent Salii also, as far as my
authority lets me. And for as much as my word is worth," he
added, and laughed again.
The ClanMother gave the HeadFather a look that could only be
disgust. "Your word is all the GreatMother has asked for," she
said. "I'm sure she knows how well you will keep it. Clan
Hlidskjalff has already given her a lesson in apish ways. All she
cares is that the proper form is kept. What of Admiral Strickland?"
They turned to him. The Admiral had been silently observing
the meeting from his chair. He shook his head; Jemi could see
the sense of defeat in the man. His shoulders sagged, the face
was sunken and pale. It was as if the finding of the crystal had
heralded an ending for him. He no longer seemed to care. "The
T'Raijek have lied from the beginning," he said. "Clan Hlidskjalff
never told us what they wanted in return for the crystal; Clan
Njialjiad never said what it was, nor did they tell us what finding
it might mean."
"Clan Njialjiad would have kept its word, if you had found the
crystal," the ClanMother told him. "You failed."
"You never told us all it would entail."

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235
"How can one predict all the possible futures?" the ClanMother
responded. "All we can know is what each of us will do."
"Which gives you an excuse to say nothing?" Strickland
asked with a trace of his former animation. Then he sagged back
into the chair once more. He waved a hand to the Jemi. "You're
just another useless sacrifice," he told her. "You're doing this
from guilt."
Jemi shrugged.
Strickland sighed. "Do as you want. then. Fine. It's on your
head. I'll do what I can with the UCN once it's over. Is that
satisfactory, ClanMother?"
"It will do," she said. "GreatMother Ktainias AllMother
expects that you will be called beasts no matter what may hap-
pen. She only wants to be sure." She bowed to them and opened
the door to the room. "The alpha and I will leave now," she
said. She gestured to Ardent to precede her.
Ardent looked back at Jemi. She waited for him to say some-
thing, but he only gave her a half-grin, the faintest touch of a
shrug.
As a farewell, it seemed pale.

Who says we're not like the T'Raijek? We're ruled by old
compelling instincts that have their roots in our homo ances-
tors. That's no different from the T'Raijek, in whose blood
runs the passions of a herd beast. Why do you think that we
watch the apes in the zoo with such curious intensity?
It's because we see ourselves peering back through the
bars.
—from "Apology for the Alien"
by Akira Nys, published in
The T'Raijek Anthology.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Deep Pits of the Jthacalin Ktainias were as ornate as any
in the ClanHomes. One did not stint on ritual, after all. The walls
were smoothed; the building coral that had built the walls had
been chosen for their varied, gleaming colors; and so the Deep
Pits nearly glowed in the long wavelength light. Purple streaks
marbled the basic pink, tinged here and there with glowing,
electric blues. The tiers swept back from the sands of the pit
itself in steep ranks. Jthacalin Ktainias had been built (or more
precisely, grown) some fifty years before. In that time, the Deep
Pits had seen aljceri several times, mostly because of disputes
between the ClanMothers underneath the GreatMother Ktainias.
The sands had been taken from the Old Pit of Wjthir, where
centuries of the ritual combat had taken place. The sands had
licked the blood of nearly all the T'Raijek clans, including those
whose lineage was no longer counted. There were times, to most of
the T'Raijek who came to the Deep Pit to meditate, when the
sands seemed to be alive with the memories of the Mothers who
had died there. "Each grain of Wjthir holds a life" was what all
younglings were told.
236

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
237
All of which meant little to Jemi. To her, it was a warm, dark
hole in which she would soon lose her life.
The Deep Pits smelled of the T'Raijek. The few humans there
were lost in the swarm of aliens, mostly omega males with a
scattering of females and the occasional alpha male. The
GreatMothers Hlidskjalff and Njialjiad sat apart from the rest in
the lowest tier of the Deep Pits. Ardent sat between the two
GreatMothers, his face reflecting a dour resignation. Directly
across the sands from the GreatMothers was the human entou-
rage: Jardien, Strickland. Nys, Burgess, and two representatives
each from the Saliian crewmen, Highland, and the UCN naval
complement nearest Highland. It would be days yet before any of
the cruisers dispatched from Earth after the kidnapping of Strickland
entered Highland space.
The T'Raijek had made concessions to this aljceri. The human
Charidilis had no younglings to feed the sands of the cleansing
ritual; she had been horrified at the suggestion, in any case. Since
Clan Hlidskjalff had been most responsible for the Holder, one of
the Hlidskjalff younglings had been used instead. The human had
no natural weapons with which to fight: GreatMother Ktainias
AllMother had insisted that the Holder be given a knife for each
hand, the blades carefully sharpened and curved, tapered to look
very much like the claws of the T'Raijek. They were ripping and
tearing weapons, without edges.
Brass horns sounded, an atonal dissonance with no Earthly
harmonies. The lights dimmed around the Deep Pits and the
whispering of the watchers fell away to a hush. GreatMother
Ktainias AllMother stepped out into the sands. As she stepped
into the bloodcircle of the Ktainias youngling, Jemi was ushered
onto the sands to stand in the other discolored area. She was
naked, as was Ktainias. Against the bulk of the GreatMother,
Jemi looked pale and fragile. The claws laced to her fists seemed
insignificant against the six paired rows of Ktainias's natural
weapons, against the huge muscles that rippled under her fur.
Jemi felt that she looked ridiculous. The scene was ludicrous,
a mockery—it proved nothing, nothing at all. She wanted to run
away from here, but it was too late.
The Pit was cleared. A gong sounded
Jemi stood in the heat, feeling the sweat dripping down the

238
Stephen Leigh
length of her body, her nakedness made her even more vulnera-
ble, knowing that there were hidden watchers in the shadows
around the Pit. She shifted her weight, feeling the harsh grains of
the sand rasp under her soles. Sand clung to her feet, sticky with
the blood of the youngling. Jemi tried to remember what Nys had
whispered to her before the T'Raijek had taken her to prepare for
the aljceri.
"Don't try to directly oppose her force with your own," he
had said. "If you do that, the strongest will always win, and
she's far stronger than you, physically. You know this is laugh-
ably overbalanced in the T'Raijek's favor. Keep turning, keep
moving. If she strikes with her right hand, pivot to your right.
Follow the energy of her strike. Turn your hips. Try to use some
of her own force against herself. Get behind her. Push her. Trip
her. If you see an opening, use the claws. If you want to live,
Jemi, you won't stand toe to toe with her. Be the monkey that
they call us—badger her, worry her, and don't fight her the way
she wants to be fought."
"I'm going to die, Commander," she'd replied. She knew the
words should have bothered her, but she felt nothing, as if in
accepting the challenge, she had become numbed to emotion.
They were just words, empty of anything but facts. She held up
the claw knives one of the Ktainias omegas had given her.
"These are nothing," she said. "They're a joke. Can't you hear
fate sniggering?"
She'd expected him to deny it, to give her meaningless encour-
agement, but he only put his hands on her shoulders. His eyes
would not let her gaze drop. "You're right," he said. "Do you
want to back out of this? No one would blame you, certainly not
me."
Jemi shook her head. "Too late," she muttered.
Nys took a deep breath, let it out. "I know you. I've watched
you. You didn't give up after Kenis died, after you were at-
tacked. You won't do it now. You'll fight her as well as you
can."
She'd only shrugged. After a moment, he let his hands drop,
though she could feel that he wanted to say more. "Good luck,
Jemi," he'd said.
"I'll need more than that," she'd replied flatly.

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
239
A few minutes later, GreatMother Ktainias AllMother herself
had come to the small room under the tiers of the Deep Pit. Her
fur was slicked with some pungent oil; she exuded a floral scent
that mixed with the natural musk of her body. Against the glossy
brown fur, the brilliant scarlet of her vaginal mounds was promi-
nent. Ktainias eased into a chair near Jemi and waved away the
omega who had followed her into the room. She uttered a string
of guttural syllables toward him, and as he bowed as he retreated.
GreatMother Ktainias stared at Jemi, at the lightness of her skin.
The GreatMother's fingers unconsciously touched the long row
of nipples down either side of her own chest; Jemi knew that the
T'Raijek was looking at Jemi's own small breasts. "I wanted
to meet you," Ktainias said. Her voice was slow and hard to
understand, laboring with the human words, yet the tone seemed
far less haughty than Jemi had expected. "I wanted to see what
you were like before we met on the sands."
"I'm as you see me," Jemi replied, shrugging.
Ktainias nodded. "You lost your youngling because of us,"
she said. "I'm sorry for that. I know that you have fewer
younglings than we. I feel for your loss. I cannot imagine what it
would feel like to have only one youngling and then to lose
him." The sympathy in the T'Raijek's voice warmed Jemi.
She turned more fully to the alien. "I lost him due to our own
greed, GreatMother," she said. "The T'Raijek were only part of
it."
"Do you hate us?"
The question made Jemi lean back in her chair. She could not
answer right away—there were no words in her head. She thought,
pondering. "No," she said at last. "I don't hate you. If I hated
the T'Raijek, I wouldn't be here."
"Odd," the GreatMother mused. "I thought perhaps you would.
I was certain that was why you agreed to meet me on the sands."
"I don't really know why myself," Jemi told her. She started
to say more, then stopped. "Why me?" she asked the GreatMother.
"Didn't the Njialjiad tell you?"
"Some. But not all, I suspect."
"I wanted to know whether Hlidskjalff may have been right.
They said that the apes were a strange melding of aggression and
passivity." She spoke a few phrases in her own language, then

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Stephen Leigh
shook her head—quickly, like a mare. "Fire and ice," she said.
"Honorable and devious. They said that you were something
like us, that our races could exist together as the Traal and
T'Raijek could not. They felt that if we gave you help, you
would give us help. Njialjiad said that instead you could not be
trusted, that we would only turn you into another Traal, an
enemy who would know where we were. On the whole, 1 would
agree with Njialjiad. But I offer aljceri because I'm not entirely
certain."
"It's a farce, GreatMother." Jemi held up her hands, with the
claws strapped to them. "Look at me. This is stupid."
"I know it," Ktainias said, surprisingly. "Yet it's the way. 1
find that I've no enthusiasm for this aljceri. But I must know if
you're beasts or not."
"There are other ways."
"This way I must risk my own life to find out. Aljceri means
that no one will challenge someone else lightly. I might have
been wrong about you apes."
"You'd take a chance on death because you might be wrong?
Isn't that a little backward from the usual reasoning?"
The GreatMother's snout lifted in what might have been amuse-
ment. Jemi caught a glimpse of long canines among molars.
"Looking at you, I doubt that I'll die, Holder. And the GreatMother
Ktainias that follows me would have my experiences to guide
her. Holder," she asked, "haven't you also had to pay for your
decisions? Aren't you doing that now? Neither one of us wants
this. Neither one of us thinks that it will prove things one way or
another. But we each have things we can't change. If 1 don't
fight you, one of the other GreatMothers will challenge me for
failing to follow the laws of my people. You see, 1 have little
choice."
GreatMother didn't wait for Jemi to respond. She rose to her
feet. Nodding to Jemi, the T'Raijek went to the door. "Among
the T'Raijek, we say that there aren't any final answers," she
told Jemi. "We simply change the shape of the questions."
Now, on the sands, Jemi waited for the second gong to signal
the beginning.
Ktainias, as the one who issued the challenge, was compelled

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
241
to be the first to leave her bloodcircle. Looking at the huge
T'Raijek female, Jemi knew that Ktainias would not hesitate; she
would bull her way across the few meters of sand that separated
them and try to end it quickly. Meeting the GreatMother had not
helped Jemi at all—it had only made the T'Raijek more sympa-
thetic. She'd hoped that here, at risk and with the adrenaline of
the moment, she might find hatred for the T'Raijek and use that
energy for herself. She had intended to think of Kenis—his name
would have been the mantra of passion.
There was nothing there. She was empty. Alone.
Caught in a folly.
The air shivered with the note of the gong.
Before the sound had died, the feet of GreatMother Ktainias
kicked sand. She moved much faster than Jemi had thought she
could. The T'Raijek was on her in the space of a second; Jemi
barely had time to lift her arm, all of Nys's advice forgotten in
the panic of the moment. Claws raked across her arm as she
instinctively ducked, falling to the sand as she let Ktainias's
charge go past. Jemi screamed with pain. Flesh peeled away in
meaty ribbons; sticky, warm blood flooded her arm from elbow
to wrist. She looked down and nearly fainted, seeing the stark
whiteness of bone at the bottom of the deepest cut. On her knees,
her mouth open as she gulped for breath, cradling her arm to her,
she gaped at Ktainias. The T'Raijek only stared at her. She
seemed to be waiting. "Do you submit?" Ktainias asked. Her
wide, liquid eyes were soft in appearance, as if she could feel
some of Jemi's agony. "Give me your throat. It will be quick."
"No," Jemi gasped. She staggered to her feet, let the hand fall
to her side. She clutched the hilts of the claw knives in her good
fist; the muscles shorn from bone, her other fist would not close.
Sand clung grittily to her sweating body; she could taste it in her
mouth. She blinked heavily, forcing her eyes to focus as she
crouched, waiting for the next charge.
Ktainias came at her again, brutal and simple—a straight
charge. This time Jemi moved, sidestepping as Ktainias swung.
She half shoved, half cut at the GreatMother as she passed. Jemi
felt her claw knife dig into Ktainias's side; the weapon was
nearly torn from her grasp as the force of the charge, her shove
added to it, propelled Ktainias toward the sides of the pit.

242
Stephen Leigh
Ktainias tried to turn, planting one foot and going down to one
knee as sand sprayed underneath her. Jemi could see blood
dappling the sand underneath her, and the tightness of the
GreatMother's lips told Jemi that she had hurt the T'Raijek. Then
Ktainias thrust herself up again, charging before Jemi could
move or react.
Again Jemi simply tried to get out of the way. She pivoted on
her left foot as Ktainias cuffed at her. Claws ran ugly furrows
along her left side, but shallower this time. Jemi slashed/shoved
Ktainias again, grunting.
The GreatMother stumbled in the loose, treacherous sand.
The T'Raijek tried to right herself, but her leg collapsed
underneath, the ankle turning. Her clawed hands flailing, Ktainias
slammed into the side of the pit. Her head hit rock with an
audible thud. She fell sidewise to the ground. Her hands slashed
sand.
Jemi could barely hear the sudden roaring of the crowd through
the pounding of blood in her temples. She limped over to the
GreatMother. She brought her hand back to tear at the unpro-
tected throat.
It might have been the shock, the blood loss she'd already
suffered. But, her hand raised, the GreatMother's alien face
seemed to dissolve before Jemi. Ktainias was layered by ghosts.
Jemi could see Helen Martelli, her guts slithering onto the floor
of the UCN office in obscene coils. She could see the guard she
herself had shot, slumping down to die before her. She could see
the purple, strained face of the Highland security man whose
windpipe Ardent had crushed. She could see New York and the
warehouses and the dead Saliian agent. She could smell the vile
odor of their decay. She could taste the vomit in their mouths as
they died, the choking gout of thick blood. There was nothing
pretty or noble or beautiful about their deaths.
They all had Kenis's face as well. They all looked up at her—
and she could not strike.
The GreatMother's eyes blinked. She roared. Her clawed hand
raked up; Jemi moved too late. The talons tore her right side
open, exposing the curve of ribs, and Jemi fell helplessly to the
sand. Ktainias stood over her. The GreatMother stared, her eyes
like that of a huge, savage doe. "You should have killed me,"

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
243
she said. "You should have struck when you had the chance. It's
too late now."
"I couldn't," Jemi whispered. She found that she was crying
helplessly: pain, loss, frustration; all of it melting together into a
wail. She huddled into a fetal position, waiting for the last blow.
"I couldn't," she sobbed.
Ktainias gave a sound somewhere between growl and curse.
She said something in her own tongue, then spoke to Jemi in her
thick accent. "Hlidskjalff was utterly wrong," she grated.
"Njialjiad was just as wrong. But we learn. We learn."
Impossibly, she retracted her claws. She glanced up at the
shadowed tiers. "There is no aljceri here," she shouted. "Get a
doctor for the human. Send my omega to me."
Then she hunkered down on the sands beside Jemi to wait. Her
fingertips felt curiously gentle on Jemi's face.
She awoke once to the face of an omega.
When she opened her eyes again and lifted her head, she saw
only one person in the room: Nys. He was sleeping in a chair
beside her bed. Jemi tried to move and could not. Her body was
swathed in bandages; a monitor unit lay over her chest, and she
could feel the prickling of IVs.
Nys had awakened with the rustling of her sheets. His dark
eyes regarded her. He smiled fleetingly.
Jemi licked dry lips. "Commander."
"It's Akira," he said. "Would you like some water?"
"Very much."
He brought her a glass, held the straw out to her mouth. She
sipped, closing her eyes at the velvet feel of the cool liquid.
"Thank you," she told him. "Where—?"
Nys set the glass on the nightstand beside her bed and returned
to his chair. "You're on Inverness now. It's all over."
"GreatMother Ktainias ..."
"Gone. Along with the rest of the T'Raijek. Four days ago.
She kept her bargain well," he told her. "The GreatMother made
certain that she extracted public promises from all the leaders that
they would abide by the oaths she made them take. She made
them promise that there would be no reprisals against you or
anyone involved in the search for the crystal. Strickland was

244
Stephen Leigh
court-martialed and jailed for what he did to you, but beyond
that, the rest is to be forgotten. She did it by threatening to name
as beasts any of the governments that failed to abide by the terms
of her treaty. There wasn't much opposition. She even made
certain that the promises you gave to Mari Coyle were incorpo-
rated in the agreements. She signed the treaties, gave us the
information that was in the crystal." He stopped, canted his
head. "And left," he finished.
"Gone? Like that?" Jemi felt a sense of emptiness. She had
wanted to talk to the GreatMother. It was as if the ending had
been left off a song, so that one hung forever waiting for the last
notes. There was a jarring disorientation.
"She said to tell you that it didn't matter. She said that you had
changed the question on her. Do you know what that means?"
"I think so." She knew that Nys waited for her to elaborate,
but she only shook her head. After a moment, Nys spoke again.
"She said that we were to give you whatever you wanted. I
think she expects you to be the GreatMother Sapiens." There
was a gentle teasing in his voice that made her smile despite
herself, and she rolled her head over to look at him. His eyes
were bright with silent laughter. "You could run the UCN tomor-
row, and Salii the next day. What do you want, Holder Charidilis?"
he asked.
The question dissolved her smile. "I want my memories of
Kenis back. I want the two years that were stolen. That's all 1
ever wanted."
"You can't have those."
"I know," she said. She heard the choking emotion in her
voice and she cleared her throat. She sniffed. "Then I want
Starfire," she said.
"That's all?"
"It's all I need."
"You're easy to please. Holder. For the moment, that will do,
then. I'll tell HeadFather Jardien that you'll be coming for your
ship." Nys rose. For the first time, she noticed that he no longer
wore his naval uniform. He stood by her bed, touched her arm as
he glanced at the readouts on the monitor. "You'll need a second
pilot," he told her. "There won't be any vivicates to buy. Not
anymore."

THE CRYSTAL MEMORY
245
"I'll find someone," she told him.
Nys nodded slowly. He took a breath. "I thought I might
apply. All I ever wanted was to see the UCN work as best as it
can. I'm tired of the intrigue, and what I set out to accomplish
seems to have been done. If not, it needs other hands than mine.
I could use a quieter life." He paused and seemed to consider his
words. "None of us got what we looked for," he said at last.
"I can't afford union wages," Jemi told the man.
"The Hlidskjalff alpha told me to say that I charge half-
union scale."
That brought the smile back to her face. Jemi shook her head
softly. "I'll think about it," Jemi told Nys. "I'll let you know."

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